Oh, A Thing About Izutsumi. Her Selfishness Is A Very Funny Extended Cat Joke But Also None Of Her Behaviour

Dungeon Meshi x Warrior Cats

Kibities :3

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Made a script to generate half-foot style names for original characters, fic extras, or just for fun! Many thanks for the people who provided content and feedback on this generator! Please feel free to send any feedback to my ask box.

Commented this in a youtube video but I wanna share it here cause more people should hear it, actually. (also op of the video was really nice about it once I pointed it out so wanna share it w more people)

"I’m actually really sad about your take on Izutsumi’s ‘picky eating’ esp after the praise for how Laios’s autism was handled. It was honestly so refreshing, when it's so often dismissed as childish, to see Izutsumi get treated with respect for it and have it accommodated as best they could. So often these things are glossed over in shows, and for a bit I thought our only take on it would be Marcilles cultural food hangups which would be treated as a flaw to be overcome. So seeing Izutsumi, and that the story would actually address this topic for once was… amazing, if scary as idk how it’ll be handled fully yet. I have a lot of difficulties with food from a lot of underlying mental health issues, most other ‘picky eaters’ do too (I’m sure Izutsumi with her cat nose and tongue and many on the spectrum can relate to the sensory hell certain foods can be, as one example). It's always been a huge source of shame and serious difficulty in my life, particularly because so many people view it the way you do in this review. With ridicule and seeing it as unreasonable, as just choosing to be difficult. But asking me or Izutsumi to “just get over it” because it's not convenient right now is every bit as unreasonable as asking Laios to “just take the hint/read the room”. It's just this behavior is from a disorder you don’t respect.

Sure yes it causes problems! Of course it would, disabilities do that! But honestly, as an anime only, I deeply hope that while Izutsumi becomes less selfish, she DOESN’T stop being a picky eater. That those two things are decoupled from one another! I am so sick of seeing it portrayed as some character flaw people just have to get over whenever it actually comes up. Having someone who doesn’t stop being a 'picky eater' but still has a healthy and respected relationship with food, in a show so focused on the philosophy and morality of food, would be amazing. I don't know if that's how the story will take it, but I hope it does. I'd be really sad to see it treated as a childish flaw here.

All this to say: seeing Izutsumi treated with respect for what food she can and can't eat, and through being treated with respect starting to work with Senshi and doing what she could to compromise, was every bit as therapeutic for me as the Laios/Shuro fight was for those on the spectrum. And I just wish people would treat that with a bit more respect and understanding."

Izoopsoupi.

IT freaking annoys me

Izutsumi is part feline MONSTER

A wild beast

I see longtime fans forget the fusion process is never talked about with ordinary animals, only monsters

Not a cute little kitty cat

A freaking cat monster

She acted like that under the influence of inner barrier because it caused ALL monsters to act domesticate , it was a further perversion of herself.

Izutsumi isn't part domestic cat, she's part wild animal.

She cannot be "domesticated", she can only be reached and improved by treating her as a person.

meow meow🐾🐾🐾

And then she did. Happy pride.

(Alternate versions under cut)

I haven't touched this wip in FIREVER but this head is peak character design right here

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

Thinking about how the two children in dunmeshi were both sold into slavery and how their enslavement differed. 

Thistle was given to the Royal Family as a trophy, a sign of status because he was an elf. Although he was doted upon and “treated as a second son,” Thistle was clearly a different race, of different stature and ultimately a companion for Delgal.

Despite being a child for the entirety of their relationship, Delgal used Thistle to vent his anxieties and worries to him. Here is an uncomfortable and tragic scene where Delgal is absolutely distraught about the death of his father, with the kingdom being taken over. And it is Thistle, the child, who was supposedly seen as a son to the king too, is comforting Delgal.

This ultimately culminates in Delgal placing the responsibility of the Kingdom’s health on Thistle (who, again, was his elf child slave.)

Kui places obvious signs the mental toll it’s taking on him, and his anxieties and worries drive him to self harm and endless stress.

(We see how Falingan recognises him as a burdened baby and hugs him 😣 so cute…)

(EDIT: This is an edited panel of Thistle! Sorry, I should have mentioned that… I think it’s cute. The original says “His Majesty will return soon, when he does, let’s have a grand celebration.” Thank you to the commenter for pointing this out.)

Thus, Thistle was shaped into a child desperate for approval from his owners, to the point that his deepest wish was to ensure the safety of the Golden Kingdom, forever freezing himself and the citizens in time. It is only towards the end of the story where Delgal realises this all happened because of the mental burden he placed on Thistle.

I believe the The Lion keeping its hold on Thistle for so many years compared to the comparitively instantaneous period it kepts Marcille/Laios is partly because of Thistle’s youth. The other Dungeon Masters became mad, yes, but Thistle was unable to ever be convinced to relinquish the book, as he was too dogmatic, too vindictive, just like the child he is.

On the flip-side, Let’s compare Izutsumi. Like Thistle, she has no idea where she came from as she was sold into sorcery and slavery. While Thistle’s trauma came from the emotional abuse suffered by his owners, Izutsumi’s was very physical. She is part cat, part human, thus a beast man.

Izutsumi is even sold to Toshiro’s family as part of his all-female guard, and as a result of her escape attempts she is also cursed to never be able to escape them. Unlike Thistle, Izutsumi absolutely abhors the violation of her body, as well as her lack of freedom. She not only wants to escape slavery, but wants to lift her Beast-man curse and go back to being a human.

It makes it sadder when Izutsumi eventually discovers that it is impossible for her to life the curse. This is because she is a cat who had a child’s soul imbued into her, and removing the curse would remove her personality and revert her into an animal. This implies that the person who trafficked her murdered her human-child self to do so.

Despite this, Izutsumi is the complete opposite of Thistle. She is rebellious, unshakeable, and extremely self centred. All of this is a result of a life where she’s had to fend for herself. However, just like Thistle, she is still childish in her wants and needs and thoughts. While Thistle took on the responsibility the entire fate of the kingdom, Izutsumi wants nothing more than to do whatever she likes.

Whereas Thistle was a status trophy for the royal human family, Izutsumi was a sick science experiment for a trafficker.

Izutsumi is never able to remove the physical effects of what her traffickers did to her, and spent her life fending for her freedom, so she struggles to understand why anyone would take on unpleasant tasks or selfless responsibilities.

She’s also very inept at doing things like emotionally comforting her big sister figure (compare this scene to how Thistle comforts Derghal.) She hates emotional physicality, doesn’t crave approval, but like a cat, and like a child, she craves warmth of another when she sleeps (so cute!)

Meanwhile, Thistle is never able to shake off the emotional effects of what his traffickers did to him, and spent a millennia desperately clawing his way towards their demands to appease them, and struggles to ever stop for a moment and think, “I’m a child, why is this my responsibility?”

There is one thing that they have in common though — it’s that they entirely refuse to depend on others. That’s so tragic for two children to think. ☹️ This concludes my analysis of the two most prominent children in Dunmeshi.

(Sorry I didn’t put more Izutsumi panels, theres a ten photo limit..)