(suddenly serious) what i was saying was that Dungeon Meshi has some really well-written characters that also have flaws. half the cast constantly gives Laios shit for being socially awkward, Laios forgets about the basics of human decency a couple of times when interacting with Izutsumi, the funny late-story villain squad are 80% convicted criminals, basically every character is a bit racist in some way, and, yes, Marcille, everyone's favorite silly little disaster lesbian, gets the "ick" about Tall-men portraying the characters in her favorite romance novel because she thinks they're too ugly and pouts about the idea of Falin (her dear beloved Falin) wearing clothes that she would be happy and comfortable wearing because "that stuff is for men"
i feel really silly talking about this but a weird thing that happened for me when the Dungeon Meshi anime took off and the fandom really exploded was seeing how weirdly cutesified a lot of fan depictions of the characters was. the "canon versus fanon" of it all, if you will. a week or so ago there was a bonus comic drawn by Ryoko Kui that got spread around Twitter about a What If situation in which Laios got eaten instead of Falin, and people were shocked about the idea of the party basically immediately giving up on the idea of saving Laios, including at least one "why does the writer think she knows so much" joke (i'm hoping it was a joke), which really baffled me because it just made sense to me that the party initially wasn't all that close to Laios (besides Falin, obviously). the relationship of the main cast is something that grows over the series. please read that carefully: the main cast does care for one another, they care for Laios, it's just that it's something that is developed over the course of the manga... and even that idea was too much for some fans
i'm probably going to sound really snobby, but i think there's a lot of people who are more fans of the fanart than the actual series...
i was mainly being silly when i was like "yeah let Marcille be weird about gender" but i was also kind of serious because it kind of is a prominent part of her character. it speaks to the world she lives in, what she values and finds important, and if you think about it, it actually speaks a lot to the subtext around her and Falin: Marcille hates "gross things," Marcille hates being uncomfortable, Marcille thinks women should be girly, and men should be masculine, and yet she willingly journeys down into a gross dungeon and eats weird monsters in order to save Falin, a woman who likes bugs, fucking around in the dirt, and pants. what do you think that implies about Marcille?
i appreciate writers that don't smooth all the rough edges off their characters. in Kui's case, we all know she's put massive amounts of thought into the world Dungeon Meshi takes place in, and the views of her character reflect all these thoughts. i don't think Marcille being "conservative" is an accident- i would go so far as to say that i don't think the "contradiction" of Marcille's love of Falin is an accident. i think this is all the sign of good writing, and i think it's a diservice to the writer to try and make these characters more "palatable" (and fit all the corny "found family" memes lol)
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