#preambles

[pearsandrust]

mydei having a library is absolutely heartbreaking symbolism. it's a running gag that the kremnoan language doesn't have many words; there's no word for flee, no word for fear, even no word for love. i know the library was his family's, but still -- it is such a distinct symbol of how mydei wants to break kremnoan tradition. how he openly rejects the idea that violence is the only valid form of communication. how he always dismisses the baseless rumours surrounding his abilities, proving that he values truth over glory. we see mydei try to talk his people into reason. we see him apologize to tribbie for being rude. we even see him (begrudgingly) admit to phainon that he knows how to interpret poetry. time and time again, mydei chooses language -- and truth -- over violence. so when he invites phainon to visit his library in the next life, he's not just expressing hope -- he's asking phainon to remember him by what he really believes in. even if i become the avatar of strife, he's saying, even if you have to kill me one day -- in the next life, please see me as the person i've tried to become.

mydei knows the power of a name, perhaps because his language has so few of them. and that makes it doubly ironic that he personally has so many titles: son of gorgo. the patricidal crown prince. kingslayer. godslayer. the undying. but as krateros points out, the name he prefers is the one he uses with the chrysos heirs. and although mydei doesn't talk much, all his actions seem to say the same thing.

remember me as mydei, not mydeimos.

[cali]

👩‍🚒👩‍🏭🏛️

building an antifire triplewitch

[atimefordragons]

I think they should've kissed. Listen, I love Solavellan, I do, but my canon inquisitor is Trevelyan, and these two match freaks. Bitch to bitch communication, I love that insane shit.

[lesbianslugreaction]

Once again I am thinking about how Javert should absolutely be included in the musical's finale. I know some smaller productions have done this, but the bigger ones need to step their game up. I mean, if goddamn Britain's Got Talent can get Javert singing in the finale, so should every other show, too!

Not having him there just goes so against the theme of redemption. Oh, Javert doesn't go heaven? I guess people can't change, after all. Oh, suicide is a sin that people go to hell for? Don't even get me started on that catholic garbage. By that logic, Valjean probably shouldn't be there, either...

It doesn't even have to be a big thing, just let my cringe blorbo sing the song in the background like the rest of the characters. He and Valjean could share a nod, a handshake, a hug, you name it!

Though actually, they should kiss. Who said that

[iguanodont]

My other long-term ttrpg character, known to most as Snuffy. He’s a sickly, foul mouthed halfling with a penchant for abusing alcohol as readily as magic. I’ve cameoed him in a previous post, showing the moment he made a pact with a corrupted mountain god; a desperate bid to save his skin after failing to out-crime the local mob. That moment was eight years before present, and though he did get the ability to cast out of the deal, his declining health and steep tributes to his patron has been ebbing his will to live ever since. He’s also the comic relief of the party, and still has enough of a knack for moneymaking schemes to keep up with the material tributes demanded by the cow from hell.

And here’s his old family portrait. He hasn’t seen any of them in a long time.

[flintmirandas]

love how much of the beginning of dracula is just jonathan harker's food blog

[existwound]

to breathe in this mirage 

M | 52k | Completed | Keith/Lance

Chapter 4 Summary:

The warm glow of the red morning suns on Xrixa frames them in its light, glinting on their armor and their smiles, and Keith has his hair in a tiny ponytail at the nape of his neck, and Lance is slowly bleeding out right where he stands. It feels terrifyingly, viscerally real. He didn’t even know that this type of pain existed. He’s been shot before, he knows what that feels like, knows how it feels to have flesh and muscle and bone give way to an unyielding bullet, to a flash of light. And he might actually bleed out here, with his eyes glued to Keith. And all it took for him to experience this kind of pain was to feel all-encompassing, brazen love, and to have just that ripped away from him, have him plunge into a fall that he doesn’t know he’ll ever get up from if he manages to hit the ground at some point. All his life, Lance has loved too fiercely, fallen too hard and too deeply. And now, loving Keith is no exception.

or: the one where Lance unwillingly takes one for the team and wakes up ten years in the future. 

[supernormalblogname]

the venomful biter.. theyre putting them both in gay people jail for this. and also theyre putting me in there as well

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

Fenris and Anders dynamic is best when it's not taken too seriously. It wasn't thought through well at all (something the devs have admitted to) and so building it into an all defining characterization for either of them engenders mischaracterizations. In my headcanon Fenris and Anders use each other as a whipping post to lance their wounds and it's something they'll eventually grow past. I personally like how honest they are with each other sometimes, neither feel like they need to sand down their edges with the other and it can lead to these hauntingly sincere moments.

