#dungeon meshi always killing it. having a great time

[chadsuke]

Books Read in 2023:

Delicious in Dungeon Vol. 3 by Ryoko Kui (2016)

Delicious in Dungeon Vol. 4 by Ryoko Kui (2017)

She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat Vol. 2 by Sakaomi Yuzaki (2021)

Crossplay Love: Otaku x Punk Vol. 3 by Toru (2023)

I'm in Love with the Villainess Vol. 1 by Aonoshimo, Inori, & Hanagata (2020)

I'm in Love with the Villainess Vol. 2 by Aonoshimo, Inori, & Hanagata (2021)

I'm in Love with the Villainess Vol. 3 by Aonoshimo, Inori, & Hanagata (2021)

I'm in Love with the Villainess Vol. 4 by Aonoshimo, Inori, & Hanagata (2022)

Midnight Radio by Iolanda Zanfardino (2019)

[ID: Covers of aforementioned books. End ID.]

[voidpumpkin]

A definite theme of dungeon meshi is that of selfishness and selflessness with pretty much every character defined by these two things in some way

most obviously there's the winged lion who's entire existence is defined by selfishness, he just consumes, consumes and consumes, ruining everybody, with labyrinth he is bound to and he himself encouraging and shaping the selfish and selfless desires of others. His greatest desire, to consume everybody is the ultimate act of selfishness in the series yet he frames it as and pretty genuinely views it as an act of great selflessness, which is part of another theme in the show of people imposing their selfless desires on to other people.

As can be seen with Marcille, from the beginning she is shown as the most outwardly selfless, she's the one always wanting to help other adventurers, aside from Laios the loudest advocate for rescuing Falin, resents Namari for abandoning Falin and is shocked to find out Chilchuck is doing this because he is being paid. She's the one who crosses all moral and ethical barriers to save Falin, to defeat the dungeon rabbits. And then we see how she has the greatest most all encompassing desire of them all, to equal everyone's lifespan to one thousand with a selfless motive behind it, that it will erase bigotry between races. The selflessness of it is something she is almost proud, she's insulted and very insistent that she doesn't want more selfish desire like having a child or becoming a full blooded elf. Yet this selfless desire comes from a selfish place of never wanting to experience loss and is a desire (with the winged lions help) becomes one she seeks to impose on others

Similarly to Thistle who is THE example of how selfless desires become twisted and selfish by the dungeon as he original wanted to protect the kingdom and makes sure they live forever, though even then this was a selfish desire imposed upon him by Delgal. Now after a thousand years of running the dungeon he is all selfishness that he views as selflessness.

Then there is the other notable former dungeon master, Mithrun. Once viewed as a pure and selfless man by those around him he harboured countless selfish desires that the demon exploited and consumed, leaving him with what he and others thought was just the desire for revenge. A selfish desire that manifested in a selfless form as he puts his life on the line to rid the world from demons. It's through this we see one of his most interesting traits, his sincere desire to reach out and help other dungeon masters, compared to all other interactions he is never this gentle or talkative with them, the other canaries quite clearly just want to kill them, but Mithrun, one of the very few people who can understand what they're going through talks to them. By the end of the series we also come to know that his selfish desire for revenge was in fact an entirely different selfish desire, to be consumed.

Not on to Izutsumi, she's a character defined by her selfishness, as a result of her upbringing she has to rely on and care for only herself but then she becomes a part of the touden party and is put in a caring environment for the first time, and in response grows to genuinely care for them as well, risking her life in ways she wouldn't have done before. Izutsumi acts as a pretty potent example of the crews selflessness with all of them (except Laios, who they defend her from his monster fixation) acting as parents to her. Marcille gives her the love and affection, both emotional and physical that she'd never received up until that point, and didn't even know she needed. Chilchuckvis the only one with actual experience as a parents and only parental figure who has treated Izutsumi well, he pretty quickly realises she is acting like a teenage girl and quickly adjusts to treating and caring for her as such. Sensei, who is pretty much all paternal instincts cares for her the only way he knows how and is the first person to adjust meals to her needs and desires. Izutsumi can be seen as a demonstration of environments shaping a person, her formative years being treated terribly made her selfish whilst this new caring environment allowed her to become selfless for the first time.

Building off the paternal instincts comment from earlier, that one of the two things that define senshi's selflessness. Sensei is both a deeply mature and deeply selfless character, as a result his selflessness comes in more casual and more adult forms. In respecting the autonomy of others and providing them with food. With these drawing from the two things mentioned earlier, his paternal instincts but also his experiences with starvation. His paternal instincts are best shown in the chapter after Falin is taken as we see inside his head, seeing he views Chilchuck and Marcille as very young and that it is his responsibility to feed them, and considered it a failing on his part if he doesn't. This paternal instinct also is what leads him to secretly resent Laios and Marcille as he believes Chilchuck to be a child and views them as exploiting him and putting him in harms way. His focus on feeding others is of course a result of his experience with starvation, he NEVER wants anyone to go through what he went through and is THE way we see him caring for people outside of the Touden party

Next up Chilchuck, a character who at first seems to be a deeply selfish ones, as he journeys with the group because he is paid to, not because he wants to. But then we do come to respect this, as dungeoneering is a job, a very dangerous one that, and like all jobs it deserves proper compnesation. Which is something he actively tries to facilitate in one of his greatest acts of selflessness, where after having experienced the selfishness of other races and their willingness to use half-foots as bait, he starts a union to ensure proper pay and workers rights for half-foots. Though rather interestingly our first exposure to it is through the deeply selfish Mikbell, who frames what Chilchuck is doing as an act of selfishness. We also soon understand that he deeply cares about his friends, more than even he wants to as he continues to travel with them even when the job is technically done. This does result in a moment of selfless/selfish desire as he seeks to trick the group into leaving falin behind because he genuinely cares about then, he thinks they're in over their head and wants to protect them, again selfless desire that is selfish, though he does come to respect their wishes.

Speaking of Falin. cause of her minimal time to be a character we're left what screen time she gets and that's a character defined by her selflessness, from her communication with ghosts, being framed as a mothrrly figure to Thistle and the acted that began the series, sacrificing her life to save the crew, and would define how they act going forward.

For Namari it caused her to leave and take up the better offers she'd received. A selfish act that Marcille in particular resents her for but is explained by both her backstory, she is trying to buy back the honour her father stole, which would hopefully repair the relationship between the Lord of the island and dwarves, a selfless act, and the establishment of dungeoneering as a dangerous job that deserves compensation, which is why Laios and Chilchuck who do view it as a job don't resent her while Marcille who doesn't view it as a job (a. she's very open about not viewing dungeoneering as a career b. ancient magic research is her goal, thus the particularities of dungeoneering never mattered to her) does resent her. We do see other moments of selflessness from wanting to know Kiki and Kaka's age so she can identify them if they need resurrecting and standing up for Laios. Namari's character is one meant to show selfishness, especially when your life is one the line, is not inherently immoral.

The other crew member who left as a result of Falin's death is Toshiro (Shuro), who immediately goes off to find a strong crew he is hopeful can make it through the dungeon as fast a possible to rescue Falin. In opposition to Namari he is someone who chooses selflessness over this own life, running himself ragged to save her, but it is this focus on her other his needs that causes him to fail, running yourself ragged will leave you unable to succeed, as demonstrated to him by Laios. Laios is a man he resents for various reasons but one of them being that he doesn't see Laios as sincere in his care, that he doesn't express his selflessness in a 'proper' way. That his happy go lucky attitude and focus on keeping himself health are proof that he doesn't care, when in actuality a) that's just who laios is b) Laios looking after himself is a form of selflessness because how can one help others if they can't even stand.

Laios sits in the middle of selfishness and selflessness, defined in equal parts by them. He is completely sincere and dedicated to his selflessness, willing to risk his life and go it alone to save Falin, he seeks non-violent solutions to deal with his human enemies, wanting to talk to Thistle and get him to respect the citizens of the golden kingdom's wishes and doing the same with Marcille alongside working to defeat the winged lion and putting himself on the line to do so, as well as becoming the king of the golden kingdom, which he clearly doesn't want. yet he also has a lot of selfish desires because of this and being an extremely autistic dude with basically no social skills he's viewed as worse than he is, both on his and other's fault. He loves monsters and his entire life is defined by his obsession with them, this obsession spawned from a resentment of humans how they treated his sister (he got over it, he was a teen). He seeks to examine Izutsumi, and while he means no disrespect or anything gross by it, she is a teenager and has some pretty serious trauma surrounding being treated as a circus animal. He disrespects Lycion's treatment to his suicidal body dysmorphia because it's a 'skin deep' appreciation of monsters. He views saving Falin as an opportunity to finally consume monsters, his selfish desires and his willingness to express then when it really isn't an oppurtune time to do so (dude, your sister's life is on the line) mean he is taken at his worst, viewed as literally villain by Kabru and the canaries. Laios as the protagonist of story with pretty clear themes of selflessness and selfishness shows one who is outwardly a very selfish person yet the moment you stop to look is a deeply deeply selfless person, even if he is bad communicating.

This brings us to his foil Kabru. Kabru pretty clearly defines himself by his selflessness, viewing himself as superior for it, believing he should be the one to conquer the dungeon and that Laios is unworthy based on his shallow understanding of him. This selflessness is further deconstructed as something very bad for him as similarly to Toshiro is clearly doesn't value himself like he should, not allowing himself to have selfish desires, with it being pretty clear this worldview is shaped by his childhood trauma, of seeing what the dungeon can do, his survivors guilt and believing he has a duty to prevent it. This brings him into interesting conflict with Mithrun and Laios. The former is someone is a person who literally cannot care for himself and must rely on others to do that for him. His lack of care for himself, unawareness of his own needs astounds Kabru, rather ironically considering Kabru's lack of focus on his own and his focus on Mithrun, who is noted to be looking better than usual thanks to Kabru's treatment by Lycion, indeed his focus on analysing and understanding other people in general can be seen as a form of his selflessness/care for others at his expense. The latter is a person who confounds Kabru, Laios is the first person who Kabru cannot understand, the first person he can't just casually befriend one so utterly antithetical to his own interests as Laios is fixated and loves the very thing Kabru is horrified by, monsters. This also shows arguably the biggest example of Kabru valuing others, his selflessness at his own expense when eats the monster food Laios offered him, looking like he might die as he does so. This horror and confusion causes him become fixated on Laios, he is a puzzle Kabru must solve, but also because of Kabru's views on monsters, selfishness and selflessness he views Laios as an active and terrifying threat that must be stopped. But underlying this is what Kabru refuses to acknowledge until he confronts Laios next time they meet, he wants to befriend Laios, something that horroifies himself, both cause this is Laios, but this is a selfish desire. Admitting to Laios is an admission to himself that he has a selfish desire and that maybe just maybe that isn't so bad and that doesn't make him a lesser person. This acknowledgment that desires are part of who you are is what allows him to reach Mithrun, Kabru developed a new desire, to befriend Laios and thus Mithrun can too. Kabru is very potent foil to Laios, a character defined by selfish desires and seen as dangerous because of them when in fact he is deeply deeply selfless, as he is character who looks down on selfish desire and values selflessness to his own expense, only to learn through Laios that selfish desires are not inherently bad, thus allowing Kabru to help others even more.

