#she decided to DIE by his side

[soopertiddies]

Curly was wrong for not doing more for Anya, yes.

But at the same time wtf was he supposed to do with Jimmy? Jimmy was unhinged, Curly knew that. The only place he could lock him up is the med bay where Anya worked? What was to stop Jimmy from hurting Anya even more, because he definitely would if he knew he'd been caught

Yeah, Curly was wrong but holy shit what a difficult position to be in, and Anya definitely understood that. She was constantly at his side after the wreck, except for when she knew he would be in pain.

[bixels]

I just saw one of your fave games is What remains of Edith Finch and I’m so happy! I feel like its a lesser known game but i loved playing through it. I’m so happy to know more than just my small friend group know about this game!

Sorry this isn’t a question. Also want to say that you’re art is amazing and the development of the designs is so interesting to see. Also the way you draw intimate scenes have so much emotion to them. I love the Aj and rarity kissing comic so much, you can just feel their love for each other ;w;

Thank you so much!

I highly, highly, highly recommend What Remains of Edith Finch to anyone interested in narrative game experiences/"walking simulators." It's one of those games that was handcrafted with nothing but love. Every room you explore is just... real. The way the light flows in and makes the colors of the living room, the kitchen, the bedrooms glow. Playing the game is like walking through your childhood home as an adult and seeing how the dust clings to everything you once touched. Also genius-level gameplay mechanics, ones that can make you completely empathetic with the character you're embodying or feel completely complacent in their tragedy. It's really not fair to call it a walking simulator because it's so much more and so much smarter than that.Everyone talks about the fish one.

The theme of death and memory and storytelling and the burden of invisible trauma and self-fulfilling prophecies is so affecting too. The ending made me cry.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

if 9&10 were "dont wander off", and 11&12 were "the doctor lies", 13s rule #1 is "dont question me"

"have we not had a good time together" shes pointing yaz to the rule that yaz very well knows is there: we can travel if you dont ask me any difficult questions. yaz knows this is the rule - "because you ask too many questions", "this team structure isnt flat" - but she also was the one to invite the doctor into her home so im pretty sure she also knows shes not gonna kicked out that easily. she has some leeway. which she has been using between revolution and flux, which is why the doctor reminds her of the rules

i dont think she'd kick her out though. she wouldnt. i think it's just that the more you break the rule, the more unpleasant she becomes to be around, and eventually youre gonna walk out on your own. she doesnt want you to, she'd rather you stay and dont ask questions. but if youre gonna try to ask questions anyway, i think thats whats gonna happen

and yaz must think so too. because she does back off. because she doesnt want that to happen either. and it does anyway

[juustozzi]

oop finally got to play the beta story update, gonna ramble in tags (will have spoilers)

[jrueships]

THE RICH LESBIAN WINE AUNT JUDGEMENTAL STARE

[brionysea]

this man is pissing me off

[bellamyblakru]

bro the way merlin’s go-to way to show the people he loves how magic can be beautiful is with fire manipulation,,, im unwell.

[franeridan]

I really wish yamato had gone with luffy and I love that he asked to be considered a crewmate anyway and that luffy told him he'd always have a place on the sunny so I a hundred percent consider him a mugiwara but in my ideal one piece where the war ended differently and ace is still alive yamato is his. like obviously ace is dead and he hadn't been a captain for a while before then anyway, but in my ideal one piece yamato belongs to him. he's a spades. he's ace's crewmate first and foremost.

[aro-aizawa]

seemingly the only way i can ever get into any new thing is if i spontaneously decide to watch/read it

[shaykai]

Not me crying over Baldur’s Gate 3, my Tav is slowly getting more and more morally dubious and it’s only a little bit their fault

[atomskdluffy]

I finished Baldur's Gate 3 tonight, and I am almost completely satisfied. It was a spectacular game! A lot of thought and patience goes into it, especially when you play like I do with mods that expand the party and my insatiable need for loot. The story and the characters are all beautifully written, and I can see how there might be thousands of different ways to play it! I think the only addition I could possibly ask for is for something at the very end, one of those sequences where the narrator tells us what each character in the party goes on to do after the credits roll. Other than that, I am quite satisfied with how it turned out! I got the endings I wanted, the mods I used upped the quality of life to the max, and I had so much fun playing! If you have the time for a game as involved as this one, I absolutely 100% recommend it!

