#there's merit to them

[clonehub]

"why does the fandom complain so much!!" do you see what we've been getting

[loriache]

"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.

[future-crab]

The thing about TMA is that if I think about Sasha James too much I will cry and if I think about Michael Shelley too much I will cry and if I think about Agnes Montegue too much I will cry and if I think about Jonathan Sims too much I will cry and if I think about Naomi Herne too much I will cry and if I think about Gerry Keay too much I will cry and if I think about Tim Stoker too much I will cry and if I think about Jane Prentiss too much I will cry and if I think about Martin Blackwood too much I will cry and—

[umbrellacam]

personally I do think apologies were merited on both sides of the Dick & Tim conflict in RR, but also it's fine that it didn't explicitly happen or get talked out in a more stereotypically ""healthy"" way bc. they are not me, lol. they're emotionally avoidant Bats who are used to brushing past/letting go of things for the people they care about, and to accepting actions/unspoken understanding in lieu of words.

I find it very believable based on their characters, their relationship, and both of their pasts for them to consider the matter for the most part satisfactorily resolved based on the Big Gestures and reaffirmation of trust between the two of them at the end of the Collision arc.

if we'd gotten an apology from one of them but not the other, seemingly validating just one side, that would have been annoying. for me it's either they both apologize or neither does but they move on with understanding and no real hard feelings anyway - which is what happened.

I do find it kind of hilarious that this works for Dick and Tim because they care for and understand each other on that unspoken level - but Damian doesn't yet. So the two of them just smiling and nodding to each other in manly fashion and moving on after RR #12 leaves us in a situation where Tim is swinging along with Dick and Damian in RR #13 thinking, "It feels good. More than that, it feels right. Yes, even Damian as Robin" - meanwhile Damian is hacking Tim's private files and trying to drop billboards on him in RR #14 like a Looney Toons character because what he knows is that Tim was angry and unwilling to give up Robin to him specifically, and he's convinced that Tim still hasn't accepted that he's Robin - due to both the "hit list" that he found and because Tim's acceptance of the situation has largely been unspoken.

Like that acceptance is pretty clear to Dick and anyone who knows Tim well, but Damian very much does not know Tim well at that point, lol.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

okay unironically I love so much that porter is like this world SUCKS its BAD here and it HURTS you why do you care abt it!!! and literally every single bad kid is like ngl we just hate ur ass it does not matter what ur philosophy is

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

not enough discussion about the gavins' complicated relationship with feminine-coded/beauty products, i don't think.

[lizzibennet]

personally the appeal of friends to lovers to me is that i like the idea of a person realizing they’ve always been a little bit in love with that friend, but they needed something to make them aware of it, to point out that that nice, warm feeling that they love about that person isn’t just friendship and perhaps hasn’t been for a long time. i love the idea of “of course i love you, i always have, how stupid of me to not have seen it before.” in that sense, i don’t think it makes sense when people say colin just starts liking penelope in s3/episode 4. the whole point of building up a friendship into a romance is to portray that these characters have deep feelings for each other that may or may not be romantic but that end up melding into a romance in the end. he’s only just understood his feelings but he’s clearly felt them for a long time. the fact he doesn’t understand being a rake doesn’t emotionally fulfill him and processes that through part one is telling, to me, that he’s only now beginning to fully understand what he feels, not only towards pen but also towards himself, towards life in general. so again, i think it makes sense that things become clear to him now, that doesn’t mean they’re just starting to happen now. i think that read of him is really superficial tbh

[dandelion-roots]

[Image description: a digital drawing of sklonda and pok gukgak from fantasy high, two goblins with shoulder length straight hair and short curly hair, respectively. they're touching foreheads and embracing, both of sklonda's hands in pok's hair, while one of pok's hands is moving sklonda's bangs off her foreheads and the other is clutching at her waist. we only see sklonda's face and the look of silent grief on it. in the background on pok's half is a stylized dragon's mouth with teeth digging into his shoulder, and on sklonda's side are sheets of paper. over the background on the left is text that reads, it's okay, and then on the right side in brackets it says, (it'll be ok). End image description]

[grandcovenant]

who's pulling the strings of the puppet king?

[funky-solaris-time]

||JADE SHADOW SPOILERS||

Me: Jade Shadows was a beautiful story about one man grappling with the hardest choice a person expecting a child can be given. To chose between his love and their child. And when he realizes she cannot be saved, he instead saves their child, and his future. Choosing to renounce the hatred that he had formed to fill the void in his heart.

Tennoblr: the quest wasn’t what I wanted. Terrible, horrible. Absolutely nothing of value was experienced hear.

[mister13eyond]

dont normally post about drama but this seems relevant:

im seeing a lot of people jump to "james somerton was never good anyways" in retaliation for the hbomb expose, but there's a really fine line to tread there before you get into stepping on the toes of the people he stole from, you know?

some of his videos and analysis did seem genuinely intelligent, thoughtful, insightful, and well-written. yeah, it turns out those are the result of him stealing from other people. but that doesnt mean the original writers WEREN'T intelligent, thoughtful, insightful and good writers. he had plenty of garbage opinions interspersed throughout, but the reason many people (myself included) were suckered in by him is that the queer creators he stole from DID have really important and interesting analysis. the parts of his videos that were good were stolen, but by discounting his essays entirely we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater and insisting those he stole from didn't have anything important to say.

the parts he himself supplied were trash, but he stole the work of some genuinely brilliant and insightful writers and passed it off as his own- and that writing still exists and is still brilliant and insightful; we just know now who was actually responsible for it and who to thank for that work

lets just be careful when we smugly proclaim that we always hated everything he had to say- because a lot of the words we're discounting were never his to begin with, and the last thing those authors need is to have their work trash talked because it ended up in the mouth of someone dishonest

[miraonpluto]

my most random tlt theory is that abigail doing something that should have been impossible (summoning nonius) out of sheer force of passion is foreshadowing for harrow being able to do something supposedly only god can do (resurrect someone) out of sheer force of passion (her love for gideon)

[ineffabildaddy]

"do u kin crowley or aziraphale" idk man they're both way too cool for me

[mrsrookhunt]

TO ADD TO THIS POST!!

Rook has two older siblings, and three younger, right? That conveniently goes along with the point system in Chess.

So we can actually guess which sibling is which.

Either King or Queen is the oldest (assuming King)

Rook

Knight

Bishop

Pawn

So anyways enjoy that knowledge.

@neige-leblanche you inspired part two to this. I knew about it earlier but I was keeping it short and sