#Which I'm sure means nothing right

[peppermintmochafem]

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[etz-ashashiyot]

Friendly reminder that A Land for All is an excellent organization that is still, even now, working to create an equitable resolution to the conflict. Please check them out:

I also strongly recommend reading through their full proposal here.

[louisdelac]

there’s a question to be asked i think about to what extent “getting out” can be conflated with “being saved” in this show, and what freedom actually means to any of these characters.

like you can argue that shiv saved ken by voting against him on gojo, but what if your intent behind saving someone is to inflict a worse punishment than if you’d just left them trapped? can a child weaned on poison survive on milk, or are you just sentencing them to a death by inches, starved of the only thing they know? and if you save someone specifically because you know that being saved is the worst thing that can happen to them, is that kindness or cruelty? at what point does a good thing become a malicious act?

and you can say that roman is finally free, but what exactly is he free from? the company? his father? does unlocking a cage mean saving a dog, or are you allowing him out on the street knowing there’s a kill shelter nearby? if the driving anxiety behind roman is that he’s an idiot and a failure—that he’ll never amount to anything, and trying will only lead to pain—and he’s finally cut loose once all of those anxieties have crystallized into cold hard fact in his mind, what has he actually escaped from? if the cage is in your mind, is it even possible for somebody else to unlock it?

the fundamental truth of a tragedy is that even being saved can be a death sentence, if the characters are incapable of escaping the thing doing them the most harm (themselves and their childhoods)

[saminthea]

Is it appendicitis or just fibromyalgia and a stomach bug? Guess we'll see in the morning!

[rotisseries]

I am the number one mike gets vecna'd truther. I have damn near 100% confidence that mike gets vecna'd. there is no version of s5 that I can imagine where mike doesn't get vecna'd. he will be shown horrendous visions and he will scream and cry and veccy boy will get his homophobic dog moment and mike is gonna be shaken up and refusing to tell anyone what he saw and it will be the most important, impactful, and jaw dropping vecna scene of the season, and I will be pulling up the cristiano ronaldo gif

[itwoodbeprefect]

flashbacks to dialogue that happened less than a minute ago are annoying and a little insulting for obvious reasons, unless it's in bad buddy episode 5 [2/4] and pat is having entirely serious sepia toned flashbacks to fifty seconds ago while almost shoving a set of drumsticks he hasn't even paid for yet up his nose. then it's brilliant and world changing

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Back to an earlier point about Buffy Season 7 having way too many Potential Slayers, tbh, last night I learned that there was a Colleen and Caridad who also became full-fledged Slayers and survived the battle of the Hellmouth.

And in reading the "Chosen" novelization, I remembered the Potential "Shannon," and in Googling her, I guess she survived, as well.

I feel like when people are talking about the Potentials who survived season 7 as full Slayers, we always talk about Kennedy, Vi, Rona, and Chao-Ahn (but I think even Chao-Ahn is sometimes forgotten about), but I've never seen anyone mention Caridad, Colleen, or Shannon.

There are also some unnamed ones who made it, too:

[arcaneyouth]

it is So Weird how working on my comic makes me feel like i have more free time. and gives me more free time. logically, working on 3 comic pages a week would mean i have Less Time. but no. despite everything, i'm getting more done and able to use my time better now that i'm working on comic pages again. what the hell is up with that.

[maddy-ferguson]

Yeah and since this doesnt only involve writers but also other production stuff, i wonder how theyre gonna start filming in may or june? Bec that would also be breaking the strike too... like idk how they are going to work around that. But anyway. My estimation is that the strike will at least take 3-4 months at the very least. So like. Yeah. 2025 release seems more likely bc the strike also involves other production staff

i can't lie to you i don't know shit about how american strikes in the entertainment industry work and i was a baby (6) and not american in 2007 but i mean yeah that season 5 is never seeing the light of day i fear

[leofrith]

the final chapter of eivor's story might be an absolute shit show and my worst nightmare for her character but i am being so so brave about it :)

[sweetdreamspootypie]

There's a habitual focus on person's last words.

But a much more relevant question is what are the last comforts and joys that can be squeezed in before an oncoming death

In hospital, it's things that healthy people don't seem to notice much

A flannel wash with really hot water, feels so much better than just a functional wash. It reminds you of hot baths and hot pools.

The taste of a sweet lolly you can suck on without worrying about choking or getting nauseous

The drop of water to wet your tongue, even when you can't drink safely

The feeling of the morphine or midazolam kicking in, and easing the breathlessness

Being repositioned in a way that helps the ache in your back

Your favourite people just being there, listening to them talk and laugh with each other while you rest

The cool cloth and ice block and fan until the fever comes down

Knowing that there's someone there who will come to you

[figuringitoutasigoalong]

One of the older ladies in my Sunday School class stopped me after class and said she was praying for me, and asked how I was doing and I'm not gonna lie--

It meant so much that she had noticed that I'm not myself. That she had noticed that I'm struggling in a silent way that I can't even quite identify.

I don't think she can ever know just how much that means to me, because it just means so much.

[stardustedknuckles]

You know, all of this eye strain and tension headache and migraine stuff ramped up when I finally ran out of my old regular contacts and started using the toric lens my eye doctor prescribed for my left eye. I have my glasses on today because it was getting so bad and my left eye is extremely annoyed with me. I keep feeling like it's refusing to focus until I manually "find" the muscle and force it to. I told her I didn't want astigmatism correction because I have the lowest possible astigmatism you can have and I have never had it compensated for. I didn't think anything of the toric lenses because it was six months before I ran out of regulars (don't ask how long I wear them for all of our sakes, it's way too long because they're fucking expensive) but damn if all this headache and light sensitivity shit didn't start after I gave in and wore the damn toric on my left eye.

And if that's the case it means my glasses are also pretty much non-viable long term because again, she put the astigmatism correction in the left eye and it kind of hurts. The whole point of the glasses was to have a place to relax my eyes away from the contacts, but I haven't yet managed to wear them longer than three days. I just get to feeling lightheaded and strange. I'd go without either but I literally cannot see, so.

[artekai]

Spare Kai angst, anyone? 👉👈

[tofixtheshadows]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.

Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.

Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.

Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.

I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.

He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).

First, we get this:

Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.

They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.

It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.

We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.

What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?

He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.

In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.

Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!

...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.

Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.

And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.

I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.

And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.

Meals are the privilege of the living.

[etoilause]

i wish whatever fucked up shit my trauma put on me was more palatable. i can't talk about most aspects of it because it's so fucking dumb. i wish i was dainty and frail i cried softly about my fucked up childhood instead of being gross. just fucking gross in every single aspect of my being. i wish i could tell them why i was awake at 3am and slept 4 hours that night instead of saying i just kinda struggle with sleep sometimes.