#for several more hours

[tennessoui]

hi .. ive just reread how to say someone's name like it's just a string of letters for the ... Seventh time i think and. i just. have this visceral reaction to it every time. its genuinely so Terrible how strongly i feel about this fic. its so beautifully written i am in tears every time and i. God

(how to say someone's name like it's just a string of letters)

honestly it's the sadness of going from being so entangled with someone and in love that you're sure you're going to grow with them for the rest of both your lives to hating them and hurting for years, paired with the catharsis of finally unburdening yourself of all the things you've thought about saying since the last time you saw them paired with the freefall that comes when you're forced to confront the fact that they're also human with complicated emotions and fallible logic and just as much hurt and love still after all this time

ending with the bittersweet ache of realizing that you'll never ever be able to get those years back that you missed, but you're going to commit yourself to trying to love them again because you never really stopped and at this point, you're not sure you're capable of it and honestly maybe this time the love will be enough

(it will be)

[dandelion-roots]

yosano-san was supposed to be taking the afternoon off...

[id in alt]

[slyandthefamilybook]

A NON-EXHAUSTIVE BUT NEVERTHELESS EXHAUSTING LIST OF NEO-NAZI AND WHITE SUPREMACIST DOGWHISTLES

since some of y'all apparently need a refresher course. as always, use your judement when deciding if it's a dogwhistle or just innocent usage of a number or symbol

NUMBERS

100% - 100 percent white

109 or 110 - A reference to the 109 countries that have expelled, in whole or in part, their Jewish populations. 110 refers to the hope that more countries will do so, usually specifically the United States. Often posted on its own as a reply, or phrased as a question (e.g. "If you were kicked out of 109 bars it's probably our fault")

1290 - A reference to the Edict of Expulsion of 1290, which expelled the Jewish population of England

13/50 or 13/52 or 13/90 - The supposed statistic that Black Americans make up 13% of the population yet commit 50% or 52% of violent crime, or 90% of interracial violence. Often posted on its own as a reply

14 - The Fourteen Words, a Neo-Nazi slogan

14/23 - A number representing the Southern Brotherhood, an Alabama prison gang

1488 - A combination of the Fourteen Words and Heil Hitler

C18 - Combat 18, a British neo-Nazi group

18 - The letters A (1) and H (8), standing for Adolf Hitler

21-2-12 - The Letters U (21), B (2), and 12 (L), standing for Union, Brotherhood, and Loyalty, the slogan of the Unforgiven, a Florida prison gang

23 - Often thrown up as a hand sign, with two fingers raised on one hand and three fingers raised on the other. Represents the letter W (23), standing for white

271,000 - A reference to the supposed fact that the Red Cross claimed only 271,000 people had been murdered in concentration camps. In reality, that number reported by the Red Cross only came from reports from 13 concentration camps (there were 23 main camps, plus a large number of smaller "satellite" camps)

88 - H (8) H (8), standing for Heil Hitler

9% - A number representing the percentage of the world's population that is white

SYMBOLS

((( ))) - Triple parentheses, or echo. Used by neo-Nazis to call out someone as Jewish

Iron Cross - A German military decoration

Sonnenrad (Sun Wheel)

Reichsadler (Imperial Eagle) - A blocky, art-deco eagle facing to the side. Variants exist, some facing right, some facing left. The Parteiadler (Party Eagle) has a slightly different design. The Reichsadler is usually clutching a wreath with a swastika, although this is sometimes left out to maintain plausible deniability

Totenkopf (Death's Head) - A symbol used by the SS

Wolfsangel (Wolf's Hook) - Used as the insignia of various Wermacht (Nazi Military) divisions

Wolfsangel (horizontal)

Odal Rune - From the Proto-Germanic "Othala" meaning heritage

Algiz Rune - A symbol used by German nationalists

Celtic Cross

"Broken Sun" Cross

Arrow Cross - A Hungarian nationalist party that was active from 1935-1945. The symbol has been re-appropriated by modern neo-Nazis

Valknot

EMOJI

🤑 Greedy Face Emoji - Used to refer to "greedy Jews"

💰 Money Bag Emoji - Used to refer to "greedy Jews"

