started playing Persona 5 Royal after finding out i accidentally bought Persona 5 regular (i was already about 4 hours into Persona 5 on merciless and had stopped at the shop where you buy stuff for the first time after the first dungeon when i found this out) instead of Royal and jesus fucking christ, i forgot how slow this game's opening is it's like two hours long before you actually even get into the game, just like an hour of (really well made!) animated scenes and cutscenes with minor (pretty pointless) sections of walking to locations before you even get to the actual school portion, which takes another fucking hour to really get going like, oh my god, this game does not understand what the word pacing means. every scene goes on for like 10 fucking minutes longer than it has to, it's a lot of pointless (attempts at) building intrigue which don't work because you're just being bombarded with them back to back and have no idea what the status quo is for any of it to have really any impact! i know it's like a 100-hour RPG or whatever but good god, just drop me into the school instead with a lore dump and let me PLAY THE FUCKING GAME ALREADY.

like it's truly nonstop, it's just going from establishing one thing after another like oh we're a stylish thief to oh we're fighting monsters to oh we have a friend to oh we were captured by pigs to oh we were betrayed to oh police brutality to oh we have a lawyer(?) to oh we stole someone's heart to oh someone's speaking to us from another realm(?) to oh we're back in time to oh cars keep crashing randomly to oh we were sued by somebody trying to SA someone to oh there's a weird app on my phone that somehow slowed down time to oh we were sent away by the courts and our family to oh we're living above a restaurant to oh we are talking to a guy in a dream who is talking about the world being ruined like it's NON FUCKING STOP. AND THE JOKE IS YOU CAN'T REMOVE ANYTHING WITHOUT A COMPLETE REWRITE OF THE OPENING OR A STRUCTURAL OVERHAUL OR 30 MINUTES OF NONSTOP TUTORIALS OR JUST AN ENDLESSLY LONG PARAGRAPH TYPING ALL THIS LORE OUT INSTEAD OF HAVING CHARACTERS SAY IT. like the casino scene is necessary to introduce you to context sensitive actions and what combat will look like, so you can't start in the interrogation room or start with you getting captured, the interrogation scene room is necessary to establish that it's a flashback and for you to select your name and shit and to establish that you're talking to someone and a lawyer and that you're a famous criminal and to establish that this larger spirit world exists and that your character has amnesia(?), you can't remove the going to the dude's house bc it's necessary to get you acquainted to the map and neighborhood and daily routine, you can't remove the scene with the app bc it becomes a running theme soon, like the opening HAS to be this way bc otherwise you'd overwhelm every player, even ones as diligent as me and as enthusiastic about playing in menus as outside of them, and you have to dole out the story in this way because there's so many concepts they don't expect you to know and that they have to effectively and efficiently introduce to you so that the rest of the game isn't constantly bogged down in pausing every ten seconds (though somehow i get the feeling it still will) to explain shit to you your character should already know like it's maddening bc it HAS to be this way but also it kinda doesn't.

anyway, i did enjoy the new fight in the opening that wasn't there in the original, definitely does a lot for building intrigue and making the identity of the person who apparently turned us in even more suspect since we have more of a connection with one of them because we fight next to her, which makes me think it's almost guaranteed to be that person whenever the reveal happens but anyway. i'm just like really exhausted at how slow this opening is, even though i know why it is this way. and how structurally they are fucking trying their best to be effective and efficient while setting and tone and a mood and an atmosphere instead of just having you read about it in a text box. i kinda can't stand all the vague shit in the dialogue tho, it's too much intrigue building crammed into a very small space and after a point you just start spacing out or ignoring the intrigue bc you know you're not gonna get answers for quite a while.

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.

scott pilgrim and wallace wells being normal about each other compilation

this panel makes me sick and i’ve seen nobody talk about it???

my heart’s breaking.

i just wanted to come here and tell you that - thank you

dramatic eyes. dramatic lips. drama on the cheeks.

sketch

Wait.

WAIT

Were they-

WERE THEY MAKING OUT WHILE ANGEL DUST WAS /SUFFERING/????

general jiyan

A champion's purpose

deadly lair

guys the kiss was so important especially from a narrative and storytelling perspective because it was literally Crowley taking everything that's happened between them, every unsaid intention and every unspoken promise, and making it physical.

He's taking their arrangement and every other bullshit excuse they've ever used to hide how they feel about each other and throwing them out the window to put their feelings into an undeniable physical action that holds a lot of meaning to humans in order to be absolutely sure that Aziraphale knows exactly what he means when he says "we could have been Us." He wants to be absolutely sure that there are no misunderstandings between them and know that Azirphale will be committing to this decision with absolute reassurance that he's been understood and rejected anyway.

he's taking a human action with so much meaning and so much importance, and he's using it as a way to desperately make Aziraphale completely and undeniably aware of what he's stating. No more charades and no more lies or cover-ups. There's no denying this thing between them now, and Crowley did it the human way. Because he and Aziraphale love humanity and it's everything to them in their own ways.

There's a reason we saw a kiss between Crowley and Aziraphale, and not Gabriel and Beelzebub, despite them both being undeniable foils.

and really if you just think about that isn't it so god damned beautiful?

You guys don’t understand…. Amerie never got the letter

Nobody is as excited about the preview as I am. I have paragraphs.

my painting exercise of the month is a study on the different fates of one doomed archival crew. for more behind the scenes content and artist commentary you can subscribe to my patreon or you can donate to my kofi so i can keep creating ♡ full better quality page under the cut

dont mind the weird formatting, we are experimenting!

i can't wait for nadja and the guide to resolve their conflict and have lesbian sex. i mean lesbian sex. sorry i meant have lesbian sex. sorry i

do you know what. i almost don't want a double date. like yes that would be Everything to me and i will treasure it so deeply if that's what we get. but the idea of eddie and marisol going off to their table on the other side of the restaurant but eddie's fixated on buck and tommy. and it's just cutting between eddie being like "buck was being weird right? like that's not just me? he was being weird? do you think he's okay? he's not still feeling guilty about my ankle? i hope nothing's happened with tommy." and marisol's just like 😐 meanwhile buck's like wigging out fully like "shit tommy do you think he knows? not that i mind that he knows! like im really happy to be here with you and im not embarrassed or anything i judt kind of thought id get to tell him on my own terms. you don't think he knows do you? god what if he knows?" and tommy is realising that buck isn't Not in love with eddie, but he's very deeply in love with eddie and just doesn't realise it yet.