#beauty topics

[restingcorpse]

[emmwee]

Off Topic

[readerconfused]

IWTV SPOILERS EP7

man, how different Claudia's transformation scene looks in Lestat's eyes... i forget that Louis is not a reliable narrator, he forgot and changes facts. Lestat also lied, but his version has much more detail

the difference of Louis POV and Lestat POV

in "she's going to be what? A lapdog?"

"a daughter?"

Lestat appears to be mocking Louis in the first scene, whereas to him he was sad, but serious, perhaps hurt by Louis leaving the house

the emotions changed even with the same lines, Sam Reid the actor you are

[arataka-reigen]

The main reason for the decline of shoujo anime for me really is that girls/women will still consume shounen while boys/men will not consume shoujo as much, so for producers if you have to choose between a shoujo or a shounen you will go for the shounen because you know you will be able to get both audiences while with shoujo the audience will really be majorly female and you will be losing money from half your audience. And that is also why shounen these days incorporate a lot of shoujo tropes into their stories (ikemen, romcoms, etc.) but still do it in a way that is mostly targeted for boys (male protag, big boobs and heavy sexualization of female characters that is not as present in actual shoujo stories), they do it to make sure they will grab both audiences. That is not to say that seinen and shounen can't do great animes like these (just look at horimiya and skip to loafer), but it also means we get a lot of anime that is trying to do the same but in a very harmful and sexist way (just look at shows like rent-a-girlfriend and the millions of bad isekai that come out every season). So, shounen is stealing shoujo tropes and making them worse (most of the time), and we're eating that shit up simply because there is no actual shoujo coming out as often as it did before.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

can we go back to talking about karasu’s arms because i think we should

like i REALLY think we should

[jinbedreams]

It's been so fascinating to see how strongly people react to Toshiro in Dungeon Meshi. When I first read that scene I didn't feel hurt by Toshiro's rejection of Laois at all, I was more shocked at Laios raising a hand to him in anger because Laios had always felt like a man free from such anger and aggression. Although it was very powerful to see that Laios was capable of feeling such a way. I felt the scene was very emotionally charged and an important moment for both characters.

So when I started hearing about how hurt other people were at seeing Toshiro lash out in frustration towards Laios, and seeing people express discomfort towards Toshiro I was surprised but not confused. Honestly I was more surprised at myself for not having a similar reaction because I have also been subject to being led on in "friendships" that the other person secretly despised (or at least did NOT feel the same). It can be very hurtful to discover that someone has built a resentment towards you but never made any attempt to clear the air with you until a point of crisis.

I am autistic and I struggle a lot with relationships but in this instance I didn't see myself in Laios' shoes (although I have been there) instead I found myself relating to Toshiro. A man trapped by social expectations, rigid rules of engagement hammered into him from a young age, only to discover that there is someone who does not follow these rules at all. Even more bizarrely they seem completely free from any of the consequences that would befall Toshiro if he ever deviated from his carefully cultivated mask.

I can say from experience it is confronting to try and unpack your own high masking trauma while also feeling compelled to support the low masking autistic person in your life. Even if the other person means no ill will and has not truly done anything wrong, having them unknowingly walk all over you can be enough to push you to a breaking point. There is an intense frustration that comes with seeing someone else get away with not following the social rules you have beaten yourself painfully into shape to fit.

Yes Toshiro could have chosen any moment to correct Laios on his name, or clarify his discomfort or his personal boundaries, but that is operating under the assumption that Toshiro feels safe enough to do so. He is a stranger in a strange land, and often in that position it is a safer choice to subject yourself to a level of discomfort simply to keep the general peace. Where my fellow high maskers at? We make biting our tongue a fucking art.

