@outlaws-legacy asked: “Uncle…..uncle!!!!” An excited Clive runs up to Byron, his tiny little hands moving to embrace his middle once he collides against the man he adores. “I’m so glad you’re back!!! Can we play pretend again from one of your plays?!” The smile Byron receives is adorably toothless in one area. “Pl—-ease?”

" My boy! " Immediately does a smile brighten up Byron's face as the excited voice of his nephew rings out across the courtyard to greet his arrival, followed by the very boy himself colliding with his stomach like a well-aimed child sized missile. After weeks of dealing with only merchant leaders and portswains, coming back here among familiar faces and surroundings ever feels like a breath of fresh air━ and indeed, after only a single moment of seeing Clive's now adorably toothless smile, 'tis as if the years sleuce off his back, the troubles and ails of the past few moons in Port Ilsolde summarily forgotten.

The hug is returned with enthusiasm, his laugh at Clive's sincere plea a joyous, amused thing. " And I am glad to see you and the Castle still in one piece. Your father's not gotten into too much trouble in my absence, has he? " The query is followed up with a conspirational wink, a broad hand settling on Clive's dark head of hair, ruffling the strands to messy curls. " Nor have you, I hope! " Not that it'd truly bother him if Clive had. Oh, how much the boy reminded him of himself, for as much as he resembled Elwin to a tee.

His hand gentles, giving those dark locks a tender carress, smile growing warmer still. " As for your question━, " He leans down, hoisting his nephew into his arms and onto his hip without much forewarning, grunting at the strain. By the Founder, Clive had grown━ heavier first and foremost. " Of course we can! In fact, anticipating this very event, I have brought some new plays we might garner a look at. Fear not, they are all further adventures of Gallant Ser Crandall of Camelot. "

But first, of course, there was business to be taken care of. Much as it pains him to admit, he's not come here on a mere whim. " Do you know where your father is, my boy? I wish to speak to him. Alas, I must get to all the annoying bits first ere we can get to the fun bits. But let us walk together, aye? You can tell me how your lessons are going. "

"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.

the accolade ( the...the cat-olade...)

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

You are everything I aspire to be

If parenting has taught me anything, it is the importance of getting down on your hands and knees and teaching not just facts, but love and enthusiasm for the natural world.

This is my son Q and me. I have dozens of photos like this by now, even though he is just two years old.

Every chance I get, I will kneel down with him and show him the little creatures all around us. Especially when they are frogs. He loves frogs for some reason. No idea why.

It is important that we all see this together. It is beautiful. It is magnificent. We are here. It is improbable to the highest degree. It is fleeting, but it is everything we get. And we can get so, so much of it. If we just get our faces into it and really absorb it.

So that's what l'm trying to do here, I guess. Get all of you to join me in the reeds. And I am so happy to have so many of you along for the journey.

thirteen years

Tiny skk adventures!

(continued ↓ )

when you're a big guy, chances of getting trapped in a glass tube are a lot lower than when you're just a tiny lad.

Thankfully they're both very forgiving.

(don't worry, Chuuya tended to those cuts)

Foolish: You know what? Fit: it's the perfect alibi. "Just a janitor," going through... just to cleaning around everywhere... talk to a lot of people... and you're just bald and such, you know, no one would think twice that you- may be you'd up to something.

Fit: Foolish that's- that's literally the entire point, we've been over this.

Pac: You like the plumber's work, right? You like to get your hand in the plumber's and- do the stuffs, and plumb [makes a very loud popping sound] those pipes, right?

[Everyone loses it and starts laughing]

Pac: I'm sorry- I'm sor- I'm- [laughs] I did- I didn't mean-

Fit: WAS THE SOUND NECESSARY???

Foolish: No, the sound made it.

Pac: I didn't- I didn't hear myself- sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh my god, I'm so shy right now, I'm just gonna sit.

