#ANYWAYS have an excellent day friends :)

[tomaturtles]

Happy Campus Apocalypse volume 1 16th anniversary here's something to celebrate

[tofixtheshadows]

hi!! so there are a lot of improbabilities that make this hypothetical unlikely but: if kabru had met toshiro first & recruited him (toshiro being so passive + not with a clear goal would have helped there & kabru is ptsd-driven but very noble in his goals which can be explained) AND they got all the way down to the bottom (idk if i believe in them...but hypothetically!) would the winged lion find either of them to be a good target for next dungeon lord? one over the other? im thinking kabru has the intensity and complexity of desire necessary but i can't imagine what it would look like if he became lord of the dungeon. do you have any thoughts?

Good morning. This is a very fun thought experiment!

(side note: I got a second anon this morning with a very similar request? not sure if related. I'm gonna let this answer speak for both of them)

Toshiro sure would have had a different time of it if Kabru had gotten to him first, huh? On the one hand, Toshiro seems to like Kabru; I think it's sweet that Kabru seems to gravitate towards hanging out with him when he isn't with the rest of the main cast. So they probably would've been good in a party together.

On the other hand, Toshiro never would have met Falin and fallen in love with her. Even if she didn't reciprocate in the end, I don't think he regrets anything that happened. Even his difficult friendship with Laios was ultimately positive (for both of them!).

They definitely would not have made it to the deeper floors, I think Senshi is crucial to achieving that ... but this is a hypothetical.

I'm puzzling over the question of Toshiro, because he is a secondary character and there's only so much we know about his motivations. His big one in canon is to save Falin, even if it means all he can do is put her to rest. Without that, without her, what sort of desires does he have?

Toshiro originally came to the Island because of a demand from his father: for one of his three sons to find "something interesting" enough on their travels to bring back home that would convince their capricious bastard father to make them his heir over the others. So they're all off on their separate training journeys with their respective retainers with the added caveat that they can't return without something to impress their father. It's implied that after falling in love with Falin, Toshiro had wanted to bring back home a wife.

Since he's said to inherit the family after he returns home without her anyway, I've been assuming that the "thing" Toshiro ended up bringing to Toshitsugu Nakamoto was the story of the dungeon, the demon, and his friend Laios, king of a risen country and Devourer of All Things Horrible.

Anyway, the things we know about Toshiro's home life are kind of fucked. It's amazing he turned out to be so nice. He's always been a shy, sensitive person, and he was sickly as a child; Maizuru cared for him despite her spymaster duties and ended up filling a motherly role for him, even though Toshiro's mother is still alive. Historically, it wasn't uncommon for noble children to be raised more closely by their governesses/household retainers than their parents, so perhaps something similar was happening here (disclaimer that I don't know much about feudal Japan specifically).

We know that Maizuru loves Toshiro and dotes on him, but she's also very strict and frankly terrifying; she used the same Hag summon that she was monitoring Izutsumi with on Toshiro as a child just to keep him from wandering off. We also know that when he found out that Maizuru was having an affair with his father, it put a distance between them. Whether this is because he felt betrayed on his mother's behalf or because he dislikes his father that much, or something else, is unclear.

Toshiro was childhood friends with Hien, but as they got older, she had to take his place as one of his retainers, which seems to have severed that closeness. Canonically, he isn't close to his two younger brothers either. Toshitsugu literally bought Inutade and Izustumi (the latter as a drunken "gift" for Maizuru!). We see that Toshiro is uncomfortable with this, but doesn't know how to approach the issue. He lets Izutsumi go the second she's out of sight for five minutes, which implies to me that he really wanted the excuse to do so. Inutade is harder, because she loves being with the Nakamoto family and hero-worships Toshiro's father.

...all this to say, Toshiro has complicated relationships with his family and household. There's love there, but also a lot of coldness enforced by the upper-class need for propriety. Toshiro falls in line and acts as the proper stoic samurai, but he chafes at this; he envies Laios's gift for feeling and expressing things openly and readily. I think that's what the Winged Lion would prey on, given the chance.

I don't think he would be prime dungeon lord material, but if it came to that, I could see the Lion tempting Toshiro with a kinder vision of his life, one where he and his little brothers weren't pitted against one another, where his family was warmer, where there weren't barriers of class between him and his retainers, where he was allowed to be more himself.

