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the fritter (frin critter)
#inspo struck right after posting the last two. some kind of a hermit crab. a snail#they think they look all cool and mysterious under their safety shelter but if u remove it they're a disastrous puffball of uncombed fur#the hat is not accurate to an adult human btw. i tried to put them in a full size hat and they were lost forever. this is a child sized hat#they need to swap out for bigger hats as they grow#MY FRIENDS WROTE AND DREW SO MUCH FOR THE FRITTER I HOPE THEY CAN REBLOG AND ADD BC THEYRE SO GOOD <3#we started making a whole au about critter species in the wild and how they interact and survive. very fascinating.#i need to collect all the worldbuilding into one place eventually. rn all i'll say is.. overworked odile petsmart employee (tealgoat's idea#isat critters#isat#in stars and time#isat siffrin#my art#a6se/twohats (this tag only) implication then is that loop is bald i guess aksdks. loop = wild shorthair. fritter = domestic longhair.
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Honrses
#theyre supposed to be used as war montures and also for transportation like irl horses but they are not shy or afraid#so like theyre really hard to tame idk theyre just concepts still#honestly looking at them now they seem too horse like i'll probably redesign them to look more bulky like a rhino#so my idea is that unicorns exist in my setting but they went extinct and these are part of the same genus but lack magic qualities#and instead theyre more about raw force and impaling stuff#i will add them to my bestiary so i'll explain better when its time#wgd#worldbuilding#horse art#art#my art#digital art#dark fantasy
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Dungeon Meshi World Map
REGIONS (Descriptions taken from the Adventurer's Bible)
WESTERN CONTINENT
Description: Bears the most scars from the ancient war. It has many monsters and ruined dungeons, and although it's vast, there are surprisingly few habitable areas. Most of the inhabitants are sturdy, short-lived races and demihumans. Elven culture has had a strong influence here. Characters: Kabru and Kuro Places of Note: Utaya Dungeons of Note: The Utaya Dungeon, The Dragon's Lair
NORTHERN CENTRAL CONTINENT
Description: The continent that is home to the largest nation, ruled by the queen of the elves. The term "Western Elves" mostly indicates elves from this region. It's the safest area and life is easy here, but its shrinking population has dangerously weakened it. Characters: Mithrun (and the Canaries) Places of Note: Western Elves's Royal District, Canarie's Headquarters. Dungeons of Note: Central Watchtower
SOUTHERN CENTRAL CONTINENT
Description: The area with the second-largest elf nation. It has more inbound immigration than the Northern Central Continent and a rather disorganized atmosphere. While it's in an alliance with the Northern Central Continent, they really aren't on good terms. Characters: - Places of Note: - Dungeons of Note: -
EASTERN CONTINENT
Description: Home to the largest gnome nation. Once dwarfs and gnomes made up the majority of the inhabitants, but in recent years there has been an influx of short-lived races from the Northern Continent and Eastern Archipelago, and the population is growing rapidly. It's a melting pot where various cultures are jumbled together. Characters: Chilchuck Tims (Kahka Brud), Senshi (Izganda) Places of Note: Magic School, The Island/Melini, Kahka Brud, Izganda, Dozahk, Bonnario, Sadena Dungeons of Note: Island, Brud Dungeon Cluster, Budou Pit, Tower of Night Cries
NORTHERN CONTINENT
Description: A severely cold continent where over half of the land is covered in perpetual snow. The majority of the inhabitants are short-lived races, particularly tall-men, but the population isn't large to begin with. It has been strongly influenced by dwarf culture. Characters: Laios & Falin, Marcille Places of Note: - Dungeons of Note: -
EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO
Description: An area where short-lived races live. As a result of a pact, there has been no interference by long-lived races for a very long time. The effects of the ancient war are slight, and they have almost no trouble with monsters or dungeons, but there's constant strife among humans. Characters: (all from different Islands) Izutsumi, Shuro and his Retainers, Rinsha Fana (Not shown) Places of Note: Island of Wa Dungeons of Note: -
SOUTHERN CONTINENT
Description: Home to the largest dwarf city. Gnome and dwarf nations often build down rather than out, and the innermost layers are extraordinarily deep. War still erupts frequently, and there are never-ending disputes near the borders. Characters: - Places of Note: - Dungeons of Note: -
If you're interested I've found a post on pixiv with the map outlines and some more info (in japanese) (edit: translated here)
I'll make a post about the dungeon descriptions later (here) but here they are, there's a little more info about Kahka Brud dungeons on my last map post
1 The Island, 2 Budou Pit, 3 The Brud Dungeon Cluster, 4 The tower of Night Cries 5 The Utaya Dungeon 6 The Dragon's Lair 7 The Central Watchtower
Map Outline
#dungeon meshi#dungeon meshi map#adventurers bible#maps#world map#Laios Touden#Marcille Donato#Senshi of Izganda#Chilchuck tims#Izutsumi#Toshiro Nakamoto#Kuro#Kabru of utaya#Utaya#The canaries#Mithrun#Edit: Shame on me I forgot to add one more map and a link to a pixiv post with the outlines#longpost#long post#worldbuilding#world building#fantasy map#fantasy world#for referencing
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närsi in her working uniform - ive mentioned it when i posted her first, but she works in the sartrill defense force, the Sartrill Tirsekki (more specifically in the Rau-Tirsekki, the division for basilisks). and yes her wings look different bcs ive been pondering a bit of an anatomical revamp of basilisk wings... so they can have silly hands. Yey. more rambles under cut
in most basilisk communities it's not seen as indecent to not wear clothes really, as they don't really need to. but in many communities it is a fun decorative element they like engaging in and clothes may often be seen as more associated with certain events or social positions. bcs of their anatomy most clothes however extend to chest/neckpieces, hats and legpieces as it can be a struggle and a hinderance to put on stuff below the arms as their wing membrane stretches from their arms to about halfway downt he tail.
