#element lb

[yume-fanfare]

sickness

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: Izutsumi! and Elves

Chilchuck my love, you so fucking asked for that one.

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You woke him from his nap!!

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Asfslkfjsk was the fact that Senshi accidentally made this guy in the show? I don't remember it.

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I love how this fight showcases how fast Izutsumi is. Girl's got a Dex of like 22.

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Fuckin' tragic that this is just a chapter cover and they never actually, so far as I'm aware, dress in sheepskins the way they dressed in frogskins.

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Not to be Edgy(TM) but I'm pretty sure that by this definition, humans, especially magic-users, are also "monsters."

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The green-growing, snow-free cavern with the barometz suddenly appearing is I'm pretty sure the most blatant the dungeon has been so far about giving people what they want - except possibly for this usually hot & humid floor being freezing in the first place, just because Laios said he didn't like the heat.

I hope it keeps doing this sort of thing after he becomes king. I know that's not how this works but god I love a sentient land, especially one that tries to accommodate its people. Alas that this one's all a honey trap for flies.

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It's very clear to me that, while Izutsumi may genuinely prefer to avoid strenuous effort, either physical or emotional, most of her argument with Marcille in this chapter is about her testing the boundaries of the group's tolerance for her. Where she was before, they'd tell her, "You'd think you could be a little more grateful to us for taking you in." And this is a philosophy that Tade, Izutsumi's closest friend and the one other subordinate-due-to-species person among them, bought into:

Izutsumi was skeptical...but that's still what she lived with. Until now, with this new group, where she's getting mixed messages - or, what feels like mixed messages, between what the group does and says and what she thinks they're saying based on her past experience.

Chilchuck calls her a beast, then basically has her act as distracting bait for a dangerous period of time while the rest of the party (is busy being injured or tending to the injured) does nothing to help, and all Chilchuck does to help Izutsumi kill the ice golem is mark its weak point for her. But then he compliments her skills, apologizes for being rude, and gives her her own pack and bedroll, truly welcoming her to the group. And when she remarks sarcastically that nobody cares about a beast being naked, Marcille only redoubles her efforts to help her keep her modesty, while the others bind Laios's eyes because he's the one who's going to Make It Weird - not Izursumi. Laios stays blindfolded throughout the steam bath scene because the party respects Izutsumi as a person.

So then she starts that fight over food, partly because she genuinely doesn't want to eat gross things - and more importantly, doesn't want to risk becoming even more a monster than most people already view her. But also because she wants, perhaps subconsciously, to see what happens when she's "supposed" to be a "team member" now but she disobeys the more senior members of the group.

This chapter threads two needles, builds two distinctions: between "earning your place" and "pulling your fair weight", and between "doing things you don't like for others (on their orders/for their goals)" and "doing things you don't like for you (for your own goals)." I think it...could do better at it? Like, Tade is kinda failing at step 1, because it's not clear to me that she realizes needing to "be useful" in order to stay is inherently fucked up. But she DOES think of that as her personal goal, even if it's actually externally imposed, and she's okay with putting in hard, sometimes unpleasant work in order to achieve it.

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Kabru internally, triumphantly: CAHOOOOOOOOTS!

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{fond sigh} the Elves from the West on their white ships with avian figureheads... They may be dicks, but we do love a Tolkien reference.

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CANARIES IN THE COAL MINE. I have NO idea if that translation is intended but my god I love it. If it's deliberate, is it a subversion of that concept or is it an indication of what the Elvish government thinks of their crack team of dungeon-delvers?

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BIGGEST, BLUEST EYES OF PERFECT* HONESTY*...followed by the visible pupils of honest evasion. Man, I'm really enjoying the Shuro-Kabru dynamic here, too? Shuro like, "Don't bullshit me. I'm a prince. I'm willing to help, but I know a politician when I see one." They vibe, your honor. They bonded over one of the weirdest and most traumatic meals of both their lives.

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LMAOOOO. This was NOT in the show!

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I love how Namari greets him excitedly and immediately asks for news of Falin, and Shuro says nothing but, really, everything; and Namari changes the subject to something lighter that's still gossip about their friends. I don't really expect it to happen but I'd LOVE to see the whole old Touden party reunite in battle or just around a campfire again, because it's clear they were a very good party of dungeon-competent people who worked and got along well together.

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Srsly though the opening view of this scene is such eloquent dynamic-establishing, vis a vis the elves relationship with the Island Lord and, well, everyone else here. We heard people muttering nervously in the streets, we heard Kabru's brief but heartfelt story of Utaya... And now we get this:

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The words of a man who would definitely for sure not have a single problem, not a one!

