#theme: eating disorders

[bitternanami]

something i think is really interesting about dungeon meshi is the cast's respective views on food as the story progresses. the way many adventurers get through the dungeon is to eat when they Must, but mostly rely on healing magic to keep going when they're tired or beaten down. death is something you can buy your way out of, here.

having these lower stakes when it comes to running yourself too hard has made a lot of people in this setting kind of devalue food and what it does for you.

im not all the way through the manga yet, but so far i really like how it goes about debunking that mindset.

long post under the cut, cw explicit discussion of disordered eating. textual depiction of unhealthy methods of dealing with it. please be cautious!

it seems like to most folks, food is either a decadent luxury, like when the governor offers mr tance a feast as a show of power and wealth, (although he is the only one who actually eats in that scene as he talks about his ambitions);

[id: the governor and mr. tance talk politics and hierarchies, while the governor eats from a bowl. mr. tance's meal is not visible behind a speech bubble.

"so you believe the sorceror is an elf?" he asks.

"i can't say with absolute certainty," mr. tance replies, "but the spells are not ones dwarves and humans typically use." /end id]

like the painted-royal feasts laios tries to partake in that never actually nourish him...

[id: laios, fresh out of the living painting feast, surprisedly holding his grumbling stomach /end id]

or, to the working class, it's pretty much exclusively fuel. i'm thinking about the scene where kabru's party, ostensibly intended to be our view into how adventuring Typically goes for most people, is shown preparing to go to the dungeon by like. walking up to someone and ordering 'a weeks' worth of rations.' purely functional.

[id: kabru enters a store, and the merchant says "welcome!"

kabru says "i need a week's worth of rations for six, and two days' worth of water."

"sure thing." the merchant then reaches behind him and grabs a large cube-shaped package, wrapped in nondescript cloth and tied in place. it thumps onto the counter in front of them both. /end id]

when kabru hands mickbell his food for the trip, he complains about how heavy it is on his back. it's a necessary liability.

we also see chilchuck, in an early chapter where there isn't much food to go around, grumbling about how he used to be better at not noticing when he was hungry. he's frustrated that he's more attuned to his bodily needs, now that he's starting to fill them with regularity.

[id: chilchuck, the only one awake, sits in his bedroll and glares at the timekeeping-candle burning down in front of him while he listens to his stomach growl. moving to find his canteen and fill himself with water instead, he thinks to himself, "my stomach has gotten weaker. i used to be able to go two days without food." /end id]

(like im not even gonna lie this is a big mood. the healing process is really really annoying)

even laios, early on, working out the logistics of going back for falin, considers his expenses and ultimately the thing he decides to save money on is their food supply. like, even the guy most invested in eating as an experience kind of just assumes he will Figure It Out. its what hes eating, not how hes eating it that matters to him at that point.

[id: marcille looks down at the ingredients they've gathered, the walking mushroom and the scorpion in an unappetizing heap on the ground, and asks laios "so how exactly do we eat them?"

he responds "let's just cook them, like normal." /end id]

but its here that senshi introduces the idea of food as art and as healing. its exciting and its fascinating for laios, getting to taste the creatures hes been reading about and fighting, but i dont think it would ever really help him feel full if not for this.

[id: three panels of laios tasting the scorpion hotpot, looking stunned, and then excitedly telling senshi "delicious!"

senshi matches his energy, asking "isn't it? isn't it?" /end id]

pictured: guy who had resigned himself to kind of just doing his best rediscovers the joy in something tasting really fucking good

what they did last time isnt going to work. falin is gone, and constantly anesthetizing their pain and healing through their weakness is no longer a realistic option for the party. in order to make it through they must all relearn how to eat well, one by one and as a group over and over again, because its either that or nothing.

one of my favorite depictions of this idea thus far is when marcille is seriously low on health and mana, and both of these problems are mitigated by taking care of herself, and trying to get iron and protein

[id: marcille, looking sickly, wakes to laios saying, "marcille, marcille, can you sit up? we've got something nice for you."

she watches senshi grill pieces of kelpie liver on a low fire, while laios ties a bib around her neck. /end id]

and drinking a bunch of dead water spirits. she gets the idea, she's supposed to get in nutrients and it'll help her feel better, but in aiming for the quick, inefficient fix, namely chugging that shit down like she heard it was good to Stay Hydrated and decided that would be the thing that fixes her,

[id: marcille throws back a cup of boiled undine-water, her face red. laios asks, "do you really need to drink it that fast?"

she gasps out "...the magical energy stored in nature spirits is actually quite hard to absorb. even if you drink a lot, the majority of it is excreted without being absorbed," and takes another drink. "that's why i need to drink as much as i can."