And last but not least is elves as a whole and in particular the canaries. Elves are this selflessness and selfishness theme on a societal scale as their racial paternalism means they view it is their duty to look after races whilst also not respecting them or their autonomy and this causing great harm, with the canaries and Milsiril being microcosims of this. The canaries are a force tasked with stopping dungeons a selfless act, though motives selfish as while some clearly do it to save lives, it's established that one of the reasons they do so is to get their hands on the ancient magic inside and their racial paternalism means they don't trust other races to know the secret of dungeons, which almost dooms everybody. We also see how many of the members of it are criminals, who quite frankly are selfish cunts, really racist to non elves and are more than willing to put shorter lived races in harms way to get what they want. Milsiril is this racial paternalism embodied, as she's dedicated her life to looking after children of other races, a selfless desire, but she clearly doesn't see them quite as equals with there also being the implication that this is the result of a selfish desire to deal with her own loneliness.

Desire is a key theme in dungeon meshi with selflessness and selfish being the accompaniment to it that really makes so much it so potent.

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: Let's Eat!

(That is, let's live, want, connect... oh, you know what I mean by now)

I like how Yaad and the other living villagers can casually talk with the ghosts, because for all intents and purposes they were also ghosts... In fact, those who stayed and spent centuries going through the patterns of life even though all true meaning had been lost long ago were MORE "ghosts" than those who lost their corporeal forms because they wanted to escape so badly that they went wandering... That's so fuckin' good. I wanna eat this writing.

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Kabru just randomly walking out of the bushes the second Laios starts considering politics...love him. He was summoned. His PR spidey senses were going off.

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look at my boy, establishing his own authority.

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Lol this was me when we moved house last month, and my job was to just stand in the new living room and tell people where to put which box or piece of furniture. It's an important job in a task with a lot of people!

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FUCK YEAH, THAT'S MY MAN! HE LOOKS GREAT!

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fucking love the trope of "one savvy friend in the crowd who deliberately gets a supportive chant going." Of course it's Kabru.

Though it's important to note that the first thing someone called was, "The demon-eater's here!", and there was muttering while no one was entirely sure if that was a good thing or not... Kabru didn't start the rumble of the crowd; the rumble of the crowd is unavoidable, and you have to be aware of that. Laios has always been aware of that, he's just never known what to do about it, and so tried to avoid it. But he's not avoiding it anymore - so Kabru started the hype of the crowd.

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They're both right! In order to eat, you need to kill! A memento of a meal IS a spoil of war!

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They're unhappy bros... /laughing

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Shown: man desperately reassuring himself, and psyching himself up to eat this stupid dragon meat

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DADCHUCK. Istg my father has said the same thing to me.

p.s. oh thank god he's fully dressed again. it was indecent.

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Marcille is so resigned to this, and so...determined to see it as her own choice. "We all agreed", "I've got to go" - and I'm sure she does see it as her own choice, in a way, because this is how the world has always worked and she knows that. She knew that going in. Those who do ancient magic are arrested by the Elves of the West, that's just the "natural" consequence. She might've gotten away with it if she'd gone undiscovered, or if she'd stayed in the dungeon forever, but she didn't - she chose to pursue her craft, to save Falin, and to do everything after that, too, and so she implicitly chose the consequence with it. If it's unfair, well, thinking that changes nothing, so it's better not to think it.

Until Laios is like, "Actually, I might have political power now? And I'm SO goddamn tired of myself and people I love being punished just for being different, and interested in unconventional things. Let's try something."

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WELL-FUCKING-PLAYED! GET THEIR ASSES, LAIOS! It's especially great because I'm pretty sure he knows the answers to all of this by now? Power move!

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Is she sitting there completely nude except for jewelry and a short robe. Icons only, honestly. Though "we have the luxury of time" feels like so much of a threat from an elf.

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Hey, you did objectively defeat him! Okay arguably the Lion did but Laios did it first, he just also then talked to him, and got grabbed by friendly vine-tentacles. You didn't kill him, but that's not what Delgal asked for anyway!

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thinking about that post that observed that Thistle's driving madness was specifically getting Delgal home for dinner, to eat all together as a family again, and he wakes up to the sound of the people of the Golden Kingdom eagerly inviting the (new) king to eat, and him responding...crying... What is lost is lost, but life will go on.

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The moment when a character decides to lie to another character for their own good is always so compelling. The little moral quandary microcosm.

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So Yaad did know something of what passed between Delgal and Thistle, that drove Thistle down the path to dark magic. He know what it was his grandfather blamed himself for.

This is SUCH A GOOD AND QUIET-SAD DEATH SCENE, but as a consummate fan of 'actually, living is much much harder than dying, and much more interesting too', I do like to think Thistle lives and has to...figure out what to do with his life. And that 'what to do with his life' ends up including ancient magic mad science with Marcille.

...But honestly, even though that'd be fun for me, it seems almost cruel to Thistle. He's been alive for so long. Those he loved most are gone. He held the demon back from the surface, trapped in those books, for so long, even if it was in no way whatsoever with the good of the world in mind. If anyone deserves this peaceful death in (what he thinks are) his brother's forgiving arms, it's him.

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Unfortunately, my love, as has been ceaselessly proven in this story: that's life.

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Marcille has caught onto one of the major themes! However, this story still isn't in favor of afternoon special Moral of the Story - not of letting the characters wrap things up with a bow, at least. You just go on living and wanting and learning about and connecting with and killing new things, forever! That's how it goes! You never know everything and you're always a little bit starving!

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I really love this grumpy old man, and I want him to stick around and be one of Laios's advisors. He's an old gnome, he'll die as soon as an average tallman would anyway.

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This is a) very touching coming from Mithrun, who is only just regaining his own will to live, and b) almost tautalogical in this story EXCEPT that it is also clear that merely "wanting" doesn't mean you get to continue to live, it only means that you're alive in this moment - you also need to want to live MORE than whatever's trying to kill you wants to live.

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GREAT VISUALS!

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And then it's so small, so small that she could leave it behind entirely but Falin is still so kind that she picks it up anyway! Falin who looks at everyone and everything - ghosts and brothers and mad mages and dead dragons, the latter of whom were both violently oppressing her soul - and thinkgs "I gotta help." She's so good!

I'm really going to need to write a like 2k post-canon character study about how Falin has part of the spirit of a dragon in her chest which unfurls while she travels abroad and curls up again and hides when she's home with Marcille and especially with Laios, and how it's a metaphor for her own independence but also literally there is the spirit of a dragon. At the end of it she figures out how to nurture and commune with the dragon enough to have her own flight-capable wings.

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THIS IS SO FUCKING COOL-LOOKING. AUTOPHAGIC SELF-CREATION FOR THE FUCKING WIN!!

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YYEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

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fuck it, have a collage, because this bitch-ass website is about to cut off my photos-per-post. It can't HANDLE the sheet joy of Falin resurrection reunion hugs!!

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so many people love her, or at least are really emotionally invested in this now!! /sobs

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Lmaoooo

Laios: wracked with food poisoning because he ate raw walking mushroom Falin: great distress! Marcille: trying very hard to help, also thinking sooo hard that He Is An Idiot. [btw I love how it looks like she takes up holding her hair back with a band] Kabru: having his weekly moment, as he has for the past many years and will continue to have until he dies, of wondering if he shouldn't really have just killed this guy rather than let him become king

Kabru definitely wrote this whole ending narration btw. This is his press release from like 40 years in the future. And those kids! An orc kid and a kobold kid, and zooming out to show kids of other races, all playing together and going to lunch together!!

And then they all lived, and hungered and ate and killed and wanted and sought understanding and connected with one another and were part of the great circle of life, as happily ever after as one can get.

This story truly was delicious...in dungeon!

[animentality]

Tumblr is truly sleeping about Blue Lock, If this series was released at the time of Kuroko no Basuke or Katekyo Hitman Reborn everyone would be losing their minds...

honestly I think it's partially blue lock's fault and partially the way fandom has changed.

blue lock is by nature just not as wholesome or well written as haikyuu, and it focuses too much on an mc that's not really that interesting.

everyone can generally like Hinata. he's not really disliked.

isagi is another story.

Hinata is someone you can really root for as well (and he has a cool ability/outlook). isagi is... not. not as much, anyway.

he's more generic, a deliberate self insert. he's bland by design, so women can want him and men can want to be him. he's a Gary stu as well, especially given most recent chapters.

he's a boring guy whose likability is tied entirely to whom he is around. and lately he's been around assholes... so that's what he is right now.

and the narrative is so chained to him that there's just not as much going on with any of the other characters.

every single Haikyuu character did not become instantly obsessed with Hinata and make him their like, lifelong ambition within minutes of meeting him.

they all felt like real people with interests and lives we just aren't seeing. weird hobbies. oh and relationships with people who aren't Hinata.

because character relationships never get explored outside of how they relate to isagi ...

blue lock often feels hollow.

you can make your own content but the narrative gives you nothing to work with.

only NagiReo really gets any focus and he had to literally make a whole other manga to do that.

just ridiculous.

I also think that blue lock prides itself on being edgy and not your grandma's sports manga... but that's to its detriment.

I've said this before and I'll say it again.

high octane stress environments are really fun... when they're short lived.

if you have nothing but stress for a long running series... and no downtime... where we can see the characters relax... it just gets tiring instead of exciting.

and right now... Christ it's so painful.

nel is the worst arc ever written.

I honestly think that blue lock before nel would've blown up with the anime. and if it had kept up that quality, then it would've been big.

but the anime came out during the slog of nel.

which killed it dead in the water.

fandom has always changed too.

the biggest anime fandom on Tumblr is probably dungeon meshi.

it's the only anime that breaks into mainstream Tumblr every now and again, and it's because it's down to earth, it's well written. the characters are unique and charming and funny.

fantasy tropes, not boring anime tropes.

it's also for the lesbians and autistics and monster enthusiasts.

there's a lot to love and develop there.

but blue lock... it has great characters but they don't interact with each other enough.

they would rather talk up the mc than be real people.

so blue lock... it'll never reach free levels, bc fandom has changed too much.

it'll never reach Haikyuu levels, bc it lacks the chemistry, the quality writing, the side characters getting focus and content so that people who don't just like the mc can be happy.

I know mcs are important and all, but... not everyone was gonna pick the mc as their favorite.

like... boooooooring.

[fumifooms]

Oh...

The word antiquity here interests me, since it means that the ancient war is considered to be from that equivalent time period.

Of course, there being a war doesn't mean it's the war, doesn't mean it's all the same one. What makes me think that the gnome page's war is the same as the destruction that the demon caused is that Dungeon Meshi always does seem to refer to a war in particular in general, vaguely gesturing to it as big and long ago, "the ancient war". It's said gnomes sided with dwarfs, which makes sense considering their heated differences in opinions on magic, so it makes sense for the "gnomes vs elves war" to also be the "war between elves and dwarfs where gnomes sided with the dwarfs".

So the timeline seems to be, war between elves and dwarves was already started when people decided to trick the demon and trap it in dungeons, if I take the "during" of the elves' blurb literally. The war might have been a direct result of the demon though, and the wishes it granted while being in dungeons. Since its appearance in Dungeon Meshi's world dimension, it had risen to being worshipped as a god, although the worshippers' assumption that it wanted human sacrifices and its compliance to it ultimately meant it was seen as a threat to control.

