going to chb must be crazy like imagine sharing a camp with
-one of the strongest demigods ever who's saved the world like at least 3 times, fought multiple gods & titans and WON (and is a tartarus survivor)
-the literal main architect of OLYMPUS who's also saved the world multiple times (also tartarus survivor)
-THE lord of the wild who's also close friends with the first two (and has helped save the world multiple times)
-an emo kid from the 1930s who again helped save the world and is also a tartarus survivor (TWICE)
-a son of apollo who survived tartarus with nothing but cargo shorts and sheer will (pun intended)
-the main designer and builder for the argo II, also the first hephaestus kid to have fire powers since hundreds of years ago (did i mention killed gaea? no? yeah he did that too)
-a girl who somehow charmspeak-ed gaea into falling back asleep (also side note daughter of super famous actor because why not)
-pretty much everybody is a two-time war veteran
-THE GOD APOLLO who just sometimes comes down to visit in the form of a teenage boy
-did i mention dionysus, god of wine madness and theatre
-also chiron, trainer of pretty much every greek hero ever
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"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.
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finally got some time to finish these guys up! which is sort of ironic considering I started these because I wanted to draw Malleus with a Dragapult, and then I just didn't for a million years!
Malleus has the aforementioned Dragapult, except it's a super special non-canon color Dragapult (like an anime-only form that you could get in-game exclusively through some limited-time event where you have to show up in-person at a specific location in Japan) (it has some wacky overpowered exclusive move/form and the OT is listed as Malleus) (so like that kind of ridiculous specialness) (Leona is extremely salty about this). also hoards and hoards of Dreepy. Dreepy LOVE Malleus. they take naps on his horns inbetween begging him to throw them across the island at mach speeds.
Lilia has a Drampa and a bunch of Woobat that he hasn't actually caught, they just follow him around in swarms because they sense a kinship with him. (also breaking my own rule again to say that he had a Mawile in the past, because...I just really wanted to give him a Mawile...)
Sebek has Sandile for obvious reasons, and also a Pikachu that bullies him relentlessly. :(
Silver has a shiny Corvisquire; I really went back-and-forth on also giving him an Aegislash, but...hm. those pokedex entries though. he can stick with just one for now.
(I hadn't planned on the shiny for him, but after I'd decided on the Corvisquire line and was looking it up for reference, I realized that shiny Rookidee is gold and then turns silver when it evolves and I lost my entire goddamn mind)
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Dc x Dp Prompt #6
“I’m a twin”, Damian said one night. He could feel the narrowed eyes of his family drilling holes on his back in disbelief. Not that he could blame them. Damian had never so much as implied being raised with a companion, much less a sibling.
“I had a brother”. Damian paused to recollect himself. He had not said his brother’s name out loud in over 8 years.
“His name was… Danyal”. Damian hated the way his voice wavered, but he could not help it. Danyal was everything to him, his other half. Their heart beat as one and when one heart stopped beating, the other one died with it. At least until his family put his heart on metaphorical life support without ever realizing.
“Where is he now?” His father asked, voice filled with knowing grief and a hint of betrayal. It had in fact been 6 years since Damian first showed up on his doorstep.
“Up there”. All eyes shifted towards the specific star he was pointing to. “Right before he died, he promised me he’d guide me from the stars. Unfortunately, the stars are not visible in Gotham, so my brother is unable to be of much help unless I leave the city.”
“Your brother is Polaris, the North Star?” Tim questioned warily, most likely in attempts to not offend him. Damian was aware of how stupid it sounded, but Danyal had promised, and his brother never broke his promises.
“Yes. Danyal is with the stars now, just as he always wanted”
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human.
early access + nsfw on patreon
more backstory that i wrote up for patreon heh:
Simon and Tommy had a complicated relationship as brothers.
At a young age, Simon basically wrote himself off as a lost cause, and did the best he could to make sure at least Tommy had a chance to be a functioning human being. After all, Tommy was the gentler brother, the dreamer, the one who looked like their mother (who'd walked out on them years ago to escape their father). But Tommy got bitter, got sick of the one always being protected, being babied. He lost respect for Simon, for the way he wouldn't fight back, and in a twisted way, grew closer to his father as a way to learn how to be powerful, strong. It backfired, and Tommy got wrapped up in some bad business.
Simon's kid brother died while he was deployed. He got the news in the letter, and it broke him in a big way. In the story timeline, it was years and years ago but it still hurts like hell whenever Simon thinks about him.
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