I constantly think abt the fursona ass roomate laios posts every few days. I also love to mentally apply it to my own ocs LMFAO!!!! it makes me giggle during work like a witch brewing potions

sjjgjvb thats so cutes.. thank you, im really glad so many people liked it

I think one of the things Dungeon Meshi is definitely about is how different people deal with being an outsider/marginalised/neurodivergent/what have you and basically what im getting at is that Kabru is TEXTBOOK "high functioning [insert diagnosis here]". Its that how they say it still? Don't care.

Basically. This man shows up and you listens to him talk and see how his party treats him and you think. Oh this is a cool guy who has his shit together. And then after like two pages you find out that he has constant flashbacks to Utaya that make him completely freeze, anxiety attacks, thought spirals, is incapable of analyzing his own feelings, is a stuttering mess when the stakes are high, has never done a chore in his life, keeps putting himself in triggering situations and re-traumatising himself, and the icing on the cake is when you read the extra material and it turns out he regularly forgets to eat and lives in a depression nest of dirty clothes and self-medicates insomnia with alcohol and also is 22. Which also kind of puts Misilril not wanting to let him go in another light - yeah for sure she's controlling and infantilising and also its not like she was really helping his issues but also she was not entirely wrong in her judgement. This man does NOT know how to take care of himself. He knows how to do the bare minimum so when he shows up at work the next day he can fool his coworkers into thinking hes got it together enough. For a bit.

He is DEEPLY unwell and he knows it but he is carried by the desperate wish to avoid another catastrophe. If he stops for a moment he KNOWS he'll collapse so he doesn't.

I also think this is why him acting nurse to Mithrun is such an important part of his arc. Its like. This person who has spent all of his adult life focused on a single objective disregarding everything else is faced with what happens when you do that for too long. And the result is a wet tissue of a creature who looks like he doesn't know where he is most of the time.

He is a man on the brink. I have no doubt he felt relieved when he decided he could trust Laios - not even in a Labru way, straight up because he knew he could not keep going like this.

But also like. Of all the characters in the manga, I think Senshi and Kabru are the most lonely ones. Except Senshi seems to be OK with solitude - for sure it's not entirely healthy to be alone for as long as he was but he definitely did well enough. He is very good at taking care of himself. Meanwhile Kabru *knows* a lot of people but can you really say he has friends? Rin, maybe, arguably, but even she does not seem to truly know him, you know? He keeps himself hidden from everyone. I think the only time we see him entirely honest is when he says to Laios that he wanted to be his friend, and hes so shocked when it comes out, you can tell he did not mean to say it. And differently from Senshi, he does NOT fare well alone. He likes people, he needs people. Again compare with Mithrun - he has like a squad of people taking care of him. If Kabru had a breakdown of that size can you say his party would go out of its way to help? Im not sure. Not because they're bad people, but because he's simply not that intimate with any of them.

Idk man it just struck me all of a sudden. Laios is weird and offputting and doesn't care about other humans the way Kabru does and YET he is infinitely more successful at building deep, meaningful relationships and taking care of himself as well. I think this is part of why Kabru is so fascinated with him as well. He can tell Laios has something he doesn't have. Wait this is turning into a whole another post I'll write this next time.

I've just started reading Dungeon Meshi and I had to share some context for a Japanese-culture joke that I actually got for once!

When I was in college, there was a little independent theater that mostly showed foreign & independent films, plus midnight cult classics, monster movie Mondays, and a monthly? amateur short film festival that was also a gong show*. I didn't make near enough use of this theater and I regret that to this day, but one of the movies I did see there on a Monster Movie Monday was Matango.

Spoilers for Matango below, if it wasn't obvious.

Matango (1963) is a Japanese monster movie by director Ishiro Honda, who you're most likely to know as the director of Godzilla (1954). Matango is generally considered his darkest film. Also, weirdly, I've heard a rumor it might be a major inspiration for Gilligan's Island? And I can kinda see it?

Anyway, it's about a group of people who are shipwrecked on an island full of radioactive fungus. Everybody's pretty leery about eating them, because the shipwreckees found an older shipwreck, including a ship's log from its (now-absent) survivors saying the mushrooms cause hallucinations - but they're running low on food so eventually some of them say y'know what, fuck it.