A romantic relationship between them during DA2's timeline, though, has only two extremes from my interpretation. I could see them sleeping together with no forethought, a release of tension (as Fenris does do with a rival mage Hawke), and then that spiralling into a very tumultuous romance. If I'm remembering right these are characters who say things like 'there's no place you could go where I wouldn't follow' and 'I'll drown the world in blood to keep you safe'. All that intensity turned on each other... They're two sides of the same coin and both sides are blinkered and passionate. At their best they'd join forces and work through their issues to become this badass force of nature with a singular purpose— tearing down systems of oppression together. At their worst they could destroy Thedas and each other. I can appreciate how epic that potential story would be but I can also understand wanting both characters to find more peace than they're likely to find in each other.

No, my DA2 enemies-to-lovers ship is Aveline and Isabela. It wouldn't work and it's not epic but it is hot.

[silhouetteofacedar]

Halves

One of many little moments on a long journey.

AO3

The views along Washington State’s Cascade Loop are breathtaking, according to the brochures from the stand in the lobby of their motel in Chelan. Just past the pseudo-Bavarian enclave that is Leavenworth, Highway 2 hugs the curves of the Wenatchee River through Tumwater Canyon. The scenic byway is tucked between the churning waters and dramatic, towering crags of quartz crested with pines. It’s early spring, and the mountains slowly shake off their winter coats to reveal fresh leaves on the aspens and the first blooms of trillium creeping along the ground. 

Dana Scully sees none of this.

It’s an unfortunate aspect of their work as federal agents; thousands of miles traversed across the continental United States, untold hours spent in anonymous rental vehicles with mysterious odors and pilling upholstery. She knew when she joined the Bureau three years ago that the travel involved would be less than glamorous, but there’s something particularly demoralizing about viewing America the Beautiful solely through a windshield splattered with insect carcasses. 

Scully always falls asleep on long car rides; lulled into slumber by the hum of the engine, the murmur of tires on asphalt, the fact that Mulder sometimes stops talking long enough for her to drop off. She wonders if it’s because his jaw gets tired; in the relatively short time they’ve worked together she’s never known him to run out of things to say.

Her sleep thins on the edges as Mulder wakes her with a soft brush of his knuckle on the tip of her nose. She hears him say they’re still a few hours away from the Seattle field office, but he’s hungry and his long grasshopper legs need a stretch. 

Scully hums in assent, eyelids still heavy as she rearranges herself into a more upright position in the passenger seat. They’ve arrived at one of those proverbial wide spots in the road that bears a “Welcome To” sign, as though that gives it a sense of place when it boasts little more than a gas pump and a convenience store. 

Apparently, this place is called Cole’s Corner, and a hand-painted banner next to a particularly stubborn melting snow berm says there are world-famous milkshakes up ahead. 

Mulder pulls into the gravel parking lot outside what looks like a small house with pink and teal trim. A neon sign advertising banana pancakes hangs in the window.

Scully is hungry and groggy from her nap in the car, her hips and legs stiff from sitting too long.

She gathers her coat around her and slips out of the sedan, the scent of wet pine and moss filling her nose. Droplets of mist bead the shoulders of her coat, clinging to the wool. She can feel her hair creeping into fuzzy curls at the nape of her neck, coaxed into a frizz by the damp Pacific Northwest air. It’s been about a year since they were first in this part of the country together, tearing through waist-high ferns in the dark cedar groves of Bellefleur, hands outstretched. That first case together felt like a rebirth, wherein she shed her old self like her red bathrobe in candlelight in front of her strange new partner. The rich scent of damp earth and rotting logs filled her lungs as she was baptized by the cold Oregon rain, forever changed.

Heavy droplets begin to fall, and she pulls her collar tighter as they ascend the steps to the diner’s front door.

The restaurant is small but warm, every inch of the walls covered in 1950s pop culture memorabilia. A jukebox plays Buddy Holly in the corner; an Elvis-shaped clock swings its pendulum legs in time. Something greasy and heavenly is sizzling in the kitchen, the aroma pulling her in. Scully smiles softly; leave it to Mulder to stumble upon the kitschiest restaurant in the entire state of Washington.

They settle into a small corner booth with sticky grey vinyl seats. They create an odd picture at the table in the midst of hikers in denim and windbreakers; two figures of dramatically different heights draped in layers of dark fabric, heads inclined towards each other with an intimacy that can’t be easily explained. They’ve composed this images together countless times in greasy spoons across the country, travel-weary and disoriented by differing time zones. Sometimes they talk; occasionally they argue. Often they get mistaken for a couple, which irks Scully primarily because she mistakes them for one too. It’s unconscious; Mulder’s warm, firm hand on the small of her back sends messages to her weary brain that her body frequently assigns to the Boyfriend category.

Mulder has that effect on her often. He bursts through barriers, occupying space that had previously only been inhabited by intimate partners. He crams himself into her psyche, poking through neatly filed expectations and burrowing into her soul, creating his own uniquely shaped spot in her being. 

She tries not to think about it; tries not to notice his full lower lip, the charming mole on his right cheek, the way he leans in too close when he talks to her. How he curves over her, his warm voice in her ear. At the office, she feels alert and well-armed against her physical reactions, can easily take her thoughts captive before they get away from her. But when she’s drowsy, far from home, hungry, those base feelings rise faster than she can tamp them back down. He makes her feel small in the best ways and she’s in danger of losing herself in the cover of his wingspan. 

