#Merini

[benjingler]

I think it would be really smart for both countries if Melini and Kahka Brud form an alliance... Fish was a big source of food for those in Kahka Brud, right? But they're pretty much landlocked now with Melini being back. Plus, Melini is like... Covered in salt. The soil isn't good enough for farming. Basically they should trade crops and fish.

[aldameriniofficial]

Per telefono ho creato molti libri e

molte storie. Con il telefono ho sbagliato

tutta la vita, ma l’ho anche corretta. Il

telefono ha dato vita ai miei fantasmi.

Molti uomini li ho conosciuti e li ho

amati per telefono. Il telefono è un amore

fatto con moderazione, una carezza

segreta, un volere nascondere il proprio

essudato storico. Attraverso il telefono ho

ingannato anche Ernesto, perché la mia

voce sa essere giovanile, e a volte di una

flebile asprezza. Per telefono ho incantato

e mi sono disincantata.

Ma perché questo sparo segreto nel

cuore? Perché tremi, ti viene la febbre,

stai male? Perché il telefono non ti

risponde. Lui se n’è andato via con

un’altra donna, lontano dai tuoi riti

magici, lontano da te, e ti pare per

sempre.

Ma poi il telefono squilla e lui

riappare, ma non per tornare da te,

soltanto per telefonarti una, due, infinite

volte.

[omniavincit-amor]

Spazio spazio io voglio, tanto spazio

per dolcissima muovermi ferita;

voglio spazio per cantare crescere

errare e saltare il fosso

della divina sapienza.

Spazio datemi spazio

ch’io lanci un urlo inumano,

quell’urlo di silenzio negli anni

che ho toccato con mano.

«Spazio spazio io voglio» dalla raccolta Vuoto d’amore, Alda Merini, 1991.

[beautifully-mine]

"Quelle come me" di Alda Merini

Quelle come me regalano sogni,

anche a costo di rimanerne prive.

Quelle come me donano l'anima,

perché un'anima da sola è come una goccia d'acqua nel deserto.

Quelle come me tendono la mano ed aiutano a rialzarsi, pur correndo il rischio di cadere a loro volta.

Quelle come me guardano avanti,

anche se il cuore rimane sempre un passo indietro.

Quelle come me cercano un senso all'esistere e, quando lo trovano, tentano di insegnarlo a chi sta solo sopravvivendo.

Quelle come me quando amano, amano per sempre, e quando smettono è solo perché piccoli frammenti di essere giacciono inermi nelle mani della vita.

Quelle come me inseguono un sogno

quello di essere amate per ciò che sono e non per ciò che si vorrebbe fossero.

Quelle come me girano il mondo alla ricerca di quei valori che, ormai, sono caduti nel dimenticatoio dell'anima.

Quelle come me vorrebbero cambiare,

ma il farlo comporterebbe il nascere di nuovo.

Quelle come me urlano in silenzio,

perché la loro voce non si confonda con le lacrime.

Quelle come me sono quelle cui tu riesci sempre a spezzare il cuore,

perché sai che ti lasceranno andare senza chiederti nulla.

Quelle come me amano troppo, pur sapendo che in cambio, non riceveranno altro che briciole.

Quelle come me si cibano di quel poco, e su di esso, purtroppo fondano la loro esistenza.

Quelle come me passano inosservate,

ma sono le uniche che ti ameranno davvero.

Quelle come me sono quelle che,

nell'autunno della vita, rimpiangerai per tutto quello che avrebbero potuto darti e che tu non hai voluto...

DOMINIQUE ISSERMANN (NÉE EN 1946)

Anne Rohart, Château de Maisons, 1984

[feral-ballad]

Alda Merini, tr. by Susan Stewart, from Love Lessons: Selected Poems of Alda Merini; “The cry of death”

[Text ID: “heart made of rot and solitude”]

[gcdfuckers]

[laf-baguette]

[room-surprise]

How Old Is Thistle?

(EDIT: I've made a follow-up post to this one that goes deeper into the math and additional evidence that the 5:1 ratio is correct. You can read it here!)

I've seen people debating this and a lot of folks insisting that Thistle is a child, and since Thistle just debuted in the anime, I wanted to do a full write-up to help myself and others figure this out.

We don't know how old any of the Merini family members are exactly, so the best we can do is guess based on the information we have, but after carefully studying the manga, I think Thistle is at least a teenager, but much more likely a young adult, and definitely not a prepubescent child.

Here's what we know:

EDIT: Depending on what translation you read of some of the extra materials, Freinag implies that Thistle is the same age as some of his advisors.

Here's a detailed translation of this panel from my friend Fumi:

Elves age 5 times slower than tall-men.

16 year old tall-men in Dungeon Meshi's medieval time period are adults, they commonly join the military, get married, have children, etc.

An 80 year old elf is an adult. Pattadol is 82 and she's a lieutenant in a military unit. It's her first job and she's obviously a rookie, but Captain Flamela tells Pattadol to accomplish her mission or die trying.

Many fully adult elves look like what we might consider children or young teens, because they're short, petite, and have androgynous features.

An average elven adult is around 150-155cm tall (5 ft), meaning some are shorter than that, and some are taller. Thistle is 130 cm, which is short, but not unheard of.

Fleki is 130 (26) years old and she's 140 cm tall (4'7")

Otta is 137 (27) years old and she's 130 cm (4'5") tall, the same height as Thistle!

They are both women, but there's probably plenty of elven men in their height range.

Just so we can compare Thistle to some adult elven men, Mithrun and his brother are probably adults (or close to it) in the panel on the left.

Mithrun (in this image) is somewhere between 75 and 144 (probably in his 80's), and his brother is older than him (so he could be in his late 80s or 90s). As you can see, they don't look that different from Thistle, Otta or Fleki.

