#fleshmesh

favorite thing about them: indescribable euphoria of seeing at least one story putting someone like us in view for a mainstream audience without turning us into little more than gritty hopeless spectacle. i would've still liked him even if it was that, there are definitely excellent ways to pull it off, but it's so fucking easy and cheap sometimes, isn't it? i love that he gets to die at peace and that it was done so beautifully, that someone existed just to show him kindness, and the way that person was able to show kindness to him depended on them being in a situation nearly as fucked up as his

as a character though, i'll be honest my favorite thing is just that he's so pretty and darling. i want to brush his hair and give him nice clothes

least favorite thing about them: how whitewashed he is as a person gets super grating to work with... his relationship w/ delgal is the first that made me feel genuine Mediocre Boyfriend Hatred for a familial relationship (in and of itself impressive!)

favorite line: "i need to see him, i need to see his face [...] whose face?" 👍💯✨🔥👌

[changing dynamics categories into ones that make more sense to me]

favorite dynamic: thistle & yaad they speak to me on all levels and are very flexible to work with

good friends dynamic: LMAO. imagine. closest would be thistle & falin though i think they're cute

bitchfriends dynamic: nothing in particular bc he's bitchy w everyone. ig i'm most attached to his toxic dungeon lords alliance w marcille in fairytale au atm

soft dynamic: thistle & yaad if you're like me and mutual coercion into dubiously surface-level-wholesome scenarios makes your entire heart melt like warm cheese (though they're cute taking care of each other too; the earnesty adds so much even on the more fucked up end of the scale)

tension dynamic: thistle & yaad pseudo-enmeshment era

odd friends dynamic: thistle & laios (he hates him) (mildly obsessively) (one-sided) (it's infuriating that it's one-sided)

random headcanon: his voice was divinely tailored for metal/rock but the poor creature was born a thousand years too early for that and has been forced to sing like an angel instead. somebody save him

unpopular opinion: he's agefucked in a way that makes it impossible to treat/write him exclusively "as a kid" or "as an adult" and it would be better to examine his character as it relates to the experiences of csa/incest survivors of color (+ plural systems) who actually do struggle with being stuck in the gutters between adulthood and childhood both, instead of deferring to frameworks that assume a level of healthy/"normal" development and thus are irrelevant to his situation

song i associate with them: (suddenly forgets every song) brick by boring brick by paramore. can't remember anything else rn

favorite picture of them:

Most neurodivergent dungeon meshi character

Obviously laios would win but it would be interesting to see who comes second and third 🤔

Mmmh, that could be an interesting tournament. I'm keeping the idea in the back of my mind for now!

Sorry there’s more. He is jus so beautifully expressive

in both AUs his name is lirio (lily). initially we wanted to associate him with hyacinths (invasive purple river-weeds) but didn't like the sound of "jacinto" for him. at least "lirio" is associated with both death and innocence, and anyway, his lily-white hair would be notable enough for him to be named after it

funny enough there is an org named jacinto & lirio dito

in terms of appearance he looks like your average filipino, not mestizo, and i can easily see him wearing filipiniana similar to these on special occasions (in epic fantasy AU, he wears something similar to his canon fit but designed in this direction):

or for a more old-fashioned style...

in urban fantasy modern AU he was abducted at the behest of don fernán (freinag) because the old man wanted a diwata (nature spirit/god or "fairy") to bless his household and protect his family from strife - which would either be the revolution against the spanish or the japanese occupation during wwii depending on how much i want to push the immortal family aspect. currently i'm leaning towards the former because it overlaps a little more timeline-wise with canon: immediately following the end of spanish rule, the philippines started resisting american colonization and later was occupied by japan during wwii. lirio struck a bargain with the winged lion, a spirit/entity syncretized into local catholic faith, to grant his family immortality, and thus he and delgal and their entire household managed to witness every period of colonization the country went through, which did wonders for delgal's anxiety.

however, complications abound: due to fernán's abduction of a diwata child, the spirits have cursed the family lands with the presence of wild monsters. now, part of lirio's deal with the WL was the power to control these entities, but in doing so (and by misusing ancient magic in the first place), he's provoked the spirits into further anger. thus, they've started sending messenger-assassins (the canaries) his way to deal with that damned house once and for all

otoh, in epic fantasy au he's your run-of-the-mill corrupt sorcerer who stole a portion of the underworld in order to ensure eternity for his brother's kingdom. this time the angered spirit is the winged lion, whom he cheated by refusing to hand over his desires for its consumption. for this reason the demon has been calling heroes from afar to take him down or convince him to willingly pay his debt, as well as actively fucking with his land because he can't actually restrain it, just keep it at bay. overall very similar to canon and to the previous AU save for the emphasis on unpaid debt and the demon's constant vengeful god mode.

