#skimming replies

[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.

[bigfatbreak]

I see a lot of people talking about what Chloé and Kim did, and I think I'm missing something? What did they do?

In a more recent episode "Derision," (sloppy sum up below)

its discovered that the reason Marinette is so stunted, awkward, and generally staccato about dating Adrien in spite of genuinely liking him, is because she was a major victim of Chloe's the year prior. During that year, Chloe threatened anyone who would attempt to befriend her, isolating Marinette completely, only having a friend in a girl named Socqueline who would relentlessly defend her.

At the time, Marinette had a crush on Kim, and so Chloe, knowing Kim loves pranks, had him "prank" her at the pool as a fake confession. As Kim offered a fake, heartfelt confession in return for Marinette's own, he gifted Marinette a box full of spiders, causing her to flip out and fall into the pool from the high end. Sabine and Chloe were filming the whole thing, and planned on posting it on social media to openly mock her. The only thing stopping them is Socqueline, who legitimately kicks the phone out of Chloe's hands.

This leads into why Marinette is so bad at confessions. After a year of being harassed, bullied, and isolated, she takes a chance on love, and is only horrifically and publicly mocked. Her attitude towards Adrien makes more sense with this context - deeply and passionately loving him, but constantly hesitating on the last step, as last time was so devastating. She's got some severe trauma around confessing and connecting with love interests, as she assumes they're always going to mock her in the end.

I really wish this episode had been planned earlier in the series, because it DOES give good insight as to how bad Marinette had it, and would've been great context for the audience. Not long after, Socqueline had to move away, too, so Marinette had to rebuild her entire social network from the ground up, with several people in the class who didn't mind humiliating her for their own amusement.

Also I really liked Chat Noir/Adrien going sicko mode on Kim. PLEASE kill that boy Adrien. I am BEGGING YOU. He tries to cataclysm Kim in the fucking face. I was thrilled. I thrive off negativity

Using this as groundwork in the dad villain au, having all that shit happen to Marinette alongside losing Sabine essentially made her go "wow I am going to quit school and work at my dad's business. bye" which is super ironic because that is ALL gabriel wants adrien to do lmao

[enden-k]

Just out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on the yaoqing trio? Do you ship them or see them more platonic? What kind of dynamic do you see between them?

i dont rlly like moze and jiaoqiu ship. i see their relationship platonic, both having admiration/adoration for feixiao (you could interpret as romantic or platonic, however u please i guess)

(if - IF - i would ever draw ship art of the two of them it would only be when shes included so yea, either all or nothing idk)

i rlly enjoy mozes relationship to feixiao (jiaoqiu too prob.i adored how caring they are to him and their whole ending scene when he goes blind)

i see their relationship to each other as very close and intimate, like hurt one and face the wrath of the other two. theyre professional but caring i rlly enjoy that

[gholdengodaily]

[ Reply To ] [ @book-of-legends ]

"Assuming it has- but I figure you wouldn't be able to use the Universe Gates for other things if a war was still going on. How'd they go from tools of war to being used the way they are now?"

[luimagines]

Orginal monster imagine

Reader ran down one path and ran by/ ignore the monsters that block their way. Reader only thoughts are find the chain, find wild and bring them all to the exit. Reader doesn't them to stay another minute in this curse maze and for very good reasons. Reader stop when they hear a loud explosion and it sounded close and continued to run to were the noise came from and found legend coughing but look to be okay as whatever he was fighting before is turn to black liquid clearly Reader knows legend use a bomb but ran to him to help him.

Reader: legend! Thank goddess your okay!-

Sudden reader felt a very sharp pain and glance down to see a dagger stab into their gut and they glance back to see legend hold the dagger but his eyes are not his You shall color your eyes but reader knew on the spot that dark magic of the maze have Affected legends senses and sight making him believe that what he see are monsters not the group. They can't believe that what he's seen is and reader felt a cold dread hit their body fast.

Reader: l-Legend?

Legend: im not going to let you take her away from me again!!

Legend shove reader away while pull the dagger put as reader fell on their butt as blood drip off the dagger and reader shirt start to get stain with their own blood, but they move one of their arm press on their gut in pain and legend got up to try to stab reader again but reader not fast enough to move have little choices. Let legend stab their shoulder so move their only good arm to trap legend in their embrace as legend trying to free himself while let put few curse words as reader try to get legend to return back to his Senses, because of the dark magic that the maze is Producing throughout the while maze.