Since being trapped in the dungeon, people still went to it to have wishes granted, from the examples we see mostly things that make sense in times of conflict: "Kill that guy!" "No, that guy!", "grant my people immortality!"- though who knows the details and how many wishes were truly made with war in mind. "Once, the excessive development of science and magic technologies generated strife among the races", the development mentioned could very well have been a result of the demon's wish granting. "Both of whom had built advanced civilizations". We see the great utopic-looking civilization that resulted from these wishes...

Which existed until an old man then wished for the destruction of the world...

Considering the heaps of bones and the way the demon talks about it, it really does seem like the demon wiped out humanity at large. With the 'grilling a hunted lamb over a campfire' look it does seem like a general civilization reset. But I'll remind that it's said that the eastern archipelago has little remnant effects from "the ancient war", so it might be more like the demon wiped the humanity that it was aware of, for example. That there were "a few survivors" the demon wasn't aware of might have just been that it didn't know to look in other places, that it only targeted human groups it knew of. Since the example here looks pretty technologically unadvanced, it makes sense that they wouldn't exactly be loud inhabitants of some unknown neighboring place, not having boats to travel the sea with for example.

This is when the demon started being selfish and manipulative to treat humans like food, knowing the starvation that just letting them do whatever can result in for it.

Of course, since knowledge of the demon is restricted and managed by elves, it makes sense it simly became known as the war.

The Adventurer's Bible was released after the fight at Thistle's house, so the reveals about the demon near the end of the manga weren't included in it yet. The Complete Adventurer's Bible hasn't been fully translated yet, but it very well might have added precious information or confirmed things about the ancient war. Or might not, but we do know there is new info in everyone's profiles, so it'd surprise me.

[felixcloud6288]

Dungeon Meshi Chapter 69

I would not want to play DnD with Thistle as a DM.

The chapter opens with Laios explaining WHY they have to defeat Thistle and let Laios become the new Dungeon Lord. Realistically, they have no reason to have to fight Thistle.

The party wants to restore Falin back to normal and the plan was to kill Falin, eat the dragon parts, and then resurrect the human part. Nothing about that requires fighting Thistle.

But now that Falin is dead, they've realized they're dealing with a logistical nightmare since it's impossible to transfer Falin's body to somewhere other people would be.

For a moment, I was thinking that maybe they could forgo having people eat the carcass and instead try cutting Falin out of the dragon and let other monsters eat the dragon half. But the last carnivore monster I remember seeing was the direwolves on the sixth floor and even that distance would be impossible to achieve in a timely manner.

I'm assuming the top level in this diagram refers to the town's underground tomb. If that's the case, then the entire dungeon had eight floors and Thistle's house was a separate floor from the Dwarf city ruins floor.

Thistle's dungeon altering powers includes his house. The first room when you enter his house used to be a hallway of mirrors. Now it's the kitchen.

And Thistle is being very deliberate about making their final battle be in a kitchen. He doesn't like how the party has been turning the monsters into dishes, so he's going to do the same to them.

Leave it to Senshi to be more concerned that Thistle is standing on the dining table.

More of the demon eye stuff when Thistle's at his worst. I do wonder how he'd act if he were fully himself. Thistle would probably like the party if not for the lion's influence on him. They're not raiders, they don't engage in wanton destruction, they got along great with the Kingdom residents, and Senshi insists they not take more than is needed.

Thistle might still have issue with the sorbet incident though.

Marcille did cast some sort of barrier ward to keep that stone from crushing them but it wasn't high enough to keep the stone from hitting Laios's head. Senshi seemed to catch on to what was about to happen since he pulled Izutsumi down.

Also, the bricks under where the party are standing are different and slightly lower than the rest of the flooring. This giant crusher trap wasn't a spur of the moment. Thistle redesigned the room specifically to crush the party when they walked in.

Marcille's half-elf status is revealed to the party and she looks embarrassed more than anything.

She always gets flustered when she gets racially profiled for her elven heritage. I bet if she were given the chance to become a full-breed, Marcille would choose to be a Tallman. Her fears of outliving everyone is caused by her elf heritage and she hates how pompous elves tend to act. So yeah, she gets embarrassed whenever someone says she's acting like a stereotypical elf.

The rest of the party does not like Laios's contribution to Marcille's argument.

Speaking of crossbreeds, I know of two additional crossbreed species. There are ligers (cross between male lions and female tigers) and tiger trout (cross between brown and brook trout). I did a quick search for some details on them in the hopes I could make some assumptions about the genetic relation between some of the human races. One interesting thing I found was mules and ligers are both one of two different hybrids determined by the species of each parent. Mules are the offspring of a male donkey and female horse. If the species are reversed, you get a hinny. And if you reverse the species of a liger's parents, you get a tigon.

Mules and ligers are both crossbreeds of species in the same genus. I found that horses and donkeys have different chromosomes but lions and tigers have the same number. Mules are sterile with exceedingly rare exceptions, meanwhile female ligers and tigons are able to reproduce and there are documented cases of them successfully having offspring with male lions (the hybrids are called liligers and litigons). I didn't find anything about whether those offspring survive to adulthood though.

Tiger Trout are cross-genus hybrids. They are entirely sterile and are rare even if the parent species are together. Brown and Brook trout have different chromosome counts. Tiger trouts are noteworthy for looking nothing like either parent and being more muscular than either parent.

So if I were to guess, I'd assume elves and Tallmen and all the human races are the same genus but different species, and elves and tallmen have different chromosome counts. Next question I would ask is whether a half-elf from a tallman mother and elf father has different traits and behaviours than a half-elf with an elf mother and tallman father.

Thistle said that half-elf growth rates are unstable. That would explain why Marcille grew roughly the same rate that Falin did in the academy. And since Marcille has always been so dodgy about her age, I guess she's actually far younger than her appearance implies. She looked like a child when she was a half-foot because she is child-age in elf terms.

Thistle bit his finger to the point it drew blood. Every panel before the fight where that finger is visible still has the blood on it.

Look at Senshi's face.

I just noticed something about Thistle. He appears to be ambidextrous, but he shows heavy preference for one hand depending on the situation. In the flashback last chapter, he was mostly right-handed; there were several images of him drawing, holding utensils, casting spells, and pointing with his right hand.

But during the fight in chapter 29 and this fight, he instead preferred to use his left hand. The shot of him appearing behind Yaad in chapter 47 also focused on his left hand. In chapter 66, Thistle was using his right hand for most everything EXCEPT when he grabbed those berries from Falin with his left hand. And he also started pointing with his left hand after ripping Eodio's soul out of his body.

And there are two shots of the lion licking Thistle and the lion licked Thistle's left hand both times.

Thistle's eyes change when he is acting like the person the lion turned him into, but he also seems to switch hand dominance depending on if his current behaviour is driven by his real self or the personality that the lion shaped him into.

Oh they are so screwed.

That dragon seems fascinated at Senshi's strength.

Not only would I not want Thistle to DM my DnD campaign, I also wouldn't want him to cook me anything. Those dishes look disgusting.

Ryoko Kui's commitment to the bit is both funny and grim. But this isn't as dark as the Falin and Warg skeletons because we're not given the nutrient content of these dishes. Since everything used was fed a well-balanced diet, the dishes are probably nutritious, but I don't think the cooking methods are ideal.

That Senshi casserole looks burned, the Chilchuck ruibe was frozen way too quickly and isn't being served properly, the saltwater-pickled Izutsumi is just going to taste like brine water, and the method used to prepare the nerve-clipped Marcille likely contaminated the food and made it unsafe to eat.

We've had plenty of instances of Laios's monster knowledge getting the party out of a bind, but this time we saw how the lack of knowledge made the situation worse. Laios shouted that Marcille and Senshi's methods for dealing with and escaping the dragons chasing them just made things worse.

Laios really lucked out here. It would have been ironic if he had been saved by the red dragon.

There's a nightmare stuck to Laios's forehead at the end of the chapter.

SENSHI FLASH!!

back

[arataka-reigen]

Winter Anime Review by Yours Truly 🍄🌻

This season I said I would not watch anything besides dunmeshi. As we can all see... that was a fucking lie.

In total I've started 10 anime (can everyone praise me and be proud of me for being a bit more tame than I was in the fall season? At least it wasn't 20 anime this time).

My reviews are something I make just for fun, and they 100% reflect my own personal tastes. I might give a highscore to shows other people would call absolute trash, and that's okay! To each their own~~ That being said, I do try to make it very informative to aid you in choosing what you might want to check out by adding a summary and a few content warnings along with the actual review.

A little preview: this season has some great romance anime with couples that actually do make progress in their relationship, which is kind of rare for anime couples, always on their "will they wont they" thing, so if anything, i would recommend picking up one of the romances this time around. (And dunmeshi. Watch dunmeshi.)

***This review will include exclusively animes that debuted this winter, so no 2nd seasons or continuing shows from the fall season.

So, without further ado, let's get into it under the read more.

Dungeon Meshi

Summary: Seinen, Fantasy, Gourmet, Comedy

A party of adventurers gets stuck fighting a Dragon even though they are starving and in no shape to survive. In a last ditch effort to make it out alive, mage Falin sacrifices herself to save her brother Laios and their party. She sends them back to the surface but gets eaten by the Dragon. Now Laios and co are in a race against time to save Falin before she gets digested. The problem? They don't have any money for food. The solution? DUNGEON MESHI!!! AH, DUNGEON MESHI!! DUNGEON FOOD!! JUST EAT THE GODDAMN MONSTERS 😋

Rating: 10/10

Review: if you've been following me for 2 seconds or less you already know dunmeshi is one of my all time favorite mangas. And the anime absolutely delivers. The animation is great, the voice acting is great both subbed or dubbed (the english dub AND the portuguese dub are worth it). The comedic bits hit so hard, and we're just at the start but you can already see bits and pieces of a larger and more dramatic story unfolding.

World building is insane. Character design is insane (everyone say thank you Ryoko Kui our goddess).

Not only is the story incredibly well written with no plot holes, the characters are also well fleshed out and three dimensional.

I could sing praises for it for hours, but then it would leave no space for the other shows on this list so I'll stop now.

But if you only have time to watch one anime this season, this one is it.

Content Warning: blood, death, necromancy crimes 🧟‍♀️

7th Timeloop: the Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy

Summary: Reincarnation, Fantasy, Romance

Rishe is not new to the reincarnation business. This is her 7th time around. After being accused of crimes she didn't commit and having her engagement to the crown prince broken off in her 1st life she went on to discover that life is full of possibilities and adventures. But, after 5 years, she died. Only to find herself back at the moment the crown prince broke off their engagement. With each life she explores new countries and new possibilities, but in every life, after 5 years, she is caught up in the war waged by emperor Arnold Hein, and is killed. In her 6th life she dies directly by Arnold's blade and in a turn of fate she runs into him in her 7th life, catching his attention, and maybe his heart? Can she prevent her death this time around and finally live a peaceful life?

Rating: 10/10

Review: ah, we all knew the otome reincarnation was coming. This shit is my life source. That being said, even if it wasn't, I would still probably really love 7th Time Loop. It's just that good.

