Thistle (Dungeon Meshi) v. Alan Wake (Alan Wake 2)
Thistle
Alan
Voting ended onApr 22
Propaganda
Thistle:
Thistle: extremely tragic doomed elf. was either abandoned or sold as a small child (in the section of the dungeon meshi adventurer)s bible about elf names it says thistle doesn’t know his bv he was ‘taken’ from his parents too young) and given to the king as a gift. the king was initially disappointed that he was a kid but then took to him and called him a son (but I feel like he probably didn’t see him as a real son, more like a pet or a cute little thing. not a real son). so he was made the court jester.
yeah that little baby elf was taken from his parents to be laughed at because the king wanted an elf to be a cool trophy and make him look powerful but that was the closest thing thistle had to a family now. was either a servant or horrifically enough could have been a slave
he’s the only elf growing up around only tallmen, and the only brown person around white people. he is very lonely except for Prince Delgal, who is like a brother to him. Of course, Thistle becomes intensely attached to Delgal, and Delgal becomes attached to him. Even as Delgal aged past thistle and became an adult while thistle remained a child, delgal looked up to him .
after the first king was assassinated in front of Thistle and Delgal at Delgal’s wedding, Delgal became King and Thistle was made court mage. he was likely a child or teen at this point. thistle also seemed to be an advisor— he was a kid with the weight of a crumbling kingdom on his shoulders.
(DUNGEON MESHI MANGA SPOILERS FROM NOW ONWARDS) plague, famine, enemies on all sides. delgal begged thistle to save his dying son, to them all, so he did: by becoming a dungeon lord.
he put the entire country into the dubgeon to protect them all by using the power of a demon that pretended to be the country’s god. thistle healed everyone, kept them from starvation and death, but nothing was ever enough.
not to mention the demon was eating away at Thistle’s very soul and systematically driving him insane.
Thistle became obsessive and paranoid, struggling with his mental health to the point he canonically self harms. he ended up killing delgal’s son by ripping his soul out for a ‘time out’ and never putting it back, so far gone he couldn’t understand he just killed delgal’s son.
eventually, delgal escaped by possessing his son’s empty body and fleeing to the surface where he turned to dust. his last words promised the kingdom to whoever killed the ‘lunatic magician’.
yes. Delgal, who Thistle tore himself apart for, asked for him to be murdered.
this is getting really long so i’ll be fast about the next bits.
thistle turned a woman into a dragon to make her form more convenient and starved her while genuinely not realising he was starving her, he had wood impaling his limbs while someone told him about how delgal wanted him dead, Thistle scratched himself so bad blood was all over his head, then Laios (MC) explained to Thistle how the kingdom wanted to be free by telling him about how they couldn’t eat.
thistle was too far gone to understand.
he thought they wanted help eating.
eager to help as always he …… put laios in a force feeding plant and planned to do the same to everyone. he happily thought ablout fixing everything and having fun with delgal because!! of course delgal was gonna come back!!
then the demon pounced on him and slowly licked out his soul in a way that feels like he was being violated.
thistle was terrified of disappearing. he was left a husk anyway. thistle then goes into a catatonic state .
he briefly wakes up when ‘delgal’ (who is not actually delgal but yaad his grandson possessing delgal’s empty husk) is holding him and delgal apologises to him.
but it’s not really delgal. delgal never apologises. delgal died asking for thistle to be killed.
thistle very likely died soon after.
he refused to eat because he ‘didn’t need anything anymore’.
the demon had eaten his desires—his hopes and dreams, his desire to see delgal’s face, his desire to not disappear, his blood wnd sweat and tears and fierce love for his kingdom and the closest thing he ever had to a family, even his desire to eat.
to live.
gone.
someone so deeply passionate torn and exploited until he had so little left to give that he couldn’t even keep himself alive anymore.
no more motivation to live.
to make things even sadder—due to implications in the extra materials and manga, it is very likely thistle was under 16 in elf years (under 80) when he stopped aging and so could still be considered a child when he died. he was probably about 12-15 in elf years. even if he isn’t a kid, his story is extremely tragic.
and THAT is why he is the SADDEST SAD BOY. VOTE THISTLE!!: he deserves to win something .also he is 130cm. TINY. that is average 9 yo size, TINYYY
@fleshmesh
@dykemithrun
can i add more propaganda whatever
ive seen a good few fans talk about how thistle subconsciously made falin into a sort of mother figure for himself. thistle never got to really know his own mother as far as we can tell, and given that we dont even know the house hes from its likely he doesnt even remember her. its such a huge part of his backstory that the adults in his life put him in a position where he had to grow up way too fast, and had so much responsibility put solely on his shoulders when he was still effectively a teenager, so it does feel pretty significant for him to have this woman he doesnt even know protect him in the ways that she does while more or less under his control
also this moment is always so heartbreaking to me… in the midst of the demon devouring his desires he was scrambling for delgal (most likely), while in a state of confusion. but delgal is already gone. and the insanity brought on by the demon had pushed everyone else from the kingdom away too. in his last fully conscious moments there was no one he had to reach out to for comfort, except for a near stranger who hed just been trying to kill. he really didnt meaningfully have anyone else left
that combined with all the previously mentioned obvious backstory stuff (trafficked for the purpose of essentially being a prop to make melini look more official, watching someone who was a father figure to him die in a pretty gruesome assassination, all the fruitless waiting for delgal to return when hed died calling for thistle to be killed, the demon slowly driving him insane before eating him in such a horrific way etc etc etc) makes it clear thistle deserves a win imo! his entirely story is so incredibly sad! vote thistle!!
@fleshmesh
Just look how tiny he is in that last panel too
Like throughout the thistle chapters we are realising just how small he is.
The chapters previously used angles to make him appear larger to emphasise his power, but these later chapters frequently show how small he is.
Him walking beside delgal and just reaching his elbow. Delgal enthusiastically hitting him on the back and he almost falls over! Laios carrying Thistle on his back like a backpack
And finally, this last scene.
He looks so tiny beside Marcille. She is so much bigger than him.
He is so powerful but so small.
He is just a kid.
@fleshmesh
Oh, also you know how it is mentioned that the desire/soul eating scene feels like thistle is being violated? That’s because he is. I looked up the definition of sexual assault and it is actual straight up sexual assault because the demon is clearly getting pleasure from doing it and Thistle very clearly is NOT okay
Alan Wake:
A sad wet man of a writer who's stuck in a hell of his own making and he just wants to get home to his wife.
@thesarkycoder
@mageless
Alan deserves this so fucking much. Sopping wet rag of a man who has been scurrying about the torment nexus for n-thousand years. Absolute wreck of a human being.
@icurseyouthomaszane
Alan spent 13 years in a literal hell of his own making to save his wife.
@estelraca
I love Leverage. I love Eliot. But Eliot has his team. He has an opportunity to heal, and love, and support. He's actively working to make the world a better place; to keep more people like him from existing.
Alan? Alan is alone. All those he loves are in danger. Every action he takes to try to fix things makes them worse. Trying to get your life back? Kills a child. Destroys a town. Everyone who knows things talks in riddles to him; everyone who doesn't blames him for powers he doesn't understand and can't control (or that are being controlled by his OCD/anxiety, which... same thing).
Alan is the saddest wet cat of a man who keeps desperately hoping a strong woman will save him, because after fifteen years in the Torment Nexus, memory and sense of self torn asunder, he's pretty damn sure he's not saving himself.
@moose-in-jeans
#PLEASE vote alan he sucks so bad at everything#he's just so sad all the time and doesn't do anything about it besides monologue and touch his typewriter
@kayyymn
#the sadboy tourney#I mean propaganda worked on me in a way that I’m really interested in leverage now#but as for the poll#come on#people write about 13 years but it’s 13 years to the world and us the audience#for him it’s a literal never ending nightmare#bc the sense of time for him is warped he genuinely doesn’t know how long he’s been there#all he knows is he’s trying to escape and he couldn’t do it#try after try after try after try#there’s a sizable portion of fandom that likes to blame alan for lots of things#but ngl I’m pretty surprised he’d managed to keep some type of sense of self after all of this#ps i don’t like people framing it as him being a loser for being stuck in the dark place for so long given how *spoiler* and *spoiler*#were able to navigate it pretty easily#well yes the prison designed specifically for you and unaddressed mental health issues will do that to you#that’s the point ain’t it#alan wake
@cauldronlakefiles
#Sam Lake made his deaths gory and awful so that he could emphasize how much Alan was suffering#NOT so he could lose in the Sad Competition#(Can't remember where he said that so take it with a grain of salt)#But yeah he was trapped in a room#Cut off from the real world and other people for the most part#Except for when he astral projected into his stories (and met Tim hooray)#Had a few fun moments (the musical and Number One Fan)#and I think that's what gets people thinking it was an alright experience#The rest of his time down there was Not Fun#He never slept and was regularly killed in increasingly terrible ways#Went insane when he had long enough time and sense to Contemplate#and presumably lost his memory when he died or blocked it out/disassociated to cope#And the only thing that pulled him out of his deathwish#was Thomas Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss Seine#terrorizing him with the idea of Scratch harming Alice#VOTE ALAN WAKE#alan wake#alan wake (the man)
@flyingwide
#this might actually be the hardest poll I've ever seen#I love them both so much#BUT I TAKE ISSUE WITH ALAN'S PROPOGANDA#first: you cannot ignore the fact that a supernatural fucking darkness monster#took his wife into its creepy ass clutches#and this man immediately went 'I will throw myself into hell to get her out'#literally something out of myth#I've seen people call him Orpheus but he's Alcestis#(yes this makes Saga Heracles)#(which tracks with the lost child thing)#second: Saga got out of the Dark Place hella fast for the same reason she was able to get through the door to the construction site#she's her daddy's daughter#but Alan is still a wet kitten man#polls
First of all, many people in the tags talk about Alan being sad and wet but in the picture in the voting post he's not sad nor wet, just terrified. So I brought you some evidence! We've got many different flavours:
Classic Sad and Wet™, because he spends days upon days upon days upon days trapped in the dimension that manifests the horror story he writes into reality and boy oh boy does it sucks to be your own horror story protagonist.