Reader: legend!!! Please!! I don't want to hurt you or the chain!! It's me!?! Reader!!

Reader make sure to not let legend move even his arms as reader blood continues to stain their shirt and drip down to the ground as small pool of reader blood.

Legend try everything he could to free himself but the monster is held him down and isn't going to let it kill him so he try use his strength to press the dagger deeper into reader shoulder to make it bleed more which it does as reader let out a cry of pain but doesn't let go they even start to shift to their halfway form to make it harder for legend to stab them, but reader start to notice that their bleeding too much but the sounds of armor and few footsteps are coming make reader open their mouth.

Reader: legend's under some dark magic!!!! Legend!! Snap out of it!

Somehow legend manage to break from and pull his dagger out of the monster reader to stab the monster heart but he get tackle by warrior as wild,sky,wind just arrive and the three star in shock to see warrior held legend down who's clearly under dark magic but reader lay on the ground bloody.

Wild: reader!!

Wild ran to reader as sky ran to were war amd legend are pull out his master sword to remove the dark magic wind star were hes at at the chaos. Wild quickly going through his bag and slate for a healing potion while he beg reader not to dead tears form in his eyes to see the stab wounds but reader look to wild and tell him that their hard to kill as wild found what he needs amd gently help reader drink it.

...I think I responded to these out of order... Or not? I can't really tell where these are, if they're following the same timeline that is. If these are stand alones for the same universe, then I feel silly. ^.^*

[ying-doodles]

Where do you read cpsm? Also, how does one become as awesome as you?

you can read the mtl here~ have fun reading! (just a heads up though: chp 170 and 326 are missing unfortunately..)

also I have. no idea how to answer your second question ahdjdjsk but thanks for thinking I'm awesome aha,, (*/▽＼*)

[finitevariety]

ceo of finishing chapters

[hozaloza]

GUYS RED'S BOYFRIEND (Austin) LOOKED AT MY IG STORY.

AGAIN.

HELPP

ofc the one story he liked, it's the one he understood the backstory behind it because I live in the same state as him 🤠 (there was a flash flood warning, and I made this story below in humor of it)

he even saw the rosepunch </3

THE ROSEPUNCH YAPPING

HELPPP

[vickyvicarious]

Re: the more clinical description of lips and teeth, do we see the same switching around Mina's lips and teeth in October?

(my first post about it)

Oooh, good question. Well, 3 October is a big day for it. Mostly with Dracula though, from various characters:

He came up to the window in the mist, as I had seen him often before; but he was solid then—not a ghost, and his eyes were fierce like a man's when angry. He was laughing with his red mouth; the sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight when he turned to look back over the belt of trees, to where the dogs were barking.

Renfield

His eyes flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth, champed together like those of a wild beast. [...] As the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eye-teeth long and pointed; but the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of lion-like disdain. His expression again changed as, with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him.

Jack

I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between; and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset on the windows of St. Mary's Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him.

Mina

But then we get Jonathan's narration, and he does it a little bit to describe Mina:

Mina took a growing interest in everything and I was rejoiced to see that the exigency of affairs was helping her to forget for a time the terrible experience of the night. She was very, very pale—almost ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away, showing her teeth in somewhat of prominence. I did not mention this last, lest it should give her needless pain; but it made my blood run cold in my veins to think of what had occurred with poor Lucy when the Count had sucked her blood. As yet there was no sign of the teeth growing sharper; but the time as yet was short, and there was time for fear.

Just briefly, for a second.

However, I think that's the only time it happens for her! Jonathan doesn't do it again. The only other time he describes her mouth is 5 October:

Mina is sleeping now, calmly and sweetly like a little child. Her lips are curved and her face beams with happiness.

Also, on 4 October, van Helsing avoids it for Mina:

"I can see the characteristics of the vampire coming in her face. It is now but very, very slight; but it is to be seen if we have eyes to notice without to prejudge. Her teeth are some sharper, and at times her eyes are more hard."

But on 5 November he sort of does it for the vampire ladies:

"Then they began to materialise till—if God have not take away my reason, for I saw it through my eyes—there were before me in actual flesh the same three women that Jonathan saw in the room, when they would have kissed his throat. I knew the swaying round forms, the bright hard eyes, the white teeth, the ruddy colour, the voluptuous lips."

