#this was just really funny to us

[bacchuschucklefuck]

typical tavern scene

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

I am such a big Werewolf Stan advocate I had to jump on this particular train 🙏 (but I didn't really wanna commit to full line art, you guys understand)

Oh, and you guys aren't gonna believe this, but here's part two 🙌

[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.

[yuck-pfaugh]

      "For a normal swordswoman? To reach the standard of a House cavalier primary? You'd need years. For Nav? Three months—" (here Gideon died briefly of gratification; she revived only due to the rising horror consequent of everything else) "—and she'd be up to the standard of the meanest, most behindhand cavalier alive."

— Gideon the Ninth, p. 53

      "Your cavalier," said the Lady of the Ninth quietly, "drew on my cavalier."       As Gideon died gently of shock, buoyed back to this life only by the weird bruises forming at the top of her spine ...

— Gideon the Ninth, p. 75

      The world rocked, but it was mainly because Harrow was shaking her shoulders.       "Ha-ha," said Gideon, "first time you didn't call me Griddle," and died.

— Gideon the Ninth, p. 228

"Average dyke dies 17 times per year" factoid actually just statistical error. Average dyke dies 0 times per year. Resurrections Nav, who lives on Pluto & dies and comes back to life whenever a woman shows respect for her, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[bet-on-me-13]

Ellie and Raven have a complex relationship

So! This is an AU where Dan is Trigon, and Ellie joined the Teen Titans. It's not really a Story, but I thought it was funny.

...

Robin: I have a Question for the two of you.

Ellie: What's up?

Raven: Hm?

Robin: You guys call eachother Sisters, Cousins, and in one case you called eachother Aunt and Niece. What's your exact relation?

Ellie: Well that's tricky. See, my Dad is the King of the Infinite Realms, and his true name is Danny. Raven's dad is Trigon, but his true name is Dante.

Robin: And are Danny and Dante brothers?

Raven: No, not technically. See, Dante is an Evil Alternate Future Version of Danny, so they are technically the same Person. But then Dante came to the past, got beaten by Danny, and got shoved into a Mortal body for a while.

Ellie: If that was all, they we could just call eachother Sisters or Cousins. Our Dad's are technically the Same Person, but they consider eachother Brothers.

Raven: Except Ellie isn't a normal daughter.

Robin: What? How?

Ellie: I'm technically a Clone if Danny, not his Daughter. So I'm simultaneously Raven's Sister, Cousin, and Parent since I'm a Copy of a version of her Dad, but I could also be considered her Aunt since Danny and I called eachother siblings before we decided I was his Daughter.

Raven: So Ellie is my Sister/Cousin/Aunt/Mom/Dad.

Robin: ...what the hell.

[forgettable-au]

CHAPTER TWO | The Scientific Method

FORGETTABLE-AU (page 73-77)

* His brother is annoying.

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[castielsprostate]

💀

[raggedy-spaceman]

S02E04 The Hitchhicker

[smallpwbbles]

I keep thinking about how badass and cool Puss’s character is but then I see pics of him like this and I’m like omg he’s just a lil meow meow

[swampybogg]

[violent138]

It would be hilarious if Dick (recently dumped) and Jason (perpetually uninterested) were discussing their lack of dating prospects and Tim asks what they're talking about and Dick explains before going, "High five Timmy" and Tim's like "Yeah no thanks, I've got [bitches]." And both Jason and Dick are stunned.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I hope you take this as the compliment it is intended to be, but you strike the same chord of irreverence-as-love, jokes-to-showcase-sencerity that I get from Chuck Tingle, and I adore both of you.

You have bestowed the greatest honour upon me.

[aardvaark]

i like how leverage throws in random details that are never elaborated on. hardison gets himself a front row seat at the oscars each year, but we only see that in a single throwaway flashback. parker broke a guy's fingers for touching her and it wasn't even a plot point, it was just one in a series of memories of stabbings and so forth. eliot continually knows extremely specific information which implies some extremely specific scenarios he's been in. the more we find out about sophie's backstory, the more questions it raises about what the hell is wrong with her. and the more we find out about nate's backstory, the more questions it raises about what the hell is wrong with him.

[adobe-outdesign]

obsessed with this one Ultra Sun 'dex entry

like can you imagine whipping out an Alolan Rattata in the middle of a grocery store so it can pick out food for you Ratatouille style

[tofixtheshadows]

This is one of my favorite minor details in Dungeon Meshi, firstly because what in the femme fatale, but also because it's one of those little things that raises so many questions about worldbuilding.

The Occam's Razor defense attorney in me says that Ryoko Kui gave Kabru a boot knife because she wanted him to escape from his bonds here. And Kabru is a very competent swordsman, why wouldn't he have a boot knife, sure. He's already got a dagger, he can have this too.

And yet: the implications. Kabru, why do you have that? That is not remotely something that could be easily accessed or used in combat. Nobody is pulling out a pen knife from the heel of their boot during a fight with a monster. It's useless in the dungeon ... unless you're the type of person who isn't just worried about monsters.

I've mentioned this before, but I consider one of Kabru's functions in the narrative as being the character who fully brings the idea of human ecosystems into the story. There's a reason why he's always connected to large groups of people (Toshiro's party, the Canaries). He (along with Mr. Tansu, briefly) introduces the reader to the social and political forces working on the dungeon, showing us that none of this is happening in a monster-filled vacuum. His confrontation with the corpse retrievers, who very nearly kill Kabru's party permanently with their reckless murder-for-money scheme, reminds us that monsters are not the only things that prey on humans. Kabru understands the ways the dungeon causes people to put profit over human lives.

We only get hints of it in the story, but like any gold-rush-style economic boom, it's implied that there is a lot of crime and corruption surrounding the dungeon.

So yeah, it really makes me wonder why Kabru keeps a tiny knife in his boot, meant to be carried on him even in situations where he would otherwise be unarmed. Stored exactly in the place where it's easy to reach, even if, for some reason, your hands are tied behind your back.

[uncanny-tranny]

It's honestly frustrating that I've seen non-Russian queer people almost bragging about how they would be illegal in Russia, labeled an extremist or terrorist. Russian queers are in danger, their government has made it clear where it stands, and it's made this effort for the better part of a decade (even longer, perhaps). This will kill people, don't mistake this for a quirky little proclamation from a government, akin to somebody saying the sky is pink. Russian queer people were already expressing their fear, and the least we can do now is express our love for them, and advocate with them.

Russian queer people, I love you. I love you all so much. I am so sorry, I cannot begin to express the grief that I feel, and I hope that you are safe. Words cannot encapsulate how I feel as a non-Russian, and I cannot hope to comprehend how it feels to actually be in this situation.