No comfort, no break, no pause from the horrors and dying over and over and trying to find a plot that will get him out of this nightmare without even knowing if it's possible and he has valid reasons to think that it is not possible at all, because he's been going like that for years, 13 years to people in the outside world and, as someone already stated in the tags, god knows how much for Alan himself, because the place he's trapped in fucks your mind up, makes you lose track of time and makes you doubt what's real and what's fiction and what's fiction about to come to life.This is what The Dark Place does to a person:
And all his attempts have been useless. All beacons of hope he has is untrustworthy. Every mistake he makes hurts either him or other people terribly. He wanted to save his wife from the similar fate, and this is what he gets for it.
And you might think it'll get better when he gets out. Well I have a surprise for you
It will not.
Because the need to get out is only half of the problem. The other half is the cost of his salvation. He can try to adjust the plot in his favor, but it always comes at a price of others dying and adding to his guilt when he learns the truth. It's only this or he keeps suffering forever. There's no third option. And when he finally gets out, he has to face the consequences of what seemed to him as making a story with characters he met in a visions in The Dark Place, which turned out to be real people. Once again, Alan tried to do something good (this time for himself), but the result is just another disaster.
Some other facts about him if you're still hesitating:
- throughout some part of the plot he is convinced that his inability to stop the evil being of darkness resulted in his wife, who he tried to save so hard, commiting suicide
- said being takes his form as an evil double, so he is also convinced that his wife died believing that it was him who tormented her
- he has technically spent all this time in the writer's room, while all the travelling through The Dark Place is him projecting himself into the story, so he's both trapped in one singular room for years AND killed in many terrible ways in the streets of eldritch version of New York at the same time
You guys a come on. Alan Wake is the most pathetic sad man in existence. He spent 13 years trying to get back to his wife. Fucking if everyone else's lives for it to happen only to get upstaged by his wife as she saves her own ass.
Thistle (Dungeon Meshi) v. Alan Wake (Alan Wake 2)
Thistle
Alan
Voting ended onApr 22
Propaganda
Thistle:
Thistle: extremely tragic doomed elf. was either abandoned or sold as a small child (in the section of the dungeon meshi adventurer)s bible about elf names it says thistle doesn’t know his bv he was ‘taken’ from his parents too young) and given to the king as a gift. the king was initially disappointed that he was a kid but then took to him and called him a son (but I feel like he probably didn’t see him as a real son, more like a pet or a cute little thing. not a real son). so he was made the court jester.
yeah that little baby elf was taken from his parents to be laughed at because the king wanted an elf to be a cool trophy and make him look powerful but that was the closest thing thistle had to a family now. was either a servant or horrifically enough could have been a slave
he’s the only elf growing up around only tallmen, and the only brown person around white people. he is very lonely except for Prince Delgal, who is like a brother to him. Of course, Thistle becomes intensely attached to Delgal, and Delgal becomes attached to him. Even as Delgal aged past thistle and became an adult while thistle remained a child, delgal looked up to him .
after the first king was assassinated in front of Thistle and Delgal at Delgal’s wedding, Delgal became King and Thistle was made court mage. he was likely a child or teen at this point. thistle also seemed to be an advisor— he was a kid with the weight of a crumbling kingdom on his shoulders.
(DUNGEON MESHI MANGA SPOILERS FROM NOW ONWARDS) plague, famine, enemies on all sides. delgal begged thistle to save his dying son, to them all, so he did: by becoming a dungeon lord.
he put the entire country into the dubgeon to protect them all by using the power of a demon that pretended to be the country’s god. thistle healed everyone, kept them from starvation and death, but nothing was ever enough.
not to mention the demon was eating away at Thistle’s very soul and systematically driving him insane.
Thistle became obsessive and paranoid, struggling with his mental health to the point he canonically self harms. he ended up killing delgal’s son by ripping his soul out for a ‘time out’ and never putting it back, so far gone he couldn’t understand he just killed delgal’s son.
eventually, delgal escaped by possessing his son’s empty body and fleeing to the surface where he turned to dust. his last words promised the kingdom to whoever killed the ‘lunatic magician’.
yes. Delgal, who Thistle tore himself apart for, asked for him to be murdered.
this is getting really long so i’ll be fast about the next bits.
thistle turned a woman into a dragon to make her form more convenient and starved her while genuinely not realising he was starving her, he had wood impaling his limbs while someone told him about how delgal wanted him dead, Thistle scratched himself so bad blood was all over his head, then Laios (MC) explained to Thistle how the kingdom wanted to be free by telling him about how they couldn’t eat.
thistle was too far gone to understand.
he thought they wanted help eating.
eager to help as always he …… put laios in a force feeding plant and planned to do the same to everyone. he happily thought ablout fixing everything and having fun with delgal because!! of course delgal was gonna come back!!
then the demon pounced on him and slowly licked out his soul in a way that feels like he was being violated.
thistle was terrified of disappearing. he was left a husk anyway. thistle then goes into a catatonic state .
he briefly wakes up when ‘delgal’ (who is not actually delgal but yaad his grandson possessing delgal’s empty husk) is holding him and delgal apologises to him.
but it’s not really delgal. delgal never apologises. delgal died asking for thistle to be killed.
thistle very likely died soon after.
he refused to eat because he ‘didn’t need anything anymore’.
the demon had eaten his desires—his hopes and dreams, his desire to see delgal’s face, his desire to not disappear, his blood wnd sweat and tears and fierce love for his kingdom and the closest thing he ever had to a family, even his desire to eat.
to live.
gone.
someone so deeply passionate torn and exploited until he had so little left to give that he couldn’t even keep himself alive anymore.
no more motivation to live.
to make things even sadder—due to implications in the extra materials and manga, it is very likely thistle was under 16 in elf years (under 80) when he stopped aging and so could still be considered a child when he died. he was probably about 12-15 in elf years. even if he isn’t a kid, his story is extremely tragic.
and THAT is why he is the SADDEST SAD BOY. VOTE THISTLE!!: he deserves to win something .also he is 130cm. TINY. that is average 9 yo size, TINYYY
@fleshmesh
@dykemithrun
can i add more propaganda whatever
ive seen a good few fans talk about how thistle subconsciously made falin into a sort of mother figure for himself. thistle never got to really know his own mother as far as we can tell, and given that we dont even know the house hes from its likely he doesnt even remember her. its such a huge part of his backstory that the adults in his life put him in a position where he had to grow up way too fast, and had so much responsibility put solely on his shoulders when he was still effectively a teenager, so it does feel pretty significant for him to have this woman he doesnt even know protect him in the ways that she does while more or less under his control
also this moment is always so heartbreaking to me… in the midst of the demon devouring his desires he was scrambling for delgal (most likely), while in a state of confusion. but delgal is already gone. and the insanity brought on by the demon had pushed everyone else from the kingdom away too. in his last fully conscious moments there was no one he had to reach out to for comfort, except for a near stranger who hed just been trying to kill. he really didnt meaningfully have anyone else left
that combined with all the previously mentioned obvious backstory stuff (trafficked for the purpose of essentially being a prop to make melini look more official, watching someone who was a father figure to him die in a pretty gruesome assassination, all the fruitless waiting for delgal to return when hed died calling for thistle to be killed, the demon slowly driving him insane before eating him in such a horrific way etc etc etc) makes it clear thistle deserves a win imo! his entirely story is so incredibly sad! vote thistle!!
@fleshmesh
Just look how tiny he is in that last panel too
Like throughout the thistle chapters we are realising just how small he is.
The chapters previously used angles to make him appear larger to emphasise his power, but these later chapters frequently show how small he is.
Him walking beside delgal and just reaching his elbow. Delgal enthusiastically hitting him on the back and he almost falls over! Laios carrying Thistle on his back like a backpack
And finally, this last scene.
He looks so tiny beside Marcille. She is so much bigger than him.
He is so powerful but so small.
He is just a kid.
@fleshmesh
Oh, also you know how it is mentioned that the desire/soul eating scene feels like thistle is being violated? That’s because he is. I looked up the definition of sexual assault and it is actual straight up sexual assault because the demon is clearly getting pleasure from doing it and Thistle very clearly is NOT okay
Alan Wake:
A sad wet man of a writer who's stuck in a hell of his own making and he just wants to get home to his wife.
@thesarkycoder
@mageless
Alan deserves this so fucking much. Sopping wet rag of a man who has been scurrying about the torment nexus for n-thousand years. Absolute wreck of a human being.
@icurseyouthomaszane
Alan spent 13 years in a literal hell of his own making to save his wife.
@estelraca
I love Leverage. I love Eliot. But Eliot has his team. He has an opportunity to heal, and love, and support. He's actively working to make the world a better place; to keep more people like him from existing.
Alan? Alan is alone. All those he loves are in danger. Every action he takes to try to fix things makes them worse. Trying to get your life back? Kills a child. Destroys a town. Everyone who knows things talks in riddles to him; everyone who doesn't blames him for powers he doesn't understand and can't control (or that are being controlled by his OCD/anxiety, which... same thing).
Alan is the saddest wet cat of a man who keeps desperately hoping a strong woman will save him, because after fifteen years in the Torment Nexus, memory and sense of self torn asunder, he's pretty damn sure he's not saving himself.