[cortex-rampage]

I find the way that BBC Merlin set up Merlin's powers in the first episode to be quite funny. I mean, we see this sort of lanky guy and it is established that he is Merlin and (according to our own common knowledge) therefore he is the most powerful warlock ever. Okay, cool. One might assume that he has come to Gaius to develop his powers, that maybe he's only in the beginning of his magical journey. But instead the exposition shows Merlin, in the pilot episode of this 5 series show, stop time and employ levitation to save someone's life with magic, and then it is announced that prince Arthur is essentially his soulmate, and their joint power will create the most glorious age Camelot has ever seen. Quite an exciting set-up. And then for the rest of the entire show this man who we know possesses TIME-ALTERING POWERS mostly uses them on-screen to do common chores and annoy and prank THAT SAME Arthur. Like that one post said, "All of it's destiny and all of it's his fault." :p

[dixidin]

Sometimes artistic freedom is good

@zol1x alr what's my time

[fumifooms]

do you happen to have that page that talks about the beauty standards of each race?

Yeah sure. While scavenging pics for this I found this neat reddit compilation & chart & theory talk too. I had um, way more to say than I anticipated (I know you only wanted the one page. I have nothing to say for myself. Like most topics in Dunmeshi things snowball because they’re so interconnected. Mercy…) so, many races and observations are only mentioned near the bottom.

Beauty standards and race in Dungeon Meshi

Not pictured there’s also how elven society is harsh on visibly disabled people, and how the demon took away Mithrun’s silver eyes and ears to take away his pride. There’s also how Senshi might have fit in with the orcs more easily because of the dwarven wide body shape, and how they tend to have more body hair too I suppose. In the extra on orcs we see Senshi living with the orcs and he gets judged because of the hierarchy rather than his looks.

What is fashionable also differs from culture to culture, and there’s how tattoos only seem common with elves, though dwarves and others do also sometimes have some. They seem to not raise much brows, which makes sense since for many essentially they’re for professional (magical) purposes especially with elves. Gender roles also differ in type and importance, but generally they are similar to irl ones for the races we see. Elven society seems to be the least gendered, which would be an unsurprising logical outcome of having lesser sexual dimorphism aka they look more androgynous. Comparing fashions and gender roles and how they affect beauty standards would be a whole other compilation and conversation. Kui has great worldbuilding partially because she’s got such a good grasp on sociopolitics and geopolitics. History affects cultures and beauty standards greatly. Kui’s oneshot Distant Utopia was very eye opening on her way to worldbuild and the consideration she gives these things, I do really recommend reading it.

Out of the big 5, we know the least about gnomes, but their sheet does say both culture and region are similar to dwarves’ and they end up being confused together often, so we can imagine the beauty standards are similar to dwarves’ as well.

I wanted to touch on this in a post eventually, but how one daydream hour page said half-foots tended to be curvaceous like in the artwork below puzzled me for a long time, all the half-foot characters we see during canon are rather slender and lanky after all, Chil’s succubi also being more curvy than plump. Economics are for sure a factor in that I imagine, the half-foots characters we see are all implied to be some flavor of poor or malnourished, as are half-foots depicted as empoverished oppressed minorities in general. Even comparing the artwork with the half-foot sheet’s depicted average half-foot, the ones on the left seem bigger. Wouldn’t it make sense though, if unlike dwarves half-foots don’t have similar naturally wide bodies, yet due to idolizing dwarves they work towards having a similar body shape/type to emulate them?

It’s said half-foots tend to stick to pretty ethnically homogeneous regions (aka half-foots-only communities) unless they move to the big city with ambition to try and make it big (like Chilchuck and his wife & kids did), and that’s interesting imo because then that would mean that in a ton of half-foot communities, they rarely see or interact with dwarves whom they try to emulate. Of course, one thing about beauty standards is that when they get adopted, at one point it stops being "this is how dwarves look and so this is how half-foots should look" and just becomes "this is how half-foots should look", most people feel as though beauty standards aren’t learned but innate, so I figure the half-foots wouldn’t have any problem still seeking dwarvish traits when there are no dwarves around.

There’s also stuff you can glean here and there if you want to extrapolate more. Like how in the race swap artworks, Mickbell is only smiling in the dwarf portrait, and Rin’s elven portrait looks very close to her elven one- Rin who is stated to be beautiful in her profile blurb. Benichidori’s extra does teach us tallmen can definitely have harsh beauty standards, but also since the text portrays her as very dysmorphic that’s likely reflected in her thoughts to a much more intense degree than is common, not an accurate strict baseline to go off. Ah, Kabru’s blue eyes are also why he and his mother lived a rough life in Kabru’s hometown, but that seems to be regional. Good post here on the topic of Kabru’s blue eyes and ties to irl history. There’s a lot to be said about Kabru being a man that in many ways is close to elven beauty standards, and how that might have affected or been affected by his upbringing with elves + his persona as someone that can effortlessly charm most people. Marcille’s section here in this essay also goes into Marcille’s struggles to fit in with the ideal image of an elf.

