Diversity Win! Cat Who Calls You A Bitch And Drinks Your Pepsi Is Aroace

same energy

Dungeon Meshi - Izutsumi & the Ninja's Room

There’s just something extremely touching about watching Izutsumi work through a wide range of emotions when she sees Marcille cry for the first time.

She’s sleeping on Marcille’s lap when it happens—something she hadn’t willingly done since her human consciousness was subdued in the Golden Country.

Izutsumi was initially very embarrassed when she remembered showing Marcille such unbridled affection when her monster (cat) side had full control in Melini. But now, shortly after, she did it again without any fuss, seemingly over this embarrassment.

But when she notices Marcille crying—not crying expressive tears over a situation with low stakes, but tears of real sorrow and loss—Izutsumi physically recoils.

She reacts with the childlike fear and panic that one feels when someone they heavily rely on and trust (like a parent or teacher) shows vulnerability, doubt, or weakness. She lashes out, trying to use words of reproach to get Marcille to stop crying. Or, in childlike terms, to try to force Marcille’s pain go away.

When that doesn’t work, we see her physically struggle as she tries to sit by and wait it out. But Izutsumi can’t do it.

Marcille’s pain causes her so much intense distress that Izutsumi immediately offers physical affection as a response—something she has not done for anyone up to this point.

When Senshi told the party about his traumatic backstory, Izutsumi did not touch him. She did support him, tried to offer words of comfort, but she did not embrace him like the others did. Maybe she didn’t know how; maybe she didn’t have a proper example on what comforting someone looked like. But she saw all three of them reach for Senshi, she saw them hold him in their arms, and anchor him as he cried.

This is the first time another party member has cried out of sadness since that moment. It’s possible that she saw how the others helped Senshi, and maybe, subconsciously, she saw that it worked. That it made him feel better.

She is clearly unused to it, and has her own rollercoaster of emotions as Marcille gratefully accepts the comfort Izutsumi is offering her. But it helps. It helps Marcille immediately, and Izutsumi knows this.

These acts of vulnerability are foreign to her, and thus make her feel uncomfortable, but she lets Marcille lean on her afterwards anyway. She wanted Marcille to be okay, wanted it so badly, that she accidentally overcame an emotional obstacle she never even knew she had.

Maybe you’ve noticed: there’s been a shift in how people and movements that are anti-trans present themselves, and it feels designed to make them more palatable to people who would otherwise recoil at arguments that position trans people as threats. They don’t hate trans people! They’re very concerned about them! Think of the risks! Think of the children!! If that language sounds familiar, it’s because the anti-abortion movement uses this same playbook. Just like a crisis pregnancy center might advertise itself as offering pre-natal care, counseling or free pregnancy tests, an anti-trans provider might offer “gender exploratory” therapy or claim to offer valuable information on the “harms” of transition. Just like reporters being too willing to parrot unsubstantiated, anti-choice claims to the greater public, anti-trans groups are using places like the New York Times—and the fact that many people within those spaces were already held anti-trans beliefs-- to spread misinformation and position their “experts” as the reliable voices on trans care. Quite contrary to articles that claim people are being rushed through transition, accessing gender affirming care remains difficult for most people, especially young people. There are a limited number of places that provide it (and, due to transphobic violence both digital and physical, some of the places that used to aren’t able to anymore), waiting lists, and a dozen other barriers to access. Not to mention that plenty of elements of transition, especially physical transition, require at least a letter from a therapist. And now, on top of that, you have healthcare providers and resources who seek only to discourage or pressure all trans and nonbinary folks into not transitioning. This is a recipe for trans folks, or the people helping them access care, to walk right into a trap, and enables ongoing, anti-trans bias more broadly. Here's a guide from Scarleteen co-director Sam Wall to help trans people, and especially, adults in the lives of trans young people, to identify legitimate — and illegitimate — sources of trans care.

It’s so sad to me that Izutsumi Dungeon Meshi’s mother wears something similar to Mongolian/Central Asian clothing, not Japanese clothing. That Izutsumi was probably dragged out of their native culture and doesn’t know it.

Juxtaposition

I simultaneously relate and don't relate to Izutsumi so viscerally. She wants to be human so badly in the exact way that I don't. It's the same feeling along an equal and opposite vector and it's incredibly jarring. We both desperately want what the other has and wants to get rid of.

Here are my Dungeon meshi stickers! I basically thought "hey. lots of people will have cute food themed stickers. And that good and well, but I want that serious stuff too!" So I decided to make a series for the main gang based on sense of self instead!

In celebration of Izustumi making her proper anime debut yesterday, I present a fic that posits "what if her backstory is actually way worse than it sounds?"

Inspired by this post by @n7punk

deranged ramble incoming abt the succubus arc but like. god it fucks me up bc up until this point izutsumi has been a bit estranged from the rest of the group and rightly so, because she joined late, because the others knew each other better, because she has spent her whole life relying on herself. yes, her saying she could beat the succubus cuz she doesn't have anything she's attracted to is a Big Aroace Moment but ALSO in the official translation i read they translated that line as "i don't want anybody" ie. it's not just that she's aroace she also has no one else! and when she sees the succubus in the form of her mom and it doesn't have as huge an effect on her she thinks to herself "do i not have a heart?" and it's like!!! god!!! bc this arc isn't about how she needs to give up her self-reliance and learn to depend on others sometimes. it's about her capacity to care in the face of how up until now no one has cared for her. how her being a monster doesn't make her a monster, so to speak. at the end of the arc she still thinks she doesn't need the party to look after her but she wants to look after them and that's so important bc it's like. the part of her that cares about others hasn't been damaged forever. she hasn't lost her heart, she just has two of them. and like. idk. it's so good these chapters are so good izutsumi my little guy of all time ever. i think it's missing the point to go "um actually the succubi can still turn into family" or w/e bc THIS IS WHAT THE ARC IS ABOUT. whether or not izutsumi can have it in her to be a part of a family at all (she does) (she's just traumatized and aroace and doubts herself about it)