Rishe is a great main character, in all her past lives she was on The Grind. From being a merchant, to a doctor, to a maid, to a royal guard. And now she tells herself she just wants to chill, but this girl simply cannot chill. She is playing mind games with Arnold, trying to figure out what he is planning and how to stop the war from breaking out.

Meanwhile, Arnold is head over heels in love and probably so so full of trauma we still don't know yet. We must protect this dude. I'm very excited to find out more and more about him and what exactly led him to start a war against the world.

The animation is gorgeous, I love the way the eyes are drawn like constellations.

The romance is great and developing at a very nice pace, Arnold is very respectful of Rishe's boundaries for their marriage and overall just a really great guy.

CW: blood, death, kidnapping.

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!

Summary: Boys Love, Adult Cast, Workplace, Supernatural, Comedy

Office worker Kiyoshi Adachi has gone 30 years of life without ever having his cherry popped. Due to this profound accomplishment, he gains the ability to read minds through physical contact. However, this new skill has only made his life harder and he now hates crowded spaces.

On the way to work, Adachi runs into his colleague Kurosawa, curious about what an outgoing guy like him thinks about, Adachi touches him and finds out that Kurosawa has a crush on someone from their office, looking further he realizes Kurosawa is actually crushing on him.

Rating: 10/10

Review: first of all, if you say "romance + adult cast" you already have my full attention. Add mind reading to the mix to make sure that the main character doesn't have miscommunication problems and i'm at the fucking table eating it up.

This show is incredibly funny, Kurosawa's thoughts about Adachi are always so sweet and/or horny and obsessed, but he is still just a super great guy with great morals and he would never do anything Adachi doesn't want (much to Adachi's surprise because he thought the dude was going to jump him anytime with how badly in love his thoughts are).

Adachi is straight until proven otherwise, and Kurosawa proves otherwise really fast. The pace of their romance is really great, we dont get ten thousand episodes of "will they wont they" and I really appreciate that.

CW: none that i can think of atm. Let me know if you have anything i could add here.

Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord

Summary: Otome Isekai, Fantasy, School

Yumiella Dolkness is a girl with dark hair and dark magic (characteristics associated with the Demon Lord) and for that she is feared.

When Yumiella was 5 years old she regained memories of her past life in modern Japan, and the game she used to play: Light Magic and the Hero. In it, Yumiella was the secret boss you had to defeat after the Demon Lord. Determined to avoid this fate she applies gamer logic to her life and begins adventuring in dungeons to max her power levels.

Now, 15 year old Yumiella is going to school, where she will meet the true hero of the game. She wants to avoid calling attention and just go through her school years without trouble. But when their power levels are measured in the first day of school, she is measured as a level 99 dark magic user and now even the king and queen have their eyes on her.

Rating: 10/10

Review: you gotta trust me on this one and get through the first ten minutes, I promise it gets so much better after Yumiella is really introduced. They just had to spend a few minutes doing a gag introduction, where you follow the game's hero before you find our beloved villainess. And it was very cool how the opening resemble a dating sim game opening.

Yumiella is great, one of my favorite female leads this season, and that is including frieren and maomao from the fall season animes that are still airing. She is not very aware of all the social cues and has trouble communicating and making friends, but we get to see her inner thoughts and they're always hilarious.

My favorite gag is that dark magic can be used for healing, but the healing process looks fucking grotesque so people would rather not be healed by Yumiella. For some reason that always gets me.

I really fucking hate the 4 hero characters, they're super annoying, but in a "i love to hate them" way, and I love seeing yumiella wipe the floor with their asses without even trying because she is just that overpowered. Most of the anime is just her trying to use just a tiny bit of her power because if she uses her full power people would just straight up die with a simple punch.

CW: blood

Yubisaki to Renren

Summary: ✨️Shoujo✨️, Adult Cast, Romance

(Summary stolen from myanimelist, sorry) Yuki Itose is a hearing-impaired university student whose world has been shrouded with silence since birth. She has lived in the same place her whole life, and rarely interacts with others save for her best friend, Rin Fujishiro. During her commute one day, she meets the silver-haired and multilingual Itsuomi Nagi, a mutual friend of Rin. Unlike most, Itsuomi is unwavering when he learns of Yuki's impairment; this, along with his experiences abroad, fascinates and touches her. After they part, her fondness of him starts to grow. A new world begins to open for both Yuki and Itsuomi as they learn about each other's different lives.

Rating: 10/10

Review: and here we have The Shoujo Of The Season. And it occupies that spot marvelously.

Yuki and Itsuomi are another one of the incredible couples of the winter season. Relationship developing at a very nice pace that isn't too fast and not too slow (like shoujo can be sometimes). Yuki is very inspired by Itsuomi, she wants to see the world and experience new things now that she got a glimpse into his life and realized how big the world is.

I specially love how cool, calm and collected Itsuomi always acts, but how his cousin, Kyouya, lets us know that Itsuomi is really interested in Yuki and just shows it in different ways, like the way his voice gets very affectionate towards her.

The animation!!!!! Wow!!!! So soft!!! So warm!!!! I love it!!!! I'm sure you'll love it too!!!

Sound design is also very good, it's specially interesting during scenes where we cant hear anything because we are on Yuki's point of view. I wish it happened even more often.

I've seen people compare this show with Koe no Katachi but they're very different shows, specially since we get to see most of this one through Yuki's point of view, while Koe no Katachi was not from the POV of the hearing-impaired character and dealt a lot more with issues like bullying and suicide. Yubisaki to Renren is a lot more light-hearted, soft, sweet and overall just a feel good anime.

I am always going to recommend shoujo. Specially when they're as good as this one is. So definitely check this one out.

CW: none that I can think of. Let me know if there is anything I should put here.

The Foolish Angel Dances with the Devil

Summary: Seinen, Romance, Comedy, Supernatural

The angels and the devils are waging a war. Things are not looking so good on the devils' side, so they send Akutsu Masatora on a journey to the human world, to find someone that can aid the demons on their fight.

Akutsu is assigned a seat next to Lily Amane, the cutest girl in class. But when he tries to recruit her to the devil's side he realizes she is not a normal human. Now he must deal with the fact that he is tied to his mortal enemy, an angel, and with the fact that he might be falling in love.

Rating: 10/10

Review: More like,, the foolish devil gets played by the angel.

Akutsu and Lily get into stupid mind games trying to make the other fall in love, all while realizing that "hey, angels/devils arent so bad after all" as they spend more and more time together.

It reminds me just a bit of Kaguya-sama how the main couple wants the other to cave first.

This show is simply hilarious, I was laughing out loud at so many stupid scenes. Some gags do get old a bit fast, but overall it's still going strong and makes up for where it falls short with how badly in love these two already are just a few episodes in.

I'm not sure we'll get a proper confession this season, but it doesnt look like these two will be stuck forever in the "will they wont they" stage like the couple from kaguya-sama.

CW: there is a scene by the end of episode one that is completely played as a joke that has one of the lead characters putting a collar on the other lead and the imagery was a bit disturbing, definitely leaning on non con bdsm themes, it isnt terrible, just felt a bit distasteful to me, but nothing big, i dont think it should deter you from watching this, but watch out for that.

Solo Leveling

Summary: Action, Fantasy

(Synopsis stolen from myanimelist again) Ten years ago, "the Gate" appeared and connected the real world with the realm of magic and monsters. To combat these vile beasts, ordinary people received superhuman powers and became known as "Hunters." Twenty-year-old Sung Jin-Woo is one such Hunter, but he is known as the "World's Weakest," owing to his pathetic power compared to even a measly E-Rank. Still, he hunts monsters tirelessly in low-rank Gates to pay for his mother's medical bills.

However, this miserable lifestyle changes when Jin-Woo—believing himself to be the only one left to die in a mission gone terribly wrong—awakens in a hospital three days later to find a mysterious screen floating in front of him. This "Quest Log" demands that Jin-Woo completes an unrealistic and intense training program, or face an appropriate penalty. Initially reluctant to comply because of the quest's rigor, Jin-Woo soon finds that it may just transform him into one of the world's most fearsome Hunters.

Rating: 8/10

Review: everyday that passes I find myself liking battle shounen less and less. This one is not bad, it is actually quite interesting, it's just not the type of stuff i'm into anymore, I guess.

That being said, if you're in the mood for it, this one if very interesting. Jin woo's life is now completely ruled by this game that allows him to level up, and he is getting a bit fucked in the head by it.

Animation is great, I love when his eyes get all shiny because you know he's gone Beast Mode.

Not a lot of characters introduced so far, but it's still cool to see Jin Woo leveling up on his own. I mean... a show named solo leveling has got to make sure that the solo aspect isnt boring lol.

For some reason tho I still gave it an 8, which is high, so... it's pretty good.

Jin woo is just a bit... generic i guess. Nothing you havent seen before from an isekai male lead.

Also... i miss his haircut from the earlier episodes, his current haircut makes him look even more generic.

CW: blood and gore, body horror, torture, death games. Big and scary god statue that smiles in a fucked up way and kills kills kills.

Drop Box

Animes I either already dropped for a specific reason or will probably drop in the future simply because I wont have time to watch everything I started this season, so among the 10 I started, these are the ones i'm least likely to finish:

Majo do Yajuu

Summary: Seinen, Action, Fantasy

Guideau and Ashaf are an ominous pair, working for a mysterious organization that deals with magic crimes. Guideau is a feral and unhinged girl/genderless beast with a curse she wants to break and Ashaf is her soft spoken and calm companion. They go from town to town looking for witches to defeat and trying to find the witch who cursed Guideau and get their revenge.

Rating: 7/10

Review: I do like this one, I just think that if it comes to it and I dont have time, I wont miss it too much if I never finish it.

The blood and gore are heavy, and that might be the reason why i'm fine dropping it, i'm not that big of a fan of gore.

Other than that tho, I find the two main characters extremely interesting and i want to learn more about them, specially Guideau and her curse and that crazy beast mode she goes on when she manages to put a pause on her curse sometimes.

CW: blood and gore, body horror

Gekai Elise

Summary: Reincarnation/Otome Isekai, Fantasy, Medical, Romance

(Again, stolen from myanimelist) In her first life, the renowned and genius surgeon Dr. Aoi Takamoto was Elise de Clorance, a villainess of noble descent. Elise's selfishness, insolence, and obsessive love for her fiancé—Prince Linden de Romanoff—led to the deaths of her family members and, eventually, herself. Only after being reborn did Elise realize the error of her ways and decide that, instead of ruining lives, she would devote herself to saving them. But a tragic airplane crash robs her of her dreams too soon.

By a miracle, Elise wakes up in her original body before her official engagement to Linden. Recognizing the chance to cherish her loving family and free Linden from an unwanted marriage, Elise wishes to use her advanced medical knowledge to continue down the path of saving lives. In a deal with the emperor, Elise is given only six months to prove that her true place is not on the throne, but rather with the wounded and ailing who desperately need her help.

Rating: 6/10

Review: I'd like to say I dropped this show for personal reasons, not because it is a bad show.

It is definitely not the best otome isekai of the season (7th time loop and Villainess 99 win by a mile), but it is quite good and has an interesting premise. The main couple didn't seem too promising or interesting to me tbh.