laios says weakly "you'll get water poisoning," but marcille only stops when senshi puts a hand on her shoulder and says,

"it's easier to absorb nutrients if ye digest them with food. that's a fundamental rule of nutrition."

marcille says, "senshi..." contemplative

and he holds out a bowl of tentuclus and a thumbs up. "let's get cooking!" /end id]

she doesn't immediately realize the answer is that she needs more than that. she's been working hard. she needs care, and she needs nourishment.

once she gets that, though, she makes her boiled water into a stew, and she works to make that stew as good as she can, and everyone can have some.

because in dungeon meshi, to feed yourself or allow yourself to be fed is treated as performing a kindness for yourself. food is what propels you, but there is also an art and a joy inherent to the process of making it; in the way you feel when you've had enough to eat.

[id: senshi watches as chilchuck and marcille eat and excitedly hash out plans.

"i've got a good feeling about this! maybe it'll work out!" chilchuck says

marcille responds, "well it's easier to feel optimistic on a full stomach!"

senshi smiles, proud. /end id]

^^^ i want to put this image on my wall

when you're working through disordered eating habits, you really do have to keep learning this shit. (in my experience, learning about cooking is one of the best ways to do so.)

i'll have to see if my thesis holds up as i continue, but i think one of the reasons the portrayal here resonates with me so hard is that ryoko kui puts most of her characters at eye level with me on this. they're all working at it, too. the text and i are both commiserating, and encouraging each other, 'have some more, you'll feel better.'

[lolitasnuff]

i made a cannibal themed diet :D

this was so fun to make i think ill make more 💒🦴💞

[scr3amingbutt3rfly]

Mlp diets- part one.

Part two

Low res Med res High res

My asks are open if you want me to make you a diet!!!

[eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeert]

School is hard and it's my fault I always just watch YouTube or scroll on Tumblr after tutoring and I barely even do my work and I want to do it but I can't I can't do the stuff I actually like doing like reading, drawing, writing just anything that could be considered somewhat productive and it's been regurgitated to me from so many teachers and my mom that i only have highschool to get my shit together or I'll fucking fail in life no matter what I do and I am trying my best it's just that my best is far from enough and I should've tried to switch my math class to second semester or to a different teacher at the very least cus I haven't learned shit and it's not like the math teacher doesn't put her lectures in canvas it's just that I can't sit through something I don't like and now it's end of course testing and I know I'll fail math and English cus I can't do my work or pay attention and none of the ADHD meds I've been put on really help except for Adderall but that made me feel like zombie but at least I got more of my work done, I don't eat breakfast or lunch at school anymore and I only really eat dinner and maybe a small snack and I'm a bit worried I might get an E.D but I don't wanna sit in the cafeteria where it's really loud, and I don't wanna rely on my parents for cash to hang out with my friends so I have to go into the cafeteria this week to sell my stupid fucking memes, and I honestly can't tell which parent is better at this point cus my mom gets on my ass about school and makes me feel like failure if I don't do well in school and my dad is mildly transphobic plus a bit of other bullshit, and I want to change but I don't know how, I want to spend time on my hobbies and homework and not fail at life, and live up to my potential that almost every teacher in the past and my parents say I have, I want my mom to stop saying "ThIs Is WhY you dOn't mess aroUnd in scHool cUs It'll come bAck to Bite you in tHe ass" at every minor life inconvenience, I want my dad to see me as his son instead of his daughter, I just want to go to sleep and have it all be some weird bad dream that seemed scary when you were in it but now that you're awake it's just really stupid sounding.

[danothan]

do you guys think speedsters have calluses, despite their accelerated healing? if anything, i feel like they should BECAUSE of it, since calluses form as a way to heal over repetitive pressure/friction. ig they could also heal anew without calluses, but would there even be enough time in between? with all the running speedsters do, that Repetition would build up over time to be more of a Constant

then again, a part of me thinks that as often as speedsters run, it would still not be enough to counteract how rapidly they heal, esp considering that the speedforce is meant to protect the speedster’s body from friction. barry himself says that he doesn’t wear down his socks any faster than usual when wally gifts him socks every year for christmas. i’m also reminded of knight terrors: flash when barry transforms into a callused creature of a thing bc there’s smth interfering with the speedforce, so his body has to compensate for the friction

huh, so i guess the takeaway is that in a general setting, speedster DON’T get calluses! at least not any more than the average person, probably even less so if at all actually. which now seems obvious in retrospect, but it’s fun going thru the process and showing the work for it lol

[groundbreakingdot872]

Ever think about the fact that Uther fell in love with a corpse?

