#it's been a while for them

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 263

Once More, we return to Tiamat prompts. 

It was a wonderful idea, really! If one of them couldn’t break the barrier, then surely their combined might would do it! And it had! It had worked, even if their remaining humanity was sacrificed. They’d done it, they’d made it where everyone could escape, could leave!

… Except for them. Someone had to close the portal. And it all would have been fine, if not for the remnants of the GIW. One last hail mary from the imbeciles, they all supposed. Trapping them here within the Zone. 

Separated from their families, from the pair of children they had agreed to raise. At least their siblings would watch over Ellie and Jordan. Kyle could hide them, make sure they were safe. Jazz… Jazz was gone, the final straw in this plan. 

They screamed, they raged, they destroyed in grief for those that didn’t make it, and for those who had but had nowhere to go. No portals opened, even as they tore at the green around them. They fought, any that thought they were weak, that they were merely a beast, an abomination trapped in chains of science and gold. 

There was nothing that could be done, Frostbite had said, sympathy in his voice. No way to turn back the clock with how entwined they had become, Clockwork had explained. The only thing they could do was wait, Pandora had tried to sooth, despite it doing nothing. 

They wrenched open the coffin in a hazy fury, tearing apart armies like it was blades of grass. Their maws devoured dead who had lost themselves and become mere husks and thralls, lashing tails ripping through armour like it was nothing. 

And then as titans, they clashed with the one who had once stolen the city here. There was no desperation from them this time, no armor besides scales unbreakable as flames and storms and ice and thorns ripped islands apart. There was no desperation besides that of their opponent’s. 

There was a pleasure in their victory, before it was wrenched away. What use was a crown when their family wasn’t there? When their daughter, their son, their children were not there by their side? 

Paulina laughed, hysterical as ectoplasm dripped from her maw as Kwan howled. Their body was covered in it, their rampage that had no use, no reason leaving a trail of destruction behind them. Is this what they wanted? 

No. 

Danny raised his head from the dissolving corpses to look towards the obliterated roof of the Keep, once so terrifying now turning to dust like the crown. The crown reforming above their heads, heavy and almost choking. 

They would carry this weight together. Would restructure things, would do what they had wanted to do for Amity before the Barriers. They’d work together to rebuild the Realms, make it safer, make it safe for those newly dead. 

No matter how long it took, no matter how hard it would be to fix the destruction they had wrought in this meaningless battle. (“Danny, you’re the spokesperson,” Sam spoke up, thorn-like scales ruffling. “You’re most familiar with the realms thanks to the Infinimap.” Fair. “We’ll need allies, we’re only nine people.”)

(“Let me talk to the egyptian afterlife,” Tucker sounded exhausted, hood folding back. “I’m most familiar with them… Star, Paulina, you’re both Princess Dora’s favorites-”)

(“We can do it. Just give us time.” “Maybe a to-do list.” “Clockwork. We need to talk to Clockwork, he’d be most familiar with this.” “Rest first, nerds. We’re all… exhausted.”)

(Valerie laughed tiredly, blades melting to heal a broken horn. “Time isn’t linear here Dash. You know that. I know that. For once we’re the ones with time to spare.” It would take years to get things up to snuff. Make things Safe for when they could bring their families here.)

Their eyes opened as the now flimsy chains shattered, a smile stretching across the shared face of their humanoid form. Soon. They could return to the mortal realm soon. Just a little more, and they could see their little ones.  They'd waited a thousand years, they could wait a few days more.

(also have sketch)

@fairy-lights-and-blobs @radiance1 You both seem to enjoy my Tiamat prompts/Aus lol

[taeggukxiie]

this art will always make me want to bawl my eyes out because what do you mean we could have pro hero touya and health assistant toga only if they had decent parents??

(I hate mha society so much)

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

Physically? I am sitting in my bedroom. Mentally? Spiritually? I AM DEAD ON THE FLOOR!!!!! THESE TWO HAVE KILLED ME!!!!

(Another drawing! This was originally attempt #1 at drawing stan, and then fiddleford just showed up. Kinda feels like them five minutes after the above acting like nothing happened though, so it works sdjkgkjfshj)

[itsscaredycat]

damaged

[uncanny-tranny]

I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.

I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:

Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)

Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)

Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often

Eat dessert first

Celebrate well, and often

Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)

Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.

Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate

Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)

Walk without having a specific destination or goal

Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.

I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.

[porrigens]

some unfinished pegoryus

[theshadowrealmitself]

I like to think that Vulcans who come to understand that Humans just can’t try to process emotions the same way as them, it’s just healthiest to let it out in harmless ways, decide that venting and stuff should be taken just as seriously as Vulcan’s meditation time, and will encourage the Humans around them to complain about what’s upsetting them

People who are used to aloof Vulcans who avoid Humans at all cost running into one comforting a Human

“-and then they said my cheesecake was subpar, and they didn’t even bring a dish!!!”

“The purpose of this event was that every participant brings a food item of sorts, correct?”

“Yeah!!”

“And they did not follow this rule while insulting dishes that were brought?”

“Mostly just my dish but yeah >:(“

“How illogical”

“That’s what I’m saying!!!”

[sirenetica]

Always a dance with you.

ddvau / doublehearted by @xmaruu11 and @kitsuneisi

[kk1smet]

he looked at me, the prat—

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

[seaside-cave]

one flesh one end, bitch ☠️

[fanfic-gremlin-ft-trauma]

tfw you’ve been tasked to murder the prince of the northern water tribe but he’s really majestic

(they make a compromise)

[lupucs]

Undyne tries to be a good lab partner to Alphys but then Frisk shows up with some newfound skills 🐟🦖 Made with Blender!

| Music: [Track 1] [Track 2] | Watch on Youtube |

[lotus-pear]

learning to love

[cairafea]

my favourite genre of seventeen is when they're straight up lying

ref:

[watchingwisteria]

listen there really was just something about how in the book, snow’s 3-page descent from hesitant lover boy to deluded mfer happens entirely in his mind. lucy gray gives him no indication whatsoever that she suspects him, that she’s going to leave or betray him. he’s just sitting quietly in the cabin waiting for her to return when that seed of calculated suspicion, which he has needed to survive the capitol, takes a hold of him and chokes the life out of any goodness left inside him. it really drives home your terror as a reader that “oh my god did he kill her? did she escape? what happened to her? why would he even think that?” in a way that when the movie had to adjust for visualization it lost some of that holy shit this guy has lost it emphasis.