The mushrooms turn out to be not only hallucinogenic, but also addictive and infectious - you can tell how long someone's been eating mushrooms based on their level of mushroom disfigurement. The mushroom eaters hunt down the holdouts and force them to eat the mushrooms too. Only one dude escapes the island, and in the last shot of the film we see - dun dun DUN! - even though he got away without eating any mushrooms, he still got infected and is turning into a mushroom person.

So the implication is that the travelogue guy ate from a Matango-style walking mushroom, and got transformed into one himself for his trouble. And because it's a funny side page instead of main comic continuity, Marcille understands the implication and is freaked out by this.

What's funnier to me, though, is Laios's nonchalance. You just know that if he understood the cultural reference, he would be fucking drooling at the thought of a monster he could both eat and turn into.

Dumb asides about that independent theater's film festival below the cut.

* The Gong Show was a 70s TV talent show where if someone's act sucked, they'd ring a big gong to cut them off. In the case of this short film festival, there was a 2 or 3 minute grace period, after which one of the organizers shone a light on the gong. Once the light was on the gong, the audience was allowed and indeed encouraged to shout "gong!" if they weren't enjoying the current film; if there was enough shouting, the host would ring the gong and the film would be cut off. From a creator's perspective I imagine this must have been humiliating; but from an audience and I suppose business perspective, it was crucial to keeping the event fun and well-attended. Very few people would have paid 5 bucks to spend their Friday night screening a bunch of poorly-paced, masturbatory student films. Instead, the threat of the gong encouraged locals to make short funny videos that would have done numbers on Tiktok if it had been around at the time. (An example I still remember 15 years later: shots of someone's hands assembling a cheese sandwich while Duel of the Fates plays. Cut to show the guy throwing the sandwich into the air, just as the music is climaxing. The guy is in jedi robes, activates his lightsaber, and swings at the sandwich. Cut to the sandwich falling back onto the plate, cut in half, grilled from the slice out. The guy picks up one of the halves and takes a bite. End of film.)

I only saw the audience not be ruthless about gonging a boring film once. An out-of-towner entered a short about a woman losing her child during the Holocaust. Not depicting an actual series of events, you understand - just symbolic shots of stars of david and swastikas and a woman and her child frolicking in a field and then DRAMATIC SLOW-MO on a shot of her spinning around and then gasp! The clothes are empty!

During the intro (every entrant gave one before their film was shown), she mentioned that it had won some other local film festivals, but she didn't think it was going to play as well here. I get the impression she hadn't realized this was a festival attended by normal-ass people, and was rather embarrassed about how poorly hers was going to go over. But, nobody wanted to be the first one to boo a film about the Holocaust, and so everyone patiently waited through her maudlin piece of crap film. (When your film is already dragging, for the love of god, don't add slo-mo .)

D V and Z for the ask game? :D

under the cut bc idk if this counts as ship hate and it got really long

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

hika ag... (not putting the eng ship name for search reasons) i already knew the devs were gonna push them the moment i saw the crossed paths illust released but ultimately it felt disappointing to me in the game orz i already don't like the feeling when a certain ship is being pushed if they aren't going to go the whole mile and make it canon but in a game like octopath where the protags have such minimal interaction i don't like that it feels like these two got special attention (they have the most banters together tied with thro/oche) and yet their interactions aren't.... interesting....! some of hikari's story banters with her literally feel like he could be talking to a random npc instead and the things hikari says in agnea's story ring very hollow to me 😞 given like the fact that they both lost their mothers, illusts show hikari dancing with her or playing the flute (even the lyre in a concept art draft), it's disappointing to me that their ingame banters don't touch on this at all... complained about their crossed paths story another time but honestly for all this complaining i don't hate them i just feel very disappointed and sort of like they wasted their interactions together ngrhg

V - Which character do you relate to most?