Looking human

Also notable are beastkins and demihumans: Demihumans are all dehumanized which makes people treat them worse. So if you differ from the visual idea of "human" (an in-world subjective categorization just as much as demihuman is) most people do judge you negatively. Elves and dwarves get to fight about which type of human is considered the prettiest, but demihumans are below tallmen and half-foots, they are considered as simply below the beauty contest, incompatible with it.

Onis are perhaps the demihuman people we know of with the least cultural influence on the dunmeshi world, and with the least intensely different appearance than other demihumans—they seem to be technically categorized as human to people not from the eastern archipelago?— but even them are treated as lesser than human, treated as beasts to slain for reputation points or useful strength to have around and command. It’s said their "magnificient horns" and fangs are often shaven off when the oni lives in tallman towns, so you could easily make the argument that onis are denied the right to have their own beauty standards, having to conform to other people’s and going through mutilation to take away features they might otherwise have taken pride in. Inutade was bought by the Nakamotos from a dangerous sumo fighting ring that got one of Inutade’s tooth broken on her first and only fight, and kept as a low ranking servant ever since. Remember when I said different fashions existed in dunmeshi and how those could also affect beauty standards? Like the elves, if you look at the portraits pages which include a lot of characters that aren’t in the story you can see distinct cultures within the same races, for example one young elf is bald which is in sharp contrast with the usual elven long luscious hairstyles, and that’s especially true for onis I think. Maybe not only from different regions but different eras as well… They have a bit of population in the very north of the western continent, so I like to think some of the ogres live in very cold, maybe even subarctic or arctic conditions. The point I’m getting at here is that within a race, culture/ethnicity like with Kabru will also influence them it isn’t just tallmen as a whole, different communities will have differing beauty standards. The oni history blurb and third row first collumn portrait remind me of Mongolia (which historically was a lot of different nomadic communities with different cultural identities as well. Something something, the oni empire experienced a decline and then tallmen overpowered them, and now they’re governed and split apart by stronger social classes & slavers and the richness of culture was hurt for it especially if they have no real community left of their own), but obviously many of them are dressed and look rather japanese, makes sense considering living in/close to Wa, and first row second collumn portrait reminds me of ainus which again would be logical considering geographical placement, though I’m far from an expert. Interestingly, ainus are indigenous people both in Japan and Russia- Perhaps the northern western continent ogres are meant to be closer to Russia than Canada like I imagined? Ok tangent over.

The kobold sheet says they’re especially sought after as slaves because they’re "adorable", but locally in the western continent they’re repeatedly said to be seen more as ferocious and dangerous. The dehumanization is most apparent in the first comic below. The language barrier and conflicts no doubt worsen this by a lot, but I think it’d be hard to deny that their canine appearance makes the dehumanization worse. "They’re ferocious beasts, they’re demihumans, they can’t be communicated with". Most characters in Dungeon Meshi’s world are desensitized to slavery and most characters are prejudiced one way or another. Point being, kobolds are fully removed from human beauty standards, but no doubt for kobolds, other kobolds are more beautiful than humans are. They’re assumed to be an uncivilized bunch, but just like any other people they like to adorn themselves with nice clothes and jewelry and keep themselves clean and groomed; they too take care of their appearance and take pride in it.

And the orcs! This one we have the most contact with in canon, with not only there being foreigner characters from the ethnicity or hearsay of their homelands and culture but full on contact with a community. We get to see up close what they’re like and what they think, and of course in turn they’re our introduction to how demihumans are harshly looked down upon and seen as inferior, less human and thus less worth valuing and less dignified. It’s text that orcs are ugly to most humans and humans are ugly to most orcs. Since I judged they didn’t need accompanying explanation the pictures showing this are in the pictures dump at the top.