She needs caffeine.

All the waitresses at this establishment have the same name tag; hot pink with the name “Flo” etched into the plastic. A cheery, bespectacled young Flo with blond braids takes their orders, pours cups of too-strong coffee. Scully chooses a BLT, light on the mayo. Mulder orders a grilled cheese sandwich with ham and tomatoes and a cup of chicken and rice soup. 

Scully gazes out the fogging window, slowly warming and wakening in the cozy bustle of the diner. Johnny Cash sings of a ring of fire. Plates clatter in the kitchen, a spoon clinks in a chipped coffee mug. Raindrops fall.

Silence feels more friendly these days, a comfortable pause filling what little space remains between her and Mulder. Words have become only one of the many ways in which they communicate. Their hands carry on their own conversation as the waitress brings their plates; understanding and collaboration in the simple passing of a napkin or nudging the salt across the table.

Mulder picks up a half of his sandwich, toasted a golden brown and cut neatly at a diagonal. “You want a bite?” he asks, holding it out across the speckled formica tabletop, and Scully realizes that it’s the first thing he’s said aloud directly to her since they got out of the car. She hesitates, then leans forward and takes a small, crisp bite out of the corner. Their knees brush momentarily, and she sits back in the booth and considers the flavors of butter and melted cheddar on her tongue.

“Good, huh?” Mulder asks, taking a bite himself. “My dad made them this way, but not on a griddle. Open-faced in the broiler so the tomatoes could get browned.”

Scully nods, stirring her coffee and blowing on it gently. “I haven’t had a grilled cheese in years,” she muses. “It’s the perfect rainy day food.”

“We can trade halves, if you want,” he suggests.

A small smile creeps across Scully’s mouth. Her Mulder has a delightful boyish streak that she pretends not to find appealing. “Race you to the playground afterward?” she jokes. Regardless, she picks up a half of her BLT and places it on his plate, taking the remaining half of his grilled cheese. 

He flashes her a brief, dazzling smile before taking another bite of his sandwich. Scully feels her cheeks warming slightly and turns her attention to her lunch. A full Mulder smile, with bright eyes and teeth, is almost too much for her to bear. A dart of sunlight spearing through a sky blanketed with soft gray clouds. 

Maybe someday she’ll tell him how he makes her feel, how sometimes her heart tumbles in her chest at the sight of him. How his most annoying moments are simultaneously the most endearing, how she’s beginning to love him just a little in spite of herself.

Maybe he already knows.

But for now they’ll just trade portions of their lunches, pass the ketchup, pool the crumpled bills in their wallets when the check comes. Travel in silence as they drive over Steven’s Pass, the view ahead blotted by low-hanging clouds.

[funforahermit]

TOO DAMN ADORABLE I CAN'T STAND IT

[patreon]

[atimefordragons]

everyone is obsessing over the honda odyssey scene and the trouple, and like, I get it, but I'm obsessed with Logan and Laura. Like, this is not her Logan, and as far we know, he doesn't personally know the Laura of his world (let alone if she even existed by the time deadpool pulls him into earth-10005), and he did get most of his aggression out by the time they met, but I'm obsessed with how quickly he fell into family mode with her. His behaviour is immediately very different with her compared to everyone else, he does push her away when she sits down to have a chat, but only dismisses her once, and rather politely at that, especially compared to how he keeps swearing at everyone else and telling them they're fucked. And he then shuts up and listens when she tells him to. Plus it's her who motivated him to get in the damn car and do some hero shit. And the way he used his whole ass trauma against Cassandra, as much as I love poolverine, bestie did not give Logan the juice to use THAT as a tactic. she even showed up in his motivation, save the world montage sequence, and he spent at most a few hours with her! This guy saw his mini-me and immediately went, I'm a dad now I guess, fuck.

[cock-guillotine]

[fumifooms]

Do you think Kui retconned Kabru and Rin as a couple? It seems so strange how Kabru treats her if he views her as a sister

Rin & Kabru relationship analysis

Skip to the keep reading cut if you only want my Kabru & Rin thoughts. Tldr of the preamble is that I don't think Kui retconned anything but I don't think Kabru and Rin were ever meant to end up as a couple, but that doesn't mean that there's no way anything deeper or more complex is happening here. Under the keep reading is my pretty full analysis of Rin & Kabru, which I'll still cover in my full Kabru party analysis eventually.

