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fumifooms · 3 months

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On beastkin tattoos and drawn/written magic

Tried figuring stuff out because I was making a tattooed beastkin oc. Take it or leave it, just a bunch of observations and theorizing. There is a focus on how the tattoos look but I also try to figure out the underlying principles of how they work.

Table of contents:

observations & important details

Stuff that beastkin tattoos look like

Theories

Non-beastkin tattoos

I called the components lines and dents in the pic above, but it’d be more accurate to call them characters I think, or even symbols. At the time I wasn’t sure if it was a specific "alphabet" used for these tattoos and if they represented anything more than lines to the people using it so I called them like dents in a line or teeth in a toothwheels or inner layers in locks, but since I made the connection to magic circles I think they do. It’s the same structure as with magic circles, lines connecting characters and favoring circle structures. All magic iirc comes from calling upon spirits, so it’s interesting to wonder what written magic does exactly, if it communicates with the spirits or simply compels them.

Observations & important details

The picture at the start summarizes my observations and the recurring patterns, but I’ll also do a rundown and add more. The fundamental structure of the tattoos seem to be lines forming big simple patterns, and then small characters that sprout from a side of those lines. Although, not all lines have characters/dents, and some characters have two lines one on both sides like on Lycion’s forearms. On Lycion’s legs, there are also lines with two rows of characters on either sides, so yeah the line & dents are the fundamental structure but it’s flexible on how it’s put into practice.

Oh yeah, also notable that when doing less intricate doodles like on her blog or Daydream Hours, she often omits details so we can’t be sure on the smaller drawings wether there are dents/characters on some lines or not, we have to assume if they’re implied or if there aren’t any. For example on Lycion’s reference all the lines on his forearms have dents, but if you look at the other beastkins it’s honestly debatable wether there are dents on the lines around their forearms and lower legs, also see Otta’s tattoos on her reference…

One of the more important and puzzling details is that beastkin tattoos look very different depending on the soul type, from werebear to wererat etc etc. BUT we also see with Lycion and that random werewolf, that there is room for difference even within the tattoos for the same soul type… Of course, if we don’t assume that those differences aren’t because the type of canine soul are different, since Lycion does mention he doesn’t know which canine type his was so there’s room for variety there apparently. But I doubt that’d change much within the same genus and whatnot, but still, then we have the question… Weretigers’ tattoos look like tiger stripes, and werebears have lines that seem to emphasize a bear’s chest fur? Those two types have a lot of wavy lines that make them look rather different from werewolf and wererat tattoos. Different soul types certainly seem to require different tattoos, but to what degree is the choice of how and where the lines are placed artistic, and to what degree is it efficient if not necessary? What’s the logic of where they need to be, going from one soul type to the next? The weretiger and werebear one seem to have fitting patterns for their animal, but werewolf and wererat have much more artifical patterns.

One of the recurring patterns with similar placements are all the lines forming circles around wrists, forearms, lower legs and ankles… Positions do seem to be important especially with the recurring placings. Maybe the lines are in the places that are expected to change the most: legs and ankles & wrists with new inhuman different joints, strong muscled shoulders for tigers, strong core for bears, etc. A tiger’s eye, with all the tattoos around them…? More lines = an easier stronger more efficient transformation? With the differences in tattoos for same soul types I don’t know how much precision in the pattern themselves are important tbh, though I imagine the characters/dents are the crux of the magic and precision there is the most important. Feet and hands tend to be untouched though, Lycion is the exception to this with tattoos on his hands and fingers. Circles seem overall important imo, lines are almost always curved, or go straight around a limb to reach its other end and form circles that way, werewolf torso tattoos, etc etc.

In Lycion’s ref the tattoo ink is a brownish red, but we don’t see if that’s the norm- is what I would have said before the new Daydream Hour came out with some tattooed elves portraits where they’re a vivid red. Fleki’s tattoos are covered in her main colored reference(and in the mangas all tattoos are black ofc including Lycion’s, while on her blog and Daydream Hours the color is inconsistent and often black too), Otta’s are black though they also seem at least partly non-magical? The snake/rope pattern doesn’t look consistent with magical tattoos in general imo. Pictures of these tattoos are compiled at the end of the post btw.

