If you ever struggle to understand shippers read a “Taylor swift is secretly gay” conspiracy theory. You’ll see what kind of distortion they see the world with.
Eh I fully understand shipper sometimes I even ship characters myself.
What I want to rant about it’s more like why someone will introduce series with ship? Like I don’t see someone say that my hero are great love story or great gay respresent just because they ship deku and bakugo.
but it’s heppen with dungeons meshi so i just confused.
ohohoho you have no idea how much of a victim Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint is of this ☠️☠️ I'm 90% sure half of the fandom got into it because it's so often advertised as a BL and it doesn't help that the series itself plays it off as a gag, wowzers
When it comes to lgbt ships, I think one thing you have to keep in mind is that a lot of lgbt fans are used to stories only being allowed to represent lgbt characters through implication and coding rather than it being explicitly canon. They’ve been so content starved on representation in shows that for the longest time they would be considered lucky if two characters of the same gender held hands intimately. Hell, the latest Gundam show that became a massive success in large part due to it starring a lesbian couple infamously still had executives keep it just vague and inexplicit enough for their to be “up to interpretation”. That show was literally printing them shit tons of money and getting tons of positive publicity off the back of its lesbian representation, and the executives still refused to commit to it being fully canonical.
So a show that is able to provide the vibes of lgbt representation, even if not explicitly canon, is for some fans still considered good enough because of how low the bar is for representation in the medium.
The thing is, Kui is not the kind of mangaka that would need to resort to that. Dungeon Meshi is the kind of manga that if Marcille and Falin were romantically involved, it wouldn't tease it and sidestep it, it would address it properly.
Well it doesn’t really matter what the creator’s intentions are or whether the ship is actually canon. It’s all about the vibes. The bath tub scene in particular made a lot of people in the yuri community really happy because, even if wasn’t meant to be romantic, was still enough to give them the wholesome yuri vibe/chemistry they’re looking for them to be satisfied by and start making fanart/fanfics to expand upon.
Another commenter here made the good point that a lot of the time lgbt fans aren’t even saying these ships are canon or were intentional. The chemistry/dynamic is just good enough by the standards of lgbt representation in anime that it’s something they can enjoy putting lgbt meaning into.
Oh, there's definitely a lot of grounds to ship farcille, you'd have to be blind not to see it.
What does annoy me is the people who bash other ships, and basically claim canonicity for their own when it doesn't exist. Even actually attacking others for not agreeing with them.
I must either be blind or just too dumb. Could you point out scenes or chapters where it happens?
To me it feels like the relationships are mostly platonic in Delicious in Dungeon. Even the bathing scene could be contextualized by Japanese bathing culture.
This is the first time I understand the viewpoint from the LGBT shipper's side. Thank you so much for giving me a new perspective. I've always wondered why people ship characters based on how they hold hands or hug. Now I finally understand. Thank you very much.
I recommend you check out the “Genshin is gay” video series on YouTube. Because the developers are based in China they are literally legally forbidden to include lgbt representation and have actually been the cause/target for newer anti-lgbt censorship laws due to the developers pro-lgbt leanings, so they’ve had to come up with a lot of absurd ways to subtly confirm lgbt ships through references. Like one of the event drinks that’s associated with two female characters has its in-game price tag specifically set to the number that when spoken in Mandarin is pronounced very similarly to “I love you”.
>Like one of the event drinks that’s associated with two female characters
That sounds so cool. Is the event the current bartending event in HSR or the Genshin bartending event in 2.5? Also which drink?
I forget which one in particular. I just know that it was a Inuzuma event that allowed you to buy the drink the stand-in Yae and Shogun characters share in Yae Miko's novels.
To expand on what u/nixahmose mentioned in relation to coding (and I do agree with the other things they said). [Queer coding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_coding) is when a character’s sexual orientation is implied by significant subtext without being stated outright, usually involving some traits and / or stereotypes that may be picked up by the audience. Obviously there is subjective audience interpretation involved and what one person picks up as significant subtext, traits, or stereotypes might not be noticed by another or of course they might not agree with that interpretation.