1) People do debate about wether or not Kui changed her approach to a lot of her characters halfway through the story, Kabru, Thistle and Chilchuck to name the biggest ones. I've heard it be an explanation for the shapeshifters even, that it's a meta joke on how characters' old behavior and appearances have now become out of character. I personally believe nothing has been retconned, that all the characters are coherent and, perhaps more importantly, that regardless of later intent the early writing makes the characters more interesting and layered. Not that the idea of there being or needing retcons has no merit at all, for example forest goblins are in-world common knowledge to be found on the second floor, but we also learn later that goblins is a slur against half-foots, and knowing Dunmeshi's philosophy about humanoid monsters it's odd that they never ever come up again if they exist. The anime -and iirc adventurer's bible- kept there being goblins on the second floor of the dungeon, so much like Thistle's early appearance I have to believe it's a part of canon that's not meant to be retconned, ie that's canon and accepted as such, with some degree of intent. We do know that the climax of the manga was going to happen differently with what Kui was planning in the earlier manga days, with demon king dunlord Laios, too. Regardless of all this, for better or worse we hae what we have now and we must take it all into account as the whole picture of the work's story, world and cast- starting to pick and choose what's actually canon from the canon story is just giving up and letting the world burn lol.

2) Kui is fearless when it comes to presenting us with complex layered relationships without feeling the need to explain themselves or offering full closure. Marcille canonically sees Falin as a friend. Laios' succubus was undebatably Marcille. Mickbell sees Kuro as family. Were the touden parents bad parents? Is Maizuru? Is Milsiril? Ambiguity in Dunmeshi's case is a feature and not a bug, and perhaps this short story of Kui's shows why she prefers not to cast moral judgement as a narrator on various acts and characters. There's this very neutral approach to her writing where the cast does its own thing and she just tells us what happens, and as I said closure isn't a given. I've talked about the matter of wether or not Chilchuck's wife accepts him back before, something that bothers and lingers for a lot of readers, but an example that haunts me is Mickbell and Kuro. It's explicitly stated that Mickbell continues to "still being worked hard by Mickbell" after canon, and though we have one hint of how it might get better with Kuro learning common slowly but surely, there's no 1) conclusions as to what their relationship is exactly and 2) discouraging or encouraging framing for it, there's chiding but ultimately wether the relationship is more healthy than it is unhealthy and more salvageable than unsalvageable and worth it isn't answered. What happens will happen, and we just have to come to an answer that satisfies us on our own :') Or hey, how Falin only starts finding herself at the post-canon! It offers a nice end to her arc in canon of having a very malleable unpresent identity, but it starts another of self-exploration growth that is left open-ended. So, it's not because a relationship feels wrong or unfinished that it wasn't well-written or intended.

3) Kui doesn't lie but characters can. Characters can be unaware of things or even wrong, even with their own feelings, like Chilchuck saying he doesn't care about the party etc etc, or more widely Marcille thinking orcs are scum, or people at large in Dunmeshi believing in a modified truth of history, a version of it without the demon. These can be wrong objectively, but furthermore they can be disproved by the text, the way that Dunmeshi shows us orcs can be communicated with and peaceful etc etc and every character's racism ends up narratively or implicitly discouraged and disproven, kobolds included. The story is told by us through the characters and their actions, so it's their flawed perspective and incomplete information we have.

So, okay. Relationships are very complex but Kui doesn't tell lies, there's no info or moments that really have been retconned. The reader is left to make their own interpretation of canon.

... OKAY LAST TANGENT but we have to acknowledge something about canon quick too: This is gonna sounds ironic considering what I said earlier but while all extras are made to be in-character they're not all canon to the storyline, so to speak. There are sort of three types of extra comics context I can think of, there are comics set in pre or post canon, like one about the way Marcille was welcomed into Laios' party, or Falin's answer to Toshiro's proposal, which we have no reason to not believed happened in the canon timeline. Daydream Hours extras are exceptions because they're usually looser than Adventurer's bible extras, for example the comic about Milsiril visiting Kabru has a "what if" phrasing to the blurb. Then there are extras set vaguely in time that if during canon could simply happen off-screen, like Chilchuck's extra about hearing the party members going to the bathroom, a lot of monster tidbits also fit into this, which again I have no reason to assume hasn't happened. But now we get to the last type, the one set at a precise moment in canon that is impossible. My go-to example is the tidbit about werewolves, it's set during the Laios vs Lycion fight with Kabru present, and those chapters in the story had quite tight plotting, it makes no sense to consider that extra within the reality of that moment, it breaks the tone and story continuity and timespan of the scene, it can't be canon to the canon storyline. This is to say that again, although in every extra the lore is correct and characters are in-character, some extras are not "canon" to the story's timeline and can't have happened. And since it happened with one extra, that didn't have anybdisclaimer of being different than any other, it does put other extras' canonity into question a bit too. Ultimately, what we get in the actual manga is above everything else in both relevance and credibility. This is about extra comics, but I don't call into question all the extra info through text we get in character blurbs and about the Dunmeshi world within the Adventurer's Bible at all, especially since it was spexifically made to inform us more about canon. This is all just something to keep in mind, when talking about Dunmeshi canon.

Okay, now. In terms of rin & Kabru's relationship, as for what we see of it...

