Mithrun & Drives & Self-harm

Warning's in the title, let's rock and roll.

So there's a super-circulated extra about Mithrun's recovery after having been rescued from his conquered dungeon.

And I don't know how widely known it is that this image is cropped, or that it contains something I consider pretty essential to his character.

The top two thirds of the page are upsetting in a suggestive way. The final third is very explicit.

I understand the impulse to remove the explicit imagery of self harm from something you scatter around God's internet where it could upset literally anyone. At the same time, I think something's lost when you can't contrast 'He spent most of his days lying down, either sleeping or awake,' with the visceral imagery of him struggling to get out of that position, into which he has been strapped. It's less affecting if your initial impression (that he is totally passive) is not subverted.

Without this, it's too easy to assume that his aversion to things like mirrors and birds is due a vague Upset it might cause him, and that keeping sharp things and fire from him is due to an absence of self preservational drive.

But it's not like that. These are precautions undertaken because he has drives.

How much of that lying down is due to being passive, and how much is compulsory? How much time did he spend restrained, since this was a known problem? The restraints themselves harm him, which is kind of inevitable considering how determined he is to escape.

To me, this does point to him actually having agency and motivation. It's not motivation to do anything positive, but it's present.

And it makes sense, right, that he'd be motivated to self destruction when it turns out his quest has been (unbeknownst even to himself) to be completely consumed by the Demon?

Something that feels important about Mithrun, to me, is that he doesn't fucking like himself, and I don't think he ever did.

He's judgmental of his past self despite not ever confessing to being, you know, cruel to anyone. His issue is with his internality, which was an insecure and petty one. Externally, other characters did not perceive him that way. Milsiril doesn't dislike him because he's cruel or because she can tell he's only pretending to like people, she hated him because he was well-liked while she struggled to make any friends at all. I don't think he'd be so well-liked, or basically intimidate Milsiril with his bubbliness, if he was an outwardly nasty person.

It's important to me to point out Milsiril's perspective, because it confirms what's said in Kabru's truncated version of events: Mithrun was well-liked, and people's perception of him was positive. He was not behaving in a way that would drive others away.

He just can't be close to people, not genuinely. He's nice for the same reason he's always finding reasons to look down on others, for the same reasons he can't resist the Demon's offer, for the same reason he hurts himself. He does not like the person he is, whatever that person does, and he is convinced that no one else could truly like that person either.

I have another equally disjointed post in me about the parallels between the Demon and actual dynamics of abusive relationships, but key to this one is the fact that Mithrun's vulnerabilities - that he has learned love is conditional, that he cannot bring himself to interface with people genuinely, that he has been discarded by a family whose care for him was ultimately superficial, that he does not see himself as good or worthwhile - make his admission of having felt loved by the Demon super heartbreaking. Considering what it offered him, I suspect the hole left in his heart was exceptionally large.

It might feel easy to brush off Mithrun's behavior in the early days of his recuperation as simply erratic, but I see it as very purposeful and very much inkeeping with his character. He had a love that he could convince himself came without conditions, that promised an emotional security that he could allow himself to rely on, and it was withdrawn from him in a way that is undeniably violent and violating.

I don't look at the image of him hurting himself and see someone acting erratically because their mind has been magically broken. I see someone in an understandable, mundane kind of complete despair.

On that same note, I see his later dedication to returning to service as a simple redirection of the original self destructive drive. Mithrun doesn't even consciously understand this about himself, he labels this desire as anger and vengeance when it's really the exact same drive he's had all along: to either be loved or not be at all.

...

happy holidays? i don't have a button for this.

Tags

tw sa dungeon meshi mithrun tw sh urhghhgghhhh he makes me feel insane

More Posts from Lemonsharkk and Others

lemonsharkk

4 months ago

i dont even mind angsty art of tavroses abuse but the amount of people who make vriska so comically evil and malicious and everyone just accepts it as 100% canon is really weird . the tragedy of their situation is that vriska is acting out of her own hurt + jealousy ; i wouldnt even argue she hates tavros , i think she hates what tavros being happy means for her - that she is a product of abuse and a deeply flawed society , and that it isnt just ' natural ' for people to grow up cruel and defensive like her , she is seeing someone who grew up in similar circumstances ( on alternia , their individual situations are obviously pretty different ) and who is happy and who is peaceful and she refuses to come to terms with what that means . so she just says tavros is weak and this kind of grotesquely twists back around to vriska trying to make tavros Like Her - cruel and defensive ! so thats where the abuse comes in . its a very twisted result of vriska ' caring ' about tavros and her whole worldview of strength coming from abuse i mean hardship and refusal to accept the fact that she herself is a victim .

vriska isnt cruel to tavros out of any traditional idea of hatred , at least not to me , but because tavros existing the way she does contradicts her worldview and if she thinks about it for too long shell realise that she is a victim and that she didnt need to turn out like this in a circumstance that was in any way healthy . that the fact that she needed to do this to survive is a fundamental flaw of the world she grew up in , and that tavros being the way she is isnt a fault of tavroses , or a sign of weakness . but she is a thirteen year old girl who has been told to think like this her whole life .