[Full transcript ↓ ]

Foolish: You know what? Fit: it's the perfect alibi. "Just a janitor," going through... just to cleaning around everywhere... talk to a lot of people... and you're just bald and such, you know, no one would think twice that you- may be you'd up to something.

Fit: Foolish that's- that's literally the entire point, we've been over this.

Foolish: Have we?

Fit: I said I'm- I'm trying to find out more about like, the Code Monsters!

Foolish: I thought you just wanted- liked being a janitor.

Fit: Well, I actually do kinda like it, I'll be honest with you, I like getting paid, but-

Foolish: Wait damnnit, Philza's doing it right.

Pac: You like the plumber's work, right?

Fit: Yeah.

Pac: You like to get your hand in the plumber's and- do the stuffs, and plumb [makes a very loud popping sound] those pipes, right?

[Everyone loses it and starts laughing]

Pac: I'm sorry- I'm sor- I'm- [laughs] I did- I didn't mean-

Fit: WAS THE SOUND NECESSARY???

Foolish: No, the sound made it.

Pac: I didn't- I didn't hear myself- sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh my god, I'm so shy right now, I'm just gonna sit.

✨ fish moon 🐟✨

Dropping this very silly magma doodle here for your consideration (thank you @daycarefriendpickup again for hosting!)

This was a weird one akjfhgds @lurking-loaf and I couldn't decide what to do for this weekend's magma session so we ended up drawing each other A Shape (tm) to work off of! Which means any formal complaints regarding this piece can be forwarded to him lol /silly

Hien & Benichidori compilation

Okay so I put a & but this absolutely a shippy post, the hienichidori community is quiet af and there is no discourse but their comics in their Adventurer’s Bible profiles…!!! Many may ask, does Benichidori canonically have a crush on Hien?! Straightforward answer: It’s left heavily implied but yes. Alternate answer: If the framing of Falin in an explosion as Toshiro says that he loves her isn’t meant to associate the explosion with falling in love when it is mirrored in the next page, then… I think it’s a mix of both, I don’t think just this is true because Hien wouldn’t know who Shuro is talking about or even what Falin looks like, but it could be that the explosion is instead meant to show a world vision being shaken, the thing blowing you away. So for Hien, having Shuro say that breaks this unsaid assumption she’s always had that they might end up together, and thus Falin is taken like an explosion to the face. Similarly, for someone with facial dysmorphia and for who appearances and being subservient are everything, having Hien be confident and totally assume her plain looks, even uplifting herself, that also shakes her world like a bomb. And yes it’s not just about the makeup!! Benichidori’s drawn to her confidence, to her unapologetic attitude, to her attitude. Benichidori unexpectedly snapped at Hien too, but she was totally unshaken and she replied casually and lightheartedly even then; Benichidori saying she can be herself with Hien is about Hien not caring about her mask, both her makeup and her subdued demeanor. Hien is canonically special to Benichidori.

And on the note of that comic, I took a picture from my Adventurer’s Bible for this but I think the fantranslations I’ve seen are lovely too, really gets across all the meaning of the original sentence… Where Benichidori said "She was the only one I could be my unadorned self in front of" (which is my fave) or "I’m able to act my honest self with her". Benichidori having body(more specifically facial) dysmorphia is explicitly stated in the Adventurer’s Bible btw.

Pleasee how Hien’s extra is her talking about her life story and Toshiro to Benichidori… How Hien says "That guy is blind!" and Benichidori says "I’ve noticed that 😊" as if saying that Toshiro is blind to what a catch Hien is… Also in the ninja girls’ shared inn room Benichidori puts her futon next to Hien’s bed.

Just a few of your Data headcanons!

Day 3590 - 20 January 2024

🍾

.//projectTiGER

i keep thinking abt this part lol

Pinepaw, blasted out of his mind on a fever, getting The Visions: well this might as well happen

shes at flute practice

The Sheep plush has delighted me so much that I had to pause my work to quickly scribble a young Machete. please enjoy.

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eepy... boatem... look at em :D

@applestruda 's dtiys!! tyyyy <3