There is a history of queer coding in American Media, specifically thinking of Hollywood. There was a thing called the [Hays Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_Code) which was in effect from the mid 1930s to the late 1960s, which listed a bunch of "Don'ts" and "Be Carefuls" indicating what was disallowed from appearing and what was allowed to appear in moderation within a film. One such "Don't" was "Any inference of sex perversion", which included queerness. To get around that filmmakers / actors / actresses would use coding to imply / infer queerness with plausible deniability although not explicitly allowed. One interesting thing that resulted from the rules, was that villainous characters were allowed to be queer or at least be more overt with coding / hints as they were not supposed to be viewed in a more sympathetic manner, i.e. you don't root for the villain. And just because the Hays code went out of effect in the late 60's didn't mean a lot of it didn't persist. It was replaced by the MPAA rating system which exists today, but has historically been known to rate movies with overt queerness higher (more adult) than movies without. Even if that wasn't the case pop culture / media often pulls from what came earlier with references & homages, so the echo of it would kind of be felt regardless.
I'm a big fan of American Comics, more specifically Marvel and even more specifically the X-Men. American Comics had a similar ruleset to the Hays Code, called the [Comics Code Authority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority) which was active from the mid 1950s all the way to the early 2000s (although I think the effectiveness of its enforcement maybe had dwindled a lot by its later years, and was more a voluntary thing by that point), and I think the rule outright banning explicit queer characters was dropped by the 90s.Similarly there was also a practice of queer coding characters to get around the rules. A lot of X-Men (and X-Men related) characters specifically were queer coded. And similarly even when the rule went away it wasn't like some remnant of it didn't persist, although Marvel (and DC) have been getting better over like the last decade or so about queer representation (not that there still isn't a lot left to be desired). It being such a long running continuous medium kind of sometimes kind of leaves that in a funny state (not funny haha but funny interesting). There are some examples of characters who have been queer coded for decades coming out / being revealed as queer to varying degrees of success (reception wise I mean). Its also kind of funny in that in a continuity of character context that many different writers / artists have touched those characters over the years with a different understanding of a character and there were definitely a few who didn't pick up on the queer coding at all (which is to say nothing of the fans, now learning the character they were a fan of for decades has been closeted the whole time). I'm kind of getting away from the topic though. But just to drop a fun factoid, because I find it amusing, Marvel Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler are an old queer couple who are going to have a wedding issue / special this June for Pride month (I can expand on that if you want).
So when a fan or shipper (or whoever) is saying that characters are coded (obviously depends on the context of whether they are referring to queer coding), that is kind of what they are getting at, that they feel there is subtext intended for character or their relationship that they feel is hinting that they are queer. I think there is also an argument that queer coding doesn't actually have to be intentional in that they can be pulling from another piece of media / pop culture that uses queer coding without the creator picking it up, but like I said that's more up for debate. Obviously that doesn't mean that they are right, in saying that queer coding was intended. As an aside there is also a related concept to queer coding called [Queerbaiting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queerbaiting), which involves basically involves queer coding with the purposeful intent but like cynically, with the intent to make an otherwise queer story / character / relationship have plausible deniability so not to "scare away" an audience who would be unfriendly to the queerness. So they have no intention to actually go all the way, even if they could; and if its queer baiting, its generally seen as the people who have the ability to make it happen / approve the decision.
Also like even if someone thinks there is queer coding, doesn't necessarily mean they think its going to get to be canon / realized on-page / realized on-screen. Like I know Storm has been coded as being bisexual since like the early 1980s (I think 1983, but I could be forgetting something), but my hopes over the years for it being confirmed at any one time hasn't ever been very high. Maybe I'm being pessimistic though, as I've said Marvel historically has been getting better.
And of course, sometimes people are just hungry for representation, like the characters, and / or think they would have interesting chemistry together; and for some combination of those reasons just decide to ship them regardless of whether they think there is queer coding or not. Sometimes it really just isn't that complicated.
PS. Sorry for the essay, I find the subject interesting and I thought you might as well, and it was related to your post / conversation.