The thing that interested me the most was the fact that Elise's original life was as a noblewoman, her second life was as a doctor and then he got a chance to relive her first life and change the mistakes she made.

Unfortunately, I am a med student, and I simply can't watch medical related stuff without nitpicking it to hell and back. Mostly, I try to distance myself from medicine related shows because my life already revolves around it too much, u know. I just need a break from All That when I'm watching my silly little shows, so... i had to drop this one.

Also, the main character was kind of annoying, but that might just be me.

Anyway, check this out if you think it sounds interesting. I might not be the best judge of this one.

CW: plane crash, death, medical procedures, surgery

Gushing Over Magical Girls

Oh boy...

I'm putting the CW before anything else because this one is problematic and I don't want anyone acting like I didn't warn them beforehand.

CW: this is straight up softcore porn and the characters are all middle/highschool aged. The anime revolves around BDSM themes (so many and increasingly worse themes, from simple bondage to pain play, to age play and other stuff), and there is nothing more than that to it, all the character growth is about the characters becoming more and more uninhibited with their sexual preferences. Also extremely dubious consent for all of it.

This is just a hentai disguising as an ecchi. It's fully yuri tho. Small blessings lol.

Summary: Mahou Shoujo, Girls Love, Ecchi, Comedy

I'm tired already so this will be short. Utena is a girl obsessed with magical girls. One day she gets the chance to become a magical girl herself, however, she is fooled and actually becomes a villain. She is made to fight Tres Magia (magical girl group) and ends up realizing she quite enjoys inflicting pain against them.

Review: the animation is good, very clean, the boob physics is not all that bad (what. this is an honest review and the anime is an ecchi. i gotta talk abt the boob physics.)

It is indeed super funny and definitely unhinged.

Plot wise, it is pretty straightforward, girl likes magical girls -> girl finds out she likes to watch magical girls suffering and in pain and moaning (well, not only watch, she does a lot of touching too)

Do I recommend it? No. Am I having fun watching it? Yes, it is pretty funny if you're the type of person who can ignore A Lot of things.

I'll probably favor the other animes tho so this one is very likely to get dropped before the season is through.

Thank you for reading (if you managed to make it this far lol, although this list is definitely smaller than my fall anime list)

If there is any other anime you think I should check out this season leave it in the replies and I might take a look at it and update this review with it!

[luckydicekirby]

Okay here’s my attempt at a book roundup this year—sorry in advance that this is like, half my reviews of various Expanse books, and then half my thoughts about Lestat. What can you do! I did not read as widely or diversely as I would have liked this year but. there's always next year I suppose. I’ve also included all the manga we read for book club, because it was on the same list where I was keeping this already!

January

Caliban’s War, James S. A. Corey

This is the second book in The Expanse, a series which I am now on the homeward stretch of. Have not seen the show, will get around to it someday, I really want to see Shohreh Aghdashloo say fuck. I’ve been switching back and forth a bit but mainly listening to these on audio—Jefferson Mays does a really great job as narrator, I highly recommend the audiobooks.

Very broadly, The Expanse is about a universe where humanity has gone to the stars and is in the process of terraforming Mars, as well as spreading out to a handful of space stations, moons, and bits of the asteroid belt. This has created a big new avenue of social stratification between people from Earth or Mars (who have their own political sniping between each other), and people from the Belt, an underclass that is constantly getting fucked over. We follow a variety of characters, but mainly the authors’ meow meow James Holden and the crew of his stolen-from-Mars-technically-but-don’t-worry-about-it-ship The Rocinante as Holden stumbles his way into various political problems. Also, some alien technology has just shown up and it is so so bad!

In general I’ve really enjoyed these books—there's faction politics, there's interesting worldbuilding, there's alien artifacts that will fuck you up every time. I appreciate the constantly shifting status quo—it’s a series that is really, really not afraid to blow things up. The characters are great, and my only real complaint is occasionally slamming into “oh this is sci-fi written by two white guys, it’s time to be weird about race or about women” disease. Also there’s a thread of like, bordering on evopsych running through its philosophy that everyone in the world seems to subscribe to and I just don’t think that’s true of every character! 

ANYWAY with all that background out of the way, this one was one of my favorites of the series! It has Bobbie Draper, Martian marine forced by circumstances into being a political pawn, which she hates, and Chrisjen Avasarala, UN bureaucrat and bitchy foul-mouthed grandma of my heart who knows better than everyone else and who loves maneuvering political pawns, and I am in love with them both. Also scary alien science monsters!

Dungeon Meshi, Ryoko Kui

Not much to say about this. Dungeon Meshi is simply very good! No one else is doing it like Kui! 

Thus Was Adonis Murdered, Sarah Caudwell

The first Hilary Tamar mystery! Thank you to blot for recommending to me I enjoy them so much! These are lighthearted mystery novels about a group of barristers in London in the … 80s?, narrated by their pal Professor Hilary Tamar, who loves to come down from Oxford to visit and will do absolutely anything to get a chance to be nosy and not do actual work. "Anything", in most cases, is solving a murder. These books are very dryly funny and every character is a delight. This one is about dear sweet idiot Julia almost getting arrested for murder, a thing that seems to happen to her a lot. These are so fun! Big recommend! 

Abaddon’s Gate, James S. A. Corey

Expanse book three. Having talked up Caliban’s War, I think this is actually my least favorite Expanse book so far. It has a lot of fun features: introduces one of the more status quo changing alien artifacts, has my favorite scary way for alien artifacts to kill you (INERTIA!!), and one of the main characters is daughter of a thwarted big picture antagonist from book one who wants to ruin Holden’s life. This is a great premise but I just felt kind of cheated of her and Holden having a direct confrontation before Clarissa decides to not be evil after all, and apparently that annoyed me enough to not have very fond memories of this book despite having just listed a bunch of things I love. Ah well!

The Shortest Way to Hades, Sarah Caudwell

Second Hilary Tamar! Also great. This is the best one due to it is the gayest one. 

February

Paradise Kiss, Ai Yazawa

A short manga written by the author of Nana about fashion, dropping out of high school, and relationship problems. Did not hit the heights of Nana but this was fun! Wish it had been less transphobic and homophobic but. The 90s. The fashions, as you might expect, are VERY good.

March

The Likeness, Tana French (reread)

It’s never a bad time to read The Likeness!

Broken Harbor, Tana French (reread)

IT’S NEVER A BAD TIME TO READ BROKEN HARBOR!

April

The Masqueraders, Georgette Heyer

Have been slowly working my way through Heyers on and off and this was the next one on my list! We follow a brother and sister who are both crossdressing as part of a Scheme (and because they’re like, undercover Jacobites or something, I forget). Not my favorite Heyer, but I really enjoyed the romance between Prudence and her Big Guy, and Robin’s romance was also cute, although I think it would be much improved by allowing him to be a lesbian. Have come to find Heyer’s classism kind of funny, and it’s always exciting to try to figure out how people are going to actually turn out to be nobles, because there’s no WAY she’s going to let someone of high birth marry a commoner! (I liked the switched at birth plot in These Old Shades better.)

Cibola Burn, James S. A. Corey

I got annoyed with this book a quarter of the way through and took a two month break but once I got back to it I did enjoy it a lot. In this one Jim Holden and his ragtag crew go to a newly settled world to try to mediate a property dispute between the inhabitants of the world and the company that technically owns all their shit. Really fun alien artifact stuff in this one, some characterization of the female scientist that made me feel crazy, etc. Classic Expanse!

Death in the Spires, K.J. Charles

One member of a group of friends at Oxford is murdered, and the rest of them are Haunted By This and their lives are ruined in various ways—until ten years later, when they begin getting letters accusing them of the crime and it’s time to solve it Once And For All. I’m a big big fan of K.J. Charle’s romances, mainly because my ideal romance has a murder in it, so I was very excited to read a mystery from her! I did come out of this one wishing…uh…that the love interest was Worse. Sorry. Otherwise I had a great time!

Nemesis Games, James S. A. Corey

My favorite Expanse so far! This one is very big on wrecking the status quo, and gives us POV from the whole main crew of the Rocinante. This vitally means we get POV from my special little guy Amos Burton, a tough, amiable bruiser with nothing behind the eyes who outsources his moral compass to Holden because he does not come with one preloaded. He is my favorite. Also, this book at least did something interesting with the central heterosexual ship that I do not really care about, by getting into Holden’s girlfriend Naomi’s questionable past.

May

Babylon’s Ashes, James S. A. Corey

I’m going to be honest, I was trying to look a few things up and realized this book and Nemesis Games are the same book in my mind, and I barely remember what actually happened in it. Since I loved Nemesis Games I guess that means it was good! I found it a little scattered (instead of having four main POVs, like most books in this series, it bounces around to a bunch of characters), but fun. 

The Sirens Sang of Murder, Sarah Caudwell

Third Hilary Tamar! Still great! 

The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley

Oh, The Ministry of Time. Our unnamed protagonist is hired as a “bridge”, someone whose role it is to help acclimate, monitor, and otherwise Be In Charge Of people that the British government has plucked out of time. Because they have time travel now. Our protagonist is assigned to Graham Gore, a guy from the lost Franklin Expedition (who died in episode two of The Terror).

I really wanted to like this book! I enjoyed many aspects of it! I ultimately thought it was very mid. It brings up a lot of interesting ideas about complicity in empire that I found interesting but not fully explored, and I figured out a central twist early and instead of that making me feel smart it made me feel crazy and like the protagonist was an idiot. Her complete lack of curiosity about the very clear and VERY DANGEROUS spy machinations going on in this book—which she should be at least a little attentive to, as someone working for a secret government agency! were incredibly frustrating.

I really support the Graham Gore RPF hustle though and hope Bradley makes five million dollars. Also, I loved the fifteenth century lesbian so so so much and she and the protagonist should have made out.

June

Faithful Place, Tana French (reread)

You guessed it: it’s never a bad time to read Faithful Place.

Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice

Obviously, tv iwtv drove me to insanity, so I picked this up in Barnes and Noble intending to read a bit of it in store and then just bought it. It is completely impossible for me to think or talk about these books not in conversation with the show. The rumors are true, book Louis is kind of a wet blanket compared to show Louis. Book Daniel is very funny. I enjoyed thinking about the adaptational changes they made in the show and also saying to myself what do you MEAN lestat's dad was still around in nola?? Also, no one told me these books were actually gay. I cannot emphasize enough how much they are just straightforwardly gay. Anne Rice has very interesting ideas about interpersonal relationships and agonies, and then some really crazy ideas about everything else. 

July

Lady Eve’s Last Con, Rebecca Fraimow

A con artist In Space is out for revenge on the guy who broke her sister’s heart: she’s going to make him fall in love with her instead, and then swindle him for all he’s worth. Except…what’s that? It’s her target’s incredibly hot sister? Uh oh!!! Loved the romance here and REALLY loved the Sisters of it all. An absolute delight, and can confirm from experience your Jewish mother will love it too!

The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice

I’m not summarizing Lestat’s life. Suffice to say he’s got a lot going on. I have to admit I really enjoyed this, and it made me kind of Lestat-pilled. All of Anne’s problems out in full force here: she gets more opportunities to be orientalist, and also made me read 100 fucking pages of Marius backstory. But also, Armand is there and he is so so so crazy? Have you heard about this? Lestat is doing little meow meow shit? It’s also written from his completely deranged POV and, I’ve got to say, I understand why Anne was so obsessed with him. He is such a funny narrator. Why did he write about making out with his mom in his IN UNIVERSE PUBLISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY? He’s Lestat, you simply cannot stop him.