KINDA dungeon meshi spoilers... completely off topic from what i usually talk about but i like marcille's character arc and her goals arising from her fear of being left behind. i'm gonna keep things vague since dunmeshi just got an anime and is getting bigger and also since i don't want to go too deep into why i relate to her but stories about learning to value the time you have with friends while knowing it will end one day (frieren is another obvious one) are very close to me

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go!

sorry when you say ramble i think it will always be complaining-adjacent with me but after playing agnea ch3 with english voices i got so surprised at the difference between eng and jp giselle that i got compelled to make a comparison of it and it JUST... makes me so sad that certain chars will be more likely to be overlooked or overshadowed, even liked/disliked depending on localization efforts o<-< i know it's unrealistic to ask people to play in multiple languages bc that isn't feasible for everybody but honestly it's jarring sometimes how different certain characters or scenes can come off as... i struggle with interacting in fandom spaces bc i don't always agree with english localizing efforts (and i get it, it really is a difficult job and by no means do i think they did a BAD job at it most of the time) but because so many people who will interact with my posts have only been exposed to that version, i'll feel very... alienated?? by some interpretations that i see. but i mean ultimately interpretation is more subjective and i think localization only nudges you to one side or another, so i still just do the same as i would do otherwise and find people whose content i enjoy... that was a lot of rambling but did you know that in hikari's ch2 banter with castti the english changed his lines quite a bit ?? i've already talked about how i think eng hikari is more expressive in his voice acting but i think it's something that was present in the text first and i... AM VERY MIXED about it bc i do think it works Really nicely in certain scenes, but i still like how restrained jp hikari sounds because i think it suits him more... anyway this is just a small snippet of the kind of thing i think about when looking at localization like in the end it's just Different versions, i guess i do look at the original jp version as more accurate to the creators' intentions but i think having an "official" interpretation in english can be nice and valuable in its own right.. if i didn't think so i just wouldn't play these games in english at all lmao (by comparison i don't play korean games in english bc at least the ones i've gotten into don't have great localizations so i don't think it adds much merit)

crying the last one is so long but you asked me to ramble 😭 LMAO... but ty for leaving an ask!

alphabet asks

What’d you think of edgerunners?

It’s really late, I’m in bed, and I can’t word right now so I'll keep it short

Cyberpunk is my favorite show that Studio Trigger has worked on. 

Promare and Edgerunners have revitalized my faith in Trigger. Promare, to me, was a return to form and a return to hype for Trigger; the kind of stuff that I’ve been waiting for Imaishi to direct for years. I’m aware Promare was extremely hit or miss with many people (as trigger works are) but if you sat through that movie in theaters and came out of it hating it and not being able to enjoy the silly. Then we probably wouldn’t be able to watch and enjoy movies together tbh. Shame there are blogs that I respect the opinion of on here that trashed the movie through and through when they watched it but miss me with that negativity and Ebert & Roeper shit. Trigger has known tropes that they love to do and Promare felt to me like a celebration of those tropes rather than a fallback. Sometimes it’s okay if hype makes right you know? Movie was almost like a love letter to those who grew up during the years of ttgl. 

Cyberpunk on the otherhand was something so grounded and densely fucking packed with narrative. My honeymoon period with the show has ended and I still think about how well executed it all was. A show that I would otherwise never expect to be pulled off by Trigger and also the kind of storytelling that I now crave more from Trigger. I’d love to see some more mature, serious, and structured storylines from Imaishi and co. in the future that’s very aware of what it’s trying to be but also not trying to do too much. Imo, and it sucks to say this but Trigger has put out and been involved with a lot of fucking garbage shows. Edgerunners being good for ME as a viewer felt fucking cathartic. I’m not fucking delusional for continuing to get excited for when Trigger announces projects their working on. It’s not just a company that has been on a slow decline after Gurren Lagann with some peaks within the valleys. They can very much still make amazing shows. Dungeon Meshi is going to be so fucking goated from what I’ve seen them do with Cyberpunk. Trigger when they’re given actual direction and great characters to work with is an absolute pleasure  to watch.