@moose-in-jeans
#PLEASE vote alan he sucks so bad at everything#he's just so sad all the time and doesn't do anything about it besides monologue and touch his typewriter
@kayyymn
#the sadboy tourney#I mean propaganda worked on me in a way that I’m really interested in leverage now#but as for the poll#come on#people write about 13 years but it’s 13 years to the world and us the audience#for him it’s a literal never ending nightmare#bc the sense of time for him is warped he genuinely doesn’t know how long he’s been there#all he knows is he’s trying to escape and he couldn’t do it#try after try after try after try#there’s a sizable portion of fandom that likes to blame alan for lots of things#but ngl I’m pretty surprised he’d managed to keep some type of sense of self after all of this#ps i don’t like people framing it as him being a loser for being stuck in the dark place for so long given how *spoiler* and *spoiler*#were able to navigate it pretty easily#well yes the prison designed specifically for you and unaddressed mental health issues will do that to you#that’s the point ain’t it#alan wake
@cauldronlakefiles
#Sam Lake made his deaths gory and awful so that he could emphasize how much Alan was suffering#NOT so he could lose in the Sad Competition#(Can't remember where he said that so take it with a grain of salt)#But yeah he was trapped in a room#Cut off from the real world and other people for the most part#Except for when he astral projected into his stories (and met Tim hooray)#Had a few fun moments (the musical and Number One Fan)#and I think that's what gets people thinking it was an alright experience#The rest of his time down there was Not Fun#He never slept and was regularly killed in increasingly terrible ways#Went insane when he had long enough time and sense to Contemplate#and presumably lost his memory when he died or blocked it out/disassociated to cope#And the only thing that pulled him out of his deathwish#was Thomas Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss Seine#terrorizing him with the idea of Scratch harming Alice#VOTE ALAN WAKE#alan wake#alan wake (the man)
@flyingwide
#this might actually be the hardest poll I've ever seen#I love them both so much#BUT I TAKE ISSUE WITH ALAN'S PROPOGANDA#first: you cannot ignore the fact that a supernatural fucking darkness monster#took his wife into its creepy ass clutches#and this man immediately went 'I will throw myself into hell to get her out'#literally something out of myth#I've seen people call him Orpheus but he's Alcestis#(yes this makes Saga Heracles)#(which tracks with the lost child thing)#second: Saga got out of the Dark Place hella fast for the same reason she was able to get through the door to the construction site#she's her daddy's daughter#but Alan is still a wet kitten man#polls
First of all, many people in the tags talk about Alan being sad and wet but in the picture in the voting post he's not sad nor wet, just terrified. So I brought you some evidence! We've got many different flavours:
Classic Sad and Wet™, because he spends days upon days upon days upon days trapped in the dimension that manifests the horror story he writes into reality and boy oh boy does it sucks to be your own horror story protagonist.
No comfort, no break, no pause from the horrors and dying over and over and trying to find a plot that will get him out of this nightmare without even knowing if it's possible and he has valid reasons to think that it is not possible at all, because he's been going like that for years, 13 years to people in the outside world and, as someone already stated in the tags, god knows how much for Alan himself, because the place he's trapped in fucks your mind up, makes you lose track of time and makes you doubt what's real and what's fiction and what's fiction about to come to life.This is what The Dark Place does to a person:
And all his attempts have been useless. All beacons of hope he has is untrustworthy. Every mistake he makes hurts either him or other people terribly. He wanted to save his wife from the similar fate, and this is what he gets for it.
And you might think it'll get better when he gets out. Well I have a surprise for you
It will not.
Because the need to get out is only half of the problem. The other half is the cost of his salvation. He can try to adjust the plot in his favor, but it always comes at a price of others dying and adding to his guilt when he learns the truth. It's only this or he keeps suffering forever. There's no third option. And when he finally gets out, he has to face the consequences of what seemed to him as making a story with characters he met in a visions in The Dark Place, which turned out to be real people. Once again, Alan tried to do something good (this time for himself), but the result is just another disaster.
Some other facts about him if you're still hesitating:
- throughout some part of the plot he is convinced that his inability to stop the evil being of darkness resulted in his wife, who he tried to save so hard, commiting suicide
- said being takes his form as an evil double, so he is also convinced that his wife died believing that it was him who tormented her
- he has technically spent all this time in the writer's room, while all the travelling through The Dark Place is him projecting himself into the story, so he's both trapped in one singular room for years AND killed in many terrible ways in the streets of eldritch version of New York at the same time
Why does he continue to attempt to escape when he knows it only hurts other people? Outside parties—whether that's Zane, the OG Mr. Scratch (who is actually not Alan) or the Dark Place makes him forget so that he is willing to try again. Every time he stops writing, he gets killed, originally established in AWAN. It is also heavily implied that he has attempted suicide, but he can't die down in the Dark Place. I don't know if he can die at all!
He has the same issue as, hilariously enough, Steven Universe in that he is constantly referred to as his creator/father (Tom Zane) and blamed for his actions, even as Zane's friends are constantly reminiscing about him and refuse to acknowledge Wake as a person separate from Zane.
Everything is his fault. Somehow. But he is eternally confused and unaware of what's going on outside of his little room and so he doesn't get why everybody is (understandably) pissed (but also forgive him for he knows not what he hath done)
Literally the people that are supposed to be helping him are just being insanely vague and manipulative.
(I should also add that while Wake does want out of his Torment Nexus, his priority was saving his wife and the world from Scratch. That is the motivation that Zane relies on, because as he said, Wake wouldn't write otherwise.)
Thistle (Dungeon Meshi) v. Alan Wake (Alan Wake 2)
Thistle
Alan
Voting ended onApr 22
Propaganda
Thistle:
Thistle: extremely tragic doomed elf. was either abandoned or sold as a small child (in the section of the dungeon meshi adventurer)s bible about elf names it says thistle doesn’t know his bv he was ‘taken’ from his parents too young) and given to the king as a gift. the king was initially disappointed that he was a kid but then took to him and called him a son (but I feel like he probably didn’t see him as a real son, more like a pet or a cute little thing. not a real son). so he was made the court jester.
yeah that little baby elf was taken from his parents to be laughed at because the king wanted an elf to be a cool trophy and make him look powerful but that was the closest thing thistle had to a family now. was either a servant or horrifically enough could have been a slave
he’s the only elf growing up around only tallmen, and the only brown person around white people. he is very lonely except for Prince Delgal, who is like a brother to him. Of course, Thistle becomes intensely attached to Delgal, and Delgal becomes attached to him. Even as Delgal aged past thistle and became an adult while thistle remained a child, delgal looked up to him .
after the first king was assassinated in front of Thistle and Delgal at Delgal’s wedding, Delgal became King and Thistle was made court mage. he was likely a child or teen at this point. thistle also seemed to be an advisor— he was a kid with the weight of a crumbling kingdom on his shoulders.
(DUNGEON MESHI MANGA SPOILERS FROM NOW ONWARDS) plague, famine, enemies on all sides. delgal begged thistle to save his dying son, to them all, so he did: by becoming a dungeon lord.
he put the entire country into the dubgeon to protect them all by using the power of a demon that pretended to be the country’s god. thistle healed everyone, kept them from starvation and death, but nothing was ever enough.
not to mention the demon was eating away at Thistle’s very soul and systematically driving him insane.
Thistle became obsessive and paranoid, struggling with his mental health to the point he canonically self harms. he ended up killing delgal’s son by ripping his soul out for a ‘time out’ and never putting it back, so far gone he couldn’t understand he just killed delgal’s son.
eventually, delgal escaped by possessing his son’s empty body and fleeing to the surface where he turned to dust. his last words promised the kingdom to whoever killed the ‘lunatic magician’.
yes. Delgal, who Thistle tore himself apart for, asked for him to be murdered.
this is getting really long so i’ll be fast about the next bits.
thistle turned a woman into a dragon to make her form more convenient and starved her while genuinely not realising he was starving her, he had wood impaling his limbs while someone told him about how delgal wanted him dead, Thistle scratched himself so bad blood was all over his head, then Laios (MC) explained to Thistle how the kingdom wanted to be free by telling him about how they couldn’t eat.
thistle was too far gone to understand.
he thought they wanted help eating.
eager to help as always he …… put laios in a force feeding plant and planned to do the same to everyone. he happily thought ablout fixing everything and having fun with delgal because!! of course delgal was gonna come back!!
then the demon pounced on him and slowly licked out his soul in a way that feels like he was being violated.
thistle was terrified of disappearing. he was left a husk anyway. thistle then goes into a catatonic state .
he briefly wakes up when ‘delgal’ (who is not actually delgal but yaad his grandson possessing delgal’s empty husk) is holding him and delgal apologises to him.
but it’s not really delgal. delgal never apologises. delgal died asking for thistle to be killed.
thistle very likely died soon after.
he refused to eat because he ‘didn’t need anything anymore’.
the demon had eaten his desires—his hopes and dreams, his desire to see delgal’s face, his desire to not disappear, his blood wnd sweat and tears and fierce love for his kingdom and the closest thing he ever had to a family, even his desire to eat.
to live.
gone.
someone so deeply passionate torn and exploited until he had so little left to give that he couldn’t even keep himself alive anymore.
no more motivation to live.
to make things even sadder—due to implications in the extra materials and manga, it is very likely thistle was under 16 in elf years (under 80) when he stopped aging and so could still be considered a child when he died. he was probably about 12-15 in elf years. even if he isn’t a kid, his story is extremely tragic.
and THAT is why he is the SADDEST SAD BOY. VOTE THISTLE!!: he deserves to win something .also he is 130cm. TINY. that is average 9 yo size, TINYYY
@fleshmesh
@dykemithrun
can i add more propaganda whatever
ive seen a good few fans talk about how thistle subconsciously made falin into a sort of mother figure for himself. thistle never got to really know his own mother as far as we can tell, and given that we dont even know the house hes from its likely he doesnt even remember her. its such a huge part of his backstory that the adults in his life put him in a position where he had to grow up way too fast, and had so much responsibility put solely on his shoulders when he was still effectively a teenager, so it does feel pretty significant for him to have this woman he doesnt even know protect him in the ways that she does while more or less under his control
also this moment is always so heartbreaking to me… in the midst of the demon devouring his desires he was scrambling for delgal (most likely), while in a state of confusion. but delgal is already gone. and the insanity brought on by the demon had pushed everyone else from the kingdom away too. in his last fully conscious moments there was no one he had to reach out to for comfort, except for a near stranger who hed just been trying to kill. he really didnt meaningfully have anyone else left
that combined with all the previously mentioned obvious backstory stuff (trafficked for the purpose of essentially being a prop to make melini look more official, watching someone who was a father figure to him die in a pretty gruesome assassination, all the fruitless waiting for delgal to return when hed died calling for thistle to be killed, the demon slowly driving him insane before eating him in such a horrific way etc etc etc) makes it clear thistle deserves a win imo! his entirely story is so incredibly sad! vote thistle!!