I know this isn't what you asked, but as long as I was looking... I found several more instances of this happening with Lucy as well, including what seems like a trend almost of Jack starting to key in to her more vampiric moments over time.

On 18 September, only briefly:

Whilst asleep she looked stronger, although more haggard, and her breathing was softer; her open mouth showed the pale gums drawn back from the teeth, which thus looked positively longer and sharper than usual; when she woke the softness of her eyes evidently changed the expression, for she looked her own self, although a dying one.

Then as she is dying on the 20th it happens more, and specifically in multiple instances when she was more vampiric:

Lucy was breathing somewhat stertorously, and her face was at its worst, for the open mouth showed the pale gums. Her teeth, in the dim, uncertain light, seemed longer and sharper than they had been in the morning. In particular, by some trick of the light, the canine teeth looked longer and sharper than the rest. I sat down by her, and presently she moved uneasily. [...] And then insensibly there came the strange change which I had noticed in the night. Her breathing grew stertorous, the mouth opened, and the pale gums, drawn back, made the teeth look longer and sharper than ever. [...] I kept my eyes fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing, and we saw a spasm as of rage flit like a shadow over her face; the sharp teeth champed together. Then her eyes closed, and she breathed heavily.

When he visits her grave with van Helsing on the 27th he starts by talking about her emotionally then cutting off when he gets to her lips, and after that point doesn't describe her corpse with humanizing language at all for the rest of that entry:

She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than before; and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom. [...] "Are you convinced now?" said the Professor in response, and as he spoke he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled back the dead lips and showed the white teeth. "See," he went on, "see, they are even sharper than before. With this and this"—and he touched one of the canine teeth and that below it—" [...] He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raising the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and examining the teeth.

And by 29 September, after seeing her in action he speaks of her firmly as a thing, at least until Arthur has finished staking her:

Then she turned, and her face was shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no quiver from Van Helsing's iron nerves. Never did I see such baffled malice on a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hell-fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of the flesh were the coils of Medusa's snakes, and the lovely, blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant death—if looks could kill—we saw it at that moment. [...] She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth—which it made one shudder to see—the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy's sweet purity. [...] The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. [...] And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the teeth seemed to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally it lay still. [...] There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity.

[merge-conflict]

tell me of a recent moment when you forgot that you wrote something and you read it again and it's actually so good. Like, wow, that person who wrote this is a good writer. :3

sdfkls you're going to make me embarrass myself, huh? well I have been not feeling well and then started feeling better and then immediately fell ill and i'm still a little whacked on cold meds and have not been productive for the past few weeks, all this to say:

recently I self-indulgently read back through all that i've written for my longfic, picking out parts that I liked that showcased goro & valentine's relationship and found that there was so much I'd written that I really enjoyed! so it's really not a specific thing so much as I'm like wow this is great there's a whole backlog of this stuff that is weirdly 100% my taste and how I'd write it if I could (and I did :3).

to be a little more specific, I'm really happy with the tone of my writing- you know I love to have a happy moment and then get a little hit of that sweet sweet grief, or vice versa a really tense, unhappy moment interrupted with a little joke. it's my weakness! and as I was reading I'm just always tickled and make myself laugh, which feels like a good writing standard, to continue to laugh at my old jokes lol.

anyway and self-indulgently again this bit I wrote at the end of a couple of emotional confessions always makes me laugh the hardest so I will include it here for posterity:

“Then you know it would be selfish for me to ask for more.” V managed to keep her voice steady in reply. “I think it would be selfish for me to try to change your mind.” For a moment they were both perfectly still, the hum of the radiator and the constant drone of the wind filling the void. V wanted to tear off his jacket, wanted to get her hands on his skin, feel what made him tick. Every moment she didn’t felt like dying. Still she waited, until on some silent cue they both fell into it, driven by the same sense of hunger and desperation. Goro’s mouth was on her neck, her hand running up the outside of his thigh. V dragged him down on top of her by the hips, caught up in his kiss as he settled his weight down on one elbow. She had just managed to work her hand in between his coat and his shirt when a loud thump sent him straight up to his feet like a startled cat.

something about the mental image of goro popping straight up whoOOP! like a cat with its tail puffed just makes me lose it every time

[teddybeartoji]

TO ALL MY LOVELIES TO MY BABIES TO MY GIRLFRIENDS AND BOYFRIENDS TO MY BELOVEDS i will read everything in a few days!!!!!!!! tomorrow is my last day of work (yayy) then i also have to edit and put together a video (world's best sister here btw) so my lacking braincells are trying to concentrate on that!!!!!!!