the basilisks in the Tirsekki have their own division as they are usually delegated to special reconaissance roles separate from the rest of the order, who are usually trained in more typical forms of defensive and offensive combat. the subdivision has their own leader/trainers who are usually basilisks themselves as they know their own abilities best, rather than a harpy. their shapeshifting is obviously a huge part of their work, and scouting/surveillance is their most common form of work. sometimes they are called to stuff that involves combat however too.
the sartrill tirsekki formed as a revival of an older defensive order, the kaskin tirsekki. kaskin was a crakam town that fell due to human discovery and attack, and the crakam that formed sartrill were the fleeing survivors from that siege
#oc: närsi#pareidolia tag#spec bio#speculative biology#speculative fantasy#fantasy#basilisk#i was thinking about if basilisks wear clothes but figured that tbh i think most just dont. but i think they might wear more accessories#like hats and neckpieces.. i need to add some to my guys#närsi here is wearing pretty extensive clothes for her culture to signal her position as a rau tirsekki#augh im not that happy with this at all but ill just throw this out in the aether anyway#artists on tumblr#oc#original character#worldbuilding
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wait hey. i have an idea. they split someone elses quirk in half, and gave the destroying half to tenko, right?
(we know that this is chisaki because this panal is cut directly from chapter 158)
well. i think i know where the healing half went. it went to eri.
think about it- everyone said her quirk was a sudden mutation unlike either of her parents quirks.
i think eri and a few other children like touya and chisaki were backup plans. we already know touya was one of those 'backups,' and we have evidence of chisaki being the source of the destorying/repairing quirk that was split.
eri was just a more recent backup plan in case things went south at the LOV attack at USJ. since AFO was arrested shortafter, she kind of got lost in the shuffle and was just written off to be a similar "seedbeds of ferocity and hatred" as she grew up under chisaki's care.
she even has a similar backstory to Tenko already, having killed a member of her family by accident
that could be why her quirks so weird to- it takes time for it to remember how to "fix" things since its also not "destroying" things as a blueprint. since the quirk is split, it doesnt know how to "fix" things because theres nothing"destroying" things. so it has to rely on time itself to "fix". thats how i think overhaul's quirk works anyway- something needs to be ''destroyed" before being "fixed". its even said that her quirk is similar to chisaki's.
she also suffers from the same control issues tomura had. i bet that her being placed in the care of someone suspected to be another AFO project was not a coincidence. she could have been a very fitting replacement for tenko- she killed her parents with her quirk and was raised in an environment where she was seen as nothing more then a tool for things to end. it was only her determination that she was able to escape his grasp.
just like how chisaki was saved from the same place where Touya woke up from. I wonder if Touya's breakout triggered Chisaki's escape and into the hands of the yakuza.
and of course, saving Chisaki from an even worse fate
#boku no hero academia#bnha spoilers#manga spoilers#ohhh boy theres gonna be a lot of tags i need to add so#kai chisaki#tenko shimura#touya todoroki#dabi#shigaraki tomura#eri#eri bnha#bnha meta#worldbuilding#meta#bnha analysis#the narwhal speaks#bnha#ok did i miss anything? anyone?#OH#all for one#yeah forgot that bastard
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thoughts about the Cardassian writing system
I've thinking about the Cardassian script as shown on screen and in beta canon and such and like. Is it just me or would it be very difficult to write by hand?? Like.
I traced some of this image for a recent drawing I did and like. The varying line thicknesses?? The little rectangular holes?? It's not at all intuitive to write by hand. Even if you imagine, like, a different writing implement—I suppose a chisel-tip pen would work better—it still seems like it wasn't meant to be handwritten. Which has a few possible explanations.