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Wait, what shady side business did Shuro have?! I love that Chilchuck is objectively the most reputable person in the party... Except really he fits in with the others: I bet a lot of parties don't want to hire That Bitchy Pushy Halffoot, any more than they want to hire an Easterner with weird vibes or the daughter of an infamous thief. (Or a mysterious elvish mage who won't explain her real reasons for wanting to explore dungeons, but Marcille would've joined the Touden party anyway, for Falin.)

It shows how Laios's trust of others pays off just as often as it doesn't.

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THIS IS IT, THIS SORT OF IMAGINE SPOT IS WHY I LOVE KABRU VERY MUCH.

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THE WORDS OF A MAN WHO WILL DEFINITELY FOR SURE NOT HAVE A SINGLE PROBLEM, NOT A ONE!

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...hot.

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kitty cat

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I like how this sort of comment is obviously genuinely hurting Laios, and Chilchuck does kinda genuinely mean it, but also he's saying it more reflexively than anything. Laios says or does something Particularly Fucking Weird; Chilchuck comments and keeps going along with him. I do look forward to Chilchuck growing accepting of Laios's weirdness rather than just resigned, but it's a good character beat all around.

[leafsleafsleafsstuff]

W I L L I A M .

[gorgynei]

this is fascinating because im fairly certain "restoring the full power of the primordials" would just result in the planet being overtaken by elemental chaos, no? taming the primoridals was necessary for life to exist on exandria

[significant-narratives]

toronto maple leafs i diagnose you with not enough fire signs disorder

earth signs

taurus — 2

virgo — 5

capricorn — 1

total count: 8

air signs

gemini — 1

libra — 3

aquarius — 1.5 (reavo is an aries-aqua cusp)

total count: 5.5

water signs:

cancer — 3

scorpio — 1

pisces — 3

total count: 7

fire signs:

aries — 1.5 (hi again reavo)

sagittarius — 1

leo — n/a

total fire sign count: 2.5

somebody get me brad on the phone we need to have a serious conversation

[mycenaae]

also my big lucanis plot critique/complaint is that they worked so so hard to sanitize the crows and caterina specifically that they wound up erasing a lot of his really interesting tie-in media backstory and the trauma he endured (which would likely be what made him compatible with spite in the first place!!!!!!!) and so now he's just like. a walking coffee ad in a kiss the chef apron, outside of his spite-and-illario-specific plotlines. but with the tie-in media in mind, caterina declaring him first talon feels like such an ominous ending to his questline & just another person controlling him from behind the scenes, instead of as a victorious end to his struggles lol

[humandisastersquad]

Absolutely missed opportunity in The Apocalypse Element to not have someone ask the sixth doctor why he looks like commander Maxil

[gillianthecat]

Anyone have a favorite element from the periodic table?

[trans-xianxian]

maybe jiang cheng eating his food with upside down chopsticks was a production mistake. or maybe it was a visual metaphor for his complete blind trust in wei wuxian and willingness to take anything his older brother hands him

[spyres]

i love you seel and dewgong i will not make a comment about how stupid it is that the pokedex lists you as sea lion pokemon despite the fact that you're obviously not sea lions and your names are literally seal and dugong with different spellings and dewgong was even called manaty (manatee) in the red and blue beta you're literally everything besides a fucking sea lion at this point and yet the pokedex still classifies you as sea lions

[horsegirlgru]

My humble submission to @simmyfrobby for the elemental hockey project 🫶🏻

Hafnium

Yield the holy grail:

Induced gamma emission.

Let the price be low.

Read more of Mary Soon Lee's Elemental haiku here!

[yume-fanfare]

she is so fascinating

[edgeisallelite]

They finally let the old man say ‘fuck’. About fucking time.

[leafsleafsleafsstuff]

W I L L I A M

[magicaldreamfox1]

ngl pit babe is the epitome of what i feared would happen to thai bl after the success of kinnporsche: a narratively entirely empty and meaningless show that still finds immense success due to having a bunch of well shot sex scenes

[seishun-emergency]

i've definitely said this before but it's so fascinating to me to look at how eichi views social connection and friendship during the war. like in the context of how for a lot of his own life to this point he's been treated like a necessary means to an end with regards to the tenshouin business and how he watches adults around him navigate socialization from a shrewd, businesslike perspective with the intent of figuring out how to best use the connections and skills of the people around them, rather than connect to them on an actual, personal level beyond just what they can do or can get... it just makes a lot of sense why eichi doesn't seem to process both that people will want to just genuinely be friends with him and aren't "naive" or too idealistic for doing so and also that He can have people that are just genuine friends. idk. the shift in how he acts with new fine compared to old fine is rly important to me with how it shows eichi's development in how he thinks about people from the start of the war til the current day. i should reread tempest