🥸 Disguised Emoji - Used to refer to Jews because of the enlarged nose

🤥 Lying Emoji - Used to refer to Jews because of the enlarged nose

👃 Nose Emoji - Used to refer to Jews

🙋‍♂️ Raising Hand Emoji - Used for its resemblance to the Sieg Heil salute

✋ Raised Hand Emoji - Used for its resemblance to the Sieg Heil salute

o/ or 0/ - Used for its resemblance to the Sieg Heil salute

🐸 Frog Emoji - A reference to Pepe the Frog, a webcomic charcter co-opted by the alt-right

👌 Okay Symbol Emoji - A hand symbol co-opted by the alt-right. Sometimes said to resemble the letters WP, or White Power

🚪 Door Emoji - Refers to the fact that some of the gas chambers (such as the ones at Auschwitz) had wooden doors, and therefore could not have been airtight enough to contain the Zyklon B gas used to murder prisoners. In reality, many of the wooden doors were either replaced with airtight metal ones, or were made airtight with strips of felt that then deteriorated or were removed

🚿 Showerhead Emoji - Refers to the showerheads used to dispense Zyklon B gas in the gas chambers

⛽ Gas Pump Emoji - Refers to gas chambers

⚡⚡ Double Lightning Emojis - Used for their resemblance to the Siegrune (victory rune) badge worn by members of the SS (Schutzstaffel)

💀 Skull Emoji - Used for its resemblance to the Totenkopf (Death's Head) used by the SS

☠️ Skull and Crossbones Emoji - Used for its resemblance to the Totenkopf (Death's Head) used by the SS

WORDS/PHRASES

6MWE - Six Million Wasn't Enough. A call for further genocide against Jews

AKIA - A Klansman I Am

Annudah Shoah - A mockery of both the Shoah (Holocaust) and the fear of further genocide

Auschwitz had a swimming pool/rec center/maternity ward/etc. - An attempt to diminish the horror of concentration camps by making them seem more like labor camps with amenities

Blood and Honor - A neo-Nazi slogan

Blood and Soil - A neo-Nazi slogan

Blood Libel - Not a phrase used by the far right, but something they often believe in or claim. Blood libel is an antisemitic conspiracy theory stretching back hundreds of years. The original claim was that Jews used the blood of Christian babies to bake matzah (a ritual food eaten on Passover). It has since evolved into images of Jews drinking blood, kidnapping and killing non-Jewish babies, and conspiracy theories about harvesting adrenochrome

Bowlcut - A reference to white supremacist mass-murderer Dylan Roof

Cohencidence - A portmanteau of Cohen (a common Jewish last name) and coincidence. Used to refer to Jewish control (e.g. "All these companies are owned by Jews! What a Cohencidence!")

COORS - "Comerades of Our Racial Struggle"

Cultural Marxism - A conspiracy theory that Jews are intentionally weakening "Western values" in order to make countries like the United States more susceptible to communism. This was called Cultural Bolshevism in Nazi Germany

Da Shoah or Muh Shoah or Muh Holocaust - A mockery of the Holocaust

Day of the Rope - A day referenced in neo-Nazi book The Turner Diaries when all race traitors will be hanged

Degenerate - An insult based on the false theory that bad morals will cause human beings to regress along the path of evolution (to de-evolve). Used to describe groups, individuals, or ideologies

Early Life - A reference to the "Early Life" section of Wikipedia biographies, which will reveal that a person is Jewish or has Jewish ancestry

Every Single Time - Every time something bad happens, the perpetrator is Jewish

Featherwood - A term derived from racist prison subculture. A featherwood is a woman associated with a racist gang

FGRN - For God, Race, and Nation. A Ku Klux Klan slogan

The Fourteen Words - A neo-Nazi slogan. "We must secure the existance of our people and a future for white children"

The Frankfurt School - A school of sociology founded at Goethe University Frankfurt in 1923. Usually blamed as the originator of "Cultural Marxism"

Fren - Internet slang. A diminutive of "friend", used to diminish Naziism and make it seems more harmless. Often used in usernames to describe one's self (e.g. sad_fren_88)

