Stuff I Like @illsendumyconsultationfee - Tumblr Blog

I think that, with DCC, the fact that you're following around a white American man who blows stuff up and his talking cat is very intentional. There's a huge cast of diverse and interesting characters and you only get to know a little about them when they enter the Carl and Dounut sphere, but otherwise their story is lost.

But all of these characters that pop in and out of the Carl and Dounut show have conversations and struggles and do shit off screen that Carl constantly had to catch up on. Even the NPCs. They build friendships, have important conversations, and do things off screen that you as a reader really want to know about. They have rich backstories that you're teased with. But you can't know them since the narrative prioritizes Carl and Dounut to the exclusion of everyone else. You're constantly kept just out of the reach of knowledge, as if we could just get one chapter from this characters POV, if we could just see this conversation that happened off screen we would understand so much more.

But Carl and Dounut are extremely profitable, the most profitable crawlers ever even, this is something Carl exploits over and over again. But that's the story we, as an audience, get to see. The only story. And the narrative wants you to feel that loss.

And I don't think it would work as well if Carl didn't care so goddamn much about everyone. He carries the weight of the dead forward through the story, from the nameless millions lost on the first floor, to the people he wasn't able to save, to the friends and family he's lost, to even the ones that the dungeon made the absolute worst versions of themselves.

I keep going back to when Carl tells Tizquick on the fourth floor, "One day this pain you're feeling right now will matter." Because he can't save everyone, but he can make sure that their pain matters, that he can make the people in charge feel it too.

arcadianforests

One theme in DCC that I've been rolling around in my brain for weeks now is "If you were always doomed, does the love matter?"

Li Jun is one of the most obvious examples, he is saved by (and saves) Carl multiple times, and it doesn't matter because he dies on the ninth floor, right before the chance for freedom. What did it mean for Li Jun to struggle so much, only to die? Does the extra time with his sister and best friend outweigh all the pain and suffering he went through? Would it have been kinder to let him and his family die?

Annie's the other obvious one, the tragedy wasn't that Annie was sick and dying it's that she was denied the comfort of dying with someone who loved her! She was never going to live but the love that Katia gave her was real! Does it matter if it couldn't change anything? If Annie was only ever going to break Katia's heart should she have loved her in the first place?

The crawlers on the fifth floor as well, especially Langley and company, was it worth it to fight so hard to get off the fifth floor only to die early on the sixth? What does it mean if the second they gain confidence and purpose they just die? Was it worth it? Was it worth the struggle and pain?

If all of Signet's memories of her family are fake, if her whole family is fake, does her love still matter? Does her pain? Her hatred? Should she still fight for them?

Was Donut's love for Bea wasted? Do the moments of love and companionship between them mean nothing now because of Bea's betrayal? Were the moments between them fake even? If Bea had never taken Donut, Dount would never have met Carl, but is that they only thing she would lose?

What of Yvette? A girl born into a shitty family, who struggled and suffered to grow up only to die horribly and painfully and young. Would it have been kinder if she just died in the collapse?

Would it be better if Carl's mom never took him to the circus? Is it tarnished by the heartbreak that came after? Was suicide really the only way?

And the series over and over and over just goes: No! This is the only thing that matters! There will always, always, always be suffering and tragedy and heartbreak and death and you have to wrench joy and love and community from a world that wants to deny them to you! If you're doomed matter how hard you fight to survive then fight like hell anyway! Love even if it only leads to heartbreak! We can see these tragedies and call them unjust and fight for a better future but even if we never reach better the fight alone is worth it!

arcadianforests

Sometimes i think I'm reading in between the lines a little bit with DCC and Carl specifically because there's just something about Carl's wanton regard for his own safety and his relationship with his mother and how that's going to effect his relationship with Dounut i just aaagh

Like obviously Carl's already suvivor's guilt maxxing pre- dungeon. He deeply deeply desires connection and community and family, but he doesn't feel close to even the most prominent people in his life (Bea obviously but also Sam, who he's been friends with since before his mom died and even lived with for a time after getting out of state care). Like I think he's more deeply connected to any of his circle in the dungeon than anyone before. Like he immediately! picked up on Bautista and Katia dating but couldn't see his own girlfriend was cheating on him for years lol

Which exacerbates his martyr looking for a cause deal. He's always like "well if a sacrifice has to be made a sacrifice it should be me" and when he realizes in Bedlam Bride that he is now too important to sacrifice because he's a warlord, it's nothing but a deep and aching grief. He does not want to be the one who keeps soldiering on on the face of all this death. And if it came down to it he would unquestioningly die for Dounut because he cannot bear that grief. He talks a big game about having to keep going when their friends die but the entire universe knows that if Dounut dies he's done.

Because as much as the narrative shies away from naming it as such, Carl feels and treats Dounut as his daughter (I don't wanna get into it to much here but their relationship is paralleled with Dounut's relationship with Mongo, and Miriam's relationship with Prepotente, both of which are more explicitly parent/child). And so I keep coming back to what Signit said near the end of Butcher's Masquerade, about how Tina wants the same thing she does, the same thing Carl does: Tina wants her mother back. I'm convinced that, had he known, Carl would gladly choose to endure years more abuse at the hands of his father, if only his mother was alive and with him.

So I think a major part of the end of this series is Carl having to make a very deliberate choice to save himself, even if it means Dounut suffers for it. Because his mom made the other choice, and he knows it was the wrong one. His sacrifice needs to be bearing Dounut's pain with her, rather than trying to save her from it. Continuing to live and suffer is the harder choice, but it's the one he has to make.

soosmain

Miscs...E flavored.

These last three are part of my Agenda: back in Molech when he stole from the chaos gods, i like to think that getting the attention of the prince of pleasure itself demanded more than a simple trick, a preliminary offering, so to speak. (They absolutely wrecked him)

And bonus: seven years for this

pomellon

Been sitting on these for a solid month now so I figured it’s time to post em! AU in which an aging and frail Grace gets his consciousness transfered to an eridian body to extend his life :D

Some notes:

magpiesketchins

maladomani

Love this picture of Prepotente and Bianca! By Andrew Mar.

#dungeon crawler carl #DCC

greenekangaroo

I am only partially through Anarchist's Cookbook but I think we can all agree that Carl's method of problem solving is just. Top tier.

Carl: we will solve this problem with logical steps

Every Other Crawler In Range: you're just. You're just holding dynamite

Carl double fisting explosives that could kill a man with fumes alone: Logical Steps

Only its even BETTER because he doesn't even REALIZE he's doing it?? Like the dynamite is perfectly reasonable look at his flow chart that begins and ends in 'blow them up and steal they stuff' honestly he knows what he's doing calm down and be ready to FUCKING RUN

#dungeon crawler carl #dcc