The quickest summary of how they see each other:

Rin's line reflects how she follows him out of worry, thinking that his ambitious manipulating ways will fail him and get him in trouble eventually, and how that worry is out of care and love. Kabru's line... Is more ambiguous, but we'll get into it.

We don't see Kabru and Rin interact a ton, but we do see her bring her up or think of her unprompted this time, which reveals a bit of how he sees her/feels about her and what his priorities are.

He "wants to help her get away somehow", and this out of what? Duty? Charity? Care? The companionship they once shared? Sympathy, knowing how it feels like to be under inadequate care by elves? Kabru is empathetic and wants good for people, cares about people and community, is rather concerned by the greater good instead of individualistic gain etc etc, so this attention isn't necessarily uncharacteristic on its own.

What makes their bond unique is the history between them.

It's implied they spent a lot of time together growing up, which led to Rin wanting to stick with him. Perhaps as some trauma-fueled-bond hero, but in her own words mostly because she's worried he'll get into trouble if he's left alone. She expicitly loves him romantically, started presumably before canon and presumably hasn't stopped by the end of it either.

We see his priorities here. It's notable that besides Rin being the sort of by default second most important kabru party character, she's also the one he thinks of first, understandably since he knows her best. Like above, he speaks very matter-of-factly and coldly about it though, and he seems surprisingly apathetic. It's not the thought of hostages that drives him to eat those monsters and keep strong, it's the thought of learning the mystery of dungeons and how to prevent Utaya tragedies

This moment below may seem like nothing, but it's also pretty telling of their dynamic:

Rin in the moment negatively assumes he's only frivolously interested in Namari, and although Kabru doesn't shut it down instantly with a "this isn't about personal interest" he does imply clearly with "friends" that his intent isn't to woo her (the fantranslation uses the word lovers instead iirc, so the original japanese word might be more revealing. Considering how Kabru sometimes teases Rin and provokes her jealousy on purpose like with the mermaids, it's not impossible the word was an euphemism). Rin ambiguously disbelieves this and/or disapproves. It does feel like Kabru keeps this sort of persona air when answering her, so it's not entirely hard to understand- it's true he was keeping his real reasons and intent secret: only later on does he give his party the "Laios party" spiel and mention Namari was part of it.

This can also be seen as an example of the chaperone "big sister" effect of her nagging, and of her recurring bad faith towards him. Rin chastises Kabru for behavior and stances that are understandable, like telling him he shouldn't just smile and gloss things over when being belittled, but she does have the habit of being easily jealous and lashing out because of it. But again, if you see it from her stance, your childhood friend always thinks he an handle everything alone and acts like he has the fate of the world resting solely on his shoulders, and he keeps shutting you out and leaving you to guess for his intentions, and being someone under his leadership on top of a friend makes this more alarming and frustrating. Loving him as you do, knowing him for as long as you have, you'd wish Kabru was open with you and that'd create frustration.

Yet despite everything there's trust here. There's familiarity and a degree of comfort, even when Kabru always refuses to fully open up. A promise from Kabru means something to her, it's worth something, she does trust his word and morals even when she knows he can be dishonest. She's used to Kabru, and through thick and thin she wants to be there to support him in his goals and look after him.

But below, his priorities are reaffirmed. He literally pushes her out of his way in that first page, to get to laios who represents his goals, and then figuratively by brushing her off. I think it's very interesting that the look her gives her feels alike to the look he gives Laios shortly before, those sort of empty eyes. They make me think it's his mask-on "business mode" look, and when it's a matter of business things have gotten serious and he will not entertain irrelevant matters. Like Rin's feelings. My first instinct's always been that his look at her meant a resounding "shut up", but it's true it could also easily be a "come on, catch up", especially since he goes on to explain that they mustn't have meant harm in the first place.

It's not only the look that's cold though, because you'll remember, "catching the culprits" was the promise Kabru made to her, the one she trusted that made her agree to their party's plan at all in the first place. Even though the phrasing wasn't precise on that front, by giving up on confronting or punishing Laios' party at all he's breaking his promise, and doing so very dismissively.

It's the distance of it, in how cold he is to her, how distant from him and pushed away by him she feels. It seems to say that yes, the teases he does are meaningless bones he throws at her, the moments they share are below him and below his goals, this is what's important to him and this is how Kabru wants to treat her when push comes to shove. With harsh chiding of his own and then calm explanations, as if while she's heartfelt with him he's indifferent with her.

Although, like how in the end he doesn't want to kill Laios despite it being the safe choice, there's much to say on wether or not he would actually throw her under the bus in the end even if cornered. He always steels himself for the worst, but he's also more talk than bite when it comes to truly being effortlessly ruthless and he prefers to find peaceful and humane solutions. In the end though, the hostage situation more or less tips the scale both ways, even if it'd be easy to say he was simply hiding his concern.

