#i love mithrun with all of my heart but by gods this man cannot be trusted with his own health bugger anyone elses

[britcision]

Okay so hear me out

I 10000% also would never trust him with Thistle but for a slightly different reason

Cuz Mithrun’s behaviour pattern towards dungeon lords is trying to talk them down

When they refuse to surrender the dungeon he goes full terrifying murder mode, but during every run in with the dungeon lords, even with the same person more than once, he asks them to give it up

There’s a reason he’s the one to agree to Laios’ deal

(1 - kill the demon shit yeah go nuts

2 - he’s always giving people a way out)

If the demon’s visible he’s a little murderhornet but for the dungeon lords? He takes them down, then gives them a chance before taking them out, and tries to warn them from his own experiences what it’ll mean

Thistle:

Marcille before she gets all lorded:

Like seriously look at his face there

He’s absolutely awful at it but he’s trying to reach out and connect

And then even after she has knocked out his whole squad and is about to take over the world, he asks her again:

He broke off his attack on Thistle and on Marcille to ask if they were really sure this was what they wanted, if they couldn’t be persuaded to save themselves

And he thinks this is a sensible and reasonable way to talk to people, and has all the self preservation instincts of a drunken mayfly, so if he’s in charge of Thistle they’ll be wandering the forest identifying mushrooms by licking them and be dead in a week

He is so incredibly bad with people

He’s really actually trying to be compassionate and helpful but he’s saying “hey by the way everything you want is dogshit and you should just stop caring about the overriding desire that the demon chose you for”

Awful little trash man im love him

He’d probably not intentionally hurt Thistle post series (he’s fine with everyone at former dungeon lord meetings and gets on with Marcille) but my gods if he was in charge of his welfare

If all Thistle wants to do is lie in the ground and stare at clouds 50/50 Mithrun will let him and carry on his day

(The other 50% Mithrun lies down with him and they both need rescuing)

Deeply traumatized people are not necessarily good caregivers for those with the same trauma, no matter how much they empathize

Mithrun caring for Thistle? Nah

Mithrun and Thistle completely accidentally going on adventures and bonding while their caregivers desperately try to stop them? Yessssssss

Mithrun and Thistle the bitchy old men in the nursing home complaining about how they could totally be independent and they don’t need all this care and ~immediately~ walking straight into a pond and just deciding to stay

They can’t solve each others’ problems but dammit together they can be much bigger problem for everyone else

By the way Falin is also ineligible for this combo specifically cuz while she is a significantly more competent caregiver and actually likes taking care of people, she would ABSOLUTELY buy into their bullshit adventures just immediately

She finds Mithrun and Thistle in the pond, the rest of the evening is looking at cool frogs, all dripping wet

They all get head colds and share a sickroom while Marcille loses her goddamn mind

Tbh Mithrun constantly getting in the way of whoever’s caring for Thistle has so much more meat on the bone, he can’t be The Man telling Thistle to eat his veggies and go to bed

They need to bond over being horrible little bastards with no wants or physical desires climbing out the bedroom window to go do absolutely nothing except Not Be In Bed

Mithrun has no wants and no desires but what he does have is Little Bitch Attitude and I love that for him

At best, big brother Mithrun can commiserate but remind Thistle that yeah, they do both need to listen to their caregivers or their bodies will die

i know it's a common enough fandom trope to have mithrun take care of thistle post canon so they can bond over similar experiences and all that, and i don't mean to rain on anyone's party but huh.... given mithrun's behavior pattern towards dungeon lords i wouldn't trust him with thistle