Like, maybe it's just a fancy font for computers, and handwritten text looks a little different. Times New Roman isn't very easily written by hand either, right? Maybe the line thickness differences are just decorative, and it's totally possible to convey the same orthographic information with the two line thicknesses of a chisel-tip pen, or with no variation in line thickness at all.
A more interesting explanation, though, and the one I thought of first, is that this writing system was never designed to be handwritten. This is a writing system developed in Cardassia's digital age. Maybe the original Cardassian script didn’t digitize well, so they invented a new one specifically for digital use? Like, when they invented coding, they realized that their writing system didn’t work very well for that purpose. I know next to nothing about coding, but I cannot imagine doing it using Chinese characters. So maybe they came up with a new writing system that worked well for that purpose, and when computer use became widespread, they stuck with it.
Or maybe the script was invented for political reasons! Maybe Cardassia was already fairly technologically advanced when the Cardassian Union was formed, and, to reinforce a cohesive national identity, they developed a new standardized national writing system. Like, y'know, the First Emperor of Qin standardizing hanzi when he unified China, or that Korean king inventing hangul. Except that at this point in Cardassian history, all official records were digital and typing was a lot more common than handwriting, so the new script was designed to be typed and not written. Of course, this reform would be slower to reach the more rural parts of Cardassia, and even in a technologically advanced society, there are people who don't have access to that technology. But I imagine the government would be big on infrastructure and education, and would make sure all good Cardassian citizens become literate. And old regional scripts would stop being taught in schools and be phased out of digital use and all the kids would grow up learning the digital script.
Which is good for the totalitarian government! Imagine you can only write digitally. On computers. That the government can monitor. If you, like, write a physical letter and send it to someone, then it's possible for the contents to stay totally private. But if you send an email, it can be very easily intercepted. Especially if the government is controlling which computers can be manufactured and sold, and what software is in widespread use, etc.
AND. Historical documents are now only readable for scholars. Remember that Korean king that invented hangul? Before him, Korea used to use Chinese characters too. And don't get me wrong, hangul is a genius writing system! It fits the Korean language so much better than Chinese characters did! It increased literacy at incredible rates! But by switching writing systems, they broke that historical link. The average literate Chinese person can read texts that are thousands of years old. The average literate Korean person can't. They'd have to specifically study that field, learn a whole new writing system. So with the new generation of Cardassian youths unable to read historical texts, it's much easier for the government to revise history. The primary source documents are in a script that most people can't read. You just trust the translation they teach you in school. In ASIT it's literally a crucial plot point that the Cardassian government revised history! Wouldn't it make it soooo much easier for them if only very few people can actually read the historical accounts of what happened.
I guess I am thinking of this like Chinese characters. Like, all the different Chinese "dialects" being written with hanzi, even though otherwise they could barely be considered the same language. And even non-Sinitic languages that historically adopted hanzi, like Japanese and Korean and Vietnamese. Which worked because hanzi is a logography—it encodes meaning, not sound, so the same word in different languages can be written the same. It didn’t work well! Nowadays, Japanese has made significant modifications and Korean has invented a new writing system entirely and Vietnamese has adapted a different foreign writing system, because while hanzi could write their languages, it didn’t do a very good job at it. But the Cardassian government probably cares more about assimilation and national unity than making things easier for speakers of minority languages. So, Cardassia used to have different cultures with different languages, like the Hebitians, and maybe instead of the Union forcing everyone to start speaking the same language, they just made everyone use the same writing system. Though that does seem less likely than them enforcing a standard language like the Federation does. Maybe they enforce a standard language, and invent the new writing system to increase literacy for people who are newly learning it.
And I can imagine it being a kind of purely digital language for some people? Like if you’re living on a colonized planet lightyears away from Cardassia Prime and you never have to speak Cardassian, but your computer’s interface is in Cardassian and if you go online then everyone there uses Cardassian. Like people irl who participate in the anglophone internet but don’t really use English in person because they don’t live in an anglophone country. Except if English were a logographic writing system that you could use to write your own language. And you can’t handwrite it, if for whatever reason you wanted to. Almost a similar idea to a liturgical language? Like, it’s only used in specific contexts and not really in daily life. In daily life you’d still speak your own language, and maybe even handwrite it when needed. I think old writing systems would survive even closer to the imperial core (does it make sense to call it that?), though the government would discourage it. I imagine there’d be a revival movement after the Fire, not only because of the cultural shift away from the old totalitarian Cardassia, but because people realize the importance of having a written communication system that doesn’t rely on everyone having a padd and electricity and wifi.
