I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.
Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.
Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.
Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.
I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.
He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).
First, we get this:
Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.
They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.
It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.
We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.
What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?
He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.
In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.
Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!
...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.
Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.
And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.
I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.
And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.
Meals are the privilege of the living.
15K notes
·
View notes
frankly, the people whose kneejerk reaction to bisan asking for a global strike form the 21st-28th is to say that it takes years to organize a general strike are really unhelpful! no one is saying otherwise, but palestine will be a smoking crater if we all wait for years to do anything - bisan is asking us to do something now. Like are we only supposed to do something if we can do it perfectly??? At some point it’s a valid critique about the work that goes into social movement, and at another point I feel like some people are just trying to absolve themselves from not putting any effort into observing a week of economic inaction.
like idk! I get it, okay! People have bills to pay that don’t magically go away for a strike, we don’t have nearly enough social infrastructure in place to support people to fully stop going to work for a week. But fuck, dude! Stop immediately responding in such a defeatist way! Cut out unnecessary purchases! Try to shop local! Put more effort into promoting Palestinian voices online! Attend a protest, call a local rep, do something!
18K notes
·
View notes
Cannot overstate how much that spongebob scene that went
Somsone: "spongebob you look like a girl"
Spongebob: "am I a pretty girl?"
Like was such a legit game changer for me as a kid
I remember that family and grownups and other kids at school would tell me in a sort of mean-spirited way "you look/sound/act/dress/talk like a boy" and I'd just be like
"Am I a pretty boy?"
There were other unexpected things that came from that long-term I think but that'sprobably where it started being fun
34K notes
·
View notes
it drives me bonkers the way people don't know how to read classic books in context anymore. i just read a review of the picture of dorian gray that said "it pains me that the homosexual subtext is just that, a subtext, rather than a fully explored part of the narrative." and now i fully want to put my head through a table. first of all, we are so lucky in the 21st century to have an entire category of books that are able to loudly and lovingly declare their queerness that we've become blind to the idea that queerness can exist in a different language than our contemporary mode of communication. second it IS a fully explored part of the narrative! dorian gray IS a textually queer story, even removed from the context of its writing. it's the story of toxic queer relationships and attraction and dangerous scandals and the intertwining of late 19th century "uranianism" and misogyny. second of all, i'm sorry that oscar wilde didn't include 15k words of graphic gay sex with ao3-style tags in his 1890 novel that was literally used to convict him of indecent behaviour. get well soon, i guess...
71K notes
·
View notes
the thing about having been really broke. averaging $500 a month in a good year broke. using a gamestop credit card i shouldn't have qualified for to buy taco bell gift cards for food broke. is that i am SO bad with money. i have a degree in accounting and i am so bad with money. i do not think of myself as superstitious at all but money feels so cursed. not in a spiritual way, i mean literally. practically.
having 'too much' money feels so bad. money is a thing you spend as soon as you get it because it's so cursed. the more it is the more cursed it is. i save too much money and bad things will happen that cost all my money. money is a thing that summons expenses. if i have no money and the car breaks down i find a way to make it work. i scrounge and resell and pass the hat and talk to my mom's friend's friend who knows a guy and in the end i'm so relieved to be right back where i started. but if i were saving my money for a new computer and then the car broke down, the money is just gone. i spent the money i saved for a thing i wanted on a thing i needed instead and after all that hoping i'm right back where i started.
i get a windfall and i set the money aside because if i'm careful that's enough to pay for gas for months. but then i need to pay for heat and i apply for assistance and they look at my bank account and see i have money and now they won't help pay for heat. soon it's just a habit. i get the money and i spend the money. immediately, as soon as possible, get this money away from me. don't even save enough for cigarettes. i can find money for cigarettes, somehow i can always find money for cigarettes. cigarette money is a weird magical fake money i summon from dark corners whenever i run out of cigarettes. i don't know how it works either. i've tried to summon the cigarette money for things that aren't cigarettes and it never works. just get this out of my bank account. get it out of here before something notices there's money here.
anyway i'm working on it but god it's hard
5K notes
·
View notes