#it’s a Lot even for him

[lazylittledragon]

happy crimbus!!

(i had 6 other WIPs and only finished this one but shhh)

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion #tavstarion #i kind of hate this but it’s fine #i’ve decided dorian made the horrible sweaters and that’s the only reason astarion would wear it #it’s a Lot even for him #he deserves a big comfy sweater though #this is based on his new kiss where if you go into free cam he’s just GRABBING

[laughingcatwrites]

As a reminder that good exists out there, a coworker recently confessed to me that he found out his child is questioning their identity (kid's gender redacted for this post). The kid is keeping it from him, so he can't say anything to them or show that he knows, but he's doing his best to get mentally prepared and educated so that he'll be ready whenever his kid does feel comfortable enough come to him.

For context, this guy is a big, bulky middle aged dude who loves sports and typical outdoor "manly" activities. As his coworker and friend, I know he's a kind and sweet teddy bear of a person, but his kid probably views him as a stern, authoritarian figure, the way most teenagers view their parents. His family lives in a conservative area, so I'm sure between that, their dad's looks and interests, and the fact that their dad is a Figure of Authority, the kid is worried that they won't be accepted.

But you know what? When he found out about his kid, the first thing he did was reach out to his closest queer friend and ask for resources for parents of questioning children. His biggest fears are that his kid will be bullied or discriminated against and won't feel comfortable enough to be themself. His second action was to find himself a mentor in another parent who went the same situation (kid coming out in a conservative town). The other person is preparing him for some of the struggles his kid may face and the fights he may need to take on as a parent to make sure his kid is safe and treated well.

Something I want to emphasize for people focused on language as the primary method of allyship is that when we spoke, he used some outdated terms and thoughts about gender and sexuality. That does not make him bad. These were the terms and thinking used about questioning teenagers when he was growing up and he never needed to learn more current ones. But now that he does have that need, he's throwing himself in head first because that's his kid and he's darn well going to make sure that his kid feels welcomed and has a safe place to be themselves even if they never come out to him.

#I'm so proud and happy for my coworker and I've been trying to figure out how to let him know how amazing I think he is #what gets me the most is that he's keeping this super down low to avoid giving any hints to his kid #he has a lot of queer friends so he already is known as an ally but there's always a chance it will be different if it's family #and he took that chance and crumpled it up into a ball and slam dunked it into the garbage for three points #and decided that even if his kid wants to hide it from him for the rest of his life he will still do what he can to make their life better #pflag #parents doing their best #parenting win #good news #allyship

[bastardlybonkers]

i feel like not enough ppl are factoring in the cultural clash between laios and shuro and the many micro agressions shuro faced while being in their group. literally the name 'shuro' in itself is one

his name is toshiro 😭 lets also not forget that he has his own communication issues, in the opposite way that laios does- thats literally a factor in their argument, that his envy for laios's ability to express himself sincerely manifested as part of his distaste for him.

ig all this to say like, was their fight heart wrenching, especially when reading laios as autistic? absolutely. anybody whos ever been in laios's position knows how much it hurts to realize someone you thought was your friend doesnt actually like having you around, especially when they didnt tell you and you had no way of knowing due to not understanding their cues. but im begging yall to step back and see the nuance of this situation cause im gonna be real a lot of you are kinda just brushing over it acting like everything is toshiros fault and that hes a terrible person when in reality hes an average guy who really, really clashed with laios and it led to a very long misunderstanding due to their supremely opposite methods of communication. even laios and toshiro, after letting everything out in their fight, were able to come to an understanding and start a foundation for an actual friendship built on better communication

ok yknow what Edit: i shouldve made it even more explicit at the end of this post, i hadnt thought i would need to since i started the post with this, but i think a few too many people are missing my point so i just wanna clarify. i shouldnt have said 'really clashed' and left it at that because yeah they did, but it wasnt just their opposite methods of communication, it is also very much that toshiro was experiencing microaggressions via laios. it may have been unintentional on laios's part, but it still happened and wore him down, made it harder for him to communicate on top of both the more subtle social cues that he was raised with and his own communication difficulties. i also want to say that the fandom reaction to toshiro and the complete ignorance of this point is also racist tbh or at the very least ignorant. i understand that the anime did not cover this panel, and neither did the manga, as this was an omake, but im gonna be real with you guys. there are enough context clues within the story to clue you into this. if you didnt pick up on it thats ok, but i think this is a good lesson in picking up subtext in the stories that youre watching and/or reading. kui shouldnt have to explicitly say 'by the way laios was racist to toshiro' for this point to be understood, and at the very least, when the author portrays a character in a sympathetic light (as kui clearly does) it should make you question Why they are doing so and what makes them sympathetic, rather than youre immediate and only reaction to be 'well i hated what this guy did/said so i hate them and they suck'. idk exactly how to finish this, just. idk. question your biases and gut reactions to things you see in media and stories, and think about whether or not theres subtext that youre missing.