#if I read over this again I will inevitably want to change and add things so I'm refraining from doing that. enjoy whatever this is#forgive my very crude recounting of chinese and korean history! I am neither a historian nor a linguist#but I will NOT apologize for talking abt china so much. that's my culture and I'm weird abt it bc of my family history#and it's my GOD GIVEN RIGHT to project what little I know abt it onto all my worldbuilding#also I've never actually read abt any of the various cardassian conlangs but I'm curious if this contradicts or coincides with any of them#I still want to make my own someday. starting college as a linguistics major (in 2 weeks!!) so presumably I will learn how to do that#narcissus's echoes#ds9#asit#star trek#cardassians#cardassian meta#a stitch in time#hebitians#lingposting
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Hear me out…Meta Knight and Starstruck
���˖°.✧ gravity ✧˖°.✧ ɡravɪti (noun) 1. the force that attracts a body towards the centre of the earth or towards any other physical body having mass 2. the degree of intensity of gravity, measured by acceleration 3. extreme importance; seriousness 4. solemnity of manner
#🎀💖#🎀🔍#meta knight#starstruck dee#my art#“might be funny” i agree!! and yet!! somehow i took it deadly serious!! uhhh..... sorry#wrapping up the month with the most popular prompt. they were tied then meta knight overtook sailor dee right at the end#(i guess coz i did sailor's earlier?) i'll still be doing others but i'm obviously a bit behind schedule sorry!#uhm.... haha.#bit of a ribbonemoji workout on this one.#i'm too attached to the pretentiousness of my caption (🔍🔍🔍) to add this to the main post & i'll come back to this later...#but in my worldbuilding Celestials have a behaviour called Sky Dancing. looks a lot like this. bird understanders pspspsps. iykyk#and as always: “is this one canon?” HHHHMMRR. i'm not sure yet. can i say that? i'm still deciding. this one is imo most feasible#at least as something with any actual Romantic Coding. has the kind of rivals > friends > lovers plotline as well which is always fun.#but i think they have to be stupid for a long time before they'd get *here*....#and i'm just not sure they'd have the chance before ███████ ██████ █████ ██ ████ ███.
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God I wish we knew more about Dunyasha
#guess what chapter I’m listening to hard edition#it’s chapter 35#this is supposed to be helping me go to sleep and all I can think about is Dunyasha#I might come back to this tomorrow to talk about her properly but I’m too tired now#she’s so fascinating#I have so many questions#I would fully read an entire novella dedicated to her I’m not even joking#like the lore that it would provide us???#the worldbuilding it would add????#*sighs dreamily*#I wish#six of crows#crooked kingdom#grishaverse#leigh bardugo#Dunyasha#kaz brekker#inej ghafa#jesper fahey#wylan van eck#matthias helvar#nina zenik#crooked kingdom meta#soc meta
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The Wild Robot Essay (of sorts) incoming! Spoilers for the movie!
I love love L O V E that the animals ask Roz to either translate what the other robots are saying/tell them what they want to say!
It’s wonderful worldbuilding that serves as a subtle reminder that even though we, the audience, can understand everyone, the animals do not understand the robots
It makes the fact that Roz learned the island’s language all the more meaningful for several reasons
A) The timelapse of her learning is not a one-time-fix where everyone understands everything
B) Justifies Vontra’s (semi-aggressive) curiosity “How did you manage to obtain a task on an island where nothing can communicate with you?”
C) Adds to the animals’ strength, bravery, and defiance against, frankly in the context, terrifying and deadly creatures they do not understand
D) Allows Brightbill’s Rozzum information to be an even more valuable resource for the geese on their migration
And E) PROVES that Roz has fully gone native on the island as she is their connecting point
#it will forever be amazing to me that one seemingly throw away line can add so much#god this movie is fantastic#rozzum unit 7134#vontra#brightbill#the wild robot#worldbuilding
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hmmm. I think I'm getting a bit better at drawing horses.
Here's Titan, she's a phantom horse from my worldbuilding. She kinda ended up having the most backstory ever simply because I was trying to consolidate some old writing that made zero sense with the new stuff I've written.
#i asked my friends who know a bit too much about horses for guidance.#also a bit of a redesign but not really. i just wanted to change some colours up and add more detail#indigo star#worldbuilding#ocs#horse#dnd#fantasy#art#my art#artwork#my artwork#digital art#character design#character art#dreamerx86
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Modern werewolves (Novus Lykanthropos) are descendants from infected of Feralytosis, they're highly intelligent and sociable.
They live in separate underground communities from other creatures to avoid confrontation due to the discrimination and ignorance towards them.
Modern werewolves have infectious glands beside the main canines and they can spread the Feralytosis, due to their pacifist beliefs they actively avoid the propagation of this disease, since they're isolated this is easier to acomplish.