Globalist - A person who desires connection between countries in terms of politics, trade, and travel. Used to scaremonger about Jews destroying countries by removing their borders

Gorillion - A mockery of the number 6 million, being the amount of Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust

Goy - Hebrew for "nation", used by Jews to refer to non-Jews/gentiles. Used disparagingly by neo-Nazis to suggest Jews view non-Jews as beneath them

Goyslop - Unhealthy food that Jews force non-Jews to eat to keep them weak

Groid - A shortening of "Negroid", an archaic terms used to describe Black people

Groyper - A follower of avowed neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes. A reference to the "Groyper" meme, a variant of Pepe the Frog

GSHW - Germany Should Have Won (i.e. won World War II)

GTKRWN - Gas the Kikes; Race War Now

HDKH - Hitler Didn't Kill Himself. A neo-Nazi theory that Hitler escaped Germany and fled to Argentina

John 8:44 - "You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies." Part of Jesus' rebuke of his Jewish followers

Joo or Jooz - An intentional misspelling of "Jews" in an attempt to bypass censors or automatic content filters

Kate Hikes - A spoonerism of "hate kikes"

Kek - 4chan variation of "lol"

Kekistan - A fictional country imagined by white nationalists with a flag that resembles the Nazi battle flag

Khazar - A reference to the conversion of a group of Khazars (a Turkic people) to Judaism. Antisemites speculate that the entirity of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from these Khazar converts, and therefore have no historical, cultural, or genetic tie to the Levant. This has been proven false on multiple occasions

Kike - A racial slur against Jews

Lizard People or Reptilians - A conspiracy theory by far-right figure David Icke, claiming that world leaders are really reptilian aliens. Most people who believe this theory believe that the lizard people in question are the Jews

Magic Soil - A protest against the idea that people of one nationality can become people of another nationality simply by living in a country (i.e. "France doesn't have magic soil that turns Africans into Frenchmen")

Nicker - An intentional misspelling of the N word in an attempt to bypass censors or automatic content filters

Ns - Black people (as in the plural of the letter N)

NSDAP - Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. The Nazi party, but using an acronym that is unfamiliar to most people

NS - National Socialist

Noticer - Someone who "notices" that Jews control the world

The Noticing - A mass movement of people "noticing" that Jews control the world

New World Order - A far-right conspiracy theory about Jews taking control over the world and implementing a single world government. Also used in conjunction with phrases like "world banks"

OFOF - One Front, One Family. Slogan of the neo-Nazi group Volksfront

ORION - Our Race Is Our Nation

Oy Vey - A Yiddish exclamation meaning "oh woe". Used by neo-Nazis to mock Jews

Pattern Recognizer - Someone who has recognized the "pattern" of Jews always being in control

Peckerwood - A term derived from racist prison subculture. A peckerwood is a man associated with a racist gang

Power Level - A memeification of far-right beliefs. The more fascist your beliefs, the higher your "power level"

The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion - A 20th century Russian hoax claiming to be the minutes of meetings between Jewish leaders discussing how they will take control of the world

Pure Blood - Someone who is a pure member of the white race

Rabbi Smolett - A claim that Jews fabricate antisemitic hate crimes (a reference to actor Jussie Smolett who was accused of doing the same)

ROA - Race Over All

The Goyim Know - A phrase used by white supremacists acting like Jews who have discovered white supremacist activity, and are afraid that they've been found out. Often "The Goyim Know, Shut It Down", which adds the idea that Jews will prohibit any conversation that gets too close to the truth

The Red Cross - A reference to the supposed fact that the Red Cross claimed only 271,000 people had been murdered in concentration camps. In reality, that number reported by the Red Cross only came from reports from 13 concentration camps (there were 23 main camps, plus a large number of smaller "satellite" camps)

Tiny Hats or Tiny Hatted People - A reference to the Kippah or Yarmulke often worn by Jewish men

Reject Modernity, Embrace Tradition - A fascist slogan warning against social progress and calling for a return to a prelapsarian (usually ethnocentric) paradise

Rubbing Hands - A reference to an antisemitic charicature called "The Happy Merchant"