@fleshmesh
Just look how tiny he is in that last panel too
Like throughout the thistle chapters we are realising just how small he is.
The chapters previously used angles to make him appear larger to emphasise his power, but these later chapters frequently show how small he is.
Him walking beside delgal and just reaching his elbow. Delgal enthusiastically hitting him on the back and he almost falls over! Laios carrying Thistle on his back like a backpack
And finally, this last scene.
He looks so tiny beside Marcille. She is so much bigger than him.
He is so powerful but so small.
He is just a kid.
@fleshmesh
Oh, also you know how it is mentioned that the desire/soul eating scene feels like thistle is being violated? That’s because he is. I looked up the definition of sexual assault and it is actual straight up sexual assault because the demon is clearly getting pleasure from doing it and Thistle very clearly is NOT okay
Alan Wake:
A sad wet man of a writer who's stuck in a hell of his own making and he just wants to get home to his wife.
@thesarkycoder
@mageless
Alan deserves this so fucking much. Sopping wet rag of a man who has been scurrying about the torment nexus for n-thousand years. Absolute wreck of a human being.
@icurseyouthomaszane
Alan spent 13 years in a literal hell of his own making to save his wife.
@estelraca
I love Leverage. I love Eliot. But Eliot has his team. He has an opportunity to heal, and love, and support. He's actively working to make the world a better place; to keep more people like him from existing.
Alan? Alan is alone. All those he loves are in danger. Every action he takes to try to fix things makes them worse. Trying to get your life back? Kills a child. Destroys a town. Everyone who knows things talks in riddles to him; everyone who doesn't blames him for powers he doesn't understand and can't control (or that are being controlled by his OCD/anxiety, which... same thing).
Alan is the saddest wet cat of a man who keeps desperately hoping a strong woman will save him, because after fifteen years in the Torment Nexus, memory and sense of self torn asunder, he's pretty damn sure he's not saving himself.
@moose-in-jeans
#PLEASE vote alan he sucks so bad at everything#he's just so sad all the time and doesn't do anything about it besides monologue and touch his typewriter
@kayyymn
#the sadboy tourney#I mean propaganda worked on me in a way that I’m really interested in leverage now#but as for the poll#come on#people write about 13 years but it’s 13 years to the world and us the audience#for him it’s a literal never ending nightmare#bc the sense of time for him is warped he genuinely doesn’t know how long he’s been there#all he knows is he’s trying to escape and he couldn’t do it#try after try after try after try#there’s a sizable portion of fandom that likes to blame alan for lots of things#but ngl I’m pretty surprised he’d managed to keep some type of sense of self after all of this#ps i don’t like people framing it as him being a loser for being stuck in the dark place for so long given how *spoiler* and *spoiler*#were able to navigate it pretty easily#well yes the prison designed specifically for you and unaddressed mental health issues will do that to you#that’s the point ain’t it#alan wake
@cauldronlakefiles
#Sam Lake made his deaths gory and awful so that he could emphasize how much Alan was suffering#NOT so he could lose in the Sad Competition#(Can't remember where he said that so take it with a grain of salt)#But yeah he was trapped in a room#Cut off from the real world and other people for the most part#Except for when he astral projected into his stories (and met Tim hooray)#Had a few fun moments (the musical and Number One Fan)#and I think that's what gets people thinking it was an alright experience#The rest of his time down there was Not Fun#He never slept and was regularly killed in increasingly terrible ways#Went insane when he had long enough time and sense to Contemplate#and presumably lost his memory when he died or blocked it out/disassociated to cope#And the only thing that pulled him out of his deathwish#was Thomas Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss Seine#terrorizing him with the idea of Scratch harming Alice#VOTE ALAN WAKE#alan wake#alan wake (the man)
@flyingwide
#this might actually be the hardest poll I've ever seen#I love them both so much#BUT I TAKE ISSUE WITH ALAN'S PROPOGANDA#first: you cannot ignore the fact that a supernatural fucking darkness monster#took his wife into its creepy ass clutches#and this man immediately went 'I will throw myself into hell to get her out'#literally something out of myth#I've seen people call him Orpheus but he's Alcestis#(yes this makes Saga Heracles)#(which tracks with the lost child thing)#second: Saga got out of the Dark Place hella fast for the same reason she was able to get through the door to the construction site#she's her daddy's daughter#but Alan is still a wet kitten man#polls
First of all, many people in the tags talk about Alan being sad and wet but in the picture in the voting post he's not sad nor wet, just terrified. So I brought you some evidence! We've got many different flavours:
Classic Sad and Wet™, because he spends days upon days upon days upon days trapped in the dimension that manifests the horror story he writes into reality and boy oh boy does it sucks to be your own horror story protagonist.
No comfort, no break, no pause from the horrors and dying over and over and trying to find a plot that will get him out of this nightmare without even knowing if it's possible and he has valid reasons to think that it is not possible at all, because he's been going like that for years, 13 years to people in the outside world and, as someone already stated in the tags, god knows how much for Alan himself, because the place he's trapped in fucks your mind up, makes you lose track of time and makes you doubt what's real and what's fiction and what's fiction about to come to life.This is what The Dark Place does to a person:
And all his attempts have been useless. All beacons of hope he has is untrustworthy. Every mistake he makes hurts either him or other people terribly. He wanted to save his wife from the similar fate, and this is what he gets for it.
And you might think it'll get better when he gets out. Well I have a surprise for you
It will not.
Because the need to get out is only half of the problem. The other half is the cost of his salvation. He can try to adjust the plot in his favor, but it always comes at a price of others dying and adding to his guilt when he learns the truth. It's only this or he keeps suffering forever. There's no third option. And when he finally gets out, he has to face the consequences of what seemed to him as making a story with characters he met in a visions in The Dark Place, which turned out to be real people. Once again, Alan tried to do something good (this time for himself), but the result is just another disaster.
Some other facts about him if you're still hesitating:
- throughout some part of the plot he is convinced that his inability to stop the evil being of darkness resulted in his wife, who he tried to save so hard, commiting suicide
- said being takes his form as an evil double, so he is also convinced that his wife died believing that it was him who tormented her
- he has technically spent all this time in the writer's room, while all the travelling through The Dark Place is him projecting himself into the story, so he's both trapped in one singular room for years AND killed in many terrible ways in the streets of eldritch version of New York at the same time
I am so sorry to neglect this tournament again. My real life has been kicking my ass and I started it on a whim when normally I do more planning. Either way, good luck to both sad boys!
Thistle (Dungeon Meshi) v. Alan Wake (Alan Wake 2)
Thistle
Alan
Voting ended onApr 22
Propaganda
Thistle:
Thistle: extremely tragic doomed elf. was either abandoned or sold as a small child (in the section of the dungeon meshi adventurer)s bible about elf names it says thistle doesn’t know his bv he was ‘taken’ from his parents too young) and given to the king as a gift. the king was initially disappointed that he was a kid but then took to him and called him a son (but I feel like he probably didn’t see him as a real son, more like a pet or a cute little thing. not a real son). so he was made the court jester.
yeah that little baby elf was taken from his parents to be laughed at because the king wanted an elf to be a cool trophy and make him look powerful but that was the closest thing thistle had to a family now. was either a servant or horrifically enough could have been a slave
he’s the only elf growing up around only tallmen, and the only brown person around white people. he is very lonely except for Prince Delgal, who is like a brother to him. Of course, Thistle becomes intensely attached to Delgal, and Delgal becomes attached to him. Even as Delgal aged past thistle and became an adult while thistle remained a child, delgal looked up to him .
after the first king was assassinated in front of Thistle and Delgal at Delgal’s wedding, Delgal became King and Thistle was made court mage. he was likely a child or teen at this point. thistle also seemed to be an advisor— he was a kid with the weight of a crumbling kingdom on his shoulders.
(DUNGEON MESHI MANGA SPOILERS FROM NOW ONWARDS) plague, famine, enemies on all sides. delgal begged thistle to save his dying son, to them all, so he did: by becoming a dungeon lord.
he put the entire country into the dubgeon to protect them all by using the power of a demon that pretended to be the country’s god. thistle healed everyone, kept them from starvation and death, but nothing was ever enough.
not to mention the demon was eating away at Thistle’s very soul and systematically driving him insane.