More information about them in their entry in my Bestiary
#This is was a very fun proyect!!#i still gotta add more creatures to my bestiary as it only has 3 atm#and i'll probably make more posts like this one once i fully finish an entry of the bestiary#damn also i gotta redraw the concepts of the feralytosis since theyre pretty outdated - but ig its fine for now#wgd#my art#art#digital art#oc art#drawing#creature#werewolf#worldbuilding#dark fantasy
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Minecraft feels like it doesn’t know what to do for big updates any more so they’re doing like small miscellaneous updates collected together. I wish they’d move on from trying to give them a theme bc I feel like that’s just confusing.
One thing I wish they’d do is do updates from time to time and go back and add pieces to old update. Like maybe add more fish or tree types.
Specifically what made me have this thought is that I’d love if they’d add more to the geodes. Like the amethysts are lovely but I’d love if there was a whole range of crystals to find in geodes!! I feel like that’s along the line of the archaeological stuff they’ve done recently! Digging into the earth for history and stuff!
Also if they ever do a forest update I’d freak out. I’d love if they revamped their nature bc I feel like that part of the over world specifically has been the same since the beginning era of minecraft. Like ocean, nether, caves, villages, NOW FOREST. And end.
Feels like natural progression of their universe growing! And I like feeling like the updates can have a “story” like aspect to me. Especially bc worldbuilding. Favorite idea when it comes to minecraft lore
#mineblr#Minecraft#Minecraft game development#Minecraft updates#minecraft lore#minecraft worldbuilding#minecraft caves#minecraft crystals#ROCKS ROCKS AND MORE ROCKS#like if they could add to the andesite granite diorite thing too with like limestone and other minerals#MINERAL ROCK UPDATE#GEOLOGY UPDATE#they could add like volcanic and igneous rocks to the nether??? l#I like this idea very very much#minecraft and game development are my special interests#and worldbuilding but that’s like a part of those and my storytelling spins#I feel like there’s some things in minecraft that people love to add thru mods that mods shouldn’t be necessary for#like more biomes! I get biome design or unique biomes but give plains and forests more flavor!#or forest animals! OR BUGS ADD BUGS#I get mods for dungeons or cute decoration but simple worldbuilding shouldn’t need mods#I’m getting frustrated with being dissatisfied with vanilla minecraft when all I want are more variability to blocks and biome expansion!#often times mods are too complex and add too much over vanilla minecraft when I like vanilla minecraft#it’s just after all this time especially with cave and cliffs added the nature feels behind and too simple
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On beastkin tattoos and drawn/written magic
Tried figuring stuff out because I was making a tattooed beastkin oc. Take it or leave it, just a bunch of observations and theorizing. There is a focus on how the tattoos look but I also try to figure out the underlying principles of how they work.
Table of contents:
observations & important details
Stuff that beastkin tattoos look like
Theories
Non-beastkin tattoos
I called the components lines and dents in the pic above, but it’d be more accurate to call them characters I think, or even symbols. At the time I wasn’t sure if it was a specific "alphabet" used for these tattoos and if they represented anything more than lines to the people using it so I called them like dents in a line or teeth in a toothwheels or inner layers in locks, but since I made the connection to magic circles I think they do. It’s the same structure as with magic circles, lines connecting characters and favoring circle structures. All magic iirc comes from calling upon spirits, so it’s interesting to wonder what written magic does exactly, if it communicates with the spirits or simply compels them.
Observations & important details
The picture at the start summarizes my observations and the recurring patterns, but I’ll also do a rundown and add more. The fundamental structure of the tattoos seem to be lines forming big simple patterns, and then small characters that sprout from a side of those lines. Although, not all lines have characters/dents, and some characters have two lines one on both sides like on Lycion’s forearms. On Lycion’s legs, there are also lines with two rows of characters on either sides, so yeah the line & dents are the fundamental structure but it’s flexible on how it’s put into practice.
Oh yeah, also notable that when doing less intricate doodles like on her blog or Daydream Hours, she often omits details so we can’t be sure on the smaller drawings wether there are dents/characters on some lines or not, we have to assume if they’re implied or if there aren’t any. For example on Lycion’s reference all the lines on his forearms have dents, but if you look at the other beastkins it’s honestly debatable wether there are dents on the lines around their forearms and lower legs, also see Otta’s tattoos on her reference…
One of the more important and puzzling details is that beastkin tattoos look very different depending on the soul type, from werebear to wererat etc etc. BUT we also see with Lycion and that random werewolf, that there is room for difference even within the tattoos for the same soul type… Of course, if we don’t assume that those differences aren’t because the type of canine soul are different, since Lycion does mention he doesn’t know which canine type his was so there’s room for variety there apparently. But I doubt that’d change much within the same genus and whatnot, but still, then we have the question… Weretigers’ tattoos look like tiger stripes, and werebears have lines that seem to emphasize a bear’s chest fur? Those two types have a lot of wavy lines that make them look rather different from werewolf and wererat tattoos. Different soul types certainly seem to require different tattoos, but to what degree is the choice of how and where the lines are placed artistic, and to what degree is it efficient if not necessary? What’s the logic of where they need to be, going from one soul type to the next? The weretiger and werebear one seem to have fitting patterns for their animal, but werewolf and wererat have much more artifical patterns.