"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you're not allowed to criticize" - A quote often misattributed to Voltaire, which neo-Nazis use to decry claims of antisemitism as efforts to silence them. In fact, it's a quote from a neo-Nazi pedophile

Shabbos Goy - A non-Jewish neighbor of a Jew who can be asked to perform acts Jews are forbidden from doing on the Sabbath (e.g. turning of a light or turning on the heat). Used by neo-Nazis to claim someone is a slave to Jews

Sheeeiiit - An over-the-top representation of how "shit" is said with a Blaccent. Often used in memes declaring Black people to be less intelligent

Shekels - Jewish currency (from the Hebrew word for weight, similar to how British currency is called the pound. In reality, the plural of shekel is shkalim). The name has been adopted by the State of Israel for the NIS (New Israeli Shekel). "Shekels" is used by neo-Nazis to mock Jews as being greedy

Synagogue of Satan - An antisemitic term for Jews, stemming from the Chrsitian Bible

They or Them - When used to describe a nebulous group of undefined adversaries, these words almost always refer to Jews

They Cry Out in Pain As They Strike You - An antisemitic proverb claiming that Jews will make false cries of antisemitism while at the same time perpetrating atrocities

Troon - A slur against trans people, particularly trans women

Volk - German for "folk", or "kind". Used by neo-Nazis to refer to white people

We Wuz Kangz - A racist phrase ment to mock Black nationalists

White Genocide - The myth that a group of people (usually Jews) are conspiring to eliminate the white race through various means including immigration, intermarriage, and homosexuality

WP - White Power

WN - White Nationalist or White Nationalism

Wooden Doors - Refers to the fact that some of the gas chambers (such as the ones at Auschwitz) had wooden doors, and therefore could not have been airtight enough to contain the Zyklon B gas used to murder prisoners. In reality, many of the wooden doors were either replaced with airtight metal ones, or were made airtight with strips of felt that then deteriorated or were removed

Zio - An abbreviation of "Zionist". Used derogatorialy by neo-Nazis

WPRWS - 'Weimar Problems Require Weimar Solutions" (sometimes shortened to just "Weimar Problems" or "Weimar Solutions"). Prior to the rise of the Nazi Party, the democratic Weimar Republic was in financial crisis (the eponymous "Weimar Problem"). This was often blamed on the Jews. The "Weimar Solution" is Naziism

ZOG - Zionist Occupied Government, reflecting the belief that the United States government is controlled by Jews

[doydoune]

Hazakura Temple, February

[wiltkingart]

Asche and Vindt from Ocean's Blood by Thelma Mantey

[dailypokemoncrochet]

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 292

“Oh I am blaming all of this on you T,��� one of the beings in the summoning circle groans, burying their corpse-pale head in clawed hands as their white hair flickered. 

“Me? Excuse me, I wasn’t the one to accept the summoning!” another being protested, hood hiding most of their face save for molten-gold eyes and glittering runes or code on dark blue skin. “I was trying to figure out how to convince PK to change our schedule to include more sleeping, so don’t look at me, look at S!” 

“Well I didn’t accept it,” the only girl-sounding one scoffed, her crown of thorns seeming to writhe and bloom in her black hair for a moment. She crossed her arms, narrowing green eyes just a few shades darker than the white-haired one. “Maybe talk to whoever decided to summon us?” 

All of the sudden the cultists and heroes were being peered down at by a trio of… honestly whatever they were, because they didn’t seem to be the “Infinite King” the cult had been attempting to summon. Actually, they kind-of-maybe looked like kids… Which probably meant their parents or caretakers wouldn’t be too pleased. 

[alt255]

every single time Akechi says "you really are (x), Joker" (or something similar) in P5R

In no particular order:

"You really are intriguing. I bet you'd make for a worthwhile debate partner on the subject."

"You really are an intriguing one."

"In any case, you truly are interesting. You never cease to intrigue me."

"I see. So we even share that perspective, do we…? You truly are fascinating."

"*chuckle* You truly are intriguing."

"I'm sorry if I'm prying. You truly are interesting."

"You truly fascinate me. I'll happily accept your gift."