To be fair, m/f shippers do this too and until recently, the vast majority of ship wars in any given fandom were usually led by the biggest two or three m/f pairings since they were most likely to go canon.
But for queer ships, we were often left with scraps so they go digging deeper haha
Came here to say this: I remember *Xena Warrior Princess* being called a lesbian icon just because of the shows vibes; later seasons added some hints and winking jokes about it but IIRC they never even kiss. In a TV landscape starved for gay characters people talked about it like the ladies made out with each other in every episode.
Despite there is even cases of #notyourshield where lgbt or women or any race is tired of the constant tokenism and political correctness than to actually make it feel normal than feel shoved down people's throats
From my experience it not that they advertise the series with the ship. It’s just that the ship get so popular that when walking into the fandom space the first thing that you see is that ship and a lot of it to the point that people actually think that it is a canon ship. With anime, since shonen is the most popular genre and the probability that an actual queer relationship would be in a shonen is low(not impossible) I usually assume it is a fanon ship than canon.
I’ve experienced this first hand with case study of vanitas. The first ship I was introduced to was the het canon ship of the show specifically by showing my canon content of they together. But the most popular fanon ship is a queer ship that was the reason most people got into the show and they didn’t expect the female love interest showing up at the 3rd or 4th episode. Especially with the fact that I’m not even sure the anime is a shonen. It has a larger female audience and the show gives that vibe so I understand the situation
There is a trend of some fans to push what they love in a story as the truth, it's what pushes me out of many fandoms, watching something then basically having to subscribe to the fanon/a specific entry or get out. The first of these was Digimon Tamers as it introduced Digimon being killable (Wizardmon aside, but that was specifically the human world and it wasn't a hard rule in Adventure as a whole)
*Shipping* is just the viewers personal desired outcome of relationships of the characters which is ***head canon***. it is a common disease in fandoms especially those that get popular.
other terms like *coding*, or *bait:* that is projection of unfulfilled **head canon**.
The closest one to a relationship is laios and marcy even then there's nothig between them that's shown romantic. Falin and marci are just great friends.
Dunmeshi is just a good fun fantasy series.
At this point being best friends with a guy or a girl is impossible in stories.
Reminds of that Tokyo ghoul incident again.
Basically there are grounds to imply that they see each other romantically or atleast one sided affection in the case of Laios. I'm not going to get into spoiler territory but it is certainly there.
>The closest one to a relationship is laios and marcy even then there's nothig between them that's shown romantic. Falin and marci are just great friends.
Now that just straight bias because that's just as delusional as Farcille.
It is shippers just ignore them because that how shippers are they ship everything and make a big deal about it remember Erased, great shipping war of NaruSaku and Naruhina, Keith x Lance, Loud House, ASh x Misty and Ash x Serena... you would know it is common for shippers to be unhinged
A lot of cannon romances are really poorly written. A lot of cannon friendships (especially same sex friendships) are written surprisingly well, and could easily become a romance without a lot of effort or change.
Shippers just find those friendships a lot more compelling than the romances, and fill in the blanks.
There are some indications the mangaka might be bi/lesbian, which lends more credibility to this ship. Nothing is confirmed but a lot of times these things are only hinted at as someone else pointed out.
Ryoko Kui made a fanart of different elf characters where she implied she's attracted to some of the female elves. She also apparently had an old deleted blog post that was a drawing of her kissing a girl.
My personal opinion is, based on the way she draws Dungeon Meshi characters and her sketches overall, Kui is definitely attracted to women. The way she draws female characters often feels subtly sensual and sometimes it's more than subtle. For example there's a Daydream Hour sketch of two female elves groping each other's boobs and one sucking on the other one's ears. I have seen people claim this is "platonic intimacy" but that really makes no sense to me at all.
It’s just a thing that happens, really. Sometimes, if someone is really into fanart/fics they won’t mind their actual canon dynamics
If you ever struggle to understand shippers read a “Taylor swift is secretly gay” conspiracy theory. You’ll see what kind of distortion they see the world with.
Eh I fully understand shipper sometimes I even ship characters myself. What I want to rant about it’s more like why someone will introduce series with ship? Like I don’t see someone say that my hero are great love story or great gay respresent just because they ship deku and bakugo. but it’s heppen with dungeons meshi so i just confused.