[samuraisharkie]

just finished watching Uncle Vanya for the first time. I think Doctor Astrov and the Professor should kill themselves

[scatteredshowersposts]

Playing God (Paramore)

How can that be logical? Just keep on cramming ideas down my throat

2. STFU! (Rina Sawayama)

Silence, finally in my head But it’s too late, you already left You’re preaching, even though I’m dead

3. Je me promets (Meryem Aboulouafa)

كيفما سار�� ا لأقدار و رفعتني عاليا ثم لطختني مع ا لأ رض و اشتق عظمي و سال دمي أعدني أني سأحيي فخري من الرماد الحمر الداف و أولع من عدمي حتى تشتعل في الحياة

However fate goes, if it lifts me high then sullies me with the ground and my bones split and my blood flows, I promise myself I will revive my honor from the warm red ash and blaze with my nothingness until life goes up in flames

4. Dig Me Out (Sleater Kinney)

Dig me out, dig me in Out of this mess, baby, out of my head Dig me out, dig me in Out of my body, out of my skin

5. Nada (Lido Pimienta)

Yo te soy sincero Y no le tengo miedo A la muerte Si es que me quiere Aquí la espero de frente y sonriente

I’m honest with you And I’m not afraid Of death If she wants me I’ll wait for her here, facing her and smiling

6. Magnet (Bikini Kill)

You don’t own me, fuck! You hold me down like a magnet And this is not the life for me

7. Courage to Change (Sia)

World, I want to leave you better I want my life to matter I am afraid I have no purpose here

8. I Bet on Losing Dogs (Mitski)

My baby, my baby Tell your baby that I’m your baby

9. A Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing) (Debora Iyall)

She's on the mend and knows that she's earned The scars and the lines By and by - one step at a time Her love can dazzle and delight - she transcends

[ihaveaskeleton]

A Self-Indulgent Scene from a Fic That Will Probably Never Be Written.

MCU!Loki and Sigyn marrying.

Inspiration was taken from here. The idea was inspired by learning that comics!Loki despised Sigyn in at least a few issues, as well as watching Loki (spoilers in the tags but not the actual scene).

Sigyn had always imagined her wedding to take place among her neighbors and friends. As she accepted her groom's ancestral sword, she glanced out at the hundreds witnessing the act. Among them, her grandfather's face was the only one she knew.

The sword she presented the prince of Asgard was less ornate than the one she received but equal in quality. Her grandfather's thousands of years of mastery was evident in its blade, and the snake engraved in the leather wrapping its hilt had been carefully etched by herself after he had told her of her betrothal to the Snake Prince of Asgard.

Servants in finer clothes than she had ever dreamed of wearing placed the wedding bands on the hilts of their swords to be exchanged. As Loki took his ring, she warmed her smile with her silent wish that their marriage become a friendship. His own smile faltered. As their eyes met, his expression became colder than the deserts of Jotenheim. Though the moment was brief, it left her with a lingering sense of dread.

The prince thrust his sword into the soft dirt between them. He wrapped his hand on its hilt and looked at her expectantly. She hesitated. She was tempted to flee before their vows bound them eternally, but to do so would be a grave insult against the prince and, by extension, King Odin himself. She wrapped her hand around the hilt, her fingers accidentally brushing against Loki's. The strange cold of his skin only intensified her worry that she had not married a man but a monster.

[guubiiz]

trein...

[ambrosiagourmet]

I want to talk about why I think this is the one of the most important Falin panels:

So, Falin is really nice, right? It's one of the first things we really learn about her. She's kind even to the monsters of the dungeon - choosing to ward the party rather than fight spirits and cause them needless harm.

In the above early flashback in chapter 11, we see Marcille fawning over Falin's kindness, calling her an angel. Namari calls her soft-hearted. We see Falin choose not to fight even when a zombie attacks - instead she resolves the confrontation with a hug. After the flashback, the first thing Senshi says is that Falin "sounds like quite the person," which Marcille strongly affirms.

At this point in the story, all we have seen of Falin are these impressions; she is a healer, an angel, a caretaker with an infinite well of kindness towards everyone she meets - both friend and foe.

And honestly, that remains most of what we have to go by to understand her. The only times we get to see Falin on the page, alive and just herself, are in the opening and closing pages of the story and in the brief period of time after she is resurrected.

Nonetheless, we do have some more details to work with. For one, there is the scene that The Panel is from - a short memory in chapter 75, when Marcille flashes back to while she's dying. In that scene, Falin prepares to teleport them all out, and says that she's sorry "if there is a person at [their] destination." And that's when we get The Panel.

If you teleport someone or something into another person, the person teleported into is likely to be, at minimum, severely injured. They could die.

We can see a lovely little horrifying example of exactly why in one of the Daydream Hour doodles:

So, hmm. That's not... that's not SUPER nice. Certainly not displaying the same "kindness to all, friend and foe included" we saw represented earlier. On a basic level, this adds some nuance to Falin's kindness. We see it break a little, when pushed to the limit. We see her chose to protect the people she loves above all else.

Which makes sense! As Laios says when the Winged Lion accuses him of similarly being motivated more by his friends' safety than everyone else in the dungeon, "...most people, aside from virtuous do-gooders, would feel the same way."

So, we can take The Panel as simply showing a moment of weakness for Falin. A time when she was pushed to her limits, and that "most people" selfish side of her shone through.

However... I think there's a little more going on with Falin than just her being an angel 99% of the time, except just that once. I love The Panel because I think it helps us understand that Falin isn't just motivated by kindness - she also has a desire to avoid seeing people in pain.

Isn't that the same thing?

No, no it very much is not.

Let's look at a short comic from the Falin section of the Adventurer's Bible, because I think it illustrates this point perfectly. The group is complaining about how much Marcille's healing hurts, and comparing it to Falin's, which "doesn't hurt a bit." Marcille retorts with the following:

Now, the punchline of this comic is that, despite Marcille's sentimental assertion that she's "thinking of [them]" by letting her healing magic hurt, they all still prefer to be healed by Falin.

But hey, this wouldn't be the first time that Dungeon Meshi hides a very real character beat or insight in a gag, so let's think about this somewhat seriously.

If Marcille is right (and she knows a fair bit about magic, so we can assume that she has at least somewhat of a point), then what Falin is doing isn't kind. I suppose if someone specifically requested to not feel the pain, it could be kind, but that's not really what happened here. She is the one who felt badly about the others being in pain, and she is the one who decided, without telling them or giving them a choice in the matter, to take away that pain.

Both Marcille and Falin are healing the party, but Marcille is doing it in a way that accomplishes the task in the most straight forward way, without any additional interference. Falin is going out of her way to perform the healing in a way she is more comfortable with. A way that avoids pain.

Going back the The Panel, I don't think its a coincidence that the only time we see Falin (well, non-chimera Falin) willing to do something that could hurt someone is when any potential pain will be far away from her. If she got someone hurt or killed by teleporting the party to the surface? Not only would it be far out of her sight, but she'd be dead before she had to deal with any consequences of that action.

Falin is not a confrontational person. She doesn't push when Marcille won't tell her the truth about the resurrection, and she comforts Laios about her own death - both of those things happening in the only full chapter she is alive and conscious in the whole story.

We also know that she considered accepting Shuro's proposal, despite not having any special feelings towards him, and that Falin never explained to Marcille that she wanted them to share a meal together. When she brought Marcille various foods at the academy, she just accepted Marcille's confused rejection and gave up.

And lastly, we know that she is still in contact with her parents, despite the neglect and abuse she suffered at their hands. Although the way someone chooses to handle contact with abusive or bad family is a complicated topic, which I don't want to overly simplify, I do I think this fact gets at the heart of how she handles conflict.

So many people that Falin loves have hurt her. There are understandable hurts, like Laios leaving the village, or Marcille not understanding the food. And there are bigger, far less justifiable hurts - like her parents neglecting her throughout her childhood, and sending her away to be alone at the magic academy.

It doesn't seem like Falin has ever confronted any of it directly.

And the unhealthy aspects of this kind of avoidance of pain and confrontation is one of the things that the story of Dungeon Meshi is all about. We see Laios grapple with it before he goes to kill Falin, and we see Marcille acknowledge it at the end of the story, when she tells Laios that she has come to terms with Falin's death:

Eating is a part of life. Consuming other living things is a part of life. It isn't really possible to avoid that pain - you can only hide from the truth of it. You have to be selfish everyday. You have to eat - to choose to live. To choose to take up space.

And this is something Falin embraces, too. She comes back to life, after all.

We see her choose to come back to life.

And how does she make that choice? She eats. She consumes, and then she is asked a question by the manifestation of hunger itself:

Do you want to eat more?

There is a double meaning in the Winged Lion's final words on the next page.

When I first read this, I took it as him saying: life is cruel. You will suffer. You will feel more pain.

But perhaps, especially for Falin, this also means: you are choosing a path where you must cause pain. Where you must consume. Where you must take, and must be selfish. Because eating is the special privilege of the living, and it is their burden, too. In order to stay alive, she will need to keep eating.

And she chooses that. Chooses to be selfish. It's why her resurrection scene is so important, and it's why The Panel is so important. Because Falin coming back isn't the ultimate reward for all of the party's hard work.

It's her choice. Just like it was her choice that started everything in the first place. But this time, she doesn't choose to accept causing pain for the sake of Marcille and Laios. She does it for her own sake.