God forbid you sell vegetables to orcs my god- but then again they do basically mandate adventurers to kill any orcs they come across so yeah the world isn’t above that even a little bit.

So yes, my main point here is simply that orcs are yet another evidence of the physical ideal of "human" being an important beauty standard for human societies globally.

Izutsumi is our glimpse at how beastkins are treated in the world, and in Wa at least that’s ending up being caged and mistreated as part of a freak show. Izutsumi hates her appearance and wishes she could leave the feline part of herself behind to only be human. Interestingly, not that we have a lot of info on them so this is very much a take with a grain of salt situation, but there seems to be less stigma around artificial beastmen, those who can shapeshift at will. The main difference is of course appearance, that most of the time they simply look like average tattooed humans. Artificially creating humans is an illegal practice, and no doubt it’s not well regarded, but being able to hide that makes them less likely to be discriminated at any moment, or even just discriminated less intensely. Again, looking human is important, not only for belonging but for safety’s sake. Beauty standards rule the world with harsh hands.

Mermaids and fishmen

Ok we’re done now right? Right-! But wait… Wait…! Mermaids and fishmen are said to be demihumans too, special separate cases to the main three demihuman species however, which is also represented by how mermaids and fishmen both are in the Adventurer’s Bible chapter Monsters meanwhile ogres, kobolds and orcs are in the chapter World. They’re an interesting topic because they directly tackle this topic, not only in a meta way for the readers but also making characters themselves struggle to quantify their humanity with the goal of knowing wether they should be eaten or not, especially Chilchuck. Chilchuck’s "is it really just a matter of feelings?" mini arc.

The party asking themselves "Should we eat this?" is very common, and often they end up playing a little loose on morality, like eating the red dragon’s meat despite it having digested Falin. Not unsimilarly Marcille freaks out a little over the vegetables they harvested having been grown with fertilizer, aka largely human poo. Half of the motivation of "should we eat this perhaps sentient creature" is out of consideration and compassion, but more strongly and more often, the characters struggle with a sense of taboo at eating something too closely related to humans. Even, feel uncomfortable because of the deepseated impression that eating it would dirty them in some way. Cannibalism is an interesting and relevant topic in many ways, but what I want to mention is how there’s the more or less universal belief that committing cannibalism inherently taints you as a person and turns you more monstrous, morally but also literally depending on some myths such as w*ndigos and onis in some cases, like in Touge Oni. Marcille and Izutsumi both express a fear of eating monsters turning them monstrous. Maybe this is part of what Laios was hoping for, honestly. There are two fears here, if eating a demihuman monster constitutes as cannibalism or not, and so, will eating it taint you because it’s a human, or will eating it taint you because it’s a monster? You are what you eat, until it’s a little too literal. You morally are the means by which you get your food, and you physically are the result of your nutrition. Dungeon meshi manages to mix an exploration of humanity with the theme of food because our relationship to food is very deep and complex, psychological as much as physiological.

In the end, the characters sort of shrug and accept that they’ll never quite understand the world of mermaids and fishmen and how they operate, and what that means about them. Laios is the one always challenging these notions other characters take for granted, it’s not obvious to Laios why people are softer on mammals than other animals and plants, it’s not obvious to Laios why people would be afraid of eating a monster just because it’s a monster, it’s not obvious to Laios why some food is gross to Marcille but not fish testicles, it’s not obvious to Laios why you should immediately regard orcs and kobolds badly.

"Cows are probably closer to humans [aka closer to being human] than fishmen, though they’re clearly intelligent", dehumanization to lessen empathy towards them to be able to eat them. Meanwhile, mermaids seemingly have a less noticeable "civilization" or intelligence, they hunt in groups like fishmen, but they don’t use tools and such, they feel more primal and similarly instinct driven, and yet… Do they attract sympathy more? Mammals, humans, is it because of their nature or because of their appearance?