when vriska kisses tavros and gets rejected , she feels pathetic for not responding by forcing reciprocation . when she eventually kills tavros , she feels pathetic for feeling guilty . she is the first one to acknowledge how fucked up she acted in the dream bubbles

stop watering down their relationship to ' vriska is evil and a bitch and tavros is good and a wimp ' . their whole relationship is built on vriskas own abuse and would not exist the way it does if she was more well adjusted . youre allowed to feel sorry for tavros , youre allowed to dislike vriska , but you are doing a major disservice to both of their characters by struggling to understand the nuance !!!

Tags

homestuck tavros nitram vriska serket she's an asshole to Tavros most of the time but her situation makes me so sad to belive that the only way of living is by adapting to the violent Alternian society... to the point she cant accept she isnt happy with it cause it would contradict her whole belief system so fucked uppp

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lemonsharkk

2 years ago

Me every freaking night

Me: "I really need to catch some sleep."

*opens fanfiction tab*

*finds 200k fanfic*

Me: "Sleep is cancelled now."

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lemonsharkk

1 year ago

Pixel residents

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lemonsharkk

2 years ago

just three of em

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lemonsharkk

8 months ago

plains

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arthur morgan so good red dead redemption 2 charles smith hmmm the colors

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lemonsharkk

1 year ago

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lemonsharkk

4 months ago

Hi

Can you donate to me now? I am from Gaza and I am in a very urgent need and I need these donations. I want to buy blankets for my three children. I live in a tent made of fabric, which does not protect us from the cold. It is raining and there are not enough blankets to cover my children. It is cold and bitter and my children are shivering from the cold.

Every day children in Gaza die from cold and hunger. I do not want to lose one of my children after I lost my house, which was bombed and demolished. Please help me, even if just a little. Please do not let me down, my friend. The world left me and I knocked on your door.

Will you answer me?

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✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #426 )✅️

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free gaza vetted palestinian donations

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lemonsharkk

2 years ago

did you know in season 5 of gotham ed spends so much time searching for oswald due to a false memory that lead him to believe oswald did something to damage his brain but when he finds him and confronts him oswald tells him that he would never do something like that and that if they are ever at odds again he will know he is his enemy which is so much more than oswald could say for anyone else as he is like so constantly backstabbing lying and betraying people but for ed he swears to be honest and he pushes the barrel of ed’s gun right to his heart and ed realizes that when he though oswald said “i’m going to fix you, ed” he was saying it with LOVE and ed looks at him and swears to him that if that day comes he will stare him in the eye as he stabs him in the heart and oswald SMILES which is so insane and also he named his DOG EDWARD and then they spend the rest of the technically-apocalypse planning to build a submarine and run away together but when oswald decides to stay back and fight for gotham ed begs him to stay and says “following your heart has never worked out for you” TALKING ABOUT HIS OWN FUCKING SELF and oswald looks at him and tells him he should spend more time listening to THIS (poking his heart) instead of THIS (pointing to his head) and then do you know what ed fucking does he SHOWS UP AT THE LAST MINUTE TO COME AND FIGHT WITH OSWALD and it is FOR OSWALD because oswald gives a big speech about gotham being his home and ed is like yeah me too what he said whatever and during the battle someone throws a grenade at them and oswald screams “eddie” and without a second thought covers ed to protect him and LOSES AN EYE and afterwards ed is apologizing profusely for not doing anything (“i saw the grenade and i froze”) which he has never done to oswald or anyone really oswald cuts him off and just says “it was the least i could do” which is insane and when he asks ed if its bad and shows it to him ed says no but he gags and it cant be because he was grossed out because he was literally a forensic guy and a serial killer its because he cant see oswald hurt like that and after everything after the battle theyre fuming in a little room about how “that BITCH stole our submarine” and all their treasures and ed says he felt NOTHING for the people of gotham as he was fighting WHICH FUCKING CONFIRMS that he came back for OSWALD and oswald alone he doesn’t care about gotham but he wouldn’t leave oswald and he has some big speech about never taking the knee to anyone in gotham again and oswald says theyd be stronger together and ed is like perhaps and oswalds like oh this bitch is playing games and ed’s like let’s shake on it and oswalds like are you fucking kidding me we’re HUGGING you idiot but he takes a knife out of his boot surreptitiously and ed takes a knife out of his pocket surreptitiously and they hug and they hold the knives to eachothers backs but oswald tears up and he doesn’t do it of course he doesn’t he couldn’t kill him and assumes ed will stab him but he doesnt either he SMILES and when oswald moves to pull away ED HOLDS HIM TIGHTER AND DOESNT LET HIM because theyre in fucking LOVE. hello

do you understand. do you understand.

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lemonsharkk

3 months ago