4. Do you have any OCs? Do you have a story for them?

they come and go, but the cast of Sanctuary (who've actually been published in a short story of mine before, Ascension) have solidified pretty well in my mind! the core premise is it's a gothic-fantasy road trip adventure where two companionate partners, a scrappy insurrectionist wizard (Zuno) and a former cultist in hiding (Nixie), are torn from their domestic life when an old friend - Marsi, a former slave of the Fairy Queen who victimized them both - shows up at their door claiming to hear the voice of the risen Queen across the horizon.

which should be impossible. the two of them ensured her death. but they're left with no choice when marsi, wanting revenge, blackmails them into helping him dig up her grave. this leads them on a trip across her former domain, finding others who had history with her - painting a fuller picture of who she was - as well as forcing zuno and nixie to confront their own past: nixie used to be her caretaker and zuno was her would-be assassin. they were once vicious enemies and would rather forget it all... but there was something they did to defeat her that still haunts them both.

in terms of fanfic OCs, rn i only have thistle's first obsession outside his family and the canary warden who torments delgal in a smut draft (but has a different role in my postcanon thistle fic). there are also adult!thistle's eventual apprentices but i haven't fleshed them out yet... they're inspired by the lark from yaelokre though!

7. Your favourite ao3 tag.

whenever i see a character tagged as aspec while also in a relationship i get all ^_^

10. Top three favourite fic tropes.

first: i've seen an ambiguous familial relationship at least once before so it counts! it isn't always a familial relationship colored by incestuous trauma, though usually that's where i most easily find that dynamic bc of the difficult power dynamics and blurred lines, but it can also be any familial relationship bw people who don't necessarily fit into the standard family model, whether because a) they aren't blood related so there was never any obligation to begin with, only for them to wind up gravitating into a similar-looking dynamic, b) there was obligation forced onto their relationship that then caused it to become familial and/or enmeshed, or c) blood relatives who arguably have the excuse not to gaf about each other ("uncle and nephew" for example) are put in a situation where a distinct attachment or dependence develops, yet still fails to resemble the normative model. i distinguish this from friendship and companionate dynamics by the pull of obligation itself, along with alternating roles of caretaker/dependent where agency, power dynamics, and security are always slightly dubious at best

second: aspec love story. pretty self-explanatory. i'm a hopeless aspec. i love when they try to substitute the love that comes naturally to them with more allonormative expressions, only to realize there's something that feels more true to them in the end.

third: established dynamic. i always go a little nuts whenever characters who don't interact extensively in canon are entangled with one another within a fic's context. it gets my mind stirring with ideas - how did that end up happening? does it make sense within this specific story even if it wouldn't in canon? how does that divergent dynamic color the rest of the story? it doesn't have to be just character dynamics either - it's equally fun when a character is tied more closely to a certain plot device, worldbuilding element or potential character development that canon didn't explore for them. it's like a collage, cutting out disparate pieces and making something cohesive out of it. it's its own form of poetry.

26. What would you describe as OOC?

my conception of it is pretty redundant ig... whatever contradicts established characterization or fails to take into account the context behind certain behavior, especially wrt worldbuilding, story themes, and character background. but then, i generally subscribe to the idea that as long as you can justify it in the text (especially if you have a strong grasp of character voice and motivations) then you can basically get away with anything, and anyway fanfic doesn't have to be perfect so long as it's enjoyable. most of what i see as ooc for thistle, for example, just feels that way because it contradicts my own framework for his character.

that being said, some stuff i see as ooc, notwithstanding fun factor:

thistle being too pacified and growing attached to laios, falin, yaad and co during his recovery without any resentment or rebellious behavior whatsoever (rings some "perfect victim" bells for me; he is an incredibly difficult person, but that doesn't mean he isn't worth caring for as a difficult person, though ik naman that's not the implication people intend when they write him as such. but yeah, dungeon meshi allows for all those flaws to shine; if he isn't at least as much of a nuisance as izutsumi (affectionate) then it feels a little stilted)

thistle being anything less than violently devastated over delgal (he can mask it behind formality but he is critically obsessed with that man - a lot of his canon behavior aligns with symptoms of bpd, including the root cause of the disorder being abandonment and instability during childhood. and yeah, he was rendered desire-less by the lion, but i imagine he'd still have a severe reaction of some sort - not necessarily loud. extreme dissociation, for example)

delgal being considerate towards thistle beyond surface level needs (lol. lmao even. i won't discount that he might try but he should always miss the point. it's all he's shown to do!)

