Archpaladin Z

- Pantyhose, tights, leggings, and stockings are each different. - Waxing hurts and leaves red skin for a while afterwards while shaving leaves stubble - Most can’t run in heels unless they have been VERY worn - Insecurity in appearance doesn’t mean “buy me a drink” - EVERYONE HAS DIFFERENT TASTES IN EVERYTHING

-Having large breasts sucks. It sucks beyond belief.  If a garment happens to fit your large chest, odds are it won’t fit the rest of you. Underboob sweat is real and terrible. Bending over for extended periods of time will tweak your back out. Running can be painful due to boob turbulence. Bras are hella expensive. Big breasts are not fun.

Putting a tampon in isnt a quick bend-poke-done kinda deal. It involves cubicle yoga, messy hands, numerous curse words as you realise it isnt in correctly and have to take it out and start again with a new one.

This is one of the funniest posts I’ve seen in a while (especially if you read all the comments), but also really depressing because at 42 I still judge myself as having failed for not matching up to all these mythical stereotypes despite knowing they’re impossible

^^^This though

if you’re being tied up and tortured in a freezing underground dungeon, then you probably have more important things to pay attention to than how hard somebody’s nipples are, jim butcher

- Wearing a bra that doesn’t fit HURTS.  It’s not sexy to wear a bra that’s “two sizes too small”, it’d make your clothes hang oddly and you’d have a weird, uncomfortable “quad-boob” effect and your back would hurt, BEN AARONOVITCH.

Also, after removing a too small bra, there’s gonne be angry red lines on the boobs and ribs and the lady is not going to want them to be touched by anyone for a good long while

-Not all women wear heels. Those things hurt and are hard to balance in. They can also mess up your feet and back pretty bad.

-Lips aren’t just naturally red “as if she’d been drinking wine but they were just like that without makeup cause she’s so perfect,” my dear little Kvothe from ‘Name of the Wind’. Also, girls do not naturally smell like fruit or flowers, it’s either perfume or something she’d been eating recently.

I’ve been appreciating this post but now it’s back very specifically calling out my problematic faves and I don’t think those male authors realize how much it totally takes me out of the story for a moment when they commit these errors. It does nothing useful for the plot and is annoying for half of the audience

Is it weird that I’m female and wasn’t aware of a solid third of these?

I mean, all writes take note. I basically live in man land when it comes to protagonists so I don’t know half these things despite being a woman

Also: women working out are almost never sexy. They’re not glowing or glistening or (kill me) *sparkling*. They are red and sweaty and gross just like all the dudebros doing their time with the dumbbells. Stop ogling fictional women at the gym, TOM WOLFE.

I love this post.

I never understood why men feel the need to address all this telltale “feminine” awareness when writing women. Like once in grad school one of my male colleagues wrote from a female character’s POV and was like sure to notice how her feet felt in high heels and all the women’s lifestyle magazines on the coffee table and also that like, her breasts were “heavy” or some shit. I write male characters all the time. Not once have I ever stopped to make sure they notice the weight of their own balls or been hyper aware of their chest hair or some bullshit like that. ????? why????????

tragic when a thing gets hate for being 'woke trash' and you look into it and its not even that woke. like cmon man i was promised monacle popping gay commie propaganda. this is just a video game with a woman in it.

Anyway while I don't think Dungeon Meshi is by any means perfect (it is very extremely good, it just has a few things which don't quite stick the landing for me personally) I think it is one of the best examples of media in the broad genre of "dungeon fantasy" that engages with many of the conventions and tropes of the genre critically while at the same time being very reverent of the genre itself. It is both a good example of the genre it's a part of while also examining some of the ideas of said genre and I think that's a lot better than a lot of "irreverent take on D&D" media. The motivations of the main cast are quite mercenary and the story very much doesn't start out as a quest to save the world but a quest to save someone who got in trouble during a get-rich-quick scheme, but the characters are still fun and sympathetic.

And like one of the tropes of the genre it engages with critically is central to its story, which is the whole idea of food as more than just fuel for dungeon crawling but as a make-or-break thing where the ingredients used and actual nutrition matters. Most dungeon-crawling fantasy just ignores this, at most giving a contrast between food that's just boring fuel/stale rations and food that's actually sold at da store back in town, but the difference doesn't actually have teeth in the narrative. It doesn't matter whether Goblin Steve ate icky stale rations that day or had a delicious feast at the banquet, they both just count as the thing stops the hunger mechanic kicking in. Anyway yeah so Dungeon Meshi is like "there actually is a difference."

also don't eat goblin steve

Also don't eat goblin steve

The Backrooms and The Isekai Setting (You know the one - the vaguely european setting every isekai is in with heroes and demon lords and adventurer guilds and dungeons and stuff) can both be mondo stupid at times, but on a fundamental level they are settings which are not owned by anyone, and that is rather a rare and valuable thing

An old high school acquaintance of mine runs a sandwich shop and because we're friends on Facebook I end up seeing her promotional posts for the shop which she posts on her personal page for some reason. Anyway they're mostly just nothing, like I'm not in the market for sandwiches and they're not exactly engaging, but there's one promotional post the shop made around the time of the release of The Devil Wears Prada 2 which was a take on the whole shoe thing on actual promotional posters of the film except the stiletto heel was a sandwich fork. Anyway the tagline of the post was "The Devil Eats Sandwiches" and I haven't been able to excise that phrase from my brain since.

The Devil Eats Sandwiches.

getting older and weirder and sexier and more perverted and gluttonous and intelligent and blunt and eloquent and spontaneous and skilled is literally what it's all about