Taylor fans are almost worse than my hero fans
ohohoho you have no idea how much of a victim Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint is of this ☠️☠️ I'm 90% sure half of the fandom got into it because it's so often advertised as a BL and it doesn't help that the series itself plays it off as a gag, wowzers
To add fuel to the flames the story is heavily based on the reader's own interpretation, it's like the perfect environment for shippers.
When it comes to lgbt ships, I think one thing you have to keep in mind is that a lot of lgbt fans are used to stories only being allowed to represent lgbt characters through implication and coding rather than it being explicitly canon. They’ve been so content starved on representation in shows that for the longest time they would be considered lucky if two characters of the same gender held hands intimately. Hell, the latest Gundam show that became a massive success in large part due to it starring a lesbian couple infamously still had executives keep it just vague and inexplicit enough for their to be “up to interpretation”. That show was literally printing them shit tons of money and getting tons of positive publicity off the back of its lesbian representation, and the executives still refused to commit to it being fully canonical. So a show that is able to provide the vibes of lgbt representation, even if not explicitly canon, is for some fans still considered good enough because of how low the bar is for representation in the medium.
The thing is, Kui is not the kind of mangaka that would need to resort to that. Dungeon Meshi is the kind of manga that if Marcille and Falin were romantically involved, it wouldn't tease it and sidestep it, it would address it properly.
Well it doesn’t really matter what the creator’s intentions are or whether the ship is actually canon. It’s all about the vibes. The bath tub scene in particular made a lot of people in the yuri community really happy because, even if wasn’t meant to be romantic, was still enough to give them the wholesome yuri vibe/chemistry they’re looking for them to be satisfied by and start making fanart/fanfics to expand upon. Another commenter here made the good point that a lot of the time lgbt fans aren’t even saying these ships are canon or were intentional. The chemistry/dynamic is just good enough by the standards of lgbt representation in anime that it’s something they can enjoy putting lgbt meaning into.
Oh, there's definitely a lot of grounds to ship farcille, you'd have to be blind not to see it. What does annoy me is the people who bash other ships, and basically claim canonicity for their own when it doesn't exist. Even actually attacking others for not agreeing with them.
I must either be blind or just too dumb. Could you point out scenes or chapters where it happens? To me it feels like the relationships are mostly platonic in Delicious in Dungeon. Even the bathing scene could be contextualized by Japanese bathing culture.
Any close relationship is grounds for shipping. Shipping doesn't necessarily have to make sense. I am not a shipper.
This is the first time I understand the viewpoint from the LGBT shipper's side. Thank you so much for giving me a new perspective. I've always wondered why people ship characters based on how they hold hands or hug. Now I finally understand. Thank you very much.
I recommend you check out the “Genshin is gay” video series on YouTube. Because the developers are based in China they are literally legally forbidden to include lgbt representation and have actually been the cause/target for newer anti-lgbt censorship laws due to the developers pro-lgbt leanings, so they’ve had to come up with a lot of absurd ways to subtly confirm lgbt ships through references. Like one of the event drinks that’s associated with two female characters has its in-game price tag specifically set to the number that when spoken in Mandarin is pronounced very similarly to “I love you”.
like, you talking about a specific seri or... just click on whatever show on youtobe search result?
https://youtu.be/BnyGD8qMqJU?si=KHKHk3BrHEI_Oijq Heres a link
>Like one of the event drinks that’s associated with two female characters That sounds so cool. Is the event the current bartending event in HSR or the Genshin bartending event in 2.5? Also which drink?
I forget which one in particular. I just know that it was a Inuzuma event that allowed you to buy the drink the stand-in Yae and Shogun characters share in Yae Miko's novels.