#dunmeshi #dungeon meshi #shuro dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #toshiro nakamoto #dont get me wrong i understand relating to a character and hating whoever wrongs them cause youre protective or you relate really hard #but i think toshiros been getting the short end of the stick for a long time now 😭 #even his love for falin is misunderstood #he literally states all the reasons he likes her #and none of them are superficial #but hes so closed off and has such difficulty expressing himself that instead of asking her out or smth he just #proposed to her out of the blue 😭 #leading a lot of ppl to just assume that he went 'white woman spotted' and proposed #do Not misunderstand me i am #a HUGE farcille stan #obviously #but i dont think toshiros feelings are surface level and i think theyre absolutely crucial to understanding him and his motivations #as a character in this story

[catmask]

sometimes while i think about that while a lot of adults did not treat me very well as a kid i also get a lot of 'in hindsight this person was so good to me and i didnt even realize it until now' as an adult. today i was thinking about how the first anime convention i ever went to was when i was 10 and i asked the man working the manga cafe what manga was/what a good place to start was (because the con was very overstimulating for me and i had gotten lost) and he asked how old i was before recommending yotsuba and asking if i wanted any water or something to eat. its really simple but theres a lot of bad things that couldve happened or he could've been careless in his recommendation, but instead yotsuba has remained one of my favorite manga for years, and probably a large portion of why i continue to read manga as an adult... i think adults who try to involve kids in the world safely/kindly even in little ways make so much more of a difference than they ever really know.

#and i know that sounds silly like YES. it was just a bookr ecommendation #but i feel like a lot of people either dont really care about whats a good starting point for younger kids in their shared fan spaces #or dont really take the care to recognize different peoples ages would effect what they would both enjoy or #be capable of engaging with #not to mention theres a lot of manga that would NOT have been appropriate for a 10 year old to read #so the fact that he askedd and even asked what sort of thing i liked at the time #was very sweet. i think about him a lot and i hope hes doing well #txt #scratchpost

[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.

#dungeon meshi spoilers #mithrun #dungeon meshi #this has been rotating for a while but i wanted to check my evidence before getting into it thanks user angelspenance for posting that meme #half of this is just the text and the other half i'm sure has been said before but it's making my brain [radio static] so here this is #someone did for sure mention this but i do find it very cute that in his fucked up conjured world meant to portray his ideal reality #his teammates came to visit him. like part of the fantasy was then explicitly that they cared about him and were his friends. even though #he says he tried to see the worst in them. #hm it does feel important to note that i do also believe 100% in mithrun suicidality--his desire to be eaten does seem to focus a lot on #wanting it to be Over. wanting not to be left incomplete and empty anymore. #but that loops back around a bit to the hole in your heart that appears when you feel unloved. it's many things and the same thing at once #snakes #long post #severe problems #meshy

[bixels]

I watched Starship Troopers tonight.

#personal #dumb #my art #immediately after finishing i was pumped to watch some analysis vids on it #cuz i heard a lot of the drama about the original author being a pro military fascist and the director going “fuck that” and making a satir #scrolling through youtube search results was not promising. lots of male film buffs i would Not trust even on a first glance. #“The Critical Drinker” (pfp of a bearded man drinking alcohol) lol. #and then I saw cinemawins did a video on it and was like oh nice i haven't seen his stuff in a while but he's a pretty leftist creator #scrolled through the comments #second panel face #this sucks i'm outta here. #just leagues and leagues and leagues of anime pfps and right leaning people dogpiling on him for “not understanding what fascism is” #idk it's pretty alien and weird to me watching this movie and going “wow yeah that was pretty obvious huh” like literally the from opening #to the teacher preaching militance and only giving voting rights to “those who serve their nation first and earn it” #and then seeing droves of people online going #WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? It's not anti-fascist and even if it was it's #the director's fault for desecrating heinlein's incredible sci-fi epic vision. ermm media literacy is dead.

