#musings :: about
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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.
#Dungeon Meshi#Delicious in Dungeon#Kabru#Kabru of Utaya#Laios Touden#Dungeon Meshi meta#you can have him in the tags too. as a treat.#Dungeon Meshi spoilers#this was directly inspired by livelaughlaios's post about Kabru self harming but I decided it got too long to make it a direct reply#this is a theory I've been working on for weeks because I kept noticing this while skimming for screencaps#I'm hesitant to trigger tag this because of the way certain subcultures on tumblr operate#but if anyone needs me to add a content warning please let me know#also I included image descriptions! I did my best#I think they even help illustrate my points but my god were they sad to write. Kabru is so fucking sad you guys#musings with Dea
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Enough of the trope where memory loss undoes the damage or the corruption or whatever. More content where removing memories just removes the context.
The tragedy of needing to grieve and not knowing what or who you lost or why. The angst of having trauma and being denied the awareness that it's trauma. The suspense of being different somehow and left to wonder how and when. The tension of knowing that something is off and you can't find where it hurts. The Adventure Zone gets it. Kingdom Hearts gets it.
There is an aching inside you and you don't know how it got there.
#i think about xion or the stolen century and need to lay down. i'm so normal about them.#tropes#narrative tropes#memory loss#tragedy#angst#the adventure zone#taz balance#the stolen century#kingdom hearts#xion#writing#musings#hall of fame
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A @corviiids tweet that is very important to me 🙏 I'm always thinking about spawn Astarion how he loves the sun
#i am spending am unhealthy amount of time thinking about hcs of my durge and astarion going on cute adventures after the game#if you shitpost to my very particular niche vibe you are my muse i cant explain it#is hot spring running water? i think Astarion deserves to have a hot spring vacation#bg3#baldurs gate 3#Astarion#alibonbonn#corviiids#alidraws
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something so fucked up about Chat Noir’s whole deal is that he is in a lot of ways Adrien playing a character. Like Adrien picked up his miraculous and was told he’d be a superhero so he was like “ok, time to act like a superhero!” and he lets himself have fun w it and play up the role and let loose and kind of just allow himself to be silly and goofy and have fun and for once in his life not care about performing Perfection™.
But. But none of the other characters KNOW THAT. So everyone just sees Chat Noir and is like “look at this guy’s ego. He’s so full of himself. Surely it’d be fair to knock him down a few pegs” without being aware of how few pegs he actually HAS. He’s like the “insecure character who overcompensates in ego” trope except he’s really not doing it unironically, he’s just having a fun LARP pretending to have self worth in his off-hours but nobody else is on the same page about it being a game and he refuses to tell them. He just dramatically pouts about it and lets them laugh and pretends like he’s not internalizing it and it is almost 3 am and my brain forced me to write this instead of sleeping I’m gonna take a melatonin
#writing this my brain was like: what if he actually likes it?#what if he likes people openly criticizing him in ways nobody actually does to Adrien agreste?#because Adrien Agreste is perfect and can do no wrong. maybe he enjoys being insulted or something#and then I remembered chat noirs multiple breakdowns about feeling unworthy and yknow what yeah I don’t think he likes it LOL#do normal people actually fall asleep when they lie down#if you can’t tell I recently decided to make my random ml musings your guys’ business instead of keeping it to myself#hope you enjoy
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Watching the new tasting history and very charmed by the fact that the whole Michelin Star system apparently started out as, like, a galaxy-brain marketing campaign for the concept of road trips.
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idk how many of you remember this but a few years ago tumblr ran a universally panned ad campaign for (us american) pride month that went "the gayest place on the internet".
well someone planning that campaign dropped in to ask the queer automatticians for advice on that and universally me and the other trans people involved were like "don't do it. i am so serious. don't do it. people on tumblr won't understand that it wasn't automattic who instituted the porn ban, or they will, but they'll recognize that automattic hasn't done anything, hands tied or not, to reverse it. nobody will like this. it will be a disaster." and they thanked us for our thoughts and went ahead with it anyway and then had to do retrospectives about how badly it went and were like "we just didn't know" and [gestures] yeah
[edit: i think the person who rbed saying it was queerest place on the internet was right, my brain is fried, sorry! and that's... even worse lmao]
#tony muses#hello new followers. for clarity if you are expecting intense amounts of goss about tumblr specifically i am not your person#when automattic first acquired tumblr they asked queer staff who wanted to transfer over to something that was dear to a lot of us#and i specifically did not want to shit where i eat so to speak#which was the right choice. i just have other info about automattic more generally
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*by live theatre i mean plays, musicals, operas, ballets, concert versions of musicals, staged readings, & things of that nature. EDIT: YES this includes amateur, local, kids, high school, & community theatre. almost every show i've seen has been local
if you want, list the names of the shows you've seen in the tags!