One of the recurring patterns with similar placements are all the lines forming circles around wrists, forearms, lower legs and ankles… Positions do seem to be important especially with the recurring placings. Maybe the lines are in the places that are expected to change the most: legs and ankles & wrists with new inhuman different joints, strong muscled shoulders for tigers, strong core for bears, etc. A tiger’s eye, with all the tattoos around them…? More lines = an easier stronger more efficient transformation? With the differences in tattoos for same soul types I don’t know how much precision in the pattern themselves are important tbh, though I imagine the characters/dents are the crux of the magic and precision there is the most important. Feet and hands tend to be untouched though, Lycion is the exception to this with tattoos on his hands and fingers. Circles seem overall important imo, lines are almost always curved, or go straight around a limb to reach its other end and form circles that way, werewolf torso tattoos, etc etc.
In Lycion’s ref the tattoo ink is a brownish red, but we don’t see if that’s the norm- is what I would have said before the new Daydream Hour came out with some tattooed elves portraits where they’re a vivid red. Fleki’s tattoos are covered in her main colored reference(and in the mangas all tattoos are black ofc including Lycion’s, while on her blog and Daydream Hours the color is inconsistent and often black too), Otta’s are black though they also seem at least partly non-magical? The snake/rope pattern doesn’t look consistent with magical tattoos in general imo. Pictures of these tattoos are compiled at the end of the post btw.
It’s also important to remember, because of the pic below, we can never truly be sure of what’s necessary for the tattoo to work and what’s just artificial flourish, though with Lycion I feel like it’s implied that there’s nothing in his tattoos trying to hide in the meaning. It’s also interesting to note that magical tattoos can have random patterns added without it interfering with the tattoo’s purpose. Is it the placement that make them harmless, or that they mean nothing in tattoo magic so it’s like an extra useless line of code that doesn’t get processed? Or is it that once your tattoo is done the meaning of it is sealed, and even if you were to fully cover it up in a solid black square of ink it wouldn’t do a thing? No clue, but it’s all very curious.
Other stuff they look like
A buddy pointed out that one of the recurring patterns looks a lot like DNA strands. Maybe the "dents" signify the different base pairs?? Probably verifiably untrue since that’d mean there would only be a few different type of dents, and also if they’re doing DNA sequencing that would be crazy, but doesn’t that just make you wonder… 👀 Tattoos are like a conduit for magic (mana? Which is also a sort of life force) so I do rlly like the idea that beastkin tattoos specialize in and target the DNA in the some way.
We never see the tattoos from up super close, but especially with Lycion’s the "dents"/characters remind me of norse runes a bit. Mostly because of the structure of straight lines and the simplicity of each character as far as I can tell. Runes being used in magic isn’t a new concept so I wouldn’t be surprised if Kui intentionally incorporated them into art/writing-based magic. Culturally it doesn’t fit well in with the elves as much, but a few of them do have old norse names. (And magic tattoos seem to be a very elven thing)
And another buddy also pointed out that with the characters being connected with a line it was reminiscent of the devanagari script. The elves have a good amount of indian coding, with names and some characters having bindis etc etc, so if intentional it’d be quite an interesting detail.
(Source for second one. I couldn’t find handwritten examples where there’s a clear line between characters much)
Oh- and if we continue the train of thought of indian coding, are reminiscent of henna! The brownish red color is especially on point.
Lastly and very much least, drawing lines that separate and denote body parts always remind me of the guidelines for butchers that people often point to and even draw on the animal when cutting. Since this is the cooking manga I wanted to put this in.
Oh yeah! I should mention that some of the tattoos, especially with the wererats and the lines going down the torsos, also remind me of dissection/vivisection scars/lines.
Theories
Magical tattoos are like a conduit for magic, is what is said. In case of beastkin tattoos, that makes me think it’s not that the tattoos are what keeps the extra soul bound to the body but that they’re what allows the human to freely shift between human and beastkin form, unlike Izutsumi who can’t because she doesn’t have tattoos. So thus the souls are merged with or without the tattoos, but the tattoos help control and reign back the extra soul and its influence both on the body and on the mind. Sort of like a seal. The soul is bound by and not bound in the tattoos. Filtering the animal soul out and not in. Close but not exactly the same theory is that the tattoos are what keep the souls separate, and if there weren’t tattoos the souls would just mix. So then the tattoos are less about control and more about separation itself.
