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Trying to convince my dnd friends to watch dungeon meshi...

catnap

Here's your yearly reminder NOT to purchase bat taxidermy products.

Because of their size, bats are notoriously difficult to find deceased from natural causes, and by the time they are found, the bodies have often already decomposed beyond value.

As sad as it is, it's true — As holidays approach, I know many people with an interest in these critters have the potential to receive gifts that are very unethical for the creatures they care about. Bats are killed for the sole purpose of displays like this as a soulless cash grab. Already, there are dozens of bat species that are threatened or endangered. It is not fair to them to support an industry that is actively trying to extinguish their life for decoration.

You can read more about this crisis here and here.

Photo provided by Denley Photography on Unsplash.

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Izutsumi

KITY COAT TIME IS ALMOST UPON US

something i see a lot in the dungeon meshi fandom is attributing izutsumi's personality traits to her being a cat. and while ryoko kui definitely gave her cat-like traits intentionally, she's a talented enough writer to also give her a backstory with reasons for those traits. for example, her tendency to only do and eat what she wants.

izutsumi's character arc revolves around freedom. she grew up caged in a circus. and although she was fed enough to survive, this was only because a living catgirl attracted more customers than a dead one.

[id: first image is izutsumi as a child framed behind bars and standing on all fours, making it clear how skinny she is. a hand in the foreground holds out a bowl of what appears to be kibble. narration says “thrown in a cage and given food every once in a while… is that what you would call ‘being raised’?” in the second image she is now sitting on the floor of her cage and eating a rat. end id]

look how skinny she is! we see her eating what appears to be... kibble? oats? and then a rat that she possibly caught for herself. she had no choice but to eat anything she could.

[id: part of the dungeon meshi manga. a slightly older izutsumi is tied to a post and tade sits next to her to say "we've got a roof over our heads, beds, food, and clothes. they've got everything here. is there someplace nicer than this out there?" izutsumi thnks for a moment and says "i hate that someone's already decided what i'm going to eat tomorrow. my name, the clothes i wear, where i sleep, where i go next... here, all of that's been decided by another person... even though, come tomorrow, i might want to eat something else instead. that's why i'm leaving." at this, tade cries out in shock. end id]

when she's taken into the nakamoto household they begin to treat her much better. she's on about equal footing as tade, who also had a rough living situation before being taken in, and tade loves it there! they get healthy and tasty food and they're not sleeping in cages. but izutsumi still isn't free. she can pass off her chores and vegetables to tade and disobey in any way she can but she can't leave. maizuru even put a collar on her, further dehumanizing and trapping izutsumi.

when izutsumi joins laios's party, she's finally 'free', but it's not the kind of freedom she wants. she has to eat even more food she doesn't want or else she'll starve. but the difference now is that she's can leave at any time, and if she stays, she's treated as an equal. they're not feeding her monsters because they see her as inferior. they're all eating the same food so they can reach their goal(s). and this is part of izutsumi ultimately learning that in order to do what she wants, she has to be willing t do the things she doesn't want to

izutsumi is such a fun character bc she hates being a beastman and desperately wants the curse that turned her into one undone, and you're probably thinking "well being part animal sounds fun actually but ig i can see where she's coming from, developing these new physical characteristics due to a curse must feel a bit uncomfortable or even violating of one's self image and relationship with one's own body" but then you learn she's not a cat girl she's a girl cat and it all makes more sense if i was just living my jolly little life as a jolly little cat and one day a curse burdened me with human knowledge and awareness of being i'd be pretty pissed too!!

Oh, a thing about Izutsumi. Her selfishness is a very funny extended cat joke but also none of her behaviour was maladaptive to the context she was in before she skipped out on Toshiro's party. She was a slave. Inutade responded to being 'taken in' by Toshiro's household one way, by trying to make herself as useful as possible, but Izutsumi saw they were being taken advantage of from the start. Very sensibly, she chose to do the absolute bare minimum needed to stay alive and decided she didn't owe her captors shit. Her life from when she was bought to when she lost her collar was one long ca' canny. Her real arc is from one set of adaptive behaviours that got her through a horrible time to some that make more sense in a better situation. Like all cats, she has excellent boundaries.

DIVERSITY WIN!

THIS TERRIBLE 17-YEAR-OLD CATGIRL IS ARO-ACE!

[Image ID: Izutsumi from Dungeon Meshi talks excitedly, grinning. She holds up a mug in front of her, and the liquid sloshes as she outstretches her arms in excitement. /End ID]