#(if you saw this before no you didnt. i wanted to add more options)#anyways! very curious about how much live theatre people on here see.#personally i've 22 shows? those being: sleeping beauty (ballet). mary poppins. the lion king. the sound of music. once on this island.#little shop of horrors. mamma mia! chess. annie. music man jr. jesus christ superstar. joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat.#something rotten! sam's room. the blender. bad auditions by bad actors. the 10 worst breakups of all time. drugs are bad. fairy tale court.#peter and the starcatcher. a christmas carol. & robin hood! all of those have been local/community except lion king ^_^#(yes i also redid this because i forgot about robin hood & sleeping beauty...)#musings
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there is something unique and deeply special about monkey d luffy as a protagonist. he’s overwhelmingly ADORED by the fandom. he’s consistently the most or at least top 3 most popular characters in the whole series. peoples takes about him are gushingly positive. and that’s… really uncommon.
a LOT of fandoms i’ve witnessed or been in have a tendency to favor characters other than the main character. especially in anime. the main characters are often written as a blank slate for readers/watchers to project onto, but that makes them not as interesting and so they don’t get the fan attention.
but luffy is so far from that. and he’s ALWAYS been this way. we love him so much. he’s the heart of the story and the heart of the fandom in every single way. and i think that speaks to how well-written he is as a character. he’s fun and charming and complex and interesting and he makes us laugh and cry and cheer and hope and love. he’s able to inspire so much joy in people, both in his world but also in this one. and i think that’s really special. i feel so grateful to have found this story that means so much to me, and i’m so grateful that luffy exists.
#i’m in a very emotional mood tonight and i was just. musing#about how wonderful our best boy is#and how much true and genuine joy and hope and wisdom he has given me#i feel like i’ve learned so much from him about how to love people#and that’s. freely. enthusiastically. easily and without abandon.#love you monkey d. luffy. you saved my life#one piece#monkey d luffy#one piece meta#personal
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sad: falling out of a hyperfixation
tragic: watching your beloved friends and mutuals fall out of the hyperfixation while you're still in it
#oughhhhhhh#this is about the dca fandom but also about every other strong fixation ive had over the years lol#i know it's normal and inevitable esp for less popular works or minor characters with little canon content#and there's nothing wrong with smaller communities of course those rock#but there’s just something special about getting into something at the same time as a lot of other people all at once#and existing in this chaotic fandom space that's just bursting with creativity and passion#i've been in fandom spaces for as long as some of you have been alive and i've only come across that sort of unbridled joy like#a handful of times at best#it's just a heartbreaking feeling to see real lightning in a jar fandoms like that wither away as people drift away#(understandably so!)#anyway don't mind me i'm just having thoughts#musing about fandoms past as well#that i too eventually moved on from but remember fondly even if im not active in anymore#also my music just aint hitting right so im just sitting in silence which makes me more Contemplative(tm)
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someone stop brennan, he’s putting Themes in the comedy again…
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it’s very easy to tell the good satires and pastiches from the bad ones because the bad ones are too afraid to live within the form. like if you are doing work with fairy tales and you are refusing to look closer at the underlying logic and unspoken rules of what can seem at first to be a senseless form, you are not going to create meaningful work. to borrow a turn of phrase originally used by maria tatar, if you refuse to enter “the house of fairy tale” as anything more than a gawking tourist, you will miss the particular order to the way the table is set, the rooms that are locked vs the rooms that are simply difficult to enter, the set of the floorboards and the position of the furniture. whatever you build will then be a gilded imitation of how you believe the house of fairy tale ought to look, the table set according to your educated specifications and every door open. there can be no interrogation of themes from a writer who views the form as beneath them!
#it speaks!#sondheim understood this with into the woods; the deconstruction of narrative itself is able to happen because we are able to believe in ->#<- the fairy tale logic he employs prior to this.#its a kids book but adam gidwitz understood this with a tale dark and grimm!!#cant speak for the rest of the series but that first book uses the absurdity of fairy tale logic to speak about the absurdity of ->#<- adulthood and the pedagogy present in many fairy tales to discuss the ways parents hurt their children.#rule of threes is important but theres so much on my list ive yet to read; always welcome recommendations.#fairy tales#into the woods#<- this comes from musings on how successfully i feel that musical functions so it gets the tag
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You guys really need to stop and consider the ways you're talking about Kabru I am dead fucking serious. Like I know that flattening characters is just what fandom does to a certain extent, but Kabru's actual personality is getting lost to the fandom hivemind insisting that he's aggressive/cruel/sociopathic/hateful, and these are particularly concerning takes to see leveled at the only brown character in the main cast day after day. "My poor sweet golden child Laios needs to be protected from this scary brown man" is not a good look! Like, it's very telling that the bulk of the hate and bad faith readings are reserved for Toshiro and Kabru. Everyone else's flaws get to be discussed and validated and forgiven (or erased), meanwhile people are straight making up things to be mad about with Toshiro and Kabru but patting themselves on the back for being smart.
