Dragon Tail Soup & Onion Flatbread Leftovers

 Oh boy, Dungeon Meshi Maniacs. Are you still full from eating all that dragon tail soup from last week?  I know we here at Slime HQ finally got through our pot just yesterday.  Gotta love any recipe that you can get a solid 2.5 meals out of!  Alligator is an impressive meat but the soup base was the real star.  You could easily substitute the meat out for anything.  Even nothing if you want a vegetarian dish.  But the dragon is in the past, this week we are focusing on what again?

Bones!  We are eating bones, DMMS.  Wait...that doesn't sound right.  They may be high in calcium but I wouldn't recommend eating them directly.  Our teeth aren't great at breaking down hard bone.  They make awesome dice, not food!  I had a grandad who would snap cooked chicken bones and suck out the marrow.  I can't say that I ever acquired the taste but give it a go if you are so inclined.  While we are talking bones Dungeon Meshi readers will remember the gang had to root through the dragon's insides and put the bones they found into a skeleton shape.  Not unlike a very grim jigsaw puzzle!

Luckily someone in the group took high school Anatomy.  Looks like you learn more than just magical theory in Magic School!  Time for another famous Nih Backstory!  I also took Anatomy in high school to better understand bones, even though I have none.  Our teacher wasn't what I would call "good".  It was all rote memorization, regurgitation and move on.  The mid-term was listing all 206 bones.  That was it.  To add another layer of anxiety you handed your finished exam behind you and that person then graded it.  If you missed ONE BONE you FAILED!  If you passed someone who missed a bone YOU ALSO FAILED!  The exam I graded missed exactly one bone.  I was stuck.  This is a sham of an exam but if I passed the guy I would fail myself.  In an uncharacteristic act of courage I gave him a pass. I liked the guy and kinda wanted to buck the system. For days I waited for the teacher to yell and fail us both but that never came.  Which means that either the teacher looked over the exams and decided to pass us both anyway or he never even looked.  I'm going with the latter, DMMs.  Shortly after completing Anatomy I forgot everything I had learned so do not get eaten by a dragon and count on me to reassemble you!  I won't turn out good.  Which is a good segway to what I wanted to talk about this week.  What is "bad magic", DMMs?

Okay...I have to stop and address something first.  Is it me for does Marcille become next level sexy when she gets serious about her work.  That level of confidence is magnetic.

And it's not because she has blood eyeshadow! To save Falin the gang finds out Marcille's secret, she has a PHD in forbidden magic.  Or "evil magic".  This is a fantasy troup that I can't stand, DMMs.  It's a weird Western belief that things are either good or bad.  Magic is like any tool. You can use a surgical chainsaw to maim as well as heal!  Seriously, though, think about science.  Why don't you ever hear about an "evil science"?  The closest I've ever heard of is the field of genetics. Confused?  Let's look back at a part of Argentinian history called the Dirty War.  From 1976 to 1983 the Argentinian Government kidnapped children and adopted them into military and government families.  The families were told the kids were dead and visa versa.  For decades Argentinian grandmothers petitioned, protested and hunted for their missing grandchildren.  Starting in 1984 geneticists helped reunite these families.  It took a lot of work on all sides but it was eventually a great success!  When asked why they worked so hard on this one geneticist said that one of  their driving factors was to prove their field of science could be used for good.  They felt that genetics was viewed as an evil science.  Remember, DMMs, Eugenics was born of the field of genetics.  The Holocaust was still very fresh in the world's mind in the 80's.  Of course that doesn't mean the world of genetic study is inherently evil.   But boy oh boy can it be used for evil purposes.  Same with magic.  You can use magic for evil, curses exist and are some of the oldest uses of magic that we have in our written record.  But the same forces you channel for a curse can be used to protect.  Of course tell that to the deadbeat dad your hanging out with.

Chilchuck's such a narc.  He also has a hard time noticing another trope of writing.  The person you are talking smack about being directly behind you.

Oh my, DMMs.  Is it smoking hot in here or is it just me?  Well, I hope you enjoyed this quick trip down memory/ethical lane, DMMs.  And as I said last time just because we've eaten the dragon doesn't mean our adventure is over.  No, we are just getting started eating our way through this dungeon.  Stay hungry and I'll see you next week.