"Haha, you truly are well-composed."

"Hahaha, you truly are intriguing."

"Leading your team this far in search of an infiltration route… You are truly amazing…"

"50,000 coins, hm? …You truly are special, Joker."

"You really are― No, never mind."

"You truly are interesting… Quiet, yet possessing the courage and determination to take action."

"Heh… After all this, that's what you have to say? Seriously, you really are…"

"You really are a strange one. You do realize talking to me is a waste of valuable time, right?"

[toffeebrews]

DRAWINGS FROM MAGMAAAAAA

I'll post everyone else's drawings tmrw 🫡

As of posting you can still draw on it but I'm taking a break lmfao

Killer by rahafwabas

Color by superyoumna

Ink by comyet

Fell by underfella

Papercrane by littlenoko

[emacrow]

When Danny hides his corpses along with Elle and Dan.. those fucking Archaeologists are persistent little shits then shenanigans happens..

He hide them in the Antarctica, where barely any humans goes beside a couple groups of persistent scientists living there and the hidden society of cannibalistic humaniod yetis....

There was no way anyone could find their bodies under 60 feet of snow and frozen millennium ice...

Ancients be damned 4 months later, danny felt a disturbance in his hidden grave only to see History News found 3 preserved corpses perfectly intact in a solid crystallized looking coffin the God damn Antarctica.

Took him a solid 5 days to find the right God forsaken headquarters of those Archaeologists who already send their bodies to gotham...

He about to flip his lid, especially as it was getting to him very badly... by how sleep deprived his ghost side was being to the point that the disturbed.. eldritch part of his very being was slipping a bit..

Then the truck driving with their corpses got stolen by some low grade wanna be villain by the name of 'the penguin'.

Who has his goons trying to break the crystal coffin into pieces with how priceless it beholding.

Danny brought Elle and Dan into this because he doesn't know gotham and three heads work better then one with the search out.

By the time, they actually found the Right fucking Hideout; because how many fucking hideout does a fucking penguin needs.

They were too late by a fucking hour, because of course something had to take their coffin.

Penguins already look arrested and it seem Batman got their coffin, whom had sent it to the Watchtower to get analyzed after they found a heart beating after 40 minutes to the batcave..

Danny wanted to ghost screamed by then...

(Wayyy later in the plot that I'll never finish)

Constantine whom is about to drinking scotch whiskey before it slapped by the ghostly eldritch child who shoving an glowing green smoothie in his hands for the 3rd time.

He look at them with a begrudgingly look who glares back at him with the similar mom glare looks before he sighed and drink the smoothie.

He ain't admitting it taste so much fucking better then his usual whiskey for shit.

Meanwhile Elle is enjoying having a younger halfa to bother even if his core is all types of fucked up and looking worse then a apple that fell off the ugly tree, got shredded by a wood chipper, mashed back together and then peeled off by a potato peeler before stomped on.

[tofixtheshadows]

Hello, op! While I do find your reading of Kabru’s self sacrifice and how little he eats really good, im curious why you consider him the deuteragonist? He is a foil to the protagonist yes, but still a supporting character.

I think its pretty clear Marcille is the second most important character in DM, and her story has much more weight than Kabru’s.

Hello! I've mentioned this on my blog before, but I actually consider Marcille and Kabru to both be deuteragonists to Laios's protagonist. I just wasn't talking about Marcille in that post.

Technically this term is meant to be used in playwriting, and the Greek tradition at that, so I'm playing a little loosey goosey with semantics and my argument would sound different if I were writing an academic paper. But this is tumblr dot edu and I'm trying to get a point across on my little blog, and part of the idea of a deuteragonist is that they support the protagonist. "Secondary main character who has their own importance in the narrative while bolstering the protagonist" works well enough for my purposes.

I think Marcille and Kabru are both playing specific and complementary roles to Laios. Marcille is at his side, facilitating the A plot: namely, "save Falin", which requires Marcille's magic, and then Marcille's method of resurrection ropes Thistle in, so the continuation of "save Falin" necessitates confronting the Dungeon Lord and conquering the dungeon (the B plot).