Now ... Kabru.

Kabru is interesting because, since his ultimate goal is to seal the dungeon and eradicate monsters, I imagine that meeting a demon would be like a guy who's given a genie and wants to wish for no more genies. And if said genie is trying to take over the world via wishes, the genie is a bit screwed. I really think that Kabru is the character who would stump the demon(s) the most, despite his complex desires, because they are antithetical to the demon. Laios also had complex desires, but the Winged Lion lured him and set him up as the hero of a fake prophecy because a lot of Laios's desires revolved around monsters, so his wants aligned perfectly with the demon's methods. Oh you want monsters? That's great, they're the things I use to solve most of my problems anyway.

Even in the absence of prior knowledge of demons, I think Kabru's back would be up as soon as the Winged Lion tried speaking to him. Kabru's insight is almost preternatural, and he's well-versed in persuasive speaking thanks to his own silver tongue. He would mistrust the Lion immediately, especially considering its monster-like form.

Giving the demons bestial appearances is an artistic choice on Kui's part, so I don't think there's any indication that the Winged Lion & co can't look human, but the Lion might have been constrained both by Thistle's seals on it and the need to maintain the lie that it's just the innocent guardian deity of the Golden Country. If it could, I think it would try to look less monstrous, with Kabru.

Still, the point of the demons, I see, is that anyone can be tempted, anyone can be manipulated, because we are all full of buried desires that can be unearthed, and wanting things and having to defend them make you susceptible to manipulation.

Consider what Mithrun told Kabru: they keep the knowledge of demons secret because knowing the truth would not stop people from trying to have their wishes granted. After all, Mithrun was a Canary, but he fell for its temptation anyway. I've seen people characterize this as a sort of rock bottom decision, and maybe that's true, but I also pin it on his toxic inferiority/superiority complex. That's exactly the kind of thing that makes you think you're built different.

Would Marcille have stopped before unsealing the Winged Lion if Mithrun(/Kabru) had actually gotten to sit down with her for five minutes and explain why becoming dungeon lord would be a very bad idea? Maybe. Or maybe her desperation, and her own pride, would have made her decide that she knew better, that she'd be careful, that she'd go in with a plan and definitely get what she wanted with no dire consequences.

I think Kabru could be desperate enough to make a similar decision, even if his desires were antithetical to the demon. And the demons have an advantage over the aforementioned genie simile: their ability to eat desires.

If the Winged Lion were smart, it wouldn't let Kabru seal it away like Thistle. Given the opportunity, its best chance for dealing with Kabru would have been to immediately eat his desire to stop another Utaya.

I'm gonna plug this wonderful and tragic little one-shot someone wrote recently about the dungeon lord Kabru hypothetical: This place is not a place of honor.

[b4kuch1n]

fuck it sk8 sketches from da sketchbook. get sk8ed idiot

[fedoraspooky]

What? What's that?

There's stuff happening at tumblr?

Oh no!

Anyway,

[camgirlkaminari]

hey my friends and i are watching the bnha musical where kurogiri is basically shiggy's vape pen but with glowing eyes (in real he's a smoke machine we think) and we were wondering what flavour vape he is? i thought you would know the answer to this.

ok so first of all, SO glad you came to me with this. this is so important. initially, my first impulse was to say OBVIOUSLY since he is purble, he must taste like grape. but then i was like no that's too obvious. too simple. perhaps he is blackberry. or funnier, watermelon breeze. or whatever. but I can't choose there's so many hilarious flavors he could be. my man is the reanimated corpse of a seventeen year old who is in charge of a bunch of unhinged 20 somethings, perhaps he is whatever Slapple Menthol™ must be. or, considering this is shiggy smoking this man, perhaps he is a clove situation: no tobacco, all spice (all the sigma males smoke clove.) eventually, defeated, i had to consult my crack team of scientists (goof chat) on this matter and it was very much a consensus:

he purble. so he taste like

[clarabowmp3]

in other words its my ex-bsf's birthday today and I am in no mood to wish her and idc how petty or immature that makes me