yaad being little more than the Nice Character, which isn't untrue per se, but i did write wtsh thinking there was a lot of untapped dirt there. as far as we know he was raised by delgal alone so he would share as many similarities to him as any child would with their parent; he's catholic-coded so how does that inform his character, especially in a purgatory-like state of undeath?; his name is blatantly jewish in a medieval christian kingdom, what's up with that; he's canonically disabled; he swiftly changed his mind on thistle after everything; he's in delgal's body... i'm just such a shill for characters who seem well-adjusted on the surface but have a lot of fucked up shit going on underneath, and yaad actually does have the potential to have much more going on than what we get to see. also he yells at laios a lot post-dungeon-catatonia when he feels more "alive" and it gave me the impression he had that spirit the whole time, it was just broken. he reads as someone restless and adrift from himself, who still manages to pull himself into something well-actualized out of a sense of duty (abuse survivor flags waving lmao)

yaad and thistle (or really thistle and anyone else) as a dynamic just being straightforwardly caring and automatically "better" than thistle and delgal just because they're Nice... well, this ties into my previous point (especially yaad being in delgal's body) but i don't think it would be that simple when you think about the implications of how each individual character's hangups would clash. but all the potential complications does make it more fun to explore and more satisfying to resolve!

What are your headcanons about her? Post canon headcanons in normal dungeon Meshi? Facts and stuff about her in your fic that aren’t too spoiler-y?

erring on the side of caution when it comes to her heritage since i'm still new to understanding the other abrahamic faiths/jewish culture as a whole, but tbh that works out well enough for me as of now since she's more catholic than anything else during canon proper. generally speaking, though, i like to write her as embodying jewish values in spite of her outward catholicism, since her mother was a stronger influence on her upbringing when it came to her personal ethics than anyone else.

pre-canon to canon: her mama's name was ava. i'm assuming in-universe attitudes to jewish faith and people would mirror irl medieval history, so her marriage to eodio would have been taboo outside the dungeon, but was (made) acceptable within due to its isolated state. delgal just didn't gaf, whatever made his son happy he allowed. eodio let his wife name yaad - and a blatantly non-christian name for a prince of a christian kingdom in what everyone assumed, for a while, was a state close to heaven? audacious, but permitted! she understood there was an ironic sanctuary the dungeon provided for her in that respect, seeing as its elven tyrant isn't exactly the picture of a good upright christian himself. but she also understood the difficulty of the circumstances and had hopes that yaad, true to his name, would serve as a spiritual guide - not just for the kingdom itself, but maybe even for thistle.

however, even with all that in mind, the decision to return to the surface was mutually agreed upon between yaad's parents due to the psychological toll of immortality (plus, both their religions would definitely frown on its existence). after eodio's death, his wife went off with her people and the queen to search for an escape as a last resort. she and the queen left behind writings, books and such for yaad to find and to guide him while he grew up without them.

beyond that sliver of connection to her mother, yasmin had virtually nothing. even her catholicism was mostly her own choice, since neither delgal nor eodio were devotees of their own faith beyond what was necessary to be seen as respectable members of society. in yasmin's case, it was a way to cope with feeling disconnected from her body, from her family, from the world... but she struggles with losing even that connection after learning the demon had been posing as her god. on some level, she knows she's already started to deconstruct her beliefs inside the dungeon, but the loss is still palpable.

post-canon: she actually does try to build a deeper connection to her mother's culture, and... that's about all i feel capable of talking about at that point lol. i have more thoughts about her realizing she's trans through the way she relates to delgal's body - how it simultaneously feels like something meant for her, something she has always been, yet is also something that carries heavy scars because of her upbringing. it takes her a while to realize the euphoria comes from being grown, not from being a man lmao. i've mentioned in a different post that she learns herself better by relating to thistle's own experiences with gender, especially once she figures out it isn't solely an elven experience; in fact, she and thistle mirror one another's experiences so closely because their growth was stunted and then stretched out during critical periods of their lives, and that is something unique to them. being trans is something that bridges their understanding of one another to a fuller extent. i like to imagine they get to a point of feeling comforted by their shared connection rather than burdened by it, especially post-transition, when they both feel like different people and can start over on a cleaner slate.

fairy tale au: fun thing about the golden kingdom citizens in this au (and how i generally write them anyway) is they align pretty well with the fools of chelm from ashkenazi jewish folklore. obviously the citizens themselves aren't jewish - though not all of them are native to the kingdom either! there are citizens descended from people who came from neighboring lands - but given the vague laws of cosmological fuckery i've cooked up for this verse, they still end up falling under that broad "city archetype" by association with yaad/yasmin as their leader, who feels more emotionally connected to her mother than her father. they're just a bunch of sillies near the end of their wits.

also, there are presently no golems in the kingdom - they all followed the "deserters" who joined the princess, and only a few remain in the labyrinth in the present day