Kabru only intersects with Laios, but he is tied from the beginning to the B plot- and with dragging basically everyone else into it. Actually, the fact that he brings in this extremely loaded B plot despite only having brief face time with the protagonist should be seen as significant. In a sense, Kabru represents the surface world and all its concerns.

Before I talk about that more, I want to continue with the complementary line of thinking and point out that Kabru and Marcille have very similar background motivations.

Laios wants to save his sister first and foremost, and it's only along the way that he starts to consider what he'd do with the responsibility of Dungeon Lord. Coming to the conclusion that he wants to create a home for disparate peoples to live in harmony has connective tissue to both Kabru and Marcille's desires.

Marcille is the only one in their party who starts out with a greater motivation other than saving Falin (Izutsumi is a special case, but she's ultimately along for the ride), one that she keeps hidden for a long time. Because she is a mage, and because she is driven by a very personal tragedy (my dad died; I am terrified of outliving everyone), she is looking for a miracle to bring the different races closer together.

Kabru comes from a background of personal tragedy as well, but it's also a far greater, more political tragedy than just the death of a parent. It is not a coincidence that Kabru is a brown boy from an exploited region that suffered despite and because of military intervention from a first-world power, nor that he was adopted by a white woman whose coddling/dehumanization of him represents the paternalistic oversight of these world powers.

Thus, Kabru's motivations are both personal and political: if they, the short-lived races, can finally access the secrets of the dungeons, then not only can they have agency in stopping tragedies like Utaya's, but it will also give them a greater power of self-determination.

Marcille and Kabru have both correctly identified and set themselves against a problem that is greater than saving the life of one girl, greater even than sealing this one dungeon.

Despite Marcille's hopes, there is no grand magic solution to this. Only small, slow, backbreaking, ordinary solutions, the kind you labor over in kitchens and bedrooms and throne rooms and meeting houses and hearths and negotiation tables. The kind you run a kingdom with.

There is a reason why Dungeon Meshi ends with Marcille and Kabru on either side of Laios's throne.

Okay: back to Kabru (under the cut).

I've talked about this a little before, but I'll reiterate here: I consider Kabru to be the counterweight to the back half of the story. In a very literal sense too, as he pulls the focus up from the depths to the surface not once, but twice. Dungeon Meshi builds itself on the premise that the traditional "dungeon" must function as an actual ecosystem, and the monsters in it are biological actors in that ecosystem and not merely magical obstacles independent of their environment. The first couple dozen chapters are focused on this. Like regular animals, monsters have needs and instincts and unique behaviors, and they can be killed and consumed as part of a food chain.

And then Kabru comes along and he reminds us that humans are also part of their own special ecosystem, with their own needs and instincts and unique behaviors, and that beyond the biological drive of the literal food chain there are also complex social issues influencing these behaviors (like capitalism). Tansu's visit with the governor introduced us to these ideas, but Kabru is the one who carries them.

The way he and his party break down Laios's party also serves an important function. I think most readers are so busy being shocked that Kabru is "so wrong" about our goofy boy Laios that they don't realize that he isn't actually wrong about anything (he's only missing the context of what drives Laios, which he admits to and is part of the reason why he pursues him). We've gotten only Laios's view of things so far, and Laios is pretty tunnel-visioned. The narrative, through Kabru, is telling the reader this is how our protagonist actually comes across to his community.

We like Laios because we are following his story from his inner circle. We know he's naive and struggles with people but that he has a good heart and is ultimately just a big silly guy who won't harm anybody if he can help it. But we only know that because we're seeing him with his inner circle, in his environment. Outside of the dungeon, Laios is anti-social to the point of rudeness; he misreads situations and misjudges people, he acts in ways that cause friction, and he accidentally aligns himself with people who make his whole enterprise look suspicious: a prominent half-foot community leader, a mysterious foreigner literally surrounded by spies, the disgraced daughter of a criminal who now has to shoulder the burden of her father's reputation, and an elf in a land where there are no elves. And they seem to be very good at what they're doing. Yet this whole time, Laios acts as if he doesn't care about profit or taking the kingdom, the only logical reasons why anyone on the Island would gather up such a party and throw themselves into this death pit day after day.