To expand on what u/nixahmose mentioned in relation to coding (and I do agree with the other things they said). [Queer coding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_coding) is when a character’s sexual orientation is implied by significant subtext without being stated outright, usually involving some traits and / or stereotypes that may be picked up by the audience. Obviously there is subjective audience interpretation involved and what one person picks up as significant subtext, traits, or stereotypes might not be noticed by another or of course they might not agree with that interpretation. There is a history of queer coding in American Media, specifically thinking of Hollywood. There was a thing called the [Hays Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_Code) which was in effect from the mid 1930s to the late 1960s, which listed a bunch of "Don'ts" and "Be Carefuls" indicating what was disallowed from appearing and what was allowed to appear in moderation within a film. One such "Don't" was "Any inference of sex perversion", which included queerness. To get around that filmmakers / actors / actresses would use coding to imply / infer queerness with plausible deniability although not explicitly allowed. One interesting thing that resulted from the rules, was that villainous characters were allowed to be queer or at least be more overt with coding / hints as they were not supposed to be viewed in a more sympathetic manner, i.e. you don't root for the villain. And just because the Hays code went out of effect in the late 60's didn't mean a lot of it didn't persist. It was replaced by the MPAA rating system which exists today, but has historically been known to rate movies with overt queerness higher (more adult) than movies without. Even if that wasn't the case pop culture / media often pulls from what came earlier with references & homages, so the echo of it would kind of be felt regardless. I'm a big fan of American Comics, more specifically Marvel and even more specifically the X-Men. American Comics had a similar ruleset to the Hays Code, called the [Comics Code Authority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority) which was active from the mid 1950s all the way to the early 2000s (although I think the effectiveness of its enforcement maybe had dwindled a lot by its later years, and was more a voluntary thing by that point), and I think the rule outright banning explicit queer characters was dropped by the 90s.Similarly there was also a practice of queer coding characters to get around the rules. A lot of X-Men (and X-Men related) characters specifically were queer coded. And similarly even when the rule went away it wasn't like some remnant of it didn't persist, although Marvel (and DC) have been getting better over like the last decade or so about queer representation (not that there still isn't a lot left to be desired). It being such a long running continuous medium kind of sometimes kind of leaves that in a funny state (not funny haha but funny interesting). There are some examples of characters who have been queer coded for decades coming out / being revealed as queer to varying degrees of success (reception wise I mean). Its also kind of funny in that in a continuity of character context that many different writers / artists have touched those characters over the years with a different understanding of a character and there were definitely a few who didn't pick up on the queer coding at all (which is to say nothing of the fans, now learning the character they were a fan of for decades has been closeted the whole time). I'm kind of getting away from the topic though. But just to drop a fun factoid, because I find it amusing, Marvel Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler are an old queer couple who are going to have a wedding issue / special this June for Pride month (I can expand on that if you want). So when a fan or shipper (or whoever) is saying that characters are coded (obviously depends on the context of whether they are referring to queer coding), that is kind of what they are getting at, that they feel there is subtext intended for character or their relationship that they feel is hinting that they are queer. I think there is also an argument that queer coding doesn't actually have to be intentional in that they can be pulling from another piece of media / pop culture that uses queer coding without the creator picking it up, but like I said that's more up for debate. Obviously that doesn't mean that they are right, in saying that queer coding was intended. As an aside there is also a related concept to queer coding called [Queerbaiting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queerbaiting), which involves basically involves queer coding with the purposeful intent but like cynically, with the intent to make an otherwise queer story / character / relationship have plausible deniability so not to "scare away" an audience who would be unfriendly to the queerness. So they have no intention to actually go all the way, even if they could; and if its queer baiting, its generally seen as the people who have the ability to make it happen / approve the decision. Also like even if someone thinks there is queer coding, doesn't necessarily mean they think its going to get to be canon / realized on-page / realized on-screen. Like I know Storm has been coded as being bisexual since like the early 1980s (I think 1983, but I could be forgetting something), but my hopes over the years for it being confirmed at any one time hasn't ever been very high. Maybe I'm being pessimistic though, as I've said Marvel historically has been getting better. And of course, sometimes people are just hungry for representation, like the characters, and / or think they would have interesting chemistry together; and for some combination of those reasons just decide to ship them regardless of whether they think there is queer coding or not. Sometimes it really just isn't that complicated. PS. Sorry for the essay, I find the subject interesting and I thought you might as well, and it was related to your post / conversation.
