#and his haters

[mynnthia]

was talking with a friend about how some of dunmeshi fаndom misunderstands kabru's initial feelings towards laios.

to sum up kabru's situation via a self-contained modernized metaphor:

kabru is like a guy who lost his entire family in a highly traumatic car accident. years later he joins a discord server and takes note of laios, another server member who seems interesting, so they start chatting. then laios reveals his special interest and favorite movie of all time is David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), and invites kabru to go watch a demolition derby with him

[straydogofhv]

[gothicwill]

Upset that no one has talked about how sweet of a character Jayce talis is. Like yes he’s brave and determined and a little bit naive in s1, but he’s also just. Sweet. He likes putting his head on Mel’s lap and getting his hair stroked. He immediately claimed viktor as his partner and equal in front of everybody. He presses his forehead to viktors in their final moments so they can be close. He’s sweet.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Steve Raglan has the wrong FNAF Mike Schmidt…

[lgbtlunaverse]

Fanon likes to portray Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji as being jealous of each other because they fear wei wuxian will choose one of them over the other. Which is ignoring the fact that at least in novel canon Jiang Cheng did not even fucking know wangxian ever got along let alone that lwj was in love with wwx until at the very end of the story (in cql canon he does go through a wangxian phase early on and gets very confused by their "breakup" during wwx's sunshot era) and that Lan Wangji is mostly filled with loathing towards both himself and Jiang Cheng for 'abandoning' Wei Wuxian and not being able to save him.

It also ignores the much bigger point that both Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng are actually jealous of Wen Ning. And why wouldn't they be? That is who Wei Wuxian chose in his first life. He left the Jiang, told Lan Wangji to fuck off no he is not coming to gusu with you, and spent his days with his little-brother-shaped corpse bestie on his mountain in yiling. And then when he came back he immediately called him up the second he could string together more than two notes on a flute. Wen Ning is the real competition. (And he's winning)

[scarymonsters-andsupercreeps]

Meow

Original:

[katsinspats]

Tragic: Guy you based your entire villain backstory on doesn't even remember you

[knifeforkspooncup]

The comedic potential of Aziraphale loving Christmas in theory but hating it in reality, which gives him catholic guilt/bad angel feelings, so he triples down on Christmas spirit to compensate. He's decking the halls like no tomorrow, he's partidging that pear tree, ohhh he's jingling those bells alright and cooing over the love in the air and isn't it wonderful Crowley, the spirit of christmas my dear, i may have done a little miracle and made it snow in Tadfield, Crowley. Meanwhile he's holed himself up in the bookshop like its under seige from guerilla christmas shoppers, he can't seem to get a single cup of cocoa that doesn't have peppermint in it, 4 children this week have poked him in the belly and asked him if he's santa clause, and to top it all off Mr. Brown has asked him to play the role of Gabriel in the Whickber street Nativity Play.

Crowley's in the corner watching the angel's eye get progressively twitchier and using up his entire demonic miracle quota to make sure Aziraphale's cup never empties of blindingly acoholic eggnog.

[somewhereincairparavel]

i will never understand how people have the heart to hate Jason even after they found out that his Ambrosia tastes like fucking sawdust. Ambrosia being tasty is like one single happy thing a demigod can have despite their tragic lives, because it reminds them of the home they once had, but lost. And Jason doesn't even have that, he doesn't even have a home to lose in the first place.

[loriache]

"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.

[duckysprouts]

please read the books for my boy jaime lannister who speedran his character arc when he realized that 99 percent of his problems can be cured with buff girl tiddy

[sabeedraws]

idk how to draw venom and I didn't wanna learn rn, ok. I just wanted to doodle him running around with the baby

[disgracefulthings]

Shang Qinghua: I can't believe Cucumber-Bro and my son had such a small and private wedding. How romantic

Mobei-Jun: Is that what you want for a wedding?

Shang Qinghua: Fuck no! I want it to be huge and with everyone invited so that I can show off to all the haters

Mobei-Jun: And then I can kill them!

Shang Qinghua: That's the spirit!

[mikewheeler]

I will always look after you, Penelope.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Five nights at Springtrap’s is just William Aftons arguing..

[hinamie]

itakugi sillies fr the soul