It’s also important to remember, because of the pic below, we can never truly be sure of what’s necessary for the tattoo to work and what’s just artificial flourish, though with Lycion I feel like it’s implied that there’s nothing in his tattoos trying to hide in the meaning. It’s also interesting to note that magical tattoos can have random patterns added without it interfering with the tattoo’s purpose. Is it the placement that make them harmless, or that they mean nothing in tattoo magic so it’s like an extra useless line of code that doesn’t get processed? Or is it that once your tattoo is done the meaning of it is sealed, and even if you were to fully cover it up in a solid black square of ink it wouldn’t do a thing? No clue, but it’s all very curious.

Other stuff they look like

A buddy pointed out that one of the recurring patterns looks a lot like DNA strands. Maybe the "dents" signify the different base pairs?? Probably verifiably untrue since that’d mean there would only be a few different type of dents, and also if they’re doing DNA sequencing that would be crazy, but doesn’t that just make you wonder… 👀 Tattoos are like a conduit for magic (mana? Which is also a sort of life force) so I do rlly like the idea that beastkin tattoos specialize in and target the DNA in the some way.

We never see the tattoos from up super close, but especially with Lycion’s the "dents"/characters remind me of norse runes a bit. Mostly because of the structure of straight lines and the simplicity of each character as far as I can tell. Runes being used in magic isn’t a new concept so I wouldn’t be surprised if Kui intentionally incorporated them into art/writing-based magic. Culturally it doesn’t fit well in with the elves as much, but a few of them do have old norse names. (And magic tattoos seem to be a very elven thing)

And another buddy also pointed out that with the characters being connected with a line it was reminiscent of the devanagari script. The elves have a good amount of indian coding, with names and some characters having bindis etc etc, so if intentional it’d be quite an interesting detail.

(Source for second one. I couldn’t find handwritten examples where there’s a clear line between characters much)

Oh- and if we continue the train of thought of indian coding, are reminiscent of henna! The brownish red color is especially on point.

Lastly and very much least, drawing lines that separate and denote body parts always remind me of the guidelines for butchers that people often point to and even draw on the animal when cutting. Since this is the cooking manga I wanted to put this in.

Oh yeah! I should mention that some of the tattoos, especially with the wererats and the lines going down the torsos, also remind me of dissection/vivisection scars/lines.

Theories

Magical tattoos are like a conduit for magic, is what is said. In case of beastkin tattoos, that makes me think it’s not that the tattoos are what keeps the extra soul bound to the body but that they’re what allows the human to freely shift between human and beastkin form, unlike Izutsumi who can’t because she doesn’t have tattoos. So thus the souls are merged with or without the tattoos, but the tattoos help control and reign back the extra soul and its influence both on the body and on the mind. Sort of like a seal. The soul is bound by and not bound in the tattoos. Filtering the animal soul out and not in. Close but not exactly the same theory is that the tattoos are what keep the souls separate, and if there weren’t tattoos the souls would just mix. So then the tattoos are less about control and more about separation itself.

But it depends a lot on the angle you look at it with. Like while some think the soul is within the tattoo, I think the soul is within the body but the tattoos help ‘circuit’ and control it. My friend is convinced that it’s the first and theorizes a lot around that, but I plan to mostly talk about my own take here bc I don’t find the arguments compelling personally. (Do prove me wrong if you can /gen)

We know from Lycion explaining the different beastkins that what animal you can merge with is dependent on size and stature, the build of the body, but the line where a body becomes incompatible with an animal is rather blurry. Nimble bodies become werewolves and beefier ones become werebears, and the only prospect for halflings are rats. We do also know that Izutsumi and assumedly a panther bonded just fine. Obviously, a rat and a halfling still aren’t anywhere the same size, so again the line or hard limit is blurry. My take is that this is because the bodies have to shift between human and beastkin, the transformation has to not strain the body too much. If you try to transform a square into a circle, the muscles and skeleton might really struggle to adapt if not even just mess up. Lycion talks about the physical (and mental strains) in the pics below. Beastkins that don’t have tattoos and are permanently fused like Izutsumi might have more of a wriggle room since they don’t have to transform to and back regularly? But yeah if the animal and human bodies aren’t compatible enough maybe the body would collapse, or just be incredibly painful, who knows. It’s a bit terrifying to imagine what the failed soul bindings and shiftings must have been like when developing all this know how of the magic and what does and doesn’t work. Besides height, general size and body type, the amount of fat of a person might matter, like maybe for werebears. Healing and resurrection magic does take fat away from the body so maybe transformations would be a necessary cost on top of the mana? Or just be needed to form muscles, fur, etc? But yes from the examples we saw I feel like maybe werebears need fat, weretigers need musculature, wererats need to be on the nimble side, and then werewolves have loose requirements? More like ideals than requirements, I really doubt a fat wererat is impossible for example.