The worst part is how undeserved it all is. I'm trying to lay off anime-onlys because we're still kind of in the red herring stage of getting to know Kabru, but I would still like to gently suggest that even if you think Kabru is up to something, you don't gave to get in the tags of every fan creator's post and bring up how you hate him or You Can Tell he's totally evil. Sometimes I think Kabru's blue eyes give people license to say things about his appearance that they know would sound completely racist otherwise, but referring to his blue eyes acts as a get-out-of-racism free card. The jokes about the dog with brown contacts are getting old, by the way.
For people who have read the manga, it's disappointing. Kabru is one of the most complex and important characters in the story, and if you base your interpretation of him and all your fandom interactions on shallow first impressions you are completely missing out.
I know part of this is because Dungeon Meshi is a comedy, but the story also wants to be taken seriously. For example, it's admittedly really funny when Chilchuck calls Laios "sick in the head", but that doesn't change the fact that the way Chilchuck casually belittles Laios caused him to hide the fact that he was "hallucinating" from his friends for weeks. Those feelings matter.
Like, this
is funny.
But this?
Is not. This is just a very clear example of a brown boy with PTSD. As someone else with PTSD, just looking at this fucking sucks, man.
The only reason why Kabru thinks about killing Laios is because he is in the middle of a flashback. He's struggling through a panic attack. If he truly wanted to kill Laios because he's violent or because he finds Laios inherently annoying, he wouldn't otherwise talk with Laios normally. Notice how he doesn't act this way at any other point in the story- it's just because he's triggered by monsters. Even when he's thinking about his plans to "deal with" Laios later, he's reluctant to actually kill him and only considers it to prevent another tragedy. Despite his deadly skills, Kabru relies far more on "soft" power- insight, persuasion, diplomacy. He's a rare example of a character who absolutely is, or at least can be, manipulative, but seems to use his abilities for good. He's not a pathological liar, he isn't looking down on everyone behind a smile. He's someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he's willing to put aside all his own basic wants and needs to stop the cycle of dungeons devouring humans.
I'm going to cut a potential thesis on his character short and just give some examples of things that fandom should consider about his personality more:
Racism in fandom isn't just about whitewashing in fan art, or using racial slurs. The insidiousness of bad faith readings, reductions to racist tropes, lack of fan content for characters of color, and dismissal of a character's complexity are far more common. You can believe yourself to be completely neutral or even positive about a character and still churn out low-grade bile about them into fandom's collective unconscious. Fandom reflects real life.
And I have been around fandom long enough to see how these behaviors (mostly from my fellow white fans) affect fans of color, how it makes a fandom feel hostile and unwelcome to them. It's fun to make jokes and memes, I'm absolutely not saying that everything needs to be a deeply nuanced take, but we need to be careful that it doesn't veer into toxicity. Please think about how our contributions to fandom come across, and what sort of vibes they cultivate in this communal space.
#Dungeon Meshi#Kabru#Kabru of Utaya#Dungeon Meshi meta#I'm putting it in the tag. I'm making you look at it.#if you come into my inbox to bitch about this just know that people used to send me b*heading videos in there for similar racist reasons#so I will not be impressed#I'm in a fucking time loop someone get me out!!!!#musings with Dea
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ITS PROM, INTREPID HEROES! ASK RAGH ABOUT WHAT HE SAW AT PROM! ASK ABOUT JACE AND PORTER AND ARIANWEN!! INTREPID HEROES!!!