Okay and now to quicken things up this is where I start dividing interpretations as "good faith" as in believing Kabru's explanation that he has a strictly sisterly attachment to her, vs "bad faith" where there is potential for considering romantic interest on his end.

To start with the least questionable:

"We're talking about how cute your smile is, Rin." Good faith: He's complimenting his friend, wants her to not feel insecure, wants her to feel more confident and likeable desirable, because he's nice or because he cares about her. It does make her happy in the end, after all. Knowing it would, he might even have said it just to demonstrate his point to Mickbell with her reaction. Bad faith: You know she likes you, isn't this weird to go out of your way to say? He's not lying exactly, but they were moreso talking about her attitude around smiling, and he could just as easily have deflected or said "Oh, nothing much". Bringing up her appearance or how cute she is could also have made her self-conscious, she's not really the kind that likes public attention- but he knows her the best and it shows, after all. In the end, it doesn't sound like something you'd just tell someone you know pines after you that you want to turn down or discourage from pursuing you.

"When she furrows her brows, I assume she's smiling inside" is also weird to me. Sure she does have this weird situation with emoting going on, but claiming Rin is never angry is factually wrong and always dismissing that anger feels belittling. But this approach to reading Rin and interacting with her would explain why he always teases her, I suppose.

But this is kinda what I mean when I say they are close, in a way, the way he knows how she is with smiling, the way he's comfortable saying things like this to her despite not being someone you just have to interact with occasionally. There IS familiarity there IS intimacy, it's just odd and inconsistently applied.

Kissing her: Good faith: This is an urgent dangerous situation and kissing her is the quickest and most direct way to shut her up, which in his situation he does not have the luxury of time or ressources to think through solutions better. We don't fully know the details of incantation magic's workings, had he slapped his hand over her mouth maybe her lips could have continued moving and chanting so she could have still finished her spell, compared to kissing where it stop both lip movement and sounds from coming out. Plus, kissing her has the added effect of heavily shocking her. In a 'what if' bluray bonus comic Kabru's party faces shapeshifters and he suggests everyone get naked as a quick solution, so it is implied there too that physical intimacy and privacy aren't something he puts above practicality. Bad faith: Gag her. Hell, shove your finger down her throat. 'Master of human anatomy and psychology' here decided he had no other choice than kissing her. In that 'what if' extra I mentioned, Kabru did find another much less practical way to deal with the shapeshifters and went through with that instead, knowing no one would be happy getting naked. Also "It's too bad she looks like a monster", hello what? Neutral: Perhaps he chose, because either way in any case he did choose to, to kiss her precisely because he's mr. master of psychology, because knowing it was Rin he decided kissing was the best approach specifically because it's her, knowing it'd shock her etc etc, regardless of it being tactful or not or if it'd hurt her or even encourage her love for him.

"It's too bad she looks like a monster." Good faith: It's a neutral enough statement that he could mean a couple of different things with it, including wishing he could see her reaction better or speak with her more easily. If we go with the "I wish I wasn't kissing her as a fishman" angle, well, he really hates monsters to a traumatized degree so pseudoincest may be preferrable over monsterfucking. Fair enough. Bad faith: The fantranslation translates it as "it's a shame" instead of "it's too bad", which does lend itself to a less neutral reading, but wether that's reliable and telling or not would depend on the original japanese sentence of course. He could have meant "I wish she looked like anything else but a monster", but "I wish she (at least?) looked like herself when I kissed her" is the most direct interpretation, and then, well. That's pretty damning. To me it sort of feels odd that'd have been the phrasing if that was the case, especially since Kabru especially has noticeable reactions to monsters like shaking, horrified faces and dramatic thoughts. This is his internal thoughts and "Too bad she looks like a monster" feels very casual- the same type of casual that he has when deflecting not being interested in Namari to Rin, aka him being more playful. "I wish she looked like herself when I had to kiss her", like man. Okay. There's a lot of leeway you can give him but it's still odd.

Good faith: ??? I do struggle with this one. A friend of mine has the interpretation that this is an epic own of sorts, that by "always like this" Kabru meant "unable for me to hear you" so he likes not hearing what she says. Reardless, wether his assumption is accurate or not, Kabru is taunting/teasing when he says "look at me, not the mermaids", to what could have very well been just Rin noticing his staring and telling him to focus, and "You'd be cute if you were always like this", and like always he's very casual as he does it, says it like it's nothing, so it could mean nothing deeper. Bad faith: Why do you have to say any of this, what do you think it accomplishes, this counts as flirting in most books. It doesn't make her mood better, it doesn't shut her up, so I can only imagine Kabru simply enjoys doing this, it entertains him for one reason or another. Why do you keep calling her cute why is this a pattern that is forming. Neutral: Presumably, Rin is also unable to hear him since they all wear the earplugs. This would mean that beyond his gesturing, his words aren't meant for her to actually hear.

So.