So, how old is Thistle?

(Spoilers below the cut)

Thistle was brought to the royal court as a child (found on the street, stolen or purchased, we don't know how they got him). At the absolute youngest I'd guess Thistle is 25 years old here (so about 5 years old for a tall-man.) He can already play the flute, and possibly the lute, and most children that aren't prodigies can't handle playing an instrument (physically or mentally) until they're around 5.

EDIT: We now know that Thistle is the same age as Freinag, the king that takes him in! So Thistle must be at least 25 years old in this comic, though realistically he could be anywhere from 25 to 40 based on how Kui drew Freinag.

He lived in the court for an unknown amount of time, Freinag hasn't changed much but Thistle appears to have aged a little, so let's say it's been 5 years and Thistle is 30 (6) when Delgal is born. More than 5 years could have passed, but I'm trying to keep the numbers low.

Delgal gets married and has a child. Delgal should be at least 15 at this point, but since he has a full mustache before his wedding, I think he's in his 20's, since teenagers tend to not be the best at growing robust facial hair.

(He has a full beard by the time Eodio's a young child.)

Thistle puts the kingdom inside the dungeon around this point, however, people are still aging: Delgal's grandson Yaad is born, and Eodio is clearly a young adult here, probably in his 20's. Therefore, there is NO REASON to assume Thistle stopped aging. "The dungeon lords don't age" is a common fan headcanon I've seen people spreading, but it has no clear canon basis.

Yaad ages until he looks about 13-15 years old, and at this point all of the people of the kingdom and Thistle appear to stop aging, and 1,000 years pass.

So, the youngest Thistle could possibly be, if he was 30 (6) when Delgal was born, if Delgal was 15 when he had Eodio, and Eodio was 15 when he had Yaad, and Yaad is 13 years old...

Is 73 years old, which would make Thistle about 14.6 years old by tall-man standards.

HOWEVER, I think it's VERY unlikely that all the characters are that young.

I think it's clear from Kui's drawings that Delgal and Eodio are not 15 years old when they become fathers, and that Freinag is at least 25 when he takes in Thistle.

If we assume Thistle was 30 when Delgal was born, and Delgal and Eodio were both at least 20 when they had children, even if Yaad is only 13 years old, that makes Thistle at least 83 years old (16.6), and makes him older than Pattadol, who is an adult at 82.

However, I think it's entirely possible that Thistle was anywhere from 40-50 when Delgal was born, and Delgal could have been anywhere from 20 to 30 when he had Eodio, and Eodio could have been anywhere from 20-25 when he had Yaad. If you use the maximum ages, and assume Yaad is 15, then Thistle could be as old as 120 (24).

I think a reasonable middle ground is assuming Thistle was 30 (6) when Delgal was born, Delgal had Eodio at 25, Eodio had Yaad at 20, and Yaad is 15... Which would make Thistle 90 (18) years old.

This of course says nothing about Thistle's emotional maturity or sanity, he's obviously stunted in some ways, but the point I want to make here is:

Thistle's age could be anywhere from 14.6 to 24 at the most extreme, but more realistically he's somewhere between 16.6 and 18.

And that's not even counting the thousand years that he's lived since then!

And that's all I've got to say about that 🙏🙏🙏🙏

(EDIT: Follow-up post with additional evidence here.) EDIT 2: I've seen a lot of people talking about the page Kui drew talking about elven earmuffs. It's considered just barely okay for Pattadol to wear them, but it's ok for Thistle to wear them... In which case I'd say Thistle could be any age younger than 83. That's handy as it knocks out some of the older ages!

So in that case Thistle's age is between 73 years old and 82, which makes him developmentally between 14.6 and 16.4!

[dungeonmeshititlepages]

[aldameriniofficial]

La donna, l’ho presa all’ultimo respiro.

Mi disse: «Lei, a cui ho fatto tanto male

è l’unica mia anima salva».

[omniavincit-amor]

E dopo, quando amavamo/ ci facevano gli elettrochoc/ perché, dicevano, un pazzo/ non può amare nessuno.

La Terra Santa dalla raccolta Vuoto d’amore, Alda Merini, 1991.

[fumifooms]

People should talk about Yaad and Thistle more. Weird granduncle that killed your dad in a petty impulsive punitive act, leaving you very scared of him as you live under his control for centuries. Imagine growing up hearing stories of the King’s brother, the kind, clever, collected and calm advisor and right hand man. But only knowing him by how warped he’s become, violent and erratic. He punishes you, too, robbing you of any agency by putting you inside of a doll. And then despite, he becomes catatonic and you’re left to take care of him in his brother’s body while he thinks you’re him. And then you see those slivers of that nice caring person you heard so much about in your childhood a millenium ago, and as he babbles about Delgal thinking he’s you, recalling memories and old habits, you wonder about how things must have used to be, before, and how they’ve changed irreparably. Today is melancholic again.

Yaad being like, Thistle’s sort of great-nephew who’s lived most of his life seeing him as being out of his mind and only a mirage of the noble attentive person he once was, now having to take care of him, someone who was an older familial figure to him… Seeing him gentle, soft and unhurried after all this time spent in an emotional anxious paranoid frenzy... Yaad and Thistle post-canon is so special

[fading-moth]

Image from here

I was too lazy to draw Delgal

[feral-ballad]

Alda Merini, tr. by Susan Stewart, from Love Lessons: Selected Poems of Alda Merini; “Will I be alone?”

[Text ID: “And maybe I will rip out by the roots / my postponed hope for love,”]

[gcdfuckers]

[smileandneversurrender]

Alda Merini