#descriptions in post

[mintytrifecta]

[image description: the bugs bunny in a tuxedo "I wish all (blank) a very pleasant (blank)" meme edited to say "I wish all of my Jewish followers a very pleasant rosh hashanah". In front of Bugs there is a jar of honey, a stack of apples and pomegranates. In front of bug's mouth there is a shofar.]

[wellfine]

Au fucking revoir Mister Prince

[tofixtheshadows]

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.

[barghest-land]

i always forget to post my sketches from paleostreams, time to post lots of creatures!! some drawings are new, some old :)

[incendavery]

soporific

[striving-artist]

New people with empty accounts that are suddenly following me, I really need you to do something that looks like a human person. I've been here long enough now to remember the old wars, and you are coming into my home wearing the uniform of our enemies.

[bahrmp3]

[bloodysparklez]

guys help the protagonist isn't supposed to like me, what did i do??!? ;-;

[thatadhdmood]

@nutmegan17 on tiktoks eating tray hack

By keeping a tray full of no prepare necessary food, in the fridge it can be used to aid neurodivergent or fatigued people.

By putting food like, cheese and crackers, or whatever is a safe food for you personally on the tray, it can be taken easily to the couch or bed to be eaten from whenever you are hungry.

This prevents executive dysfunction or fatigue and any reason preventing you from eating. You need to care of yourself because everyone needs food to stay alive including you.

You deserve to eat even when on a bad brain day and are unable to prepare a meal for yourself.

If not having a full meal doesn't satisfy you, a snack may even give you the energy to make a full meal afterwards!

[ghostcashewart]

guess who ended up drawing a comic of an entire scene from Artificial Condition

[everycorner]

How To Have Cybersex On The Internet (1996)

archive.org/details/howtohavecybersex

archived by Carta Monir

[averytirednerd]

[enderspawn]

unfortunately dnd podcasts have already peaked, specifically in 2015 when griffin mcelroy named an npc “garfield the deals warlock” but forgot to describe how he looked in the slightest so the entire collective fandom decided it was just straight up garfield the orange cat

[theophagie]

I thought I was losing it but no, kh1 Sora's fast swimming animation really does change after you've been to Atlantica. It's a small detail, but also a cute and smart one 🥺

[aimfall]

big month for disco elysium fans everywhere 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[yuri-puppies]

We really get to see Kabru exercise his social awareness and his story-crafting skills this episode, like how he tailors his backstory differently to Toshiro and Namari (and the Floke twins out of frame!) - framing the massacre of his people as a result of elven interventionism and focusing on his personal tragedy; contrasting his hardworking mother to the faceless, dispassionate elven forces

vs how he talks about Utaya with the elves, first by making them take him seriously pay proper attention to him, indirectly invoking Milsiril's social capital to present a nepo-baby persona* that paints Kabru as not-like-the-other-tallmen, why he's practically a Canary

*i said persona. if you call him a nepo baby in my notes i will send a squad of trained skunks to your house to eat your plants and spray your kitchen counters and also block you

(baffles me. BAFFLES ME that there are readers who fell for it. at least the Japanese VA did a great job of making it sound just fake enough for the audience to clock it as a successful deception check, so it should be clearer now)

Only then he appeals to their emotion, framing Utaya as being about the elves' misplaced best efforts and the losses they suffered, framing the death of imperial soldiers as equal to the brutal massacre of a large city's worth of people. That emotional appeal and successful positioning of himself as aligned with the Canaries is what allows him to ultimately propose his plan to evacuate the dungeon.