But it depends a lot on the angle you look at it with. Like while some think the soul is within the tattoo, I think the soul is within the body but the tattoos help ‘circuit’ and control it. My friend is convinced that it’s the first and theorizes a lot around that, but I plan to mostly talk about my own take here bc I don’t find the arguments compelling personally. (Do prove me wrong if you can /gen)
We know from Lycion explaining the different beastkins that what animal you can merge with is dependent on size and stature, the build of the body, but the line where a body becomes incompatible with an animal is rather blurry. Nimble bodies become werewolves and beefier ones become werebears, and the only prospect for halflings are rats. We do also know that Izutsumi and assumedly a panther bonded just fine. Obviously, a rat and a halfling still aren’t anywhere the same size, so again the line or hard limit is blurry. My take is that this is because the bodies have to shift between human and beastkin, the transformation has to not strain the body too much. If you try to transform a square into a circle, the muscles and skeleton might really struggle to adapt if not even just mess up. Lycion talks about the physical (and mental strains) in the pics below. Beastkins that don’t have tattoos and are permanently fused like Izutsumi might have more of a wriggle room since they don’t have to transform to and back regularly? But yeah if the animal and human bodies aren’t compatible enough maybe the body would collapse, or just be incredibly painful, who knows. It’s a bit terrifying to imagine what the failed soul bindings and shiftings must have been like when developing all this know how of the magic and what does and doesn’t work. Besides height, general size and body type, the amount of fat of a person might matter, like maybe for werebears. Healing and resurrection magic does take fat away from the body so maybe transformations would be a necessary cost on top of the mana? Or just be needed to form muscles, fur, etc? But yes from the examples we saw I feel like maybe werebears need fat, weretigers need musculature, wererats need to be on the nimble side, and then werewolves have loose requirements? More like ideals than requirements, I really doubt a fat wererat is impossible for example.
My main theory is that the tattoos are more about the transformation than binding the soul to the body, right. For example places that have a lot of tattoos and lines circling around limbs are ankles and lower legs, which with animal leg structures would get changed a lot during the transformation, bones and all. So the artistic parts are more about the tattoo artist’s will and about what parts of the animals are important or require more change while shifting, rather than it being a depiction of the soul’s essence or something like that. As support I think the pictures below referring to the physical strain of being a beastkin are relevant.
With this sort of tattoo magic, it’s a gut reaction to think that maybe there’s a special magical ink used. I doubt it, I feel like if the type of ink was a big component of how the magic works Kui would have mentioned it. There are some tattoos that are black like Otta’s iirc, but all the others are generally red so that could be support to that theory. The patterns evidently do matter a lot, so I don’t think it’s implausible that the patterns on their own are enough to fulfill their purpose. There’s also how "[the tattoos] are like a conduit", so I don’t think the tattoos cost or give mana but rather they, well, conduit the mana that’s in the body to be as efficient as possible or to fulfill certain specific tasks, like transforming, / lifting the wall between you and the animal soul bound to you.
Sigh how the hell does tattoo magic even work. "The tattoos are like a circuit" SURE but the symbols have to still mean something right… But then how does adding random patterns to camouflage the tattoos come into play without affecting the meaning, and if there’s an artistic or varying aspect to it and tattoos differ from one individual to the other for the same purpose then maybe it just isn’t a strict magic at all? I do find it fun that we don’t really know the underlying principles of the magic so it’s hard to even know how it activates and whatnot. Going back to tattoos being able to have extra patterns tattooed on top of it without it affecting the performance of the tattoo... But yes I do lean towards the explanation that as long as the extra patterns don’t mean anything they don’t interfere. But like if you just drew a line over the character/symbols/dents would it register that and stop working, or no? The limits are all so blurry… Here’s to hoping the world guide book 2 has info on it!! Readying myself to either get full face slapped or to have "I told you so" bragging rights.
Theoretically, it should be possible to bind two human souls together, or a monster soul. Izutsumi and Lycion’s souls are called feline and canid monsters iirc, but that’s like calling a panther a monster, I wonder if an actual monster from a dungeon’s soul would be more unstable to bind and to shift into… Monsters can leave dungeons, but I wonder about The Demon’s influence on them, like how he’s able to manipulate at will Kensuke, maybe it’s as long as a monster is in a dungeon? That could potentially be sooo bad for the monster beastkin. Wild speculation though, and I imagine being a human-human beastkin would be super extra mega taboo, I wonder if it’s ever even been tried according to elven records. This is the section that was important for my dunmeshi oc lol, evidently I think tattoo magic is very interesting so I want to explore the limits of it with ocs, a tattoo artist trying more and more ambitious projects and soul like a lovecraftian protagonist learning about what should be left unknown, and a dude who really wants to be More Than Human and divine almost with identity issues that decides to take on like 6 different souls. If you’re interested here’s the dude, still a huge wip tho.