[doctorjennifermelfi]

marius is so “oh no! anyway” about eponine confessing her love and then immediately dying that 1862 girlies could have started using “and by the way, monsieur marius, i believe that i was a little bit in love with you” as a preface to announce major geopolitical events

#i know theres a lot going on but bro didnt even notice that she stuck out her hand to stop a bullet for him #i cant with this dude #les mis

[aroaceleovaldez]

Nico referring to his mom as "Mama" implies he most likely at least used to refer to Hades as "Papa" and i 100% headcanon he still does but mostly in the manner of him having the entire Underworld wrapped around his finger for being the baby of the family

#pjo #riordanverse #nico di angelo #headcanon #my art #nico flexing youngest child privilages by pulling out the most pitiful expression he can manage #anyways i find it fun to explore character word choices #cause yknow no two characters are going to select their words the same way #or even necessarily think about it to the same degree #i like to think Nico thinks about his word choice a lot #so of course every time he uses ''papa'' he fully knows he's pulling the Baby Of The Family card #Hades definitely knows this too but falls for it every time anyways #cause Nico hasnt called him ''papa'' regularly since getting his memory wiped - just detached ''father'' or at best ''dad'' #so it just reminds Hades of How Much He Just Wants His Children To Be Happy Like The Old Days #and how much poor Nico has been through and he's just the baby of the family and- #cue Nico smugly staring at the camera cause he knows how much power he holds #also i say Nico is Hades' only son cause mythologically even when Zagreus *is* Hades' son (rarely) he's. dead. #a major part of Zagreus' mythology is that he died #and im p sure every other deity said to be Hades' children are all goddesses and also are like 50% of the time not his #theres also only like 3 of them. and as far as we know in riordanverse canon one of them is implied to not be his daughter #so Nico is Hades' only son and also youngest in the family (cause Hazel is older by a month chronologically or 1 year biologically) #(and everybody else is a deity if children of hades at all)

[danielcalmdown]

harry trying to stay sober after martinaise

#my drawing #disco elysium #i think he looks nice with mustache B) #i wonder if when he's sober he should just start taking meds; idk if there's another way for him to not relapse #even if it would make him lose touch with a lot of his inner self. welp can't have it all (that's why i stopped taking meds lmao)

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

You ever have those moments where an idea just... won't leave your head?

#dcu #batman #bruce wayne #green arrow #oliver queen #fake tweets #things I was not able to adequately convey in the format: #obviously Bruce's reasoning is really a lot closer to Ollie's but Bruce has a secret identity to maintain and Ollie... well #I don't know if you can make it out but his twitter profile pic is him in the Green Arrow costume and that's not accidental #also I am pretty sure that Bruce does just have the first airing date of The Price is Right saved in a corner of his mind palace #just in case it's ever relevant to a case #and he's angry at Ollie because Ollie knows that and also knows Bruce can't admit it because it would raise too many questions #also I did consider an extra scene where they tag-team harass Lex #but it just didn't sound right to me #also I put a whole load of Green Arrow references in here #Q-Core N_Singh and H_Fyff are all from the Nu52 Green Arrow runs #albeit Naomi and Henry are at least in the good Nu52 runs #obviously this is post-Snowbirds Don't Fly/Hard Travelling Heroes in general so Oliver is trolling Hal and setting up needle exchanges #and even Hal explaining to Ollie what Twilight is is a reference to one of the most dated things about the Arrow pilot: #the extremely tacky Twilight joke #anyway hope you enjoyed!

[bloodsbane]

dunmeshi ep 11 W: they ended it on the exact shot i was hoping for - in fact, they made it even better. im living and thriving

unfortunate but necessary dunmeshi ep 11 L: they didn't include this part...

#banebabbles #dungeon meshi #i just reeeeally love him trying to stand up on a leg that isn't there anymore... #even though HE is the one who planned on this and did it very much on purpose #it's just very realistic. not realizing it yet. he's so dazed and worried about everyone else. so focused #laios..................................... #anyway i understand why it wasnt in the ep it's fine i just also like this part a lot!! #dunmeshi spoilers

[mugentakeda]

the way zuko was posing like he was in a shampoo commercial during this super serious scene had me dying

#DONT LOOK BACK AT HIM IT SHOWS WEAKNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #zutara #zuko #katara #<-ive been drawing them a lot lately. i need to draw another ship to even the board out. hmmmmm #alicias art #atla

[ruporas]

the blank ticket in your hand is just waiting to be filled in.

happy birthday vash! (ID in alt text)

#vash the stampede #trigun #trigun maximum #trigun maximum spoilers #trimax spoilers #vashwood #i actually made it... im crying... was devastated for a bit bc i thought i wouldnt had anything for vash's bday!! #but happy birthday to the twins.. vash and knives... #no matter what i was going to make a vash centric post im sorry knives... i have a comic in progress also but it was taking too long T_T #that one would celebrate both of them slightly more fairly! but anyway. #birthdays to someone like vash must not mean a whole lot. even the first one - him and knives were like oh what... cool.. i don't think the #had the chance to celebrate much after that :pensive: and vash probably spent most of his birthdays like any other day so i kind of just #wanted to celebrate him living and being alive - living for as long as he did and the people that eventually made living worth it #keep counting the years vash!!! even if you dont have birthday parties - it's still very very special #quote is directly from rem’s speech in ch 41 also #ruporas art

