#i chose to love you.

[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.

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #falin touden #dunmeshi analysis #I love it when dungeon meshi says. the trauma was real and it changed you #and the way you are because of it isn’t anything to be ashamed of #but you have to keep living. you have to chose to keep living. #and you can #dungeon meshi spoilers

[zosanbrainrot]

part 2 of Zoro in WCI

01 02

I tried to write something to sum up my thoughts on this, but then it got longer and longer and tbh I'm itching to write a fic set in this AU djjdkf I think I could develop on their inner feelings more than in the comic form

Before posting the first part I didn't realize people had such strong opinions on how this would play out lmaooo

imo, of course Zoro wants to fight Sanji, not with actual intent to harm (they threaten each other on the daily, come on), but because that's how they are together, how they communicate. He respects Luffy's decisions and their goal here, which is to learn what's really going on with Sanji, but he's gonna be pissy about it all he wants. They both have so many intense and conflicted feelings about this and neither has any idea how to resolve them. So they fight.

ofc yall are free to headcanon this interaction any other way you want <333

#hope you can hear the moment Sanji's heart shatters #you're walking the painful path you chose and then even this stupid marimo instead of playing your usual game of threats and violence #instead of making this easier for you he pierces right through your heart with the tiniest confession #I never hated you #but even if he didn't use to #he sure as hell despises every inch of you now #he must he has to #but this is what you chose #it is what you deserve #ANGST #PAIN #wci zoro au #obvi if I were to write it wouldnt write first person this just got out of hand #i love angst can you tell #zosan #i love keeping them in the 'what if maybe no he would never' hell #roronoa “i love you but I will take these feelings with me to the grave” zoro #blackleg “I need you to hate me because I simply don't deserve to be loved” sanji #rorona zoro #black leg sanji #sanji #zoro #my art #whole cake arc #whole cake island #one piece #one piece fanart

[egophiliac]

Please elaborate on your twst Pokémon headcannons I’m very interested

I had planned on drawing everyone for this (I made a LIST!) but it. hasn't been going well. 💀 soooo here's what I have so far!

Riddle - Roserade (I was going with 'no legendaries', otherwise I would've given him a Shaymin) (and I don't think Togedemaru is actually a hedgehog or I would've given him one of those too) (...they kind of do fit though. hmm.)

Trey - Alcremie (clover/mint cream + strawberry/ruby cream)

Cater - DITTO SQUAD! DITTO SQUAD! DITTO SQUAD!

Ace - Impidimp (I feel like there's probably a better one for him, but I can't think of it)

Deuce - Scraggy (meanwhile I KNOW deep in my heart that this is true)

Leona - Pyroar (but like. a nasty Pyroar. just a grizzly old Pyroar with the shittiest attitude imaginable. they pretend to hate each other but secretly they are a bonded pair, do not separate)

#art #twisted wonderland #pokemon #poketwst #i'm trying not to pressure myself too much art-wise right now #but i would like to do more of the characters! #(especially considering this started with my insistence that malleus would have a dragapult) #gotta draw something i don't immediately hate first ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ #ANYWAY enough art angst! #i'm not aiming for full teams or delving too deep into lore or anything #just one or two per character that i think fit! #i was pretty torn on leona for a while because pyroar is at once the obvious choice but also. not really? #(i did consider luxray and ultimately decided it doesn't really fit either) #but i kind of love Nasty Lionboy's Nasty Pyroar #i think there's probably some. like. ~royal tradition~ that they all bond with this one specific breeding line or whatever #and leona deliberately chose just the absolute worst one #took one look at this shitty rude pokemon and immediately went 'that one' #falena was like 'are...are you SURE' and leona cops an attitude like 'i'm choosing my OWN pokemon you're not my DAD' #as pyroar is actively attempting to eat him #actually it probably tried to eat kifaji first and that's when leona decided he liked it #me: this is just for funsies i'm not doing lore (writes a whole fanfic in the tags)

[auuwmk]

orv.....

#orv #orv spoilers #i love orv..... #examples i could think of #kdj to sys “i chose you over seoul” #hmm...i wonder what this sounds like #when kdj was retrieving 41st sys' soul and she says he feels like a god #and kdj think that if he was a god he would be the most omniscient yet the most powerless AUGGGHHH #omniscient reader's viewpoint

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Horse Meshi. Delicious, in Horse.

#dungeon meshi #laois touden #marcille donato #senshi #chilchuk tims #Anne II #I am over a week late to make this relevant but dear god I love the kelpie chapter. #if not for the several layers of foreshadowing then the reveal that nearly everyone in the party is a passionate horse lover. #Truly the best part of dungeon meshi is the sheer love of horses each character has. Fantastic equines by Ryoko Kui. #Chilchuck gets to be a little wary given what goes down in the bicorn chapter. #Rest in peace Anne I and Anne II. You were beautiful horses. #The pain I felt upon re-reading dungeon meshi and realizing that Senshi called the kelpie Anne...Hurts bad! #By the way I have strong feeling about MLP AU with these characters - but I would like to assert that Senshi is earth pony coded #and chilchuck is pegasus coded. I was struggling to draw my vision and went with whatever my pen chose. #Laios is a griffin because...come on if he made a MLP AU of his friends he would be nothing else.