Both the nature and appearance of fish are ones people don’t typically sympathize with. "Fish don’t feel pain", "goldfish only have 5 seconds of memory", "it’s okay to keep fish in completely empty bowls too small for them until they die from it", so many lies and misconceptions exist that make people less considerate of them. The average lifespan of a goldfish is 10-15 years, the record is 43, but they’re not seen as lives that really matter, so a lot of goldfish die in a few weeks of bad aquarium conditions. There’s a lot of research on animals evolving to look cute and appealing to make some predators want to kill them less and parents want to care for them more, including humans. First good google research result gave me this credible short article on the topic. In Chilchuck’s weighing wether a fishman is far enough from being human or not to eat, "face is 100% fish" is his biggest argument for it being more acceptable. The face, the most important thing for empathy and recognition. The face, the decapitated fishman one that falls into his hands next chapter.

To quote @room-surprise: "Chilchuck can't explain why it's wrong to eat the merpeople, even though it's NOT complicated. But the problem is Chilchuck would have to accept and acknowledge that the merpeople might be people? And that's outside of the worldview he passively believes, so he can't just say that, because he doesn't think that's true. But that IS why he "feels" it's wrong. And it's all you'd need to say for Laios to understand! But it would require acknowledging that maybe the way they're treating and talking about the merpeople is wrong."

The idea of Chil not being able to grapple with how maybe some monsters are more humans than they seem, him who had been an advocate of half-foots rights, half-foots who get undermined and treated as inconsequential sacrifices… Grappling with how he could relate to the merpeople’s situation almost, and pulling away because it’s so existentially horrifying. I do not want to see myself into an hostile fish-faced warrior I can’t communicate with. In a way this also relates to Chilchuck being the only party member who doesn’t see Izutsumi as a cat in the relationship chart, the only one to treat her with full human dignity. He knows the struggle to be taken seriously, he knows being infantilized and he knows what it’s like to be treated as less than human.

Below, you will see Chilchuck draws the line of where they become not okay to eat as when "they already look like mermaids". Above, there’s speculation that the algae hair is partly to mimic "the mermaids’ beautiful female form". Is it because mermaids are their enemies and the ambiguity might give them extra seconds to attack or flee? Is it to trick adventurers instead? It’s striking to me that this is what works, with the adventurers. Sure the fishmen are intelligent, but explicitly here, what makes them no longer acceptable prey to Chilchuck is that they look close enough to a mermaid, close enough to human. Mermaids who of course themselves have this form to entice and seduce and charm the adventurers they prey on. Chilchuck considers the intelligence due to the tridents, but most of his internal debate centers around their appearance, and the image of a fishman skewered sickens him. The power of mimicry… Mimic being a beautiful human woman. Mimic being cute, babies being wired to make us feel protective and softened. Half-foots, sometimes pretending to be children for scams or help or avoiding trouble.

The mermaids are only concerned by their differences and not their similarities, and have no trouble treating the fishmen as food rather than peers. To an outside perspective like us, the audience, all these categorization of "more human" and "less human" between onis and orcs and elves and tallmen etc seem stupid and unfounded, but to the people living in Dungeon Meshi’s world, elves may as well be mermaids while onis are fishmen, not alike at all, unworthy of empathy and thus fine to eat.

Ultimately, Dungeon Meshi promotes unity. It’s about seeking to understand the unknown and the misunderstood, the dehumanized and the inhuman. It shows the good that comes from seeking to understand what you do not, even when that’s one another.

[mayahawkeswife]

i think people really do lack the understanding of just how much representation matters.

like, chappell roan. not only is she an out and proud LESBIAN, but i just saw a interview where she opens up about how she is also demisexual. that truly struck a chord with me personally, because i’ve been struggling with figuring myself out in those terms and just hearing someone talk about it, knowing i’m not alone in my feelings and that it’s okay, really does help.

representation MATTERS. DIVERSE representation matters.

[foreverbaby25]

[restingcorpse]

[feloire]

[babsiballo]

[luna-loveboop]

So... Warriors

It is obvious by now he's not ok. He's irritable and tense.

I've had thoughts and ideas on this for awhile, so I think now's a good time to speak them. Very important detail at the end.

There are some really big and some small things adding to his stress

The drama with the sword. Wild went against the agreed plan, and lashed out in anger fear for twilights injury. From things Jojo said, Wars is mad about it for a while.

