#this is so long friend

[juniperpyre]

Do you think it was more essential for James to develop a more binary way of thinking than the others? I imagine James growing up as Voldemort is coming into power and in family that’s known for radical beliefs may have influenced him. It is probably easier to develop a simpler view as a way of coping and understanding as a child. James hating the dark arts isn’t inherently bad because he is more vulnerable than the others to Voldemort - adding to the necessity and weakness of his worldview. Yet, James not recognizing that most things are not as easily categorized as Voldemort is dangerous.

I wouldn't say it's essential for James to have black and white thinking on a human level, but on a narrative level I think it's a great character trait. black and white thinking is an ideology of purity, which james, and his son, the protagonist of the series, are both fighting against.

I think you're arguing that James' position as a wealthy pure blood man who is growing up with a genocidal war looming makes his childhood intellectual resistance to pure blood supremacy aggressively rejecting anything associated with pure blood supremacy. this includes the Dark Arts and the conservative, reactionary pure blood/wizarding world culture. since he is being invited in he will not risk accidentally being charmed by the ideology.

I think this is logical. I'm sure his parents raised him with inclusive, compassionate values, and he is clearly a loyal, helpful, loving person to those he cares about. he takes a left turn in thinking he owes none of this compassion to people he categorizes as "bad", and I doubt he spends a lot of time questioning why he considers certain people bad and certain people good until his late teens. to him it is abundantly clear, and people are stupid or stubborn when they refuse to acknowledge the universal truth that, coincidentally, aligns with his own perspective.

*cough*this adds to his fixation on lily and severus*cough*

Another element to consider in James' black & white thinking is that he is categorized as "good" by his society. this means his perspective is in alignment with the dominant culture, since obviously he sees himself as good. the dominant culture, which he opposes, enforces this core belief. this is a complicated knot for anyone to undo, much less a child.

untangling the knot would require James to inspect his core beliefs and his own goodness. is there an itch in him, somewhere, that something in his morality is wrong? um, yes. I doubt his bullying actually aligns with the values his parents taught him, but it's very easy to ignore the itch you get when a core part of your identity is challenged.

I don't even think his core beliefs are disrupted or shattered when he does start to untangle the knot, like, James is right. pure blood supremacy is bad. it is okay to use violence in your resistance. taking the fight to the bigots is brave, and he, as a wealthy pure blood, trying to fight back against discrimination is good!

I see one of James' core identity traits is him as a protector. that comes across in his care for Remus, his home being where Sirius runs, his demands for Severus to apologize to Lily, his role in the Order, and, finally, in his self-sacrifice when he uses his life as an obstacle between Voldemort and Lily & Harry. so if actions he justified as being good because they're against baby Death Eaters and therefore protecting muggle born students, are actually bad (what he did to Severus in SWM was harmful) is he even a protector?

like, yes, he still is, no one is perfect, but having to ask that question is painful for him. I discuss Lily saying he's as bad as Severus here, but tl;dr James thinks because he's not using slurs he's "good" and therefore does not need to introspect. right? he has never laid awake at night wondering if he is just as bad as Snape. he never shoves down a feeling of wrongness when he and Sirius harass a student who is obviously less skilled than they. he is good, so what he does is good.

I think jkr stumbled on great character writing with the way she portrays James' morality. it would be better if we got more time, but I believe he represents a common kind of privileged person who, for all of their good intentions, has trouble unlearning the dominant cultural values. it's a very sharp portrayal of that kind of person, who is usually displayed as ignorant and silly.

not seeing more of James weakens this (because jkr can't follow thru with the og ideas presented bc to do so would critique liberalism in a possibly radical way). nonetheless, I really like how horrible he's allowed to be as a teenager. it is developmentally appropriate for teens to be egotistical and be black & white thinkers, as long as they're growing out of it.

I do want to note a positive of this: it takes a lot of James to stop believing in someone. he trusts his friends immensely and it would take a lot for him to give up on them. Lily is the same.

haha "than the others" and I've only discussed James. yes, I think the struggles of the other character's lives put them in constant grey areas, and none of the other characters have both family and society reinforce their inherent goodness in a way they agree with. this makes it way easier for James to develop black and white thinking than the rest of them.

[lrndvs]

compliments from girls go hard

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[ardri-na-bpiteog]

Also increasingly aware that a LOT of people "manage" getting through the 40+ hour work week by sleeping less than is healthy and relying on stimulants like coffee and energy drinks to keep them going.

For people who are unwilling or unable to do this...work really does just dominate your life. Like we really should not have to rely on unhealthy practices just to have a social life or keep on top of housework or whatever.

I know I post about this a lot but I'm so TIRED all the time and it's just so depressing that this is how we're expected to spend the one life we have.

[wanologic]

reminder to take care of your loser human body

[duckysprouts]

if you were at your worst, if you’re a villain or a screwup or whatever, there is a goth man dressed as a giant bat who keeps coming after you, bothering you. he sabotages your journey of self destruction over and over. ur ready to give up but he won’t let you. you think, today he won’t come. today he will give up on me too. he never does.

[mllenugget]

The exact opposite of being doomed by the narrative

I discovered this game while playing with a group of friends on Halloween, and I must say it was quiet immersive because we each wanted different things so we always had to argue together on what to do before the Voices would Took 3 days to complete a single run

[ladyloveandjustice]

This is literally the exact opposite logic of a guy complaining about being friendzoned in every way, but it manages to be just as incoherent. I'm impressed, Okarun.

[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.

[bigfatbreak]

they both got bonked for being silly.

[chloesimaginationthings]

I know Vanessa regret saying this in the FNAF movie,,

[beautysnake]

What he doesn't know wont hurt him.........

[carlyraejepsans]

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[bloominglegumes]

i love normal guys doomed by the narrative

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

Plain-text version:

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.