Fullmetal Alchemist, Hiromu Arakawa (reread)

What is there to say about Fullmetal Alchemist. It’s very good. 

August-September

This was the point at which my job kind of blew up so the only thing I read was ¾ of Queen of the Damned, which I still have not finished. The thing about QotD is it has a completely bizarre structure, the main villain has motivations I don’t care about and Lestat is stuck with her for a big chunk of the book, and once again Anne is just really on one. On the other hand, yeah the Daniel and Armand stuff is just as crazy as everyone told you. Who can say if it’s good or bad? Me, maybe, if I ever finish it!

October

Sunshine, Robin McKinley

Decided to continue my vampire kick by reading this, a book blot did not believe I had never read before. For good reason, as if I read this at age fourteen I would have never ever shut up about it (this is also true of iwtv). Sunshine is set in a post-apocalyptic world a few years out from a war between humans and magical creatures, the worst of which are vampires. Our main character, Sunshine, literally lives in a bakery AU before she gets kidnapped by vampires, along with a SEPARATE sexy vampire guy who has also been kidnapped. They team up, etc, you know where this is going! I had a lot of fun with this book—I’m a simple woman, I love a romance with a brooding vampire. The worldbuilding is also very, very interesting and not a lot of it is directly explained to you, which I always appreciate. It takes like 50 pages before we even mention the vampire wars that fucked everything up. Meanwhile, structurally, this book is insane, and it would have benefited from like 100 pages being cut. Still loved it!

Silver Spoon, Hiromu Arakawa

I think Hiromu Arakawa might be good at writing manga? Silver Spoon is a charming slice-of-life manga about a kid who cracks under academic pressure from his school and family, and says fuck it and goes to farm high school in Hokkaido. It’s very different from Fullmetal Alchemist but has a lot of Arakawa’s charm and humor, and is obviously very inspired by her life growing up in Hokkaido. Genre-wise, I’m always going to love a FMA type story more, but this is a great story about friendship and valuing yourself. It made me so, so hungry and also yearn to eat fresh food from a farm. The pacing got pretty wonky at the end—it seems like she went on a lot of hiatuses to deal with family things, and it ends up showing.

November

The Forbidden Book, Sacha Lamb

Sorel runs off on the night of her intended marriage to the rabbi’s son, ends up possessed by a dybbuk, and has to solve his murder, among other things. This had a lot of stuff I like in it—bodysharing where the boundaries get a little blurry! Genders! It did not reach the heights of When The Angels Left The Old Country for me, but I had a lot of fun. 

Fledgling, Octavia Butler

More vampires, but really swerving from Sunshine. Probably NOT my best choice for a first Butler book but here we are. Fledgling is about a young amnesiac vampire, and her attempts to discover who she is and what happened to her family. This book is really weird. I enjoyed it as a thriller, and it was constantly going places I did not expect (last third is like, a vampire courtroom drama. Sure! Why not!), and I liked the vampire society worldbuilding stuff. I was also constantly sitting there like what? What? What? The real barrier to entry here is the protagonist explicitly looks like a ten year old due to how vampire aging works, and also has a lot of sex. I wish that had felt more...necessary? To make up for the fact that I did find it pretty off-putting! I'm sure someone out there has written an interesting essay about this book and Claudia iwtv, which I would like to read.

December

The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith

I love a good repressed gay serial killer!

Persepolis Rising, James S. A. Corey

I started this book immediately after finishing Babylon’s Ashes and was slammed straight into a 30 year timeskip (most of the Expanse books take place at most a few years after the last one). This is an objectively crazy thing to do which I do kind of respect, because we keep many of the same main characters so it is suddenly a cast full of 60+ year olds, which rules. It did lead to me taking a six month break from this series in bafflement though, so, you know. 

[tyrantisterror]

Top ten favorite Orcs? Either specific characters or a given setting’s take on the species as a whole.

I'm not sure I have enough strong feelings about Orcs to really make an interesting list of ten, but what the hell I'll try.

Tolkien's orcs - not just LOTR orcs, but specifically orcs as written by J.R.R. Tolkien - are pretty high up there for me. I've probably mentioned this more than enough on this blog, but I'm still moved by the moment in The Lord of the Rings where we get this conversation between two orcs when their bosses aren't around, where both of them commiserate with each other about how shitty being drafted into Sauron's war is, how they long to go back to their simpler life as mountain bandits, and how, maybe, if they could find a way to escape being caught by their superiors, they could run off and find someplace far from the war to settle down together. Their names are Shagrat and Gorbag, and later in the book one of the heroes finds them among a pile of dead orcs, their dream of a simpler life tragically unfulfilled. I bring this up because, for all the flak Tolkien's cosmology gets for codifying the fantasy trope of "Always Chaotic Evil" races, there's a lot more moral complexity to his "evil" races than most people think. The orcs we meet in his stories are universally pretty nasty people - even Gorbag and Shagrat can't conceive of a simple life that doesn't involve killing people for their valuables - but it's very clear this is a result of the culture they are living in, which, if you get nerdy and read up on the Lore (TM), is one that has been specifically designed by the Middle Earth equivalent of Satan to turn all living things in it into tools of warfare - a world that exists solely to serve as a vast machine of industrialized conquest and mass murder. And it makes them miserable. Orcs don't like living this way, even though it's the only way they know how to live. They are at once victim and villain, and that's explicitly the canon way to look at them in the text. So it kind of sucks that their reputation in pop culture - and how they're presented in most adaptations, including good ol' PJ's film trilogy - is as one-dimensional evil henchmen, because they do have more going on than that in the books themselves, and it enriches the themes of the story when those dimensions are included.

The orcs in Rune Factory are probably my favorite from a design standpoint. I'm kind of neutral at best with the standard "green skinned humans with optional tusks" look of most orcs. There's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't thrill me either, existing in the same nebulous space as, like, traditional fantasy elves, dwarves, and hobbit expies - I understand why they're classics, but they feel kind of boring when you've got other options on the table. So seeing these guys when I booted up my first Rune Factory game was a revelation - finally, orcs that look INTERESTING! And they're so cute, these gnarly little Jim Hensen/Brian Froud style pig people. And they'll help you water your plants! A+ Tier orcs as far as I'm concerned.

Dungeon Meshi found a good middle ground between "gnarly boar people" and "humans with tusks" that I really like, and while the orcs aren't given a whole lot of focus, what world building we do get about them is pretty great, taking a lot of the classic orc tropes and giving them that Ryoko Kui caliber thought and detail that makes them so wonderful.

What else... well, ok, my brain still categorizes these guys as "goblins" rather than "orcs," but since the two are more or less synonymized in both Tolkien and the Rankin Bass adaptations of his work, I guess I can include them. They're one of my favorite designs for goblins of all time, and since I generally like goblins more than orcs, I guess this makes them my favorite orc design by default? I just love them, nasty little toad people.

The 1980 Return of the King movie in particular is one of the few adaptations that keeps Tolkien's sympathy for the orcs in tact, with Frodo even having a dream sequence about living in a world where his run in with orcs is fully pleasant, each of them waving at each other as they cross paths, content to share a beautiful world together.

And while it adapts the parts of the text that take place after the deaths of poor Shagrat and Gorbag, it still manages to work in a moment where the orcs lament their lot in life by way of the infamous "Where There's a Whip There's a Way" song written just for the film. I know this song is generally viewed as "bad" and corny and whatever, fuck that, I unironically love it. It's my wakeup alarm for workdays. I am these orcs five days out of the week.

What else...

So, like, kind of a cheat I suppose, but the Darkspawn in Dragon Age take a lot of cues from Tolkien's take on orcs, right down to seeming like they're just always chaotic evil at first glance, and also being the product of Supernatural Crimes Against Nature by semi-divine powers. And indeed, in Dragon Age Origins you're basically given no reason to view them as anything but evil obstacles to destroy, especially when you learn the body-horror involved in how they reproduce (it's more in the vein of Slither than Goblin Slayer, for those unaware - grotesque but, thankfully, not in that way).

But the big ol' DLC for the same game, called Dragon Age Awakening, throws a big monkey wrench in that view of them. We meet Darkspawn who are capable of speech - ones that have been broken free of the evil hivemind their species is ruled by, and, like freed borg drones, are now at a loss of what to do with themselves. They are, like Tolkien's orcs before them, a people who were made for war and violence, and yet still crave something more than that when given the chance to think about it. It's something that hasn't been followed up on much since, sadly, but it's a damn cool take.

What else...

I'm probably the only person who still remembers this movie, especially with any fondness, but I liked the orcs in the Warcraft movie directed by David Bowie's son. They were given a lot of nuance and I honestly think their parts of the film were by the far the best. Actually I remember liking that movie a lot despite some of its pacing issues, I should revisit it.

Ok that's not ten takes but I feel like there are at least 10 designs on display here so I'm calling this done.

[scallioncreamcheesebagel]

Are you not watching dandadan? Easily aots if not even aoty

i check out every anime every season that i cover so i can find all the good shit, so i did check it out. i initially just dropped it after 1 episode, but after so many people calling it aoty i checked out 2 and 3 as well. and ok it's time for my #hater moment...

dandadan is literally theeee most overrated thing on earth and doesn't come CLOSE to aoty in a year with dungeon meshi, frieren, re:zero season 3, go go loser ranger, bravern, senpai is an otokonoko, negaposi angler, i could go on...

list of things i like about dandadan:

the main two characters have charming personalities and a fun dynamic (this is the main draw). i especially like okarun, he's adorable.

when it leaves the annoying humor alone for a second and lets the characters be sincere with each other, it can actually be good at times (this is rarely done)

science saru, as almost always, has GREAT animation

the OP is a banger

list of things i hate about dandadan:

really just basic shounen jump schlock trussed up with some shiny animation and a thin veneer of "weirdness"

the humor style is kind of annoying and grates on me even in the best of times? very LOLSORANDOM LOLSOWACKY type stuff. seriously did not find a single joke funny, and dandadan tries painfully hard to be funny.

or often it's just "omg we made a DICK JOKE for the 30th time this episode isn't that still soooo funny"

or sometimes it's just straight-up rape jokes

it's extremely repetitive

uninspired character design for human characters

everything good about dandadan is done better in mob psycho 100 without any of the annoying shit, and the bad stuff far outweighs the good stuff here as far as i'm concerned. if there's one thing that absolutely kills a show for me it's unfunny comedy.

(for anyone who didn't see the first post, here's my seasonal anime recs post anon is referencing!)

[petitelepus]

So this isn’t a request but merely a question from a fellow writer. If you can answer then please do but if not then that’s fine. I’ve been struggling with writing and finding the motivation as well as the creativity to write like I used to. I used to have multiple ideas swimming through my head and wrote a little bit everyday but now I find it difficult to do so. I really like your writing and you’re kind of an inspiration to me. You’re like a fanfiction senpai to me. So I was wondering if you had any advice or tips? If not then that’s fine, anyway, have a great day and remember to take care of yourself.