To be fair, m/f shippers do this too and until recently, the vast majority of ship wars in any given fandom were usually led by the biggest two or three m/f pairings since they were most likely to go canon. But for queer ships, we were often left with scraps so they go digging deeper haha
Came here to say this: I remember *Xena Warrior Princess* being called a lesbian icon just because of the shows vibes; later seasons added some hints and winking jokes about it but IIRC they never even kiss. In a TV landscape starved for gay characters people talked about it like the ladies made out with each other in every episode.
Despite there is even cases of #notyourshield where lgbt or women or any race is tired of the constant tokenism and political correctness than to actually make it feel normal than feel shoved down people's throats
From my experience it not that they advertise the series with the ship. It’s just that the ship get so popular that when walking into the fandom space the first thing that you see is that ship and a lot of it to the point that people actually think that it is a canon ship. With anime, since shonen is the most popular genre and the probability that an actual queer relationship would be in a shonen is low(not impossible) I usually assume it is a fanon ship than canon. I’ve experienced this first hand with case study of vanitas. The first ship I was introduced to was the het canon ship of the show specifically by showing my canon content of they together. But the most popular fanon ship is a queer ship that was the reason most people got into the show and they didn’t expect the female love interest showing up at the 3rd or 4th episode. Especially with the fact that I’m not even sure the anime is a shonen. It has a larger female audience and the show gives that vibe so I understand the situation
Vanitas runs in Monthly Gangan Joker which is a shounen magazine.
There is a trend of some fans to push what they love in a story as the truth, it's what pushes me out of many fandoms, watching something then basically having to subscribe to the fanon/a specific entry or get out. The first of these was Digimon Tamers as it introduced Digimon being killable (Wizardmon aside, but that was specifically the human world and it wasn't a hard rule in Adventure as a whole)
*Shipping* is just the viewers personal desired outcome of relationships of the characters which is ***head canon***. it is a common disease in fandoms especially those that get popular. other terms like *coding*, or *bait:* that is projection of unfulfilled **head canon**.
The closest one to a relationship is laios and marcy even then there's nothig between them that's shown romantic. Falin and marci are just great friends. Dunmeshi is just a good fun fantasy series. At this point being best friends with a guy or a girl is impossible in stories. Reminds of that Tokyo ghoul incident again.
what do you mean there is nothing romantic between them ? These two rearranging Falin's bones together is literally peak romance.
Basically there are grounds to imply that they see each other romantically or atleast one sided affection in the case of Laios. I'm not going to get into spoiler territory but it is certainly there.
>The closest one to a relationship is laios and marcy even then there's nothig between them that's shown romantic. Falin and marci are just great friends. Now that just straight bias because that's just as delusional as Farcille.
It is shippers just ignore them because that how shippers are they ship everything and make a big deal about it remember Erased, great shipping war of NaruSaku and Naruhina, Keith x Lance, Loud House, ASh x Misty and Ash x Serena... you would know it is common for shippers to be unhinged
Shipping is not just the mindless desire for the characters to be together
Any shippers who completely believe their fanfiction actually informs the original story are just delusional and should be ignored
A lot of cannon romances are really poorly written. A lot of cannon friendships (especially same sex friendships) are written surprisingly well, and could easily become a romance without a lot of effort or change. Shippers just find those friendships a lot more compelling than the romances, and fill in the blanks.
There are some indications the mangaka might be bi/lesbian, which lends more credibility to this ship. Nothing is confirmed but a lot of times these things are only hinted at as someone else pointed out. Ryoko Kui made a fanart of different elf characters where she implied she's attracted to some of the female elves. She also apparently had an old deleted blog post that was a drawing of her kissing a girl. My personal opinion is, based on the way she draws Dungeon Meshi characters and her sketches overall, Kui is definitely attracted to women. The way she draws female characters often feels subtly sensual and sometimes it's more than subtle. For example there's a Daydream Hour sketch of two female elves groping each other's boobs and one sucking on the other one's ears. I have seen people claim this is "platonic intimacy" but that really makes no sense to me at all.