[chattematsu]

[4.0 archon quest spoilers]

#genshin impact #genshin impact fanart #fontaine #childe #lumine #lyney #Lynette #Okay before you'll say BUT THEY HID IMPORTANT INFORMATION IT MAKES THEM BETRAYALS listen yo listen thanks a lot!!!! #And before CHILDE IS OUR CLOSE FRIEND WE KNOW HIM FOR ETERNITY SO IT'S OBVIOUS WE TRUST HIM AND GET DISAPPOINTED IN SIBLINGS #I made it JUST FOR IRONY not any negative in any ot these characters #These events were pretty close in quest and it looked pretty strange (for me) #Even after trial traveller was pretty rude with characters who didn't have any odd intentions and it made me think in that way #Maybe writers wanted to make traveller more emotional than earlier but it looked very strange (for me again) #Bro it were the longest tags i ever made here but it's just for clearing the air #Btw don't take it serious #Ofc you can disagree with me and that's okay!!! It's just little note for making clear some things

[ryllen]

love is a compilation of coincidences

... and chances u create urself

#he wants them to bump #twst #twisted wonderland #sebek zigvolt #twst yuu #twst mc #fanart #i wonder if there will be class rotation on the second year; sometimes i imagine him being our classmate #sometimes i think about how sebek would have a lot more time to hang out with the others once malleus and lilia graduate; even silver later #like he would deny wanting to; but he gets rather lonely that unconsciously he always wanders to u or to ramshackle dorm #or to where the 1st year group hangs out

[nelkcats]

The Crime Lord does not stop flirting with me!

When Danny ran away from home and ended up in Gotham he wasn't quite sure what to do, adrenaline was coursing through his veins and all he wanted was a place to be safe.

That's when Crime Alley lit up like a Christmas tree and Danny knew it could be his new home, something about Crime Alley was drawing him in. It wasn't long before he decided to get a job to lay low. Of course, the latter was a bust because Red Hood noticed him almost instantly.

Contrary to his expectations, the Crime Lord took an interest in him but said nothing. He simply asked him to repair his motorcycle like a normal customer in his new job. Danny did and well, he couldn't help but repair some damaged systems and add some modifications. He hoped he wasn't stepping out of line, he just couldn't help himself, it was second nature to repair damaged things.

He thought Red Hood would be angry about it but the man seemed delighted (or as delighted as he could look with the mask), he looked at Danny and asked him what else he could do. Nervously, he told him that he was somewhat good with technology and before he knew it he had been hired by a gang (more or less, they were just asking for some custom orders).

So, technically he established as the mechanic and supplier to the Hood gang, and more specifically to the Crime Lord himself. He gave Hood some upgrades and became his supplier of (mostly harmless) weapons and upgrades. This attracted the attention of most of the gangs that were against the Crime Lord and Batman himself.

Jason, noticing how nervous the guy was assured him that he would protect him and no one was going to hurt him as long as he was around, it was obvious he wasn't from Gotham. For some reason, his new employee blushed every time he said those words.

Danny didn't know if Red Hood understood what he was doing (That was totally a flirt for protection spirits!), every day it was getting harder and harder not to respond to him. His ghost side kept screaming that he got a good match!

Which was technically true, considering that Red Hood had promised him protection and let him stay in his haunt (it became obvious that Crime Alley was his haunt after a few days in Gotham but strangely it accepted him)

Jason continued to promise Danny that he would be safe (poor boy always looked nervous) and Danny wondered how many days he could take the blatant flirting.

#dpxdc #Danny is new in Gotham #he stays in Crime Alley #Jason's haunt was calling him #At first Jason was suspicious about him #but the guy was nice #And an amazing mechanic #Jason loves his new updates #he checked for all the bugs of course #but after confirming it was harmless he returned to him #and asked what else he could do #Danny “I lived between mad scientists” Fenton could do a lot of things #dp x dc #dc x dp #dead on main #Jason hired him after hearing that he could create weapons #even though Danny told him he only made stun weapons #Jason knows he should be suspicious #but something inside of him (similar to the pits) just believes in Danny #Saying “I will protect you” It's flirting if you tell it to a protective ghost #Danny is not sure if he will survive his boss casual flirting #Jason doesn't know what he's doing #but he thinks the boy is cute #deadonmain