[nostalgia-tblr]

re: my seemingly fringe "I don't think we're meant to think Odin was a dreadful cunt" take, when was Thor 1 actually made? Like... 2010/2011? Because I think Odin is (presumably based on comics canon) meant to be "a bit distant but overall good as a parent" but 2010ish is well after the recent (historically recent, by which I mean since maybe the 1980s) shift in our culture's ideas about fatherhood and what make "a good dad" as well as similarly radical shifts in how we approach disciplining children. MCU!Odin is therefore odd because he's a couple of generations out if he's meant to convince the audience that he's A Good Dad or even an acceptable one. Even the people making the film can't have (all) thought he was any good so with this in mind I'm more open to the idea that Odin is meant to be fairly shit. (But not entirely, and certainly not to the point of him being evil - he's doing his best and arguably the issue isn't him but the culture they've all been born into.)

IDK how old the writer was but there could be an intentional generation-gap thing going on there? An "everyone thinks this is acceptable and even good parenting, but it isn't and everyone involved is getting messed up by it." You don't have to go that far back historically before failing to show regular affection to your kids wouldn't be seen as a significant flaw in a father (whereas it absolutely would be in a mother - v interesting that as the status of women in our society has increased our idea of a good dad has shifted significantly towards an ideal that would previously have been considered "maternal" and thus "unmanly." Oh hey, looks like patriarchy is bad for men too!)

I still think a lot of fanon and fanfic overstates it (which is fine until we're at the point of inventing obviously abusive behaviour and then seemingly forgetting that we made that up), and that Odin is at least meant to be 'doing his best' but yeah Them Thor Films must surely be aware that his best is nowhere near Actually Good, yeah? I mean unless they were written by a man who lives in the 1950s, which they probably weren't. (There is absolutely some generational variation in how far the social change has taken hold but you'd have to look for a long time before you'd find a man of any age who'd say "I really wish my father had been more reserved and had spent less quality time with me" rather than wistfully expressing the opposite of that.)

[fightwing]

BE HONEST what superhero merch does ur muse have the most of

[thebirdandhersong]

Sitting here stewing grumpily over this new dilemma: the person I had to write that six page email to is undergoing a family crisis. Should I go check up on her? The answer is obvious. Am disgruntled because I KNOW what the right thing to do is and yet am very reluctant to do it

[steelycunt]

got caught in torrential rain with my copy of the goldfinch it was absolutely fucking pissing it down...incredible what an effective substitute 864 pages of paper welded together with rainwater can make for a cement brick in the bottom of a tote bag </3

[stillangel]

Why does it hurt so bad to care about people?

[stars-inthe-sky]

...

[exoexid]

CHEN RECOMMENDED JEKYLL LET'S ALL LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!

[losinqdogs]

every day i go on my little silly goofy i love taemin spree

[crest-of-gautier]

played a very brief session of pq tonight (90 minutes) 👍

[forzafinally]

No because, Art is a mediocre tennis player with 6 grand slams who knows that at some level he has only got them because Tashi has pushed him and coached him to that level of excellence. At the same time he feels responsible for living a career for both of them while knowing that if Patrick hadn't fucked things up he wouldn't have ever achieved what he did.Patrick has oodles of talent but has to deal with the fact that despite winning Tashi fairly he lost her due to his pride. You know he's thinking that 'if she was my coach I would have double the number of grand slams that Art does'. But if Tashi hadn't had that injury that day would either of them even have had the chance to have her as their coach? No. Both he and Art would have faded into mediocrity but probably remained friends despite it all. And don't get me started on Tashi. She knows that if it wasn't for her injury she would have probably won 15 grand slams by now and would never have considered stopping but she's reduced to just being the wife! Just being the coach! Just being content with being a hot girl who will be won by the guy who plays the best tennis!! And she has to somehow make herself feel okay with that. So no. She can't genuinely be okay with Art stopping but at the end of the day it's not her decision to make because he's the professional tennis player not her. It's not just about one of them winning or the sacrifice it takes. It's about disappointment, bitterness, the underlying inferiority complex, being manipulative enough to achieve your goals through different means and the inherent homoeroticism of having a best friend from the age of 12 who is the only one worth beating for you after playing 13 years of tennis. Anyway I'm chewing on glass rn. Challengers you'll always be famous