My honest reaction:

Kabru what is this............. Huh. Kabru. What do you mean

The issue

It's less intimidating when analyzing each piece of interaction one by one to slowly form a wider picture, but it's still quite the puzzle. Because ultimately, what he feels for her aside, he is both pushing her away and encouraging her crush on him. He is both keeping her out and leading her on. He is both trying to keep a distance and throwing her bones to latch onto. And huh. Why though.

He's too socially savvy not to know Rin likes him right? Right? He even teases her about being jealous. He has to. He hassss to. And then obviously he has no intent of reciprocating. Especially since he's a huge flirt with anyone and Rin makes it clear she feels jealous.

Then, it feels kinda cruel...? You don't have to flirt, or taunt her because you know she likes you, and blow her off like that without ever having a serious talk. And like I said, shove your finger in there instead of kissing her. Did he do it because he prefers her being kissed over her puking? Was it out of pity? Throwing her crumbs of attention? Is him wanting her out of the elves' grasp just pity? Is it soooo easy for Kabru to tease her and kiss her despite having no feelings of his own, borderline mocking how deeply she loes him and what it means to her? Is doing all this "for her sake" too, like bringing her along was? Just. Free Rin. Free Rin of this.

In the end, what side of "does Kabru like Rin or not" you fall on pretty much depends on wether you favor a consistent "good faith" reading or a consistent "bad faith" reading, which impression you got while reading. But I hope I was able to show that both sides have reasons to think it and both are coherent interpretations of canon, neither are just being dense or difficult for the sake of it. A Kabru interpretation differs almost person to person. Personally I think the ambiguity itself is telling, which is why I usually land with a weird ambiguous situationship characterisation with them, they're a third secret thing and Kabru's feelings for her are complicated imo. He doesn't love her but he doesn't not love her etc. Dungeon Meshi largely lets the reader come up with their own interpretations of details, Kui herself said interpreting characters however is readers' freedom, and the story also avoids romance in general.

Although, there's debate as to wether he even leads her on at all, and personally I think it's pretty undeniable regardless of his intent, if anything even just going by effect.

All I can safely say is that this is not the behavior of someone smartly turning someone down.

Potential 'why's

BUT you could almost say he's purposefully trying to hurt her by being jokingly flirty and casual about it all, which could be to push her away and discourage her from pursuing him, wether it be for her sake or his own. It is a ship post, but I explore this stance a bit in my previous kabrin post if you're interested and unafraid of shippy brainstorming.

Or, inversely, maybe to him leading her on is a way to spare her feelings. Maybe he feels guilty about her liking him, or maybe he feels like he has to repay her somehow. Where his behavior when teasing her in early canon is rather provoking, most often I'd call his demeanor towards her placating if anything. We do see that Kabru prefers letting people down easy, except when shit is serious in the dungeon I guess, and he tries not to rattle people.

Personally, my favorite niche reading is I think it's his way of avoiding confrontation. He doesn't want to lose her, so he gives her just enough hope to hold onto so she'll keep following him, unknowing that Rin follows him out of a sense of duty of her own rather than romantic hope, because he always underestimates people's like of him like Laios does, assumes that people like him less than they seem because even when they do it's a version of him that's tailored to be likable. So he does this to keep the status quo going and keep her interested without having to reciprocate or commit.

I do think he also takes her for granted a bit. "Whenever she frowns I imagine it's a smile instead" what are you talking about. Like I said earlier, it feels weirdly dismissive and belittling to treat her anger as if it was something else, even assuming it to be joy- and there's merit to calling the anger Rin often shows a misdirected feeling, because yes, it's out of worry and care and love and she has a hard time emoting outside of a harsh-seeming scope etc, but is this what's going on here? His words leave me equally intrigued and concerned.

And like, her caring anger coupled by her nagging and scolding and looking after him unconditionally, I'm sure she does frustrate him sometimes and makes her feel stifled especially with his background at Milsiril's, making the big sister comparison understandable... ... BUT THEN WHY LEAD HER ON.

What he could feel

Okay so first of. "She sort of feels like how it'd be like to have a big sister" and "I see her as a sister, i strictly see her as if we shared family ties and she was the blood of my blood" are different. Kabru being like "Man, I wished she looked like herself when I had to kiss her" does not feel like a brother-sister thing to me, personally.

But hey, going with the opposite angle too- "She's like a sister to me" can be an easy shorthand to say "I care about you but i don't see you romantically or sexually at all" and it can be "you are deeply important to me and our bond would remain no matter the distance or time we are apart" and even "I can't imagine my life without you (no romo)". In many languages like french, the word soulmate instead literally translates as 'sister soul', as in a twin soul etc etc- a husband and a wife too are family. This is to say that both familial love and romantic love can run very deep, with a similar intensity just in a different nature, platonic or romantic. Kabru doesn't necessarily feel very strongly towards Rin even with the sister angle, but what i'm saying is that if it isn't just a catchphrase to let Rin down easy, wether something he would tell Rin or just something he tells himself, then it's not entirely out of the question Kabru would mix up the nature of that affection he feels for her. Maybe being childhood friends, he thinks it makes sense for it to be what he feels for her. I don't think this is necessarily farfetched because we see that Kabru neglects his own needs heavily for the sake of his goals, he doesn't recognizes or acknowledges his needs for social connections or things like sleeping, cooking and keeping his living quarters orderly. I think it's in character for him to dismiss outright that he could be in love with someone, and even for him to suppress it, because he can't let anything be more important to him than preventing more Utaya tragedies. If you subscribe to the idea that Kabru wanted to be Laios' friend at the back of his mind, this is in line with that.