Yeah of course Kabru finds this suspicious and interesting. Of course people don't know what to make of Laios. This all reiterates the question that Zon the orc already raised: What will you do, Laios, if you defeat the Mad Mage? If you gain control of all of this? Can you be a leader? Laios himself doesn't know yet.

This is all necessary context for our protagonist and the journey he has to go on, and it's fittingly brought up by the most socially adept character, who is so concerned with human ecosystems and the bigger picture of the dungeon. There is a reason why Kabru, as a character, is connected to large webs of people as he moves throughout the narrative: his own party, Toshiro's party, the Canaries, the denizens of the first floor of the dungeon.

Kabru is responsible for bringing Toshiro down to Laios's party. Toshiro is not a big mover and shaker in the story itself, but his confrontation with Laios is a huge part of Laios's character arc. His detour down to the lower levels also allows Izutsumi to escape and join Laios's party later.

We also have this very important moment:

It shows the first inkling- to the audience, to Kabru, and to Laios himself- that Laios is willing to do a painful, necessary thing to protect other people, that he won't just allow them to become collateral for his sister/monsters. That he can listen, and that he can assess a situation beyond his personal feelings. Again, fittingly, big-picture-thinker Kabru is the catalyst for this.

And then, not content to leave him as merely a device for Laios's character growth, the focus slingshots back up to the surface, and we follow Kabru.

The Canaries were going to go into the dungeon soon anyway, and they were always going to stir up the crowd in order to lure Thistle to them. Unless Thistle had given up right then and managed to slip away, the story could have very easily ended here:

Falin, immobilized and surrounded by Canaries, would have certainly been killed, and there would have been no way to ever resurrect her. Thistle would have been neutralized. The dungeon would have been taken by the elves, and anyone they could get their hands on would have been imprisoned at best. And maybe the dungeon would have been managed safely ... or maybe something would have gone wrong, and more lives would have been lost. Remember: the Canaries arrived in Utaya one year before the tragedy.

This is a huge moment that changes Laios's life forever, and he doesn't even know it. Kabru single-handedly keeps the story on course by sabotaging the Canaries, and he does it not just for Laios's sake, but for everyone's sake. For his friends and companions in the dungeon and everyone else outside it. Laios is a part of his motivation, a key player in Kabru's hopes, but Kabru has his own desires, his own agenda. He's trying to change the world. In a way, he succeeds. And while the Canaries might wish it were otherwise, as an entity in the narrative they are always anchored to Kabru's character. The two forces collide because of Kabru. The unsealing of the Winged Lion and Marcille's emergency ascension to Dungeon Lord happen indirectly because of Kabru.

While I have talked so much already that I don't want to give a detailed breakdown of it, I do want to mention Kabru's unique interiority as a character. That is to say: we see the inside of Kabru's head more than anyone else. Every character in the main ensemble gets their own moments of inner monologues or fifteen minutes in the limelight, but for Kabru, it's constant. He's always thinking, talking, narrating. His POV chapters always stand out for how first-person they feel compared to most others.

Notably, the only other character I could compare that to is Marcille, specifically during the dungeon rabbit debacle and her ascension afterward, which is when she really takes center stage as a character.

I hope I've explained my reasoning without becoming too insufferable.

To cap off my thoughts with a nod to my original post, I cannot stress enough how significant it is, thematically, that Kabru's relationship with food is the inverse of Laios's. It isn't just that Laios is the main character in a story about cooking monsters and Kabru happens to be his monster-hating foil. The artistic choice to deny the reader the visual of this character ever enjoying food, and only ever putting it in his mouth in situations where it hurts him, in a manga that gives so much attention to eating and the pleasures of meals, cannot be understated.

[kaarijatits]

Depressed babygirl 🥺

[teamhangaround]

Having fun with your psycho boyfriend

[ameliadoesstuff]

good morning Ninjago tumblr community

[palossssssand]

your honor they love eachother so much

[jakeperalta]

(this isn't a question about the best p&p adaptation ever, it is simply which you prefer OUT OF THESE TWO OPTIONS since they are the two most commonly talked about and compared!!)