[jaeducs]

i love jaijin

[kaurwreck]

if you have a question, it is wholly okay and arguably important that you at least sometimes look up the answer. if you aren't sure about information you want to share on social media, you can also double check its veracity prior to sharing. if you still aren't sure after searching for more information yourself, then asking strangers on the internet is fine, but confirm any answers you receive prior to internalizing them. (which you can do by using key terms from others' answers in your subsequent search strings.)

this won't stop you from interacting with others on tumblr dot com. instead, it will deepen those interactions, improve your digital literacy, and prevent me from manifesting as your sleep paralysis demon.

[enden-k]

I don't message at all, but I feel you might get a kick out this fun new bug on CN:

So apparently, Kaveh's E can permanently delete things in people's games permanently (or at least, as permanently as they can before a bug fix)

So there's now a running joke of Kaveh (or corrupt Kaveh) running around on God Mode

You can do what you wish with this information, I just felt an urge to pass it along to the best fan I know~

for the people who havent heard of this yet, here for (more) context: theres a kaveh hack going around (rn on CN server but who knows if this gets spread to other servers soon) where ppl in coop exploit his E to permanently delete stuff in your world.

since kaveh can burst dendro cores with it, theres apparently a way for the hackers to modify objects you interact with, such as statues of the seven, elemental totems, shrine chests etc so they will get recognized as dendro cores and deleted when kaveh uses his skill.

the deleted objects wont return if you return to single player, refresh game, log out or even reinstall- theres currently no way to get these back unless hyv comes up w a fix, thats why ppl advise players to switch off "everyone join" and not let strangers in ur world until this is solved, to prevent permanent damage to your world and progress.

anw to ur message, dunno what u mean with "do what u wish with this" bc i dont think im interested in working this into doodles. the fact that hackers use sweet kaveh to ruin ppls gaming experience for no reason other than to be assholes ticks me off more than it gives me inspiration lolol (i love redtham to pieces and he doesnt mess with real ppl at least LMAO other than w me and my sanity and self control)

[lyssafreyguy]

God . . . imagine thinking Laios is a bad person who doesn't care about people. actual insanity.

[unladielike]

UPDATES:

Updated Vivian's relationship tab to specifically include @more-than-a-princess and @xamassed (but if you would rather not have your muses featured there, feel free to tell me and I'll gladly remove them!). This, of course, is subjected to change as Vivian interacts with more muses.

The anonymous function is now temporarily off for asks because the anons I've been getting are random or have nothing to do with either Vivian/roleplaying in general (ie: 'What is [mun name I'm not familiar with]'s current blog?'/telling me about a personal blog that has reblogged one of my musings post with a screenshot of my tags, both of which while not hateful, were incredibly off-putting to me and stuff I would rather have answered privately.)

Added a 'The Caligula Effect 2' AU for Vivian's verse page and included this in the Interest Checker

Updated my rules page (but those who followed me on May 2 or after don't have to read it). Of course, they are pretty much worded the same as my rules on my multi, but the only difference is that the Personals and Shipping section is phrased differently with particular emphasis on the fact I'll be turned off from shipping with another mun if they timeskip ahead to a point where Vivian and their muse are already close friends instead of letting the slowburn develop naturally throughout the course of a few interactions, because it has happened before where a mun had jumpscared me with unexpected romance despite the fact the asks they sent were never continued into threads and our sole thread together only had two notes.

I'm also no longer gonna chase (aka follow first) muns that are blog hoppers/archivers, especially if they have issues with commitment (failing to write me a starter/answer asks I've sent them or dropping threads after only two notes).

I'm now putting my foot down and unfollowing blogs who follow me first but make no effort in interacting (whether it be through liking/replying to posts or writing with me)... but I'm not strictly mutuals only anymore, meaning I will happily refollow blogs I've unfollowed again if they actually make an effort in engaging with me.

Basically added a section for Memes, Threads, and OOC Conduct, so my partners would know what to expect from me as a partner.