Thistle became obsessive and paranoid, struggling with his mental health to the point he canonically self harms. he ended up killing delgal’s son by ripping his soul out for a ‘time out’ and never putting it back, so far gone he couldn’t understand he just killed delgal’s son.
eventually, delgal escaped by possessing his son’s empty body and fleeing to the surface where he turned to dust. his last words promised the kingdom to whoever killed the ‘lunatic magician’.
yes. Delgal, who Thistle tore himself apart for, asked for him to be murdered.
this is getting really long so i’ll be fast about the next bits.
thistle turned a woman into a dragon to make her form more convenient and starved her while genuinely not realising he was starving her, he had wood impaling his limbs while someone told him about how delgal wanted him dead, Thistle scratched himself so bad blood was all over his head, then Laios (MC) explained to Thistle how the kingdom wanted to be free by telling him about how they couldn’t eat.
thistle was too far gone to understand.
he thought they wanted help eating.
eager to help as always he …… put laios in a force feeding plant and planned to do the same to everyone. he happily thought ablout fixing everything and having fun with delgal because!! of course delgal was gonna come back!!
then the demon pounced on him and slowly licked out his soul in a way that feels like he was being violated.
thistle was terrified of disappearing. he was left a husk anyway. thistle then goes into a catatonic state .
he briefly wakes up when ‘delgal’ (who is not actually delgal but yaad his grandson possessing delgal’s empty husk) is holding him and delgal apologises to him.
but it’s not really delgal. delgal never apologises. delgal died asking for thistle to be killed.
thistle very likely died soon after.
he refused to eat because he ‘didn’t need anything anymore’.
the demon had eaten his desires—his hopes and dreams, his desire to see delgal’s face, his desire to not disappear, his blood wnd sweat and tears and fierce love for his kingdom and the closest thing he ever had to a family, even his desire to eat.
to live.
gone.
someone so deeply passionate torn and exploited until he had so little left to give that he couldn’t even keep himself alive anymore.
no more motivation to live.
to make things even sadder—due to implications in the extra materials and manga, it is very likely thistle was under 16 in elf years (under 80) when he stopped aging and so could still be considered a child when he died. he was probably about 12-15 in elf years. even if he isn’t a kid, his story is extremely tragic.
and THAT is why he is the SADDEST SAD BOY. VOTE THISTLE!!: he deserves to win something .also he is 130cm. TINY. that is average 9 yo size, TINYYY
@fleshmesh
@dykemithrun
can i add more propaganda whatever
ive seen a good few fans talk about how thistle subconsciously made falin into a sort of mother figure for himself. thistle never got to really know his own mother as far as we can tell, and given that we dont even know the house hes from its likely he doesnt even remember her. its such a huge part of his backstory that the adults in his life put him in a position where he had to grow up way too fast, and had so much responsibility put solely on his shoulders when he was still effectively a teenager, so it does feel pretty significant for him to have this woman he doesnt even know protect him in the ways that she does while more or less under his control
also this moment is always so heartbreaking to me… in the midst of the demon devouring his desires he was scrambling for delgal (most likely), while in a state of confusion. but delgal is already gone. and the insanity brought on by the demon had pushed everyone else from the kingdom away too. in his last fully conscious moments there was no one he had to reach out to for comfort, except for a near stranger who hed just been trying to kill. he really didnt meaningfully have anyone else left
that combined with all the previously mentioned obvious backstory stuff (trafficked for the purpose of essentially being a prop to make melini look more official, watching someone who was a father figure to him die in a pretty gruesome assassination, all the fruitless waiting for delgal to return when hed died calling for thistle to be killed, the demon slowly driving him insane before eating him in such a horrific way etc etc etc) makes it clear thistle deserves a win imo! his entirely story is so incredibly sad! vote thistle!!
@fleshmesh
Just look how tiny he is in that last panel too
Like throughout the thistle chapters we are realising just how small he is.
The chapters previously used angles to make him appear larger to emphasise his power, but these later chapters frequently show how small he is.
Him walking beside delgal and just reaching his elbow. Delgal enthusiastically hitting him on the back and he almost falls over! Laios carrying Thistle on his back like a backpack
And finally, this last scene.
He looks so tiny beside Marcille. She is so much bigger than him.
He is so powerful but so small.
He is just a kid.
@fleshmesh
Oh, also you know how it is mentioned that the desire/soul eating scene feels like thistle is being violated? That’s because he is. I looked up the definition of sexual assault and it is actual straight up sexual assault because the demon is clearly getting pleasure from doing it and Thistle very clearly is NOT okay
Alan Wake:
A sad wet man of a writer who's stuck in a hell of his own making and he just wants to get home to his wife.
@thesarkycoder
@mageless
Alan deserves this so fucking much. Sopping wet rag of a man who has been scurrying about the torment nexus for n-thousand years. Absolute wreck of a human being.
@icurseyouthomaszane
Alan spent 13 years in a literal hell of his own making to save his wife.
@estelraca
I love Leverage. I love Eliot. But Eliot has his team. He has an opportunity to heal, and love, and support. He's actively working to make the world a better place; to keep more people like him from existing.
Alan? Alan is alone. All those he loves are in danger. Every action he takes to try to fix things makes them worse. Trying to get your life back? Kills a child. Destroys a town. Everyone who knows things talks in riddles to him; everyone who doesn't blames him for powers he doesn't understand and can't control (or that are being controlled by his OCD/anxiety, which... same thing).
Alan is the saddest wet cat of a man who keeps desperately hoping a strong woman will save him, because after fifteen years in the Torment Nexus, memory and sense of self torn asunder, he's pretty damn sure he's not saving himself.
@moose-in-jeans
#PLEASE vote alan he sucks so bad at everything#he's just so sad all the time and doesn't do anything about it besides monologue and touch his typewriter
@kayyymn
#the sadboy tourney#I mean propaganda worked on me in a way that I’m really interested in leverage now#but as for the poll#come on#people write about 13 years but it’s 13 years to the world and us the audience#for him it’s a literal never ending nightmare#bc the sense of time for him is warped he genuinely doesn’t know how long he’s been there#all he knows is he’s trying to escape and he couldn’t do it#try after try after try after try#there’s a sizable portion of fandom that likes to blame alan for lots of things#but ngl I’m pretty surprised he’d managed to keep some type of sense of self after all of this#ps i don’t like people framing it as him being a loser for being stuck in the dark place for so long given how *spoiler* and *spoiler*#were able to navigate it pretty easily#well yes the prison designed specifically for you and unaddressed mental health issues will do that to you#that’s the point ain’t it#alan wake
@cauldronlakefiles
#Sam Lake made his deaths gory and awful so that he could emphasize how much Alan was suffering#NOT so he could lose in the Sad Competition#(Can't remember where he said that so take it with a grain of salt)#But yeah he was trapped in a room#Cut off from the real world and other people for the most part#Except for when he astral projected into his stories (and met Tim hooray)#Had a few fun moments (the musical and Number One Fan)#and I think that's what gets people thinking it was an alright experience#The rest of his time down there was Not Fun#He never slept and was regularly killed in increasingly terrible ways#Went insane when he had long enough time and sense to Contemplate#and presumably lost his memory when he died or blocked it out/disassociated to cope#And the only thing that pulled him out of his deathwish#was Thomas Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss Seine#terrorizing him with the idea of Scratch harming Alice#VOTE ALAN WAKE#alan wake#alan wake (the man)
@flyingwide
#this might actually be the hardest poll I've ever seen#I love them both so much#BUT I TAKE ISSUE WITH ALAN'S PROPOGANDA#first: you cannot ignore the fact that a supernatural fucking darkness monster#took his wife into its creepy ass clutches#and this man immediately went 'I will throw myself into hell to get her out'#literally something out of myth#I've seen people call him Orpheus but he's Alcestis#(yes this makes Saga Heracles)#(which tracks with the lost child thing)#second: Saga got out of the Dark Place hella fast for the same reason she was able to get through the door to the construction site#she's her daddy's daughter#but Alan is still a wet kitten man#polls
Eliot Spencer (Leverage) v. Alan Wake (Alan Wake 2)
Eliot
Alan
Voting ended onApr 5
Propaganda
Eliot: As a child, Eliot was abandoned at a hospital. A woman who worked there took him home, and she and her husband, Billy Spencer, adopted and raised Eliot.
@thoughts-of-a-lunatic
@thegroundhogdidit
@fangenstein
Alan Wake: A sad wet man of a writer who's stuck in a hell of his own making and he just wants to get home to his wife.
@thesarkycoder
@mageless
Alan deserves this so fucking much. Sopping wet rag of a man who has been scurrying about the torment nexus for n-thousand years. Absolute wreck of a human being.
Thistle (Dungeon Meshi) v. Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Thistle
Zuko
Voting ended onApr 5
Propaganda
Thistle: extremely tragic doomed elf. was either abandoned or sold as a small child (in the section of the dungeon meshi adventurer)s bible about elf names it says thistle doesn’t know his bv he was ‘taken’ from his parents too young) and given to the king as a gift. the king was initially disappointed that he was a kid but then took to him and called him a son (but I feel like he probably didn’t see him as a real son, more like a pet or a cute little thing. not a real son). so he was made the court jester.
yeah that little baby elf was taken from his parents to be laughed at because the king wanted an elf to be a cool trophy and make him look powerful but that was the closest thing thistle had to a family now. was either a servant or horrifically enough could have been a slave
he’s the only elf growing up around only tallmen, and the only brown person around white people. he is very lonely except for Prince Delgal, who is like a brother to him. Of course, Thistle becomes intensely attached to Delgal, and Delgal becomes attached to him. Even as Delgal aged past thistle and became an adult while thistle remained a child, delgal looked up to him .
after the first king was assassinated in front of Thistle and Delgal at Delgal’s wedding, Delgal became King and Thistle was made court mage. he was likely a child or teen at this point. thistle also seemed to be an advisor— he was a kid with the weight of a crumbling kingdom on his shoulders.
(DUNGEON MESHI MANGA SPOILERS FROM NOW ONWARDS) plague, famine, enemies on all sides. delgal begged thistle to save his dying son, to them all, so he did: by becoming a dungeon lord.
he put the entire country into the dubgeon to protect them all by using the power of a demon that pretended to be the country’s god. thistle healed everyone, kept them from starvation and death, but nothing was ever enough.
not to mention the demon was eating away at Thistle’s very soul and systematically driving him insane.