Regardless of the "truth"/intent, I agree Kabru treating 'his sister' Rin the way he did in canon is really mega major weirdo of him though.

He sees her as a sister, or he believes he does. With a romantic angle, it could mean: Denial, repression, having a bond that feels as deep and immutable. Leading her on because: wanting her near but still pushing her away, being interested and scared to admit it, thinking he shouldn't let himself have this, not interested but still wanting the safety net of her.

Again with my own interpretation, I think he loves her the way one loves a safety net. What I and others may mean when we say that we think Kabru doesn't love her but he also doesn't not love her. I think this is why he's both taking her for granted and caring, dismissive and considerate, her "brother figure" but also the guy who will flirt with her without a second thought. A safety net the way one is comforted by a big sister mayhaps, who's disapproving yet always unconditionally there to help. But family and comfort are so closely tied together, it's unsurprising they get entangled sometimes, a lot of behaviors can be seen as both romantic and familial and it's just a matter of the facts and perspective because in the end what they are both is loving- and canonically, Rin loves Kabru romantically and Kabru cares for Rin like a sister.

Conclusion

I've said before that I think you can call them each other's best friend and that that's sad, and I stand by it. I think it's easy to argue that Rin is the one who knows Kabru best currently in his life, and the reverse is true for Kabru knowing Rin best. It's lonely, for both of them I think, Rin's kind of tough love is not working for him and Kabru is not filling Rin's emotional needs.

The reason why Kabru might feel like he has to get Rin out of the elves' grasp is because she has no one else, at least no one else that was deemed important enough to have been referred to or implied at all. And Rin calls him out for his shallow behavior and his unhealthy habits. They're close enough and weirding others around them enough that people like Mickbell notice when they heatedly do their song and dance and argue but hey, this is just another monday, and how Mickbell asumes she cleans his place up for him because that's what intuitively makes the most sense- it's the first thought, the most intuitive. Rin would do anything for Kabru and devotes herself to helping him, after all.

Reminder that this is the guy we're talking about:

I think her concern is worried tbh, he doesn't know what a DUST CLOTH is and he's pretty unhealthy, forgetting to eat and drinking to go to sleep, overworking himself. He'd easily work himself into an early grave. He neglects himself. I've said before in my Kuro x Kabru post that I think Kabru focuses so much on the bigger picture and saving the world that he forgets that he himself is important too, that he's truly special to some people, that he's even some people's hero, not just the world's, and I think to a degree it's good that Kabru has someone there to ground him and scold him when he's being thoughtless or overthinking, to try to show him that he's loved and valued, in her own way which he claims to understand so well like he does her smiles.

Kabru's a character where fan interpretations especially differ, he's hard to read when it comes to the details, so his relationship with Rin is very much a grey zone, especially when trying to precisely pin it down. I think though that it is a mistake to say that Rin isn't special to him in some shape or form.

I talk about human connections as a big theme of Dunmeshi sometimes, as this thing everyone needs but may deny themselves or deny that they do need and want, and Kabru and Rin are part of that theme, to me.

Post-canon, Rin and Kabru continue to see each other, presumably semi-regularly, which is an implication from an extra that we don't get with the other Kabru party members. They stay in touch, because what tied them together was never work but a personal tie.

This ask took long af to write up but it's gonna make my Kabru party analysis easier later yay. Little preview of the chart i made.

I'll remind that Mickbell and Kuro's relationship is also stated to be of a familial nature. Contradictions aren't always mistakes, people are made of them! Just like how ambiguity can be a narrative tool, complexity and dissonance can be a feature and not a bug.

[unpretty]

[see-arcane]

So you're implying you're gonna show what Jonathan was doing while Dracula was sailing all July?

Yup. Harker will be a full novel of nothing but Jonathan Harker's side of the Dracula story. Not first person POV, but a semi-limited third person from start to finish (with flints of background in-between). Which includes just what kind of survival/supernatural horrors he got up to after Spider-Manning his ass out of the castle.

As an aside, I am currently at...

...and we still haven't met the Weird Sisters yet.

I am here to put some goddang meat on my good friend Jonathan Harker's narrative bones after 126+ years of being sidelined and bastardized by every writer and filmmaker to ever bullshit a spinoff out of the book HE opened and closed. If that means giving him a cinderblock's worth of Horrors to chip through (while becoming the Horrors) so be it.