I’m aware that not everybody vibed with Edgerunners tho and that’s okay. Its a short series. Its not exactly a feel good story. Its not perfect, I can find flaws if someone asks me to. Its Imaishi but not allowed to go all out and under close collaboration with a completely different company with a different style of storytelling. It’s in collab with a game and company that is incredibly popular to hate. Its also unfortunately plagued with negative public stigma from those that can’t separate the controversies of CDPR from the show itself. Idk where I’m going with this. I’m not nearly as defensive with Edgerunners as I was with Promare but it doesn’t mean I like it any less. I guess I just wanted to say it’s okay if you don’t like it or get the appeal of the show as long as I’m not attacked for liking the show.

I got super off track but yeah I liked it. And I didn’t even get into the story or characters in this ask.

So far...

In May, I paid my old pal from Ragnarok Online a visit after being friends for 15 years!! It was also my first time visiting Portland, OR. We had a great time! I’ll see you again soon...

Finished reading Golden Kamuy and went through many emotions... I’m very happy that my faves got appropriate closure. Noda did a fantastic job. Right after that, I picked up Dungeon Meshi which I also really like! I caught up within a few weeks of intense reading. Happy that they’re finally getting an anime by Trigger - what an honor!

A highlight of these past few months was the discovery of excellent anime. Occasionally, we find a series that we really enjoy, but I wanted to LOVE something. This was the beginning of my dive into the golden era of OVAs.

There was a lot of experimental, high quality animation during the 80s... I was allured by the potential of finding something amazing amidst a lot of really weird stuff.

I finished a handful of unique series and films before getting caught on a certain one. This, my friends, was Captain Harlock. I knew about the series some years ago but Harlock looked a little too ~edgy~ for my taste so I made the mistake of judging him before getting to know him. Turns out he’s actually just a flashy space dad, befriending other space dads, adopting space kids, and teaching them space lessons, while fighting for space freedom. Its bittersweet and hopeful tone struck the right chords with me which gave it a place among my all-time favorites.

Picked up Xenosaga, an old PS2 series from my HS days. Every few years I replay Episode III. For me it’s a comfort game. It has all the things I like in a jrpg: turn based strategy, mecha, switchable party members, and great music. I’ve never gotten my hands on the first two games, but thanks to a cool friend, the entire series is finally mine this year! Imagine only playing the third game... yeah I had many questions.

Naturally, I am a Xenoblade fan as well. I haven’t gotten the third game yet (very jealous of those who have). Once my brother finishes it, I am next!

Freelance illustration in the wedding business picked up for me so that keeps me busy on weekends on top of my normal job on weekdays. I’m doing okay. It’s busy but not so much that I’m dying. Funny enough, it was due to the long hours glued to my desk that I... sort of got into Yugioh duel monsters from my childhood again?? I like to put videos on while I’m painting and YGO is really great at describing what is going on so I don’t have to look up. I mean, they literally call out every attack LMAO.

My friends are YGO fans as well. Their enthusiasm rubbed off on me since we’re all watching Zexal together. It’s pretty good though I’m only a quarter of the way there. It’s like a close cousin to DM. :)

NGL, I do feel pretty insane for jumping from one fandom to the next every few months. But Moldy, how are you supposed to develop a following if you keep dragging your people everywhere?? I guess I’ll just die? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Idk how other people keep their special interest for so long. It’s just not for me. When I get interested in something, I put all my passion and emotions into it like a raging fire and then it just burns out after a while. I’m trying to see if it yields some interesting results in regards to my art style. They say you shouldn’t try for a style, just let it develop, but I do think goals are healthy. My goal is to evolve with a retro twist as my art journey goes on!

Another subject I wanted to address is my struggle with selling my art. It just makes me squirm since I worry about what might happen to my work if I keep trying to sell stuff. It obviously helps in the money department! I’m just afraid that my work will lose its soul if I turn it into a commodity. It’s silly cuz everyone does it. Surely, they can’t be mutually exclusive: making great content and making great sales. Occasionally, I do get inspired to make a merch item specifically so that can be a positive outlook, right? I will mull over this for another couple months. :\

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Plant Saga

Tried caring for strawberries (in a strawberry planter, so meta). I managed to harvest a few funky berries so far! They weren’t that sweet... not yet.

New plant! Repede the African Violet.

