#that the world fucked over

[caesarsaladttf]

Icarus was a sheltered child

He did not know the world

He did not know the sky

So when he was finally set free

What other choice did he have

Then to fly as high as he could?

Yes, he was given a warning

But when you lived in a limited world

And are finally set free into the limitless sky

What choice is there really

But to grab life by the horns

And kick it's fucking teeth in

Yes, he was warned

But he was sheltered

He did not know the world

How was he supposed to know

The world would kick back

When he wasn't allowed to know

Words and warnings are hollow

When the whole world is a threat

And you are nothing more

Then a sheltered child in a box

With no future in sight

Aside from the sky

[jerrycummblr]

It's really simple. If you're born with a vagina and you naturally have elevated testosterone levels, you're a man. If you have a vagina and you take testosterone, you're a woman. But also if you have a vagina, you'll never be a man. But also if you have higher testosterone then you were never a woman. Woman never yes man a vagina testosterone no was an elevated. Vagina man.

[ohposhers]

GIVE THESE BOYS A WEEKEND YAOI FISHING TRIP !! GAT DAMN!! i actually have so many thoughts about Big getting Shadow into fishing istg im gonna make a whole comic on it im in too deep

[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.

[lazylittledragon]

dadkarios doods sponsored by my stress migraine

[lotus-pear]

learning to love

[backofthebookshelf]

I know I'm a week late but I do think people are misunderstanding the point of the Anthony Bourdain quote about Kissinger

The point was never "Anthony Bourdain has good politics and is an unproblematic fave," the point is that even someone with mainstream liberalish politics who goes to Cambodia for a food tour - a, let's be honest, very bougie type of trip to be part of your job - and has a basic understanding of history and a bare minimum of human decency can come away from that bougie food tour wanting to murder Henry Kissinger with their bare hands. The point is that Henry Kissinger fucked up this country so bad the only reason he wasn't lynched decades ago is because it's on the opposite side of the world and the people who were in proximity to him never really saw what it was. The point is that if we could see firsthand what our First World politics do to the Third World we would understand that monsters walk among us and it's a cultural failing that we let them die at home at 100 years old surrounded by their friends and family.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Look what we've become.

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[oscahpitlane]

mclaren P1 in the Gingerbread Grand Prix goes to Oscar Piastri. 😆🍭

Sometimes babygirl is a 23 year old man doing his best

[rendevok]

step into the light

what do you see?

my sun,

my stars

shining on me

[gatersgonewild]

I need Spirk Academy Era fics to be less AOS and more SNW because I need Spock and Sam in a literal brawl in the middle of campus while Jim takes bets on how fucked up Sam is gonna be when Spock is done with him. I need Spock literally telling Sam not to test him or he’ll fuck his brother and Jim is all *whispers* ‘test him test him test him test him test him-‘ not realizing Sam isn’t the only one hearing him. I need Spock going to girls night where he complains that he can’t possibly marry Jim or he’ll be brothers-in-law with Sam and Uhura is all *pats his hair* ‘…so… can I fuck your bondmate?’ And Spock sorta just shrugs like whatever it’s not like he’s gonna, and now Spock has decided he’s gonna have to kill Sam before he marries Jim. God. What a chore.

I think making it more SNW would be funny entirely for the Kirk dynamics.

[kittykatninja321]

My less popular opinion (and what I believe to be implied by the art in Lost Days) is that rather than waking up in a fully grown body Jason didn’t actually complete his puberty until after his Lazarus pit dip while he was on his murder tour. Imagine you’re tied up in a basement in Berlin getting interrogated by a teenager and his voice is cracking the entire time and if you laugh he’s going to shoot you

[vellichorom]

you sick little animal, even death itself pities you.

[rystiel]

the secret even better version of gravity falls in my head where they all like men

[witchering10123]

hakoda: you need to stay here and protect your sister

13 year old sokka, whose only point of reference for "protecting his sister" is literally his mother sacrificing herself in katara's place: ok 😃

[lotus-pear]

i love you royal trio (minus akechi)