I think it’s important to remember that tattoos are used for different magic and effects too, not limited to beastkins.
Edit 10/2/‘24 oh hey a leak, neat
Other non-beastkin tattoos
I know that I didn’t point out every detail and difference ever, like in that magical tattoos extra with the halfbody person those assumedly aren’t beastkin tattoos even if I included it in the main pic, and how the bust in that same picture has a line of characters around the neck without any line connecting them much like in the pictures below.
Which speaking of this is a good place to talk about different cultures having different systems or characters for magic? The torso of that guy in the upper right corner for example has very different patterns than what I’d have expected with the beastkin tattoo examples. And of course, Izutsumi’s tattoo…
Izutsumi’s tattoos support that the characters/symbols are the most meaningful and important part. Also goes against the assumption that the elven written magic system is because the symbols communicate with the spirits better, since well, they seem to understand japanese just fine. Maizuru’s written magic is said to be akin to gnomic magic, and she reminds me of irl onmyodo a lot. Like many other types of magic, different regions, people and cultures find different ways to practice their version of it.
Meanwhile this unnamed canary’s tattoos follow the rules I’d laid out
And here with Otta, what I said earlier about her tattoo being ink and her tattoos not really seeming magical imo, maybe except the ones around her forearms? Hm I’ve always misread them as sort of a snake randomly curling around her arms but they’re still geometric after all, who knows.
#Dungeon meshi#meta#Analysis#theories#dungeon meshi worldbuilding#This is it for the tags ig. Pretty dry and quick for once#will edit in new stuff as I go if I find or brainstorm more#Compilation#If u have stuff to add on pls do. Can’t promise a response though#delicious in dungeon
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Hala Tao-Ni (she/her - 65 y.o)
Second apprentice of Ki-Adi Mundi, and Padawan sibling of Baheera Lee.
Despite her calm and collected nature she managed to get three equally troublesome Padawans, and the stress led her to start the bad habit of smoking a pipe, that she then trasformed in a form of art, using the colored smoke and the Force to create shapes to entertain others.
After the knighting of her third Padawan, she became a full-time crèche master, mostly taking care of the infants, since, because of her old age, she doesn't exactly have the strenght to follow toddlers running around.
#I'm gonna add more infos later#hala tao ni#jedi oc#duros#jedi master#star wars oc#heartstone lineage#star wars#star wars clone wars#star wars prequels#star wars worldbuilding#my art#my ocs
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the zine’s officially out, so I can post my contribution for the @extraordinaryzine :D!
my piece is an interpretation of the caverns on Iron Island 🏝️ so I wanted to incorporate more of the water surrounding it by creating a sea cave to have light spill inside (akin to the modra špilja/blue grotto)
the focus of the zine was on the daily lives of trainers and their pokemon, so Riley uses a spot inside the caverns like this to meditate with his team, although any new Riolu he trains can’t resist wanting to jump into the water to play υ´˶ ・ﻌ・ ˶`υノ”
this piece alongside a ton of amazing artists can be found free to download digitally here! (and lastly some closeups bc I liked getting all the little deets down)
#kagarts#trainer riley#stat trainer riley#pokemon dppt#pokemon zine#this one definitely proved to be a bit of a challenge since. backgrounds are a whole other thing#but this got me interested in worldbuilding on a location#got me incorporating various elements from both the games and anime bc they both have their own specific strengths and limitations#that make it fun to interpret and feel more lived in#I can ramble a bit about it but for one the island in the games is just limited to being >place to defeat team galactic at#there’s only really leftover caves after mining expeditions so it’s mostly just abandoned mines type of deal#and riley’s singular house you can visit of course#but the anime includes a port town and scientists studying different parts of the island#so it fills in the gap left behind from game limitations#if there’s a town on an island specifically full of stronger pokemon that adds onto what riley’s job is on said island#to make sure either side of the town and caverns on the island are kept in check/at peace#adds to that job of being iron island’s guardian (and I haven’t even gotten started on aura yet LMAO)#I have a lot of notes but I’m saving any extras for later#go get this digital zine!!! it’s free!!!!!!
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So when bees make honey it changes taste depending on which type of flower they have been feeding on. How do you think this would work in minecraft?
I think that honey made from wither roses would be fatally poisonous to most people. Would honey made with chorus flowers have some side effects? What about does honey made with alliums give fire resistance like they do with suspicious stew?
#minecraft headcanons#rubis minecraft worldbuilding#minecraft#mineblr#please tell me if im tagging something wrong or need to add new tags
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