[jomteaaa]

here's a thought:

tsukishima kei is mean. he complains that you talk too much, laughs when you flunk your tests, and insists that you're clingy. others wonder why you're even with him.

but they don't know that when he tsks at your rambling, he shifts one side of his headphones away to hear your voice. they don't know that even though he teases you for your low test scores, he would stay up late at night just to tutor you till you'd get it right. they don't know that after rolling his eyes at your affection, he places a chaste kiss on your forehead and hides his red face in your hair.

so when they say you deserve better, you laugh at their cluelessness and state with a smile, "he's more than everything i could ever want." and he falls in love with you all over again.

#tsukishima x reader #tsukishima x you #tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima kei #haikyuu tsukishima #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu #tsukishima kei is bad at feelings #but he tries #and i love him for that #this was so spontaneous #5am thoughts #i woke up and chose to be down bad #tsukishima kei fluff #pure fluff #i want to cry #can you tell that he means everything to me

[lunian]

...wait

what a man he is, this Gale Dekarios

#mmmmmm #yeah okay im normal about it once again i swear good night #baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #gale romance #bg3 gale #bg3 screenshots #mystuff #actually love when he tries to be smooth and then just.. like this #yeah im a brilliant person but i still cant believe you chose me #its also what he has in common with Astarion when you choose him over someone adsfasdf #gale x durge #ooops i tagged as Tav its not true akdhsjdh

[airborneice]

i think we all know who the REAL star of season 3 is

i'm making a vague attempt to pace out this season by doing a drawing after each episode, so anyway here's my new fave character

#rip to my friend and brother who had to hear me start screaming with delight 5 minutes in when this guy showed up #THEY BROUGHT BACK MY BOY #I MEAN ITS A DIFFERENT ONE AND ITS A GIRL BUT ITS STILL THE DIRT GUYS. THANK YOU #whoever on the creative team made this decision i owe you my life #these guys are animated in the most delightful way and i love them #hilda spoilers #hilda season 3 #hilda season 3 spoilers #season 3 spoilers #hilda s3 spoilers #is that enough spoilers tags #yeah this is my fanart for episode 1. did something happen in that ep i was too busy looking at the creature of all time #jk i loved the episode so much. everyone better be so grateful that i chose not to draw the thing instead for this post i love himb #s3 is knocking it out of the park with funky little guys #hilda the series #hilda netflix #stray sod #hilda loam #art tag

[ewwww-what]

friendship so strong it grants you a sixth level spell slot. I have words to say.

#you aren’t always supposed to handle doubt alone. #even if you aren’t afraid of the dark it’s easier to navigate with someone holding your hand #Kristen said ​‘I just love my friends. I love my friends so much.’ #and Fig said ‘maybe I’m not an artist. maybe I’m just a really good friend.’ #and everyone in the world wanted me to be okay and normal about it #queerplatonic love comes in so many forms and this is one of them #fig and Kristen. fig and Kristen. fig. Kristen. #also also #I’ve been so emotional about the fact that all of the bad kids care so deeply about Cassandra despite not worshiping her #‘​I believe in Cassandra because I’ve seen her!’ like they have come eye to eye with a goddess and chose the mutual friends route #god I love it so much #also nonbinary fig believers how are we feeling tonight #fantasy high #d20 #d20 fantasy high #d20 fanart #fh #fantasy high fanart #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #d20 fhjy #fig faeth #fig fantasy high #kristen applebees #kristen fantasy high #faebees #queerplatonic #that’s important to me. that is an important part of this. #undescribed #my art

[furiosophie]

it's something sinister to love without regard for dear tomorrow

#modern warfare 3 spoilers #mwiii spoilers #soapghost #ghostsoap #ghoap #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #call of duty #mwiii #09 soapghost #listen i just think that while 22 ghost would be fuckin pissed that they're destined to die in every life #09 soap would find so much comfort in the fact that they got to find and love each other again in the next one #despite how it all ends #something something i will chose you every time #something something only two things will ever have me you and death #anyway #close behind and strawberry wine fucked me up good in the last couple of days #soph arts #id in alt text

[artharakka]

"I didn't think anyone would come for me."

"I was always coming for you. Only for you."

#HAND IN EVIL HAND #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #c: Viivi #Minthara #I love Minthara I would do anything for her #first time Viivi willingly chose violence when she finally found Minthara #also it is very neat that Minthara speaks to you a lot through the tadpole telepathy since Viivi is deaf. Very accommodative of her

[aro-aizawa]

i like to think everyone has a colour associated with them, whether its just your fave colour or what you generally wear most of or what colour your bedroom walls are. i always associate the name sophie with dark blue, my mum is always a nice turquoise, i like to think my colour is a bright sunflower yellow.

if you have a specific shade pls tell me i adore when ppl have associated colours and tell me them, bc i think of them when i see that colour