That Catrina was dead, had already been dead for weeks, when the troll strutted into court wearing her face

And speaking of the origins of their plan- the troll had likely scavenged the estate of Tregor after the invasion minutes after the event, kicking bodies out the way on her instinctual hunt gold

Instead of finding anything valuable, which the bandits had already taken, she found pretty personal belongings, too lesser for a thief... and the lady that they belonged too.

Brutally murdered maybe, but intact enough to be recreated, and impersonated.

Finding her manservant’s body fallen nearby made the idea too easy to conceive, a "Jonas" in hand and the personal items of Catrina ruthlessly ripped away, the plan wealth beyond their imagining was already in motion

And then in the aftermath, of the whole horrid, gruesome, embarrassing affair, when the rumors had died down enough…

Uther must’ve gone quietly, in the early hours of the morning, to visit Catrina’s grave - the real Catrina

Laid flowers, and shed a few private tears over the woman he had never met, but had strong feelings for, perhaps love. Her physique and voice had enchanted him, in more ways than one, and temporarily given him a happy out from the sins of the past

Though it must've unsettled him, that he had fallen for the figment of a woman, not even a ghost, and pledged his entire Kingdom in a heartbeat over a pleasant if pitying face

Although I'm sure the irony, of beloveds coming back to the present, wearing marred faces with a masked intent for vengeance over ghosts of his evils, must have eluded him...

[scr3amingbutt3rfly]

Hey! I saw that you were accepting requests for diets (at least I hope you still are TT) and was wondering if you'd be okay doing Madoka Magica themed ones? If not I totally understand!

(also forgive me for sending this anonymously lol, just personal preference)

I love making diets thank you for requesting this!!!!! <3

I made it in low, med and high res :)

And some spo:

[skunkes]

i wasnt even a vampyre truther til recently but aughhh there really is something about them you really can fit so many metaphors of all kinds in there. they're so Susceptible. To the Metaphors.

[millionsknives]

Hello Bryn so I started following you for your Trigun art (love love love ‘em) but your spring rolls pic just gave me so much personal and Trigun feels… sorry I’m about to ramble.

So my good friend is Viet and we lived together during Covid lockdown. We made and ate SO MUCH Viet food. It really is a whole event. A participatory art. I live alone now and I miss eating as a communal ritual.

Which reminds me of that Stampede scene where Vash finally started eating again “I deserve to eat, right?” They were eating together too—all of them, including the three random dudes that were on the sideline. There’s just something so natural and comforting about sharing meals; it’s making me kind of sad because Vash often had to eat alone (ex. when he first came to ship 3 and when he roamed around the desert). Vash was hungry for a family/community and now I can see that being one of the points of episode 4.

Happy eating together!!!

i feel the same way 😭😭 sharing food isn’t just about food, it’s healing. to be welcomed in, to be looked after, to participate together in the creation and consumption of what makes us so human

my roommate of four years was viet (i can’t even call her a roommate, we were so much more than that, she’s family) and she helped teach me how to cook and for us food wasn’t just what we ate, it was what we did. it was how we loved.

i’ve never seen someone eat so much in my life, countless shared meals, whether it was just the two of us or we were cooking for thirty other people, howl’s-moving-castle-breakfasts on weekends, hurried dinner leftovers scarfed down in the car while i drove the 55, hours-long hot pot feasts until we’re sweating and stuffed, wicked cold ice cream eaten on the curb downtown as midnight approaches, entire rainy mondays spent making phở, sandwiches with too much maggi seasoning packed in paper bags for hikes, inviting the boys over to gorge on wafer-thin bánh xèo, she’d chop tomatoes for my bruschetta because the smell of them made me sick and i would juice lemons for her when her hands were chapped and bleeding. and i’ve never had an easy relationship with food but something about lyss made eating feel so simple and right.

since she moved away and i eventually moved too i don’t have that same community anymore and i’ve struggled to eat well since losing it. i didn’t know what i had until it was gone. she never forced me to eat or chided me for not eating, she would just make really good food and share it with me. and i would eat it. i could eat it. eating was easier when she was around. so making dinner tonight was like a ritual, putting on the apron she gave me and making spring rolls for the first time in months and accidentally pouring out too much fish sauce just like she would do; and even though i don’t get to share spring rolls with her anymore, the time and the food that we shared together has changed me. and it’s okay. it’s easier to let myself eat and laugh when i can be the one to provide a meal for the people that i am with now, even if they’re not the people who make it easy, so for now i will do just that and maybe someday again i will be able to cook and eat with someone who makes it unburdensome.