Thistle became obsessive and paranoid, struggling with his mental health to the point he canonically self harms. he ended up killing delgal’s son by ripping his soul out for a ‘time out’ and never putting it back, so far gone he couldn’t understand he just killed delgal’s son.
eventually, delgal escaped by possessing his son’s empty body and fleeing to the surface where he turned to dust. his last words promised the kingdom to whoever killed the ‘lunatic magician’.
yes. Delgal, who Thistle tore himself apart for, asked for him to be murdered.
this is getting really long so i’ll be fast about the next bits.
thistle turned a woman into a dragon to make her form more convenient and starved her while genuinely not realising he was starving her, he had wood impaling his limbs while someone told him about how delgal wanted him dead, Thistle scratched himself so bad blood was all over his head, then Laios (MC) explained to Thistle how the kingdom wanted to be free by telling him about how they couldn’t eat.
thistle was too far gone to understand.
he thought they wanted help eating.
eager to help as always he …… put laios in a force feeding plant and planned to do the same to everyone. he happily thought ablout fixing everything and having fun with delgal because!! of course delgal was gonna come back!!
then the demon pounced on him and slowly licked out his soul in a way that feels like he was being violated.
thistle was terrified of disappearing. he was left a husk anyway. thistle then goes into a catatonic state .
he briefly wakes up when ‘delgal’ (who is not actually delgal but yaad his grandson possessing delgal’s empty husk) is holding him and delgal apologises to him.
but it’s not really delgal. delgal never apologises. delgal died asking for thistle to be killed.
thistle very likely died soon after.
he refused to eat because he ‘didn’t need anything anymore’.
the demon had eaten his desires—his hopes and dreams, his desire to see delgal’s face, his desire to not disappear, his blood wnd sweat and tears and fierce love for his kingdom and the closest thing he ever had to a family, even his desire to eat.
to live.
gone.
someone so deeply passionate torn and exploited until he had so little left to give that he couldn’t even keep himself alive anymore.
no more motivation to live.
to make things even sadder—due to implications in the extra materials and manga, it is very likely thistle was under 16 in elf years (under 80) when he stopped aging and so could still be considered a child when he died. he was probably about 12-15 in elf years. even if he isn’t a kid, his story is extremely tragic.
and THAT is why he is the SADDEST SAD BOY. VOTE THISTLE!!: he deserves to win something .also he is 130cm. TINY. that is average 9 yo size, TINYYY
@fleshmesh
Zuko: Zuko was a Fire Nation royal and firebending master who reigned as Fire Lord from 100 AG until his abdication in 167 AG. He was the eldest child and only son of Princess Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Originally the primary enemy of Team Avatar, Zuko devoted three years to trying to capture the long-lost Avatar to end his banishment and regain his honor as Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. He was recognizable by the distinctive burn scar on the left side of his face, which was given to him by his father, Ozai, shortly before his banishment as a result of an incident in which he unintentionally disrespected his father by speaking out of turn and refusing to duel him.
Oh, also you know how it is mentioned that the desire/soul eating scene feels like thistle is being violated? That’s because he is. I looked up the definition of sexual assault and it is actual straight up sexual assault because the demon is clearly getting pleasure from doing it and Thistle very clearly is NOT okay
Thistle (Dungeon Meshi) v. Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Thistle
Zuko
Voting ended onApr 5
Propaganda
Thistle: extremely tragic doomed elf. was either abandoned or sold as a small child (in the section of the dungeon meshi adventurer)s bible about elf names it says thistle doesn’t know his bv he was ‘taken’ from his parents too young) and given to the king as a gift. the king was initially disappointed that he was a kid but then took to him and called him a son (but I feel like he probably didn’t see him as a real son, more like a pet or a cute little thing. not a real son). so he was made the court jester.
yeah that little baby elf was taken from his parents to be laughed at because the king wanted an elf to be a cool trophy and make him look powerful but that was the closest thing thistle had to a family now. was either a servant or horrifically enough could have been a slave
he’s the only elf growing up around only tallmen, and the only brown person around white people. he is very lonely except for Prince Delgal, who is like a brother to him. Of course, Thistle becomes intensely attached to Delgal, and Delgal becomes attached to him. Even as Delgal aged past thistle and became an adult while thistle remained a child, delgal looked up to him .
after the first king was assassinated in front of Thistle and Delgal at Delgal’s wedding, Delgal became King and Thistle was made court mage. he was likely a child or teen at this point. thistle also seemed to be an advisor— he was a kid with the weight of a crumbling kingdom on his shoulders.
(DUNGEON MESHI MANGA SPOILERS FROM NOW ONWARDS) plague, famine, enemies on all sides. delgal begged thistle to save his dying son, to them all, so he did: by becoming a dungeon lord.
he put the entire country into the dubgeon to protect them all by using the power of a demon that pretended to be the country’s god. thistle healed everyone, kept them from starvation and death, but nothing was ever enough.
not to mention the demon was eating away at Thistle’s very soul and systematically driving him insane.
Thistle became obsessive and paranoid, struggling with his mental health to the point he canonically self harms. he ended up killing delgal’s son by ripping his soul out for a ‘time out’ and never putting it back, so far gone he couldn’t understand he just killed delgal’s son.
eventually, delgal escaped by possessing his son’s empty body and fleeing to the surface where he turned to dust. his last words promised the kingdom to whoever killed the ‘lunatic magician’.
yes. Delgal, who Thistle tore himself apart for, asked for him to be murdered.
this is getting really long so i’ll be fast about the next bits.
thistle turned a woman into a dragon to make her form more convenient and starved her while genuinely not realising he was starving her, he had wood impaling his limbs while someone told him about how delgal wanted him dead, Thistle scratched himself so bad blood was all over his head, then Laios (MC) explained to Thistle how the kingdom wanted to be free by telling him about how they couldn’t eat.
thistle was too far gone to understand.
he thought they wanted help eating.
eager to help as always he …… put laios in a force feeding plant and planned to do the same to everyone. he happily thought ablout fixing everything and having fun with delgal because!! of course delgal was gonna come back!!
then the demon pounced on him and slowly licked out his soul in a way that feels like he was being violated.
thistle was terrified of disappearing. he was left a husk anyway. thistle then goes into a catatonic state .
he briefly wakes up when ‘delgal’ (who is not actually delgal but yaad his grandson possessing delgal’s empty husk) is holding him and delgal apologises to him.
but it’s not really delgal. delgal never apologises. delgal died asking for thistle to be killed.
thistle very likely died soon after.
he refused to eat because he ‘didn’t need anything anymore’.
the demon had eaten his desires—his hopes and dreams, his desire to see delgal’s face, his desire to not disappear, his blood wnd sweat and tears and fierce love for his kingdom and the closest thing he ever had to a family, even his desire to eat.
to live.
gone.
someone so deeply passionate torn and exploited until he had so little left to give that he couldn’t even keep himself alive anymore.
no more motivation to live.
to make things even sadder—due to implications in the extra materials and manga, it is very likely thistle was under 16 in elf years (under 80) when he stopped aging and so could still be considered a child when he died. he was probably about 12-15 in elf years. even if he isn’t a kid, his story is extremely tragic.
and THAT is why he is the SADDEST SAD BOY. VOTE THISTLE!!: he deserves to win something .also he is 130cm. TINY. that is average 9 yo size, TINYYY
@fleshmesh
Zuko: Zuko was a Fire Nation royal and firebending master who reigned as Fire Lord from 100 AG until his abdication in 167 AG. He was the eldest child and only son of Princess Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Originally the primary enemy of Team Avatar, Zuko devoted three years to trying to capture the long-lost Avatar to end his banishment and regain his honor as Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. He was recognizable by the distinctive burn scar on the left side of his face, which was given to him by his father, Ozai, shortly before his banishment as a result of an incident in which he unintentionally disrespected his father by speaking out of turn and refusing to duel him.
ive seen a good few fans talk about how thistle subconsciously made falin into a sort of mother figure for himself. thistle never got to really know his own mother as far as we can tell, and given that we dont even know the house hes from its likely he doesnt even remember her. its such a huge part of his backstory that the adults in his life put him in a position where he had to grow up way too fast, and had so much responsibility put solely on his shoulders when he was still effectively a teenager, so it does feel pretty significant for him to have this woman he doesnt even know protect him in the ways that she does while more or less under his control
also this moment is always so heartbreaking to me… in the midst of the demon devouring his desires he was scrambling for delgal (most likely), while in a state of confusion. but delgal is already gone. and the insanity brought on by the demon had pushed everyone else from the kingdom away too. in his last fully conscious moments there was no one he had to reach out to for comfort, except for a near stranger who hed just been trying to kill. he really didnt meaningfully have anyone else left
that combined with all the previously mentioned obvious backstory stuff (trafficked for the purpose of essentially being a prop to make melini look more official, watching someone who was a father figure to him die in a pretty gruesome assassination, all the fruitless waiting for delgal to return when hed died calling for thistle to be killed, the demon slowly driving him insane before eating him in such a horrific way etc etc etc) makes it clear thistle deserves a win imo! his entirely story is so incredibly sad! vote thistle!!
Thistle (Dungeon Meshi) v. Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Thistle
Zuko
Voting ended onApr 5
Propaganda
Thistle: extremely tragic doomed elf. was either abandoned or sold as a small child (in the section of the dungeon meshi adventurer)s bible about elf names it says thistle doesn’t know his bv he was ‘taken’ from his parents too young) and given to the king as a gift. the king was initially disappointed that he was a kid but then took to him and called him a son (but I feel like he probably didn’t see him as a real son, more like a pet or a cute little thing. not a real son). so he was made the court jester.
yeah that little baby elf was taken from his parents to be laughed at because the king wanted an elf to be a cool trophy and make him look powerful but that was the closest thing thistle had to a family now. was either a servant or horrifically enough could have been a slave
he’s the only elf growing up around only tallmen, and the only brown person around white people. he is very lonely except for Prince Delgal, who is like a brother to him. Of course, Thistle becomes intensely attached to Delgal, and Delgal becomes attached to him. Even as Delgal aged past thistle and became an adult while thistle remained a child, delgal looked up to him .
after the first king was assassinated in front of Thistle and Delgal at Delgal’s wedding, Delgal became King and Thistle was made court mage. he was likely a child or teen at this point. thistle also seemed to be an advisor— he was a kid with the weight of a crumbling kingdom on his shoulders.
(DUNGEON MESHI MANGA SPOILERS FROM NOW ONWARDS) plague, famine, enemies on all sides. delgal begged thistle to save his dying son, to them all, so he did: by becoming a dungeon lord.
he put the entire country into the dubgeon to protect them all by using the power of a demon that pretended to be the country’s god. thistle healed everyone, kept them from starvation and death, but nothing was ever enough.
not to mention the demon was eating away at Thistle’s very soul and systematically driving him insane.