#rattling the bars of my cage during this AP ahdjdkska#ally being like ‘it’s something small he did 3 years ago’ like god they’re so close THEYRE SO CLOSE#if I’m right about this I am going to be fucking INSUFFERABLE and that is a threat#I need to update my lore doc after these episodes#fantasy high#dimension 20#fhjy#fhjy spoilers#dropout#my musings
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dazai making up a whole language with fyodor that no one else can understand is amazing but imagine him using codes that, very objectively speaking, you could crack, it's just that no normal person would ever make the insane leaps in logic that it requires. except for someone familiar with dazai's weird thinking patterns, that is.
i just love the idea of dazai's unhinged antics being dialed up to an eleven when he was in the port mafia, and oda being the only one who simply wouldn't bat an eye at it but chuuya was the only one who would actually get it.
like imagine ango at the end of the jailbreak, his boss saying he should allow himself to sigh and lean back and maybe indulge himself, pat him on the shoulder, tell him what he pulled off reading heart rates wasn't easy and he should be proud for being able to keep up with such a plan
but ango i-drank-with-teenage-dazai-and-also-had-the-records-for-every-soukoku-mission sakaguchi can only remember the time dazai was like using greek sign language through his breathing patterns to communicate from a submarine from beneath the pacific ocean or something, and chuuya could not fathom how no one else could understand him.
and that was the day mori signed off on skk being exclusive partners because every subordinate in the room was crying tears of blood by the time chuuya finished explaining which blood pressure level was warning them about a bomb, which blinking sequence was him conveying the vault password and which series of inhales was just him calling mori a bitch.
(ango also pointedly did not want to think about how smug dazai had looked after the mission when mori confirmed skk would only be each others' partners for efficiency and to maintain everyone else's sanity
or about how when he called chuuya to tell him about dazai's prison break scheme he could only get like 3 out of 276 steps into the plan before chuuya rolled his eyes, said "got it" then hung up and pulled the whole thing off without a hitch.)
#listen soukoku having telepathy that they insist isn't telepathy it's just using common sense#while everyone else sobs in the corner#is a flavour of pm era skk I adore#like yes technically chuuya can in fact explain the play-by-play#process of understanding dazai's codes#it's just that no one else is going to immediately make the same far fetched connections#UGH the latest chapter of chuuya watching dazai flop and roll around on the ground like a fish while he brainstorms#not an ounce of curprise or confusion#like he's seen this a thousand times before#and even spotting his worries and dazai actually openly musing about his ideas and expressing emotions so vividly#they KNOW each other your honor#soukoku#dazai osamu#nakahara chuuya#the sigma show#bsd#my post
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prince sidon makes a discovery about height differences....
(my link is trans here but feel free to imagine him as cis!)
patreon | itch.io
#muertodraws#sidlink#tears of the kingdom#totk#prince sidon#link#legend of zelda#link x sidon#sidon x link#mlm#loz#all of my links are trans unless otherwise depicted btw#but im totally okay if u imagine him as cis in the art i make#i do not care just dont be weird about me making him trans#hes my muse....#and im allowed to have fun#also i know i havent posted actual fanart in a while but im alive#happily drawing lots of sidlink on my patreon!
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Sometimes I think about how Adrien, throughout the series, constantly grapples with his fear of abandonment. Gabriel conditioned him to believe that any love he receives is purely transactional, and that to earn affection he has to prove his utility. Adrien is constantly trying to prove his worth to his father for scraps of affection, and Chat Noir infamously crumbles on-screen any time he feels as though he is replaceable to Ladybug. It's a constant insecurity of his, like everyone will just dump him like a sack of potatoes the moment they find out how useless he is.
Meanwhile, all Marinette wants to is ensure that Adrien is happy. Because she loves him. She doesn't give two shits about how """useful""" he is. She holds him and tells him that she will never abandon him (both as Ladynoir and as Adrienette), and her fantasies are about saving him, not about him being "useful" to her. Throughout their relationship, Adrien is forced to disappoint Marinette constantly for reasons outside of his control (amok commands), and yet Marinette is still there for him.
At Adrien's lowest point, when he is forcibly torn away from everyone who had ever showed him genuine care, locked away in an all-white room and at his most "useless", right after disappointing Marinette and unable to even join the final battle or contribute in any way, she still saves him. She still loves him. Because he doesn't have to prove anything to her. Because he is loved and cherished for who he is, not for what he does, and that love is not conditional. Adrien's "happy ending" at the end of the first arc wasn't about him finally proving how useful he can be, because he never actually cared about being useful — he just saw it as the only means to feel loved and needed. Instead, in the end, he found out that he was loved and needed no matter what.
#ml s5 spoilers#ml s5 finale spoilers#idk im musing dont mind me#(as always this post isnt an invitation to tell me why You dont like the show. if that's the case then you can make your own post)#i think the ''what does this say about adrien's agency'' reading of the show is fair and an interesting perspective#but personally i find the ''what does this say about adrien's inherent worth as a person / how does this play into his fear of abandonment'#to also be a super valid way to read the series that is just as relevant to his character arc and i don't see people talking about enough
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