#tags for triggers:

[idontlikeem]

tw incoherency self-pity and discussions of cancer and medical stuff surrounding it, honestly this is just me being so whiny and i just need to get it out, but i'm talking about actual medical procedures and etc in here so if that or me being a terrible self-centered daughter is going to trigger you please don't read because i'm not censoring this or making it palatable.

i have had a little bit of a fraught relationship with my mom for my whole life, as i think a lot of eldest/only daughters do. there was friction when i was a teenager, there were (are) body image issues thrust upon me, there were expectations and unfair standards and as the only girl a bit of sexism mixed in with it all...the usual, you know. but once i graduated college and grew up a little we've had a much better relationship. i've gotten better at letting her stray comments about my weight and life choices roll off my back (mostly), and she's trying to be less overbearing and critical. i talk to her a lot, and i want to share stuff with her.

she's stopped picking up when i call.

it's not every time, but it's enough that i'm noticing. it's enough that i text to follow up. it's enough that my throat gets tight whenever it happens. aaaaand it's enough to make me cranky and petulant when i don't get a reply.

i have this blue armchair i bought a few months ago. it was my first big furniture purchase after i got divorced that wasn't a necessity and was just something i wanted, and i love it. the problem is it was a discontinued model and color from ikea, so there was no ottoman/footrest that matched that i could buy, and i've been looking for something that was at least a close match ever since, because i'm tall enough that even a chair and a half is not comfy for me to sit on for long periods of time without somewhere to prop my feet.

and i finally found one! it's not perfect but it was inexpensive and i like how they look together, so that's all that matters. come thru target, i should have started there tbh. so i wanted to show her since it got delivered today and i was able to confirm it was a match.

i facetimed twice and she didn't answer, and i texted asking if she was busy with no reply.

i got mad! i got pouty and texted my friends about how my mom barely ever picks up when i facetime her anymore, and i always have to follow up and ask what's going on and if she can talk, and it's annoying to me. as i was doing that, i was texting my dad asking if she was ok.

turns out yesterday she was in the hospital all day getting fluid drained from her abdomen. the chemotherapy she'd been receiving since last fall has recently stopped working, and her blood markers are skyrocketing and the tumors are growing again. she's started a new treatment, sort of a hail mary, but if this doesn't work that's kind of it.

we've always been buying time, but i'd stupidly let myself sort of...i mean, i didn't think she was going to be cured, that's not possible, but when a treatment is letting her sort of seem better, feel better, be out in the world and doing stuff and closer to 'normal'...it's easy to lull yourself into a sense of denial, like 'oh this is just how it's going to be forever'.

stupid. of course it wasn't.

and meanwhile i'm sitting here reading my dad's text about the procedure, about how she had to get 2.75 liters of fluid drained out of her abdomen and she's probably going to have to get a drain re-installed so they can do it at home again (she'd gotten it removed early summer because of how well the chemo was working, the ascites was all but gone), and all i can think is:

i want to show my mom my stupid ottoman. i want her to say 'oh that looks great! isn't target the best? why do we ever shop anywhere else. oh and it has storage! you could put your hats and gloves in there, or maybe even some extra toiletries.' i want to chat about a fucking furniture purchase and listen to her talk about how she's going to try it out when she comes to visit me next. i want her to keep me on the phone for too long, to the point where i get annoyed and make up a meeting so i can hang up.

it's not fair. i want my mom to be my mom. she's sitting at home so exhausted and dying and this is all i can fucking think about. it's not fair it's not fair it's not fair it's not fair.

[cloud-ya]

outcast of the village

[hotvampireadjacent]

https://x.com/treborrhurbarb/status/1819855330232480252?s=46&t=kvJFP3BjKnMEl5NO2bJUMA

[arrimorr]

The Knight is a bit weird under his armor. I would say that's it's not even an armor but a chitinous shell

[soranker]

laios985

[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.

[christadeguchi]

if nothing else can save america this zero-year-old fairy baby otter with no gender can. chiitan's platform is love. and chaos.

[drsonnet]

The last words of Aaron Bushnell before he set fire to himself outside the Israeli embassy in Washington - Free Palestine.

The original scene is true: capture photo from video shows #AaronBushnell sets fire while a policeman is pointing a gun at his burning body!! Cop went for gun instead of an extinguisher.

DrSonnet — #CNN #BBC #SKY #NYT,.... SPEAK UP. It's 2024, not... (tumblr.com)

“I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all…Free Palestine.” -Aaron Bushnell

"This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal"

-Aaron Bushnell

Shortly before his final act in this world, Bushnell posted the following message on #Facebook: "Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' "The answer is, you're doing it. Right now."

RIP Aaron Bushnell.. He decided to be a free man and not to be complicit in #GazaGenocide.. His last words were (Free #Palestine).

Photo credit: SOURCE: Krime Krime (@krime_1) / X (twitter.com)

#RIPAaronBushnell #AaronBushnell

#Gaza #freePalestine #PalestineLivesMatter

[greenhairedfreakglobal]

if nicocado avocado can do it, so can i

[weepingalaxy]

if jeremy and michael knew each other, don't you think the bites would feel rather similar?

[rassebers]

Best trait for a classmate to have?

[ao3-crack]

(x)

[dungeonmastersconsortium]

things are getting WILD on far-right twitter

[charlie-artlie]

I think the death weirdos should hang out

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

anyone else have multiple traumatic memories associated specifically with holidays/family vacations? because that is a topic I never see discussed in all the So You Had A Shitty Childhood, Now What? self-help books i've been reading. but for me, it was a significant thing. and the more i think about it the more it seems like this would be an (unfortunately) common experience. would be grateful to hear if this matches other peoples' experiences...