#shut up danni's talking #its one of my ultimate favourite aspects of character designs and i will forever use it w my characters #but i also think abt it w ppl!!!! #its almost certainly spawned from a combo of my mum passionately loving her colour + my primary school #my primary school's name/theme/whatever was related to the rainbow #its common for primary schools in the uk for the uniform to be polo shirts and schools would pick a colour and that was your uniform #but w my school's theme being rainbows they were like lol whatever colour as long as you're in a polo shirt #so kids would choose whichever shirt colour they wanted some kids switched it up every year #others stuck w the colour they chose all 6 years #so of course i would correlate ppl w colours which is how i always relate sophie w dark blue #bc i'd play w this girl called sophie in the afterschool club who always wore dark blue through all the years i knew her #tbh i still think of my brother also as dark blue bc he would wear the same colour #if you could not guess my colour was yellow and i always felt distinctly wrong when i had to wear a different colour #there were a couple times i had to borrow a new shirt bc mine got dirty or all mine hadn't been washed so i had to wear my brother's #i don't know if its just me but i feel like everyone has an affinity with a colour even if its n9t your fave #hence the poll lmao

[atmothart]

Wouldn't lizard fashion be something like spikes and scales and a frilled lizard collar?

Like so?

(Bonus art under the cut)

#thank you anon I've been wanting to draw proper lizard fashion for a while and this gave me the motivation I needed #dracula daily #re: dracula #dracula #lizard fashion #The colours I chose here make Drac look like Harry Du Bois - which is appropriate given how I tend to depict his personality in my shitpost #bonus under the cut featuring Dracula's Weed Smorking Girlfriends #personally I really like the theory that the three vampire women are actually dracula's wife and two daughters #since the book never actually calls them his wives and the two subordinate girls are specifically described as looking similar to him #the idea that he turned his family but is no longer capable of loving them (or being loved by them) adds a whole extra layer for me #because he still goes through the motions - goes out to get them food (babies) and provide for them/fulfil the role of a patriarch #but its hollow and loveless and done out of strange obligation/habit - like an echo of being alive #BUT for the sake of comedy I will always draw them as his three weed smorking girlfriends because it's just funnier #or rather as I like to think of them - his three weed smoking EX-girlfriends who spend all day making fun of him and and freeloading #I'm going to tag any art with them in it from here on out as #the ex-wives of dracula #he's going to england to escape their ridicule

[rrogueamendiares]

Trigun appreciation week

Day 1: favourite character/modern au

#i chose wolfwood bc you know. but it broke my heart because all four of them are such great characters!!! #and also i had to throw milly in there bc theyr dynamic is so good in trigun 98 i love them #i spent too much time on this and i don't even like the colors lol #trigun #trigun 98 #nicholas d. wolfwood #milly thompson #millywood #trigun fanart #trigunsource #my art

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Mushroom body

(for @mikkeneko)

#SVSSS #shen qingqiu #mushrooms #body horror #better drawn mdzs #<-tag for higher effort art. At times like this I really wish I chose something else. #What is an October raffle for if not to end off with a little mushroomy body horror? #This one is inspired by my massive disappointment upon discovering that sqq's 'mushroom body' was just....guy shaped. #Come ON where is the fun in that? Why are we being kept from Fungi Amalgamation Monster Loving? #It's not going to stop Luo Binghe! SQQ could be a shapeless lump of slime and LBH and would still be over the moon for him. #Thank you *so* much for the prompt! I had so much fun. I love mushrooms and doing research was a delight! My citation list is long! #Broke my style a bit but I think it was a good choice. I have been trying to practice non-dot eyes more and its slowly coming along! #Also huge congrats mikkeneko for winning Twice In A Row!! #Your odds were a little over 1 in 1000! Lucky you!

[introspectivememories]

the funniest possible thing that could happen is if mercedes keeps hiring childhood best friends for their team and everybody's holding their breath waiting for them to tear each other apart like brocedes except it doesn't happen bc everyone else is normal about each other and brocedes is just that fucked up that they would've torn each other apart even if they were on different teams

#i like to think that in this hc both nico and lewis were waiting for the new team to tear each other apart just so they could feel like what #happened to them was an inevitability. except the new team doesn't tear each other apart and now they have to deal with the fact it was #their faults. not competing for the championship or the stress of being on the same team but just them. ripping each other apart for even #the slightest advantage. just them digging their fingers into the rotting carcass of their childhood friendship to hit each other where it #hurts. just them cannibalizing their childhood dream for even the most miniscule chance of beating each other. and what do you do then? #when the reason your friendship fell apart is bc you two couldn't put each other before the trophy? and what do you do when you know that #you wouldn't be you if you chose each other? what then? maybe it was inevitable. maybe it was fate. #auugh i love the inevitability of tragedies!!! this all came bc ppl kept saying that albon in merc would be brocedes 2.0 and like no!!! no #will ever be brocedes 2!!! nobody has the drama or the ethos/pathos/logos to be brocedes 2.0!! you dont have the frosties or the dreams or #greece!!! you dont have greece!!! and more importantly!!! nico and lewis were /weird/ about each other!!! no 1 else on this grid is weird #about each other the way nico and lewis were/are!!! nobody else is obsessed with each other the way they were!!! #anyway breakdown over #nico rosberg #lewis hamilton #brocedes #f1