#but also please: no spoilers!!!

[verflares]

just how long is forever? // not long enough, with you

pssst. check this out on inprnt :]

[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.

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[frenchublog]

[humanoidtyphoons]

i'm genuinely so curious to watch modern day star trek, and i hope i'll get proven wrong, bc part of me genuinely thinks star trek is incredibly ill-suited for modern day tv

star trek is not a character driven show. star trek in it's seven seasons barely has character development. the writers barely know how to characterize everyone until they sort of figure it out in season 3, which is also helped by the actors being impeccable.

i wouldn't even say that star trek is a show reliant on characterization or character interplay. i don't think characters grow on the show, they're not quite characters, but i wouldn't say they're symbols either. there's continuity, they reference things from before, but they're also... people who do their job, and don't let personal problems interfere with duty for most part.

there's no real plot. each episode is shoving these characters in a new situation and wondering how they'll react, trying to figure out how they'll try and reflect society today, if there's any issues to be remarked upon. sometimes they don't have a good answer for this problem, and call it a day anyway. but there's no real overarching plotline -- yes, voyager's goal is to try and go home, cut corners, etc, but it's so threadbare; ds9 is maybe closer, but even as sisko bears witness to the cardassian-bajoran aftermath, getting pulled in bc he's chosen by the prophets, we still get 'oh something random exited the wormhole, and i still think there's an air of impersonalness about the day to day life on a station.

and like. listen, i love star trek tos-voy. i am more than happy to dip in and out and watch episodes randomly, bc there doesn't really need to be a 'last time on star trek'. i wouldn't change it for the world.

but watching s1-2 of tng, and like. in modern day? cancelled within five episodes. but i -- i love this weird meandering show, and writers doing bizarre things every five minutes, the stupid low/nonexistent stakes, because that's life on the uss enterprise, baby! hell yeah, lwaxana troi solves the assassin plot last minute, bc sometimes that's just how it goes!

and i'm just curious to watch the newer content one day, bc while i don't think it's going to be bad, just different. i still don't think tv's current format of short seasons, and character drama is necessarily... very star trek compatible.

[spoopyium]

I don't know why but when he said he sampled the water of Qiaoying Village I just imagined him lapping it up on all fours when no one was looking so I doodled this up 💀💀

[heartorbit]

if we could stay connected, just like this

[peteytheparrot]

The Book of Bill is great Bill and Ford get a divorce so Bill goes to a bar, gets drunk, and cries

[eldrtchmn]

I abandon here the flesh of my body

[jay-wasstuff]

The funniest scene in the movie.

[mebis-art-dump]

She is so cool

[morkhan]

That hands post going around just made me realize that there's this incredible thing Iñaki does with his hands as Luffy where he is never content to just touch things. He can never just grab something and let go. He strokes things. He gently runs his fingers across them, like he wants to touch as much of them as possible. And nowhere is this more apparent than with Zoro. Like

Iñaki, why. why would Luffy need to run his fingers along the entire length of Zoro's calf.

why is Luffy stroking Zoro's titty in this incredibly emotional moment

Just. The whole thing.

The only thing I can come up with is that touch is just a Luffy Love Language, with the softest, gentlest touches being reserved for those who are truly special to him.

And no one is more special to him than Zoro.

[egophiliac]

tsum events really are just the best, huh

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 5 - I Finally Finished the 2.2 Main Quest Edition

[Pt. 1] [Pt. 2] [Pt. 3] [Pt. 4] [Pt. 6]

[ghosted-jazz]

Black Mercy

[artist-rat]

some epilogue vibes (an excuse to draw some hugs. and my durge so many times)