New plant! A red geranium, named after my beloved Harlock.

Hubert the Monstera is so big now!

New plant! Canna, unnamed for now.

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Finished Watching... ◆◇◇ lacking ◆◆◇ enjoyable ◆◆◆ i’ll watch it 4 times

Lupin III: - Part 6 ◆◆◇ - The Columbus Files ◆◆◇ - The Fuma Conspiracy ◆◆◆ - Farewell to Nostradamus ◆◇◇ - Goodbye Partner ◆◆◇ - Alcatraz Connection ◆◆◇ - Dead or Alive ◆◆◇ - The Secret of Twilight Gemini ◆◆◇ - Crisis in Tokyo ◆◆◇ - The Elusiveness of the Fog ◆◆◇ - Voyage to Danger ◆◆◇ - The Bloodspray of Goemon Ishikawa ◆◆◇ - Legend of the Gold of Babylon ◆◇◇ - Blood Seal of the Eternal Mermaid ◆◆◆ - The Hemingway Papers ◆◆◇ - From Siberia with Love ◆◇◇ - Castle of Cagliostro ◆◆◇ - Nusumareta Lupin: Copy Cat wa Manatsu no Cho ◆◆◇

Retro Anime: Bubblegum Crisis (80s OVA) ◆◆◆ Bubblegum Crash (80s OVA) ◆◆◆ *RG Veda (80s OVA) ◆◆◇ They Were Eleven (80s Film) ◆◆◆ Record of Lodoss War (90s OVA) ◆◆◇ Battle Angel Alita (80s OVA) ◆◆◇ Space Adventure Cobra (80s Film) ◆◆◇ Kimagure Orange Road ◆◆◇ Kimagure Orange Road: I Want to Return to That Day (80s Film) ◆◆◇ Wicked City (80s Film) ◆◇◇ Project A-Ko (80s Film) ◆◆◇ Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000s Film) ◆◆◇ Night on the Galactic Railroad (80s Film) ◆◆◇ Zeta Gundam (for the 5th time) ◆◆◆ Captain Harlock/Leijiverse: - Arcadia of my Youth (80s Film) ◆◆◆ - Arcadia of my Youth: Endless Orbit SSX ◆◆◆ - Harlock Saga (90s OVA) ◆◇◇ - Space Pirate Captain Harlock I (70s Film Compilation) ◆◆◇ - Space Pirate Captain Harlock (CG Film) ◆◇◇ --- WELL the man himself looked stunning!! The plot was less stunning! - Galaxy Express 999 (70s Film) ◆◆◆ - Adieu Galaxy Express 999 (80s Film) ◆◆◆ - Queen Emeraldas (90s OVA) ◆◆◇ - Maetel Legend (2000s OVA) ◆◆◇ - Gun Frontier ◆◇◇ - Captain Harlock: Endless Odyssey ◆◆◇ Demon Slayer: - Season 1 (Vietnamese Dub) ◆◆◇ ---my third time watching... the Viet dub was excellent. - Mugen Train Arc ◆◆◇ - Entertainment District Arc ◆◆◆ --- watched it twice. one in JP and one in EN. waiting for the Viet dub...

Others: Samurai Flamenco ◆◆◇ Encanto ◆◆◇ Shang-Chi ◆◆◇ Kotaro Lives Alone ◆◆◇ The Bad Guys ◆◆◇ Gundam: Doan’s Island ◆◆◇ SPY x FAM S1 ◆◆◇ Haikyuu S3 ◆◆◆ Haikyuu S4 ◆◆◇ Obi-Wan Kenobi ◆◆◇ BELLE ◆◆◇ Phantom of the Opera (2004) ◆◆◇ PROMARE ◆◆◇

*Tbh I watched RG Veda because this swordsman looks like 80s Gaius...

Okay, that’s enough content to last 20 years lol...

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Hmmm life lessons: This year was a year of learning how to spend time specifically with people who care about you and also learning the importance of being alone. I made a terrible mistake of trying to hang out with someone out of routine and it damaged the relationship forever. Don’t be like me, kids.

Thank you for being here and see you next time. :)