Thistle became obsessive and paranoid, struggling with his mental health to the point he canonically self harms. he ended up killing delgal’s son by ripping his soul out for a ‘time out’ and never putting it back, so far gone he couldn’t understand he just killed delgal’s son.
eventually, delgal escaped by possessing his son’s empty body and fleeing to the surface where he turned to dust. his last words promised the kingdom to whoever killed the ‘lunatic magician’.
yes. Delgal, who Thistle tore himself apart for, asked for him to be murdered.
this is getting really long so i’ll be fast about the next bits.
thistle turned a woman into a dragon to make her form more convenient and starved her while genuinely not realising he was starving her, he had wood impaling his limbs while someone told him about how delgal wanted him dead, Thistle scratched himself so bad blood was all over his head, then Laios (MC) explained to Thistle how the kingdom wanted to be free by telling him about how they couldn’t eat.
thistle was too far gone to understand.
he thought they wanted help eating.
eager to help as always he …… put laios in a force feeding plant and planned to do the same to everyone. he happily thought ablout fixing everything and having fun with delgal because!! of course delgal was gonna come back!!
then the demon pounced on him and slowly licked out his soul in a way that feels like he was being violated.
thistle was terrified of disappearing. he was left a husk anyway. thistle then goes into a catatonic state .
he briefly wakes up when ‘delgal’ (who is not actually delgal but yaad his grandson possessing delgal’s empty husk) is holding him and delgal apologises to him.
but it’s not really delgal. delgal never apologises. delgal died asking for thistle to be killed.
thistle very likely died soon after.
he refused to eat because he ‘didn’t need anything anymore’.
the demon had eaten his desires—his hopes and dreams, his desire to see delgal’s face, his desire to not disappear, his blood wnd sweat and tears and fierce love for his kingdom and the closest thing he ever had to a family, even his desire to eat.
to live.
gone.
someone so deeply passionate torn and exploited until he had so little left to give that he couldn’t even keep himself alive anymore.
no more motivation to live.
to make things even sadder—due to implications in the extra materials and manga, it is very likely thistle was under 16 in elf years (under 80) when he stopped aging and so could still be considered a child when he died. he was probably about 12-15 in elf years. even if he isn’t a kid, his story is extremely tragic.
and THAT is why he is the SADDEST SAD BOY. VOTE THISTLE!!: he deserves to win something .also he is 130cm. TINY. that is average 9 yo size, TINYYY
@fleshmesh
Zuko: Zuko was a Fire Nation royal and firebending master who reigned as Fire Lord from 100 AG until his abdication in 167 AG. He was the eldest child and only son of Princess Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Originally the primary enemy of Team Avatar, Zuko devoted three years to trying to capture the long-lost Avatar to end his banishment and regain his honor as Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. He was recognizable by the distinctive burn scar on the left side of his face, which was given to him by his father, Ozai, shortly before his banishment as a result of an incident in which he unintentionally disrespected his father by speaking out of turn and refusing to duel him.
ive seen a good few fans talk about how thistle subconsciously made falin into a sort of mother figure for himself. thistle never got to really know his own mother as far as we can tell, and given that we dont even know the house hes from its likely he doesnt even remember her. its such a huge part of his backstory that the adults in his life put him in a position where he had to grow up way too fast, and had so much responsibility put solely on his shoulders when he was still effectively a teenager, so it does feel pretty significant for him to have this woman he doesnt even know protect him in the ways that she does while more or less under his control
also this moment is always so heartbreaking to me… in the midst of the demon devouring his desires he was scrambling for delgal (most likely), while in a state of confusion. but delgal is already gone. and the insanity brought on by the demon had pushed everyone else from the kingdom away too. in his last fully conscious moments there was no one he had to reach out to for comfort, except for a near stranger who hed just been trying to kill. he really didnt meaningfully have anyone else left
that combined with all the previously mentioned obvious backstory stuff (trafficked for the purpose of essentially being a prop to make melini look more official, watching someone who was a father figure to him die in a pretty gruesome assassination, all the fruitless waiting for delgal to return when hed died calling for thistle to be killed, the demon slowly driving him insane before eating him in such a horrific way etc etc etc) makes it clear thistle deserves a win imo! his entirely story is so incredibly sad! vote thistle!!
Like throughout the thistle chapters we are realising just how small he is.
The chapters previously used angles to make him appear larger to emphasise his power, but these later chapters frequently show how small he is.
Him walking beside delgal and just reaching his elbow. Delgal enthusiastically hitting him on the back and he almost falls over! Laios carrying Thistle on his back like a backpack
And finally, this last scene.
He looks so tiny beside Marcille. She is so much bigger than him.
Thistle (Dungeon Meshi) v. Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Thistle
Zuko
Voting ended onApr 5
Propaganda
Thistle: extremely tragic doomed elf. was either abandoned or sold as a small child (in the section of the dungeon meshi adventurer)s bible about elf names it says thistle doesn’t know his bv he was ‘taken’ from his parents too young) and given to the king as a gift. the king was initially disappointed that he was a kid but then took to him and called him a son (but I feel like he probably didn’t see him as a real son, more like a pet or a cute little thing. not a real son). so he was made the court jester.
yeah that little baby elf was taken from his parents to be laughed at because the king wanted an elf to be a cool trophy and make him look powerful but that was the closest thing thistle had to a family now. was either a servant or horrifically enough could have been a slave
he’s the only elf growing up around only tallmen, and the only brown person around white people. he is very lonely except for Prince Delgal, who is like a brother to him. Of course, Thistle becomes intensely attached to Delgal, and Delgal becomes attached to him. Even as Delgal aged past thistle and became an adult while thistle remained a child, delgal looked up to him .
after the first king was assassinated in front of Thistle and Delgal at Delgal’s wedding, Delgal became King and Thistle was made court mage. he was likely a child or teen at this point. thistle also seemed to be an advisor— he was a kid with the weight of a crumbling kingdom on his shoulders.
(DUNGEON MESHI MANGA SPOILERS FROM NOW ONWARDS) plague, famine, enemies on all sides. delgal begged thistle to save his dying son, to them all, so he did: by becoming a dungeon lord.
he put the entire country into the dubgeon to protect them all by using the power of a demon that pretended to be the country’s god. thistle healed everyone, kept them from starvation and death, but nothing was ever enough.
not to mention the demon was eating away at Thistle’s very soul and systematically driving him insane.
Thistle became obsessive and paranoid, struggling with his mental health to the point he canonically self harms. he ended up killing delgal’s son by ripping his soul out for a ‘time out’ and never putting it back, so far gone he couldn’t understand he just killed delgal’s son.
eventually, delgal escaped by possessing his son’s empty body and fleeing to the surface where he turned to dust. his last words promised the kingdom to whoever killed the ‘lunatic magician’.
yes. Delgal, who Thistle tore himself apart for, asked for him to be murdered.
this is getting really long so i’ll be fast about the next bits.
thistle turned a woman into a dragon to make her form more convenient and starved her while genuinely not realising he was starving her, he had wood impaling his limbs while someone told him about how delgal wanted him dead, Thistle scratched himself so bad blood was all over his head, then Laios (MC) explained to Thistle how the kingdom wanted to be free by telling him about how they couldn’t eat.
thistle was too far gone to understand.
he thought they wanted help eating.
eager to help as always he …… put laios in a force feeding plant and planned to do the same to everyone. he happily thought ablout fixing everything and having fun with delgal because!! of course delgal was gonna come back!!
then the demon pounced on him and slowly licked out his soul in a way that feels like he was being violated.
thistle was terrified of disappearing. he was left a husk anyway. thistle then goes into a catatonic state .
he briefly wakes up when ‘delgal’ (who is not actually delgal but yaad his grandson possessing delgal’s empty husk) is holding him and delgal apologises to him.
but it’s not really delgal. delgal never apologises. delgal died asking for thistle to be killed.
thistle very likely died soon after.
he refused to eat because he ‘didn’t need anything anymore’.
the demon had eaten his desires—his hopes and dreams, his desire to see delgal’s face, his desire to not disappear, his blood wnd sweat and tears and fierce love for his kingdom and the closest thing he ever had to a family, even his desire to eat.
to live.
gone.
someone so deeply passionate torn and exploited until he had so little left to give that he couldn’t even keep himself alive anymore.
no more motivation to live.
to make things even sadder—due to implications in the extra materials and manga, it is very likely thistle was under 16 in elf years (under 80) when he stopped aging and so could still be considered a child when he died. he was probably about 12-15 in elf years. even if he isn’t a kid, his story is extremely tragic.
and THAT is why he is the SADDEST SAD BOY. VOTE THISTLE!!: he deserves to win something .also he is 130cm. TINY. that is average 9 yo size, TINYYY
@fleshmesh
Zuko: Zuko was a Fire Nation royal and firebending master who reigned as Fire Lord from 100 AG until his abdication in 167 AG. He was the eldest child and only son of Princess Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Originally the primary enemy of Team Avatar, Zuko devoted three years to trying to capture the long-lost Avatar to end his banishment and regain his honor as Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. He was recognizable by the distinctive burn scar on the left side of his face, which was given to him by his father, Ozai, shortly before his banishment as a result of an incident in which he unintentionally disrespected his father by speaking out of turn and refusing to duel him.
Eliot Spencer (Leverage) v. Alan Wake (Alan Wake 2)
Eliot
Alan
Voting ended onApr 5
Propaganda
Eliot: As a child, Eliot was abandoned at a hospital. A woman who worked there took him home, and she and her husband, Billy Spencer, adopted and raised Eliot.
@thoughts-of-a-lunatic
@thegroundhogdidit
@fangenstein
Alan Wake: A sad wet man of a writer who's stuck in a hell of his own making and he just wants to get home to his wife.
@thesarkycoder
@mageless
Alan deserves this so fucking much. Sopping wet rag of a man who has been scurrying about the torment nexus for n-thousand years. Absolute wreck of a human being.
Irving: sad old man yaoi, doomed by the narrative >>>>>
Thistle: extremely tragic doomed elf. was either abandoned or sold as a small child (in the section of the dungeon meshi adventurer)s bible about elf names it says thistle doesn’t know his bv he was ‘taken’ from his parents too young) and given to the king as a gift. the king was initially disappointed that he was a kid but then took to him and called him a son (but I feel like he probably didn’t see him as a real son, more like a pet or a cute little thing. not a real son). so he was made the court jester.
yeah that little baby elf was taken from his parents to be laughed at because the king wanted an elf to be a cool trophy and make him look powerful but that was the closest thing thistle had to a family now. was either a servant or horrifically enough could have been a slave
he’s the only elf growing up around only tallmen, and the only brown person around white people. he is very lonely except for Prince Delgal, who is like a brother to him. Of course, Thistle becomes intensely attached to Delgal, and Delgal becomes attached to him. Even as Delgal aged past thistle and became an adult while thistle remained a child, delgal looked up to him .
after the first king was assassinated in front of Thistle and Delgal at Delgal’s wedding, Delgal became King and Thistle was made court mage. he was likely a child or teen at this point. thistle also seemed to be an advisor— he was a kid with the weight of a crumbling kingdom on his shoulders.
(DUNGEON MESHI MANGA SPOILERS FROM NOW ONWARDS) plague, famine, enemies on all sides. delgal begged thistle to save his dying son, to them all, so he did: by becoming a dungeon lord.
he put the entire country into the dubgeon to protect them all by using the power of a demon that pretended to be the country’s god. thistle healed everyone, kept them from starvation and death, but nothing was ever enough.
not to mention the demon was eating away at Thistle’s very soul and systematically driving him insane.
Thistle became obsessive and paranoid, struggling with his mental health to the point he canonically self harms. he ended up killing delgal’s son by ripping his soul out for a ‘time out’ and never putting it back, so far gone he couldn’t understand he just killed delgal’s son.
eventually, delgal escaped by possessing his son’s empty body and fleeing to the surface where he turned to dust. his last words promised the kingdom to whoever killed the ‘lunatic magician’.
yes. Delgal, who Thistle tore himself apart for, asked for him to be murdered.
this is getting really long so i’ll be fast about the next bits.
thistle turned a woman into a dragon to make her form more convenient and starved her while genuinely not realising he was starving her, he had wood impaling his limbs while someone told him about how delgal wanted him dead, Thistle scratched himself so bad blood was all over his head, then Laios (MC) explained to Thistle how the kingdom wanted to be free by telling him about how they couldn’t eat.
thistle was too far gone to understand.
he thought they wanted help eating.
eager to help as always he …… put laios in a force feeding plant and planned to do the same to everyone. he happily thought ablout fixing everything and having fun with delgal because!! of course delgal was gonna come back!!
then the demon pounced on him and slowly licked out his soul in a way that feels like he was being violated.
thistle was terrified of disappearing. he was left a husk anyway. thistle then goes into a catatonic state .
he briefly wakes up when ‘delgal’ (who is not actually delgal but yaad his grandson possessing delgal’s empty husk) is holding him and delgal apologises to him.
but it’s not really delgal. delgal never apologises. delgal died asking for thistle to be killed.
thistle very likely died soon after.
he refused to eat because he ‘didn’t need anything anymore’.
the demon had eaten his desires—his hopes and dreams, his desire to see delgal’s face, his desire to not disappear, his blood wnd sweat and tears and fierce love for his kingdom and the closest thing he ever had to a family, even his desire to eat.
to live.
gone.
someone so deeply passionate torn and exploited until he had so little left to give that he couldn’t even keep himself alive anymore.
no more motivation to live.
to make things even sadder—due to implications in the extra materials and manga, it is very likely thistle was under 16 in elf years (under 80) when he stopped aging and so could still be considered a child when he died. he was probably about 12-15 in elf years. even if he isn’t a kid, his story is extremely tragic.
and THAT is why he is the SADDEST SAD BOY. VOTE THISTLE!!: he deserves to win something .also he is 130cm. TINY. that is average 9 yo size, TINYYY
Eliot: As a child, Eliot was abandoned at a hospital. A woman who worked there took him home, and she and her husband, Billy Spencer, adopted and raised Eliot.
@thoughts-of-a-lunatic
@thegroundhogdidit
@fangenstein
Wyll:
Dear Tourney,
I, as always, humbly submit for your consideration Duke Wyll T. Ravengard (the T is for Tragic) of Baldur’s Gate 3. While this man exudes main character energy, he doesn’t take the spotlight from others. Often, this is simply due to sadness and his good-hearted nature! He chooses not to party with the tieflings at camp in Act 1 because he worried that he, in his brand new horns and skin, would scare the children. Wyll got those horns and that skin when he spared Karlach, who would become his dear friend. He gave his soul to save his city, and if things are dire in Act 3, he can and WILL trade his soul again to save his truly awful father, the Grand Duke. His endings all have a deep, realistic sadness, because every win is part of a terrible loss.
If Wyll retains his soul, if he wins every fight and makes his own family, he loses his best friend Karlach when he doesn’t go with her to Avernus. She burns to death or turns into a mindflayer right in front of him. His story, including his other endings that I won’t spoil here, is one of a terrified child who built a life righting wrongs and doing the best with what he had. He is smart and strong, but his self-doubt is a quiet constant threat to his success. When Wyll chooses his own interests, he loses part of his life. When Wyll chooses the interests of others, he either needs to grow with the pc’s help or give up an eternal part of himself. He is a good character who is willing to use the power of evil to protect the good, constantly weighing his sacrifice against his potential. In his mind, he has only one thing to barter: himself.
That is the definition of sadness, to me. I am but an observer, however, and I hope I have swayed you to Wyll’s side. May your generosity, and the love of a truly good man mired in hellish pathos, lead him to a place in the Sad Boy Tournament this year!
Bucky Barnes (Marvel comics and movies) v. Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Bucky
Zuko
Voting ended onMar 13
Propaganda
Bucky Barnes:
When 10 words are all that stand between being yourself and being a puppet, it is damn near impossible to find joy. This is only a sliver of the reason why James “Bucky Might Be Bisexual” Barnes is the Saddest Boi. There are a few origin stories for this majestic wet-eyed pup, and all of them are tragic.
First, the comics. There have been a few Buckys over the years, but the original was James Barnes, a mascot for Camp LeHigh. He was the orphaned son of a soldier who worked there, and he became friends with Steve Rogers when he discovered the ditzy golden retriever soldier had a secret life as Captain America. Together, the mascot and the bumbling golden retriever hero shed their disguises and whip Nazi ass. Though they had such a strong showing, he died far too young when the pair tried to stop a bomb strike. Steve got out of the blast alive. Bucky did not.
Or did he? Bucky’s flash-frozen corpse was dragged back to life, brainwashed, and made into an extraordinary killer by the Soviet Union. Bucky, the child, had used his pistol more than a few times, but Winter Soldier, the man, was one of the deadliest assassins to never exist. At the first signs of rebellion and remembrance, his mind would be wiped and the Winter Soldier would once more be nothing more than a tool. He trained Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow, in the Soviet training school for female assassins, the Red Room. They fell in love. They were punished.
Years later, Buckys start dying. Not James, he’s still supposedly very dead in the North Atlantic due to Explosion. Other Buckys. And when James comes back as the Winter Soldier, Steve did everything to bring his friend back. He was somewhat successful.
He became Captain America when Steve died. It was a horrible fit, and he had no time to mourn. Once his time as Cap had come to a close, however, he was thrown in a gulag and made to fight a bear. I am not kidding. He’s had to rescue Natasha, Steve, Sam, Clint, Tony, various X-men, probably at least one Deadpool, and himself. He’s never had a clean win, and he might never have one.
He is haunted by the deaths he caused, and by the lives he’s given up. No matter what changes, there is no world, no alternate reality, in which Original Recipe Bucky finds happiness in the comics.
In the films, James Barnes was best friends with Steve Rogers since they were small children, and when big strong Bucky went off to war, Steve hoped desperately to find a way to serve his country too. Captain America is born through the miracle of science, and he does silly USO shows until Bucky’s in trouble. Only then does he truly become a hero, rescuing Bucky and his entire squad. But Barnes is exhausted and traumatized, and that affects them both. When Bucky falls from a freight car during a heated gunfight, Steve thought all was lost, became very sad, and soon sacrificed his life to stop a bomb strike.
Steve came back. He became a hero again. Bucky also came back. Only, not really. The story is similar here to the comics, wherein he was found, mutilated, tortured, brainwashed for decades (by HYDRA this time, not the Soviets) and used as an unstoppable killing machine. Whenever he began to remember, HYDRA would cook his mind again to make him complacent and compliant. The process was horrific, and the Winter Soldier was a broken toy.
Steve saved him again by showing his massive heart, his love for Bucky, and his dedication to justice. But that meant that a hollow shell, scraped out through torment, had to figure out who he’d been so many years before. He was captured, 10 simple words broke him down into the Winter Soldier, and his war continued. Finally freed, again by the one who loves him more dearly than any other, Steve Rogers, they fought side by side against Steve’s teammate Tony. Tony Stark, whose parents Bucky killed as the Winter Soldier. Steve chose Bucky. So Bucky chose to do the right thing.
James went to Wakanda and entered deep freeze until there was a way to free his brain from those 10 terrible words. It took months, but through pain and trial, he made it back. Then he had to deal with the real tragedy: psychologists at the United States Veterans Administration.
It gets worse before it gets better, but even at its best, it’s awful. There is no Good End for Bucky Barnes, but he wears tragedy like a fine suit.
He is the saddest, loneliest of boys.
Zuko: Zuko was a Fire Nation royal and firebending master who reigned as Fire Lord from 100 AG until his abdication in 167 AG. He was the eldest child and only son of Princess Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Originally the primary enemy of Team Avatar, Zuko devoted three years to trying to capture the long-lost Avatar to end his banishment and regain his honor as Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. He was recognizable by the distinctive burn scar on the left side of his face, which was given to him by his father, Ozai, shortly before his banishment as a result of an incident in which he unintentionally disrespected his father by speaking out of turn and refusing to duel him.
turnnoffyourmind
dededos
kianamaiart
ellievsbear
titsay
blakekathryn
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
annaxmalina