I have said this in other posts, but based on things Jojo has said and some details, I do not think Wild likes wars. He has not really gotten close to him, which adds on to the negativity between them

But Wars... is a captain. This journey is different, and he's doing amazing at setting aside expectations of how to work with rank. But that is still a clear stressor- to him that was unacceptable in battle

^this is one big thing we watched go wrong and has clearly been upsetting since

Another thing is

Wars has been taking on too much. We've seen him break up a fight at the inn, comfort Time (time!), and tell him he'd take care of the others.

Twice he said "let them", and "let him be"-making others have space they needed. He asked Four what was wrong and followed up with helping with smithing.

^^These are all small things. None of these are huge- practically tiny tasks. But they add up- all the attention to others feeling but not his own

... and

Wars has not smiled. Yes, he smiled, but it was not his smile. Since Twilight went injured to the inn, there has only been smiles in a way expected, but not much beyond when he found out his friend wasn't dead. (And when he helped Four at the blacksmiths)

In the updates, I have seen others saying how cool/pretty he looked. Which he did! But emotion wise, I only thought he looked angry. Even when teasing Twilight...

^Not his smile

But here's the biggest thing that I believe is bothering him...

I've wanted to point this out for awhile. The thing is, Wars was really hurt when he found out Twilight didn't tell him about Wolfie

It's small details. A few sentences and facial expressions. But they add up over the chapter, and I don't think he felt trusted or trusting when he found out

He tried to find out who else knew

And why he was one who didn't

*read the blurred words:

"No one said anything to me, I'm just left out of the loop. Who else knows? Just us?"

Wolfie being secret wasn't necessarily about trust, but wars took it personally. He really didn't understand or want to accept that Twilight would have told some of the others but not him...

Wars is distinctly closer to the ones his age, who the younger ones often turn to. And as someone who's been through war, who bonds closest with those he feels he works with best?

Twilight having a major secret he didn't share with Wars, but did with others,

Felt like a knife to the (back?) chest.

And it hurt him

Look at his face when saying "we couldn't do a thing for him". He's looking away, directly after asking four and wild if they knew. I don't think he felt trusted. Or trusting. From thinking someone wasn't who he thought he was, and maybe was closer to others...

^^this is what I think is perhaps the biggest stressor- yet most unnoticeable

Wars never spoke to anyone about his feelings. He pushed it aside and went and helped.

This is ok. Between people so close, anything can be worked out. This is very revealing of how much Wars cares about twilight and the others

As far as Warriors pushing aside his needs and focusing on others... it's hard.

But I can confidently say this: Warriors would never want to not help all he could, when the others needed him

Here's this screenshot that makes me laugh (and somehow sky is just chill with this?)

Wars: oh my god my friend just came back from a wolf what the Hylia who can I even trust I'm having an invisible crisis

Sky: oh yay the sword helped he's back :)

Twilight: I'm fine *currently dying*

Wars is stressed right now. He's taken on too much, he's probably still mad at Champion, and... he feels betrayed (god wars should never have to feel betrayed) and untrusted

Like literally everyone ever others, wars deals with his hurt. Sometimes he can't deal with it alone, and sometimes he can. It will all work out, and I love how much he loves his brothers.

But nothing, I repeat nothing

Will be ok

IF HE DOESNT START WEARING THE DAMN SCARF SOON CMON WE HAVENT SEEN IT IN LIKE TEN UPDATES

PUT ON YOUR EMOTIONAL SUPPORT SCARF CMON MAN

Ok I'm calm <3

.

Art and comic by Jojo @linkeduniverse :D

[sableeira]

there is something about magic systems that borrow from a specific craft that makes them so special. Maybe it’s because they feel more tangible and it’s very easy to get swept away by the passion for the craft that is clearly written on every page.

Whether it’s the art based magic system in Witch Hat Atelier. Or the translation based magic system in Babel. Or the alchemy/chemistry based magic system in Fullmetal Alchemist.

The relation to a specific craft makes the characters passion for their magic feel so personal and relatable. Because there is magic in art, in translation, in chemistry and any other craft that people partake in. The magic system becomes a love letter towards creation and everyone who creates and there is nothing world building wise that could be more charming.