My main theory is that the tattoos are more about the transformation than binding the soul to the body, right. For example places that have a lot of tattoos and lines circling around limbs are ankles and lower legs, which with animal leg structures would get changed a lot during the transformation, bones and all. So the artistic parts are more about the tattoo artist’s will and about what parts of the animals are important or require more change while shifting, rather than it being a depiction of the soul’s essence or something like that. As support I think the pictures below referring to the physical strain of being a beastkin are relevant.

With this sort of tattoo magic, it’s a gut reaction to think that maybe there’s a special magical ink used. I doubt it, I feel like if the type of ink was a big component of how the magic works Kui would have mentioned it. There are some tattoos that are black like Otta’s iirc, but all the others are generally red so that could be support to that theory. The patterns evidently do matter a lot, so I don’t think it’s implausible that the patterns on their own are enough to fulfill their purpose. There’s also how "[the tattoos] are like a conduit", so I don’t think the tattoos cost or give mana but rather they, well, conduit the mana that’s in the body to be as efficient as possible or to fulfill certain specific tasks, like transforming, / lifting the wall between you and the animal soul bound to you.

Sigh how the hell does tattoo magic even work. "The tattoos are like a circuit" SURE but the symbols have to still mean something right… But then how does adding random patterns to camouflage the tattoos come into play without affecting the meaning, and if there’s an artistic or varying aspect to it and tattoos differ from one individual to the other for the same purpose then maybe it just isn’t a strict magic at all? I do find it fun that we don’t really know the underlying principles of the magic so it’s hard to even know how it activates and whatnot. Going back to tattoos being able to have extra patterns tattooed on top of it without it affecting the performance of the tattoo... But yes I do lean towards the explanation that as long as the extra patterns don’t mean anything they don’t interfere. But like if you just drew a line over the character/symbols/dents would it register that and stop working, or no? The limits are all so blurry… Here’s to hoping the world guide book 2 has info on it!! Readying myself to either get full face slapped or to have "I told you so" bragging rights.

Theoretically, it should be possible to bind two human souls together, or a monster soul. Izutsumi and Lycion’s souls are called feline and canid monsters iirc, but that’s like calling a panther a monster, I wonder if an actual monster from a dungeon’s soul would be more unstable to bind and to shift into… Monsters can leave dungeons, but I wonder about The Demon’s influence on them, like how he’s able to manipulate at will Kensuke, maybe it’s as long as a monster is in a dungeon? That could potentially be sooo bad for the monster beastkin. Wild speculation though, and I imagine being a human-human beastkin would be super extra mega taboo, I wonder if it’s ever even been tried according to elven records. This is the section that was important for my dunmeshi oc lol, evidently I think tattoo magic is very interesting so I want to explore the limits of it with ocs, a tattoo artist trying more and more ambitious projects and soul like a lovecraftian protagonist learning about what should be left unknown, and a dude who really wants to be More Than Human and divine almost with identity issues that decides to take on like 6 different souls. If you’re interested here’s the dude, still a huge wip tho.

I think it’s important to remember that tattoos are used for different magic and effects too, not limited to beastkins.

Edit 10/2/‘24 oh hey a leak, neat

Other non-beastkin tattoos

I know that I didn’t point out every detail and difference ever, like in that magical tattoos extra with the halfbody person those assumedly aren’t beastkin tattoos even if I included it in the main pic, and how the bust in that same picture has a line of characters around the neck without any line connecting them much like in the pictures below.

Which speaking of this is a good place to talk about different cultures having different systems or characters for magic? The torso of that guy in the upper right corner for example has very different patterns than what I’d have expected with the beastkin tattoo examples. And of course, Izutsumi’s tattoo…

Izutsumi’s tattoos support that the characters/symbols are the most meaningful and important part. Also goes against the assumption that the elven written magic system is because the symbols communicate with the spirits better, since well, they seem to understand japanese just fine. Maizuru’s written magic is said to be akin to gnomic magic, and she reminds me of irl onmyodo a lot. Like many other types of magic, different regions, people and cultures find different ways to practice their version of it.

And here with Otta, what I said earlier about her tattoo being ink and her tattoos not really seeming magical imo, maybe except the ones around her forearms.

#Dungeon meshi #meta #Analysis #theories #dungeon meshi worldbuilding #This is it for the tags ig. Pretty dry and quick for once #will edit in new stuff as I go if I find or brainstorm more #Compilation #If u have stuff to add on pls do. Can’t promise a response though #delicious in dungeon

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