AAAAH, THAT IS SO SWEET, MY HEART IS MELTING HERE!

Alright, I feel you when you say that it can be hard to find inspiration. I think that happens to everyone at some point in time and I think that a great cure can be to take a short break.

It can be good to do something else than write all the time.

Maybe read something new or watch a movie or two? Try doing, reading, or watching new things that can become a source of inspiration?

Like, for myself, I REALLY want to see the "Legend Of Vox Machina" and that worked as an inspiration for me to start taking D&D-themed asks. Also, I LOVED "Dungeon Meshi" so that inspired me also.

I'd really want to see the "Helluva Boss" and "Hazbin Hotel" but I'm cruel to myself and save them for a "bad day" when nothing goes right and I need super inspiration. Maybe I'll take those requests sometime also?

Valentine's Day is coming and that can also bring many different possibilities. Me, well, I plan to open Matchups and maybe some romantic requests or even "Monster Musume" themed matches or asks.

But motivation is important and I think that you shouldn't force yourself to write because that kills the joy in it. I myself get motivation from you guys, my Readers and your comments make me so happy, and writing worth the trouble.

I don't really know how else to help... But I'm always open and willing to listen and help in any way I just can! If you feel like you want to talk more then I think it's alright and that you can send me a DM. I won't bite, I promise!

If you also want, I'm always open for Art Trades, so if you want a challenge and a story for yourself, then that can also be done!

I hope that helped even a little bit!

[room-surprise]

Dungeon Meshi Season 1, Ep 4 Review

Spoilers below the cut! I have a lot of thoughts on this one so it's a bit long.

This is a slower episode, but I expected it to be. I worry that people will find this episode boring because there's not as much action or comedy as some of the other episodes, and what is here tends to be a lot more subtle, but this is honestly one of THE most important episodes of early Dungeon Meshi.

The pacing of this episode was great, Trigger allowed themselves to slow down and take the material more seriously when it was needed, and I really appreciate that.

Senshi and his connection to the dungeon, as always, makes me want to cry. Kui's focus on respect for the people who do the thankless, denigrated jobs in society like picking vegetables, cooking, and cleaning toilets always gets to me.

Senshi expressing the importance of being part of the ecosystem of the dungeon, and the balance of the world, protecting people not by killing monsters but by keeping the environment in check is so important to the core of Dungeon Meshi.

That, plus the sequence where Senshi refuses using magic to light a fire, instead wanting to do it by hand is also important. Later we'll get to see how magic can excel at some things that can't be done any other way, but for now it's time to focus on Senshi.

The way the party interacts with Senshi in this episode always makes me think of elderly people in Japan who are carrying on doing things the way it's always been done, even if the young people don't appreciate it or even know that they're doing it. The generational gap is a big issue in Japan, since there's so few young people and so many seniors…

It especially makes me think of the senior citizens that volunteered to go clean up the Fukushima nuclear disaster because they didn't want young people with their whole lives ahead of them to have to do it. I remember there was also an old man that took it upon himself to take care of the animals that had been left behind in the exclusion zone, Senshi's story reminds me a lot of him.

THE ANIMATION

The animation wasn't particularly exciting, but for the most part did what it needed to do. The only quibbles I have are minor ones:

There's a black-haired elf in the background of the tavern scene that had darker skin in the manga, and they made her lighter here. She's a recurring background character so I'm not super happy that they changed her skintone, since Dungeon Meshi goes out of it's way to include people of varied skin tones in crowd scenes, but I get that it was probably just to make the composition work. It still sucks though.

Most of the orcs look fine, but there were a pair of lady orcs that had purple-ish and green-ish fur that I thought looked a bit unnatural, compared to the earth tones of all the other orcs. I know Kui leans away from the unnatural skin tones thing (no blue elves, no green orcs) so I wasn't a fan of this, but it was subtle enough that I can forgive it.

I could tell the animators didn't really understand how the nose/snout/jaw situation of the orcs works, and as a result they were animating the orcs like normal human anime faces with a weird blob in the middle for a nose, instead of upturned noses that are part of a snout/mandible that effects the way the face works.

Obviously the animators are more familiar with how to draw standard human faces, and they had to cut costs on this episode by keeping the animation simple, but I didn't like how flat it all looked. Kui's solid construction (from later in the manga) is really missed here.

DUB vs SUB

The subtitles were passable, though at one point they called the dungeon lord the "lunatic magician" which gave me Yen Press war flashbacks. Thankfully the dub didn't do the same thing. Honestly I wouldn't even mind if they switch up what people call the dungeon lord anyway, since it's not like "mad magician" or "mad sorcerer" is a name or title. One of the things I've always hated about "Lunatic Magician" is the way it was used constantly, even in situations where it felt unnaturally stilted, like they had a brand trademark to maintain. The Lunatic Magician™! Now with 50% more lunacy!

As for the dub… The performances were all fine, and there weren't any glaring out of place modernisms, however I'm on the fence about what they decided to do with the orc leader, Zon.

Race and the clash between different groups is a major part of Dungeon Meshi, and this is the chapter that introduces the idea that the orcs are people and not subhuman monsters. It also introduces the idea that the orcs are a displaced ethnic group that lives in the dungeon because other races have chased them from the surface.

Imari Williams does a great job with his performance as Zon, and I appreciate that BangZoom got a person of color to play a character that's meant to be a minority. I hope that they'll continue this trend and that his sister Leed will also be voiced by a person of color, and that she'll speak in a dialect that matches Zon's.

HOWEVER… while Williams' performance is great, I'm not sure how I feel about the script.

Zon and the other orcs' dialog in the dub sounds like it's either borrowing from African American Vernacular English (AAVE), or it is broken English "caveman-speak" that orcs often use in other media.

I'm not familiar enough with AAVE to know if they're using it correctly, only familiar enough to identify that they are using some of the grammatical structures of it. The fact that they hired a black voice actor to deliver those lines makes me think it was an intentional choice.

I'd love to hear opinions from people who are more familiar with the subject. Are the orcs speaking broken English or are they following the grammatical rules of AAVE? How consistent is BangZoom's script in following those grammar rules?

In the original Japanese and in the manga, as far as I can tell the orcs just speak Japanese the same way as all the other characters, so there is no verbal signal of their cultural difference. This is important because this part of the story is all about telling us that the orcs are equal to the other characters.

So choosing to alter the way they speak for the dub is a creative choice that is attempting to communicate something to the English audience, though I am not sure if BangZoom is doing it effectively, or if they are communicating what they intend to communicate.

I do think that it's an interesting choice that they made, I wasn't expecting them to do it, and so I hope they're doing it deliberately, carefully and with sensitivity.

I wonder what kind of accents, if any, the orcs may have been given in other language dubs? If you listened to a different dub let me know! (Also, next week we get to see regular-sized Kabru instead of just Giant Kabru, I'm so excited.)

[mollusken]

That last post actually got me thinking and I'm about to be insufferable about Dungeon Meshi Survivor AU lol here's my headcanons:

- Laios is strong, he's going to be targeted as a challenge beast. But his social is not great so he's not going to be high on the list. With how long it took for his monster passion to come out I see it taking a while for him to truly get on people's nerves, but he would probably have a misunderstanding with Shuro and a bad reputation due to something he did/said being taken as a threat, or siding with the wrong person for a vote ala the gold strippers. He's really great for early challenge team leader, and would be able to win his own immunity. Great ally to be with, which makes him a big threat.

- Marcille is going to have a rocky time to start off. She can be opinionated, she makes a fuss, she gets paranoid and freaks out about vote. But she's good at social and puzzle challenges, so she keeps her tribe in the lead. Her alliances would help keep her head on straight, and she'd make it far because she's loyal. Once she's comfortable, she's playing strategy. She gets too cocky after a good move and it takes her out.

- Chilchuck's social would kill him in the beginning, because he's not going to share anything about himself (suspicious) & people are gonna find him too opinionated. He's bossy at camp. But he'd be great for puzzle challenges, and would find an idol that he would tell 0 people about so it surprises everyone when he whips it out for a tribal. I think he's good at studying the social game and knows what side to be on for votes. Once you get in with him he would protect his alliances but he's willing to flip to save himself because he always plays for himself first and foremost.

- Senshi would keep people fed so they would keep him around. There are points in the manga when he's carried in fights so I think for challenges that aren't based on strength he's going to have to be carried a bit. He's easy to talk to on a surface level, and Laios would have a strong relationship with him from day one. Loyal to his alliances and good at teamwork.

- I actually don't see Izutsumi playing tbh -- plus if you're being true to real life she can't play til she's 18 -- but she is going to struggle. Poor social play, bad at cooperating, definitely gets hostile with others ie. Senshi & food lol. Would do good in individual strength challenges but gives up on anything puzzle related like, immediately. If she didn't get voted out early she would have to reevaluate her game and once she learns to cooperate/make alliances, she's going to be okay for a while.

- Falin I don't see there especially with Laios already being, but she would be a well-rounded player. She's friendly with everyone so she is in a good place with the whole group, but that also makes her feel guilty when it comes to voting. She's decent at both physical and puzzle stuff but not the best in either. Good middle of the pack player who can make good alliances. Would gain an idol or advantage that she would sacrifice on her allies, leading to her vote-out.

- Kabru. Incredible social. Amazing manipulation, always on the right side of votes. Absolutely capable of huge blindsides, but he would be smart enough to keep his threat level down for as long as possible. Able to set up votes the way that he wants. Great at leading a team through challenges, mid strength, decent at puzzles. Probably would keep middle in individual challenges and never win, but gets taken on reward. Maybe loses at a fire making challenge since I doubt he has a lot of survival skills tbh, but I like the idea of him losing to Laios & see him getting Laios to take the credit for some moves to keep the heat off of himself until he makes his case to the jury. Laios has tighter alliances and his loyalty would push him ahead in the voting imo.

- Shuro: rich guy on the show that everyone is like. Why the fuck are you here. Good strength, awful social. Easy to use as a goat. Probably gets voted out post merge when they don't need the strength for team challenges.

- Namari: Decent social and strength, loyal to her alliances. Could go far but would be voted off early to save other alliances/voted out when an idol is played.

- Honestly I don't see Mithrun even applying but if we're going by fan favourites the main Canaries and Kabru's party would make up the majority of the players. He's going to merge just on the fact that he's great for challenges and has tight alliances very early on.

Cithis social, Lycion challenge beast (ha), Rin poor social but good puzzle. Most of Kabru's team doesn't get on the jury. Survivor can go any way depending on who gets placed where, personality clashes, etc. so I can see different votes in the beginning. But I definitely think most of Laios' party gets far.

[multi-cannon-rp]

Hi! Are you looking for rp’s right now? If so, what are you mainly looking for in a partner? Any specific fandoms? Oc’s?

I am always up for new rp partners, and I am good with any fandom. I can make a verse for any of my characters to be put in different worlds. Provided I know the fandom. Crossovers are always welcome along with OC's. But for OC's please have info on them. I am uncomfortable role-playing with OC's that I know next to nothing about.

The only thing I am looking for in a partner is someone who is respectful, 18+, and is okay with gay and heterosexual characters. Likes to plot and is okay with slow burn relationships. [Both platonic and romantic] I play many different characters, and I am fine adding more. Even test running some characters of you want to see me play them for a thread.

I know many different fandoms, and I will list them. The only fandom I won't play with is Hetalia. [Fandom abuse is real, and it killed the fandom for me]. My fandoms are:

Bleach [I played as Urahara, Ichigo, and Aizen in the past]

One Piece [caught up]

Naruto [Madara, Itachi, Izuna, Sasuke, and Deidara]

Demons Slayer

Delicious in dungeon/Dungeon Meshi [Thistle]

Welcom to demon school! Iruma-kun

Hazbin Hotel

That time I got reincarnated as a slime [Rimuru and adding more]

Failure frame

SCP [if you lnow you know]

Funamusea [used to play Satanick]

Re: Zero

Geshin Impact [not Star Rail]

Katekyo Hitma Reborn [Mukuro, Chrome, and Tsuna]

He who fights with monsters [Planning on adding Jason. But not until I finish the 11th book.]

More would be added later. I am really okay with playing with any fandom, though.

I have one Fandomless OC named Nitsuki. He is not the easiest muse to play with. Unless your muse is okay with a cold, sassy, homosexual, 19-year-old boy that treats you like shit until you get to know him. He is great with and protective of kids. I will be adding an appearance to hom soon.

[athetos]

top 5 videogame osts?

Picking just 5 is impossible so I’m going to go off and list as many as I want

Under the cut for obvious long reasons

Chrono trigger (SNES) - listened to this obsessively when I had the DS port (which is still imo the definitive way to play, just ignore the repetitive bonus postgame quests), yasunori mitsuda is a legend (he’s also one of the composers for dungeon meshi!). I cut my teeth learning to read sheet music in bass clef once I switched to bass guitar playing the soundtrack, I have essentially the entire thing transcribed on my ultimate-guitar (username XxThreeCheersxX, keep forgetting to hype my account up here but I’m a top 100 ranked tabber 😅) personal faves are those without the will to live (beautiful tritone bass slide makes me moan), the trial, and frog’s theme.

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (PS/XBOX) - I have never played but know it’s a mediocre multiplayer game, however the soundtrack is fantastic, great rock and metal remixes of some of the most iconic tunes throughout the franchise. The series over all has some killer songs and composers who love funny time signatures so this is easily a “best of.” Castlevania Judgment, arguably an even worse game, also has a good soundtrack.

Undertale/Deltarune (many) - required to be on this list. Toby fox is phenomenal, so many great and memorable tracks. There is a reason megalovania is everywhere. Not a single bad song to be found, but personally my faves are fight against a killer queen, waterfall, world revolving, and undertale. Undertale especially is so impactful because they use an actual guitar on it and it just hits and makes it much more poignant. Fox is maybe the king of leitmotifs.

Dead Cells (many) - after putting so many hours into the game I only appreciate the soundtrack more and more, plus the option to have 8-bit themes is a treat. I love love the Bank theme and Fractured Shrines especially. Very tense and epic sounding. But the Castlevania dlc is phenomenal in so many ways and the music is no exception, always blows me away they’re doing what Konami wishes they could do in every aspect.

Donkey Kong Country 1 + 2 (SNES) - don’t get me wrong Eveline Fischer’s DKC3 snes soundtrack is pretty damn good but imo it doesn’t hit the peaks of David Wise’s ost. It kills me that the silly monkey platformer has some of the most beautiful and atmospheric music of all time. I’ve watched so many music videos on how he made the music and why it sounds so good… from the ambient and emotional aquatic ambience and bramble blast, to the epic final boss themes, that dark reprise of dk island swing in minecart madness, the jittery and unnerving tree top town, the foreboding welcome to krokodile island, the sweet and dreamy dkc2 ice theme… it has it all. Okay what the hell, I’ll mention wise’s remix of water world/aquatic ambience/(a special surprise) in the gba port of dkc3 (he had to redo the soundtrack for that port from scratch). And yes I’ll even throw in fischer’s best songs from snes dkc3 - her version of treetop tumble is way better and more somber than wise’s, water world is like you’re actually at the bottom of a lake and very moody, and nuts and bolts is a dirty rock song with a groovy bass. Good stuff!!!!

Grant Kirkhope’s stuff (many) - another favorite composer of mine, most famous for doing many rare n64 games like banjo 1 + 2, dk64, goldeneye, plus Mario rabbids 1 + 2 on switch and indie game yooka laylee. I’ve also watched many videos and studied many of his songs, he loves to use tritones and out of place dissonant notes not to make something creepy (well, sometimes creepy) but to make things whimsical and man it really works. Dk64 is my personal fav and seeing him reprise some of the themes for Mario rabbids dk dlc was truly special. I really want to do a write-up about the dk64 soundtrack on my site one day! There’s a lot of Easter eggs I’ve spotted that I haven’t seen many people mention! Highlights are creepy castle (it has the dk arcade start motif hidden!), frantic factory, and gloomy galleon from dk64, and from banjo 1 and 2, I love jinjo village, gruntilda’s lair, and banjo’s house blues.

Final fantasy x - most final fantasy games have good to great soundtracks but x is special to me. It’s my favorite ff game and the music really makes it all the more poignant. Zanarkand’s opening note is enough to make me tear up. The battle theme never grows stale unlike some other ff battle themes, besaid is calming and has the perfect vibes, the trials theme should be repetitive but instead feels very disconcerting and even claustrophobic, and auron’s theme is cool as hell. X-2 also has a good soundtrack, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as here.

Celeste (many) - Lena Raine’s soundtrack is phenomenal and the use of motifs is impeccable. Not a bad song in the entire game. Resurrections is my favorite as it’s a long piece that goes a lot of places and makes you drift along for the ride. The way Madeline and badeline’s motifs diverge is brilliant, matching what’s happening onscreen. I love how hesitant the piano in awake sounds, it makes it so heartfelt. Anxiety is dense and lives up to the title, Little Goth is less hesitant but darker… she just writes such beautiful melodies.

Metroid Prime (gcn) - they originally wanted Autechre, an ambient electronic duo, to do the soundtrack but things fell through for whatever reason so Kenji Yamamoto (who did Super Metroid) stepped up to take his place and god what a good soundtrack. Metroid music is very cool and I’ve made posts about it before, like how Metroid II has one of the most experimental soundtracks and kind of challenges the limits of the system and what can be considered game music, super Metroid has some of the most alien sounding songs thanks to weird time signatures and instrumentation. But Prime is crazy because they had the tech now to deliver Yamamoto’s vision. Magmoor Caverns is everyone’s favorite, remixing norfair, those drums just make me go wild every time. All the area themes are great and alien sounding, it’s a very isolating soundtrack, plus the boss themes and the space pirates and chozo ghosts themes are kind of terrifying in a good way.

Sea of Stars/Messenger (many) - 2 of my fav indie games with some of the most addictive songs. Sea of stars is a prequel so seeing variants of the messenger’s tracks was a true delight. Yasunori mitsuda also assisted with the soundtrack making some unforgettable pieces. I want to learn the majority of it on bass by ear!

Hollow knight (many) - somber piano and grand orchestrated pieces make this game go hard. The mantis lord battle is probably my favorite, it’s so majestic and fearsome and makes them a scary boss. I also appreciate the more ambient tracks around greenpath and city of tears. But the boss themes turn things up when needed to and makes a world feel even more alive, which is impressive.

Silent hill 2 (ps2) - Akira Yamaoka has such a great style to create heavy, melancholic or terrifying songs for the franchise but this game stands out the most to me, Laura’s theme and promise always move me no matter how many times I listen to them, very hurting electric guitars. I need to watch more vids on the games ost.

Legend of Zelda (Nintendo) - for this last one I’m not picking a specific game and getting into details for them all would be hard I’m already losing steam fast. So I’ll list my favs across the franchise. Ocarina of Time’s Gerudo Valley, Hyrule Field, and Lost Woods; Majora’s Mask’s Termina Field, Clock Town, and Stone Tower Temple; link’s Awakening’s Face Shrine; wind Waker’s dragon roost island, outset island and Gohdan’s theme; and tears of the kingdom’s colgera’s theme.

[fipindustries]

-of three

yuuuuuup, i think this is where i tap out, whatever was the comic i originally fell in love with this is no longer it, hasnt been for a long while.

in a sense it was kind of inevitable, if this comic intended to last any serious ammount of time and try to tackle a serious kind of story it couldnt stay as the wacky, histrionic, horny and chaotic extravaganza of cool body horror and funny silly characters it was when it began.

the later, more angsty, more complex, more... can i even say "grounded"? let's say heavy parts of the story were just not doing it for me, though not through any fault of their own, i should clarify. is just simply not something im in the mood for anymore.

i think something changed in me, in my temperament, in my tastes, in who i am. i think i lost the taste for highly dense, highly complex convoluted stories with thousands of characters and moving pieces and giant ambitious worldbuilding and deep lore. or maybe is not that i lost the taste for them, is that ive already involved myself in far too many of them. i am currently reading one piece, kill six billion demons, gunnerkrigg court, the locked tomb series, as well as watching dungeon meshi, yellowjackets and a bunch of other shows. maybe my head has just ran out of ram to keep all of those things straight in my head and still care and be invested in all of them simultanously.

or maybe feast for a king is just a little TOO damn chaotic and its cast a little TOO crowded with people and its timeline a little TOO convoluted. to be honest, after a while keeping track of it all felt more like homework than anything else, and after hitting a certain scale you kind of start hitting powercreep induced nihilism. like, between the five different types of hekatonks, the queen worms and the king worms, the kings seeds, whatever celadon is, cyborg powers, heart worlds, double hearted mandragoras, the weeds, hybrids, clones, mutants, gods??? it really feels like just about anything goes. death is kind of meaningless in this world, powerlevels are kind of meaningless, what is possible or impossible is kind of meaningless, we have shapeshifters and possessing bodies, and mind control, and astral projection, and ghosts, and time travel. anything can be anything anywhere all the time, it just becomes meaningless. insipid. there is no up or down.

on top of that the morality of any given character is so fucked and the scale of the horrors and sins commited in this story are so overwrought that i also fail to be morally invested on anything? are there good guys? bad guys? is there even a right or wrong here anymore? i know there are characters i nominally like, but i dont even know what version of that character do i sympathize with really, do i really like this character or do i like what who they were 500 years ago? or maybe i only liked someone else pretending to be that character, or maybe i dont like the character i like the worm they became after they were eaten by worms, etc etc and so on and so forth.

i just lost the plot. it got away from me.

i think you can be highly chaotic and ambitious in one or two things when executing your story. either worldbuilding, or the order of storytelling, or characterization, or morality, or nature of the cast. but not all of them all at once.

still, i do not want to leave this with a bitter taste in my mouth. i do still highly respect this strange beautiful beast for what it is and for what it tries to be. i wouldnt want it to be anything else. its just too strange not to like. im glad something like this exists. and by golly did it give me some great moments. let me say that again. it gave me some amazing moments, some truly magical experiences that i never got from anything else. and just for those incredible scenes and characters i will always have a corner in my heart where embers will burn dedicated to it. i dont think its flaws take away from the good i got and i would still enthusiastically recomend this to anyone who is mildly curious and has way more patience than i do

it was truly a feast, in all senses of of the word, and i had my fill of it.