#so. many. characters.

[ghostlysleuth]

patron sketches from the past few months!

[ikarakie]

if a character means enough to me i will truly never stop thinking about them. i just retire them into a little back room in my brain and periodically bring them out to stare at them under a little light

[dragonpyre]

Ever look at a character and think “man, I wish the writers didn’t hate you”

[bereft-of-frogs]

There’s that post that’s like ‘everyone should get into a tiny niche fandom at least once’ fully agree, that was really fun -- but I would like to add that everyone should get into a fandom where their opinions run counter to major fanon because it really teaches you about sticking to your guns and trusting your interpretation of the text without having to rely on peer validation

because WHAT are people talking about sometimes

[noodles-and-tea]

Continuation of this

[gay-mooshrooms]

me mentally: these characters have a relationship that cannot be defined by any one thing and reaches throughout the narrative and is so woven into their characters that trying to force it under one label would be inaccurate and doing it a disservice.

me out loud: idk man they're fuckin gay

[discoedelysium]

one thing i keep coming back to is the fight scene in the council room from s208 because it just tells us SO much about viktor. when he enters the room in his avatar he catwalks in. he moves with so much elegance and so much confidence. the way he pins jayce by the wrist and then slowly wraps his fingers around jayce’s hammer. the way he wraps his legs around jayce and cups his face and brushes his fingers over his lips. the way when he’s towering over jayce in the astral plane he calls him *his* partner for the first time.

we’re seeing who viktor is when he inhabits a body that he thinks is perfect

in the avatar of the glorious evolution, where viktor finally sees himself as powerful, as pure, as just like everybody else… he’s confident with jayce, even dominant, in a way he would never allow himself to be while he was alive in his original body.

and of course the kicker is that without his imperfections, without his entire self, he’s not viktor to jayce anymore. ‘my partner died in this room’

and it takes until the finale, until viktor can see himself through jayce’s eyes, for it to click that he could have been this way with jayce all along. that he has always been equal to jayce. that his confidence, his grace, his power - jayce saw it all along.

and i just found the end of the council room scene so devastating. the way that once viktor’s perfect evolved body is broken we immediately see him huddled and collapsed on the floor, making himself as small as possible

[scorchedhearth]

characters who dig themselves out of their graves (whether literal or metaphorical) are at the top of the list. nothing beats a character who should have died but didn't and comes back to haunt their own life and the world around them, benevolent or violent it doesn't matter, it's enthralling either way

[monstertidbits]

ryoko kui is hands down the queen of character design

[lgbtlunaverse]

I've seen a good number of people ask a question along the lines of "why do characters like Falin and hate Laios when they're so similar?" and i've also seen good analysis on the differences in how the touden siblings carry themselves that would, despite their shared traits, make a person gravitate to one more than the other.

But i feel like we've overseen one very central thing here.

People don't like Falin

Like... the average person in dungeon meshi doesn't like Falin. She was deeply ostrasized by her home village, in magic school she had zero friends before Marcille and the others generally saw her as strange and a bit offputting.

Characters like Namari and Chilchuck like her well enough but not necessarily more than any other member of their party, including Laios. Neither Kabru nor his party think much of her. The canaries don't give a fuck about her. Toshiro's retainers don't see her as anything else than the weird foreign girl their boss has a crush on.

The reason we think everyone loves Falin is because, despite all the indifferent side characters, the 2 most important and central characters of the story are Laios and Marcille. Who are NOT representative of the average attitudes to Falin! But necromancy georg number 1 and 2 are our main eyes into the story and they love Falin so much that it colours our perspective of the whole world.

The only side character who qualifies as liking Falin and not Laios is Toshiro (at least at first, as he ends the story on much better terms with Laios) and that says a lot about his character, with him drifting to the quiet Falin precisely because of her oddness but being both uncomfortable with and deeply jealous of Laios' much more open expression of that oddness. Because he's a repressed guy from a culture where etiquette is incredibly important.

But like I said, that's a specific aspect of him, not to the world at large.

Because there's also people that click more with laios than with Falin.

Kabru, for one, who is initially distrustful of laios but clearly also deeply fascinated by him and drawn to him.

Minor spoilers, and you don't have to read too deeply into this, because I don't think Kabru particularly dislikes Falin or anything. But it's interesting that when he talks about his distrust of the toudens in ch.32 he's talking about them both. But his big friendship declaration in chapter 76 is aimed squarely at Laios, he doesn't say "you and your sister" he says "you"

And Senshi!! He instantly clicks with Laios, well before he does so with anyone else in the party– who he also becomes friends with, it just takes a bit longer– specifically because they bond over their shared special interest in monsters!! Senshi is kind towards Falin and cares for her wellbeing, but he also... doesn't know her. The reason he is even here, helping to save her, is because he and Laios bonded over monsters and he wants to help his new friends out!

Of course, the theme of neurodivergent isolation is very present in Laios' story. I'm not denying that. He does turn people off, without meaning to and unable to fully understand why! But so does Falin. And just like there are people who like her despite of or even because of those traits, there are people who do the same with him.

In conclusion: "Average person loves Falin and hates Laios" factoid actually statistical error. Average person is neutral on both Falin and Laios. Georcille, Laiorg and Geoshiro, who live in the dungeon and think over 10,000 Falin-loving thoughts a day, are statistical outliers adn should not have been counted.

[ot3]

before you ship something stop and ask yourself... Is this otp material? Make sure your characters are:

Obstinate and inflexible in their actions

Terrible for each other in most circumstances

Poor communicators

[astearisms]

catalysts, protectors

[pirate-cashoo]

Thinking about Half-Life.......

[samdravvs]

I firmly believe that every conflict in X-men can be solved by polyamory and gay sex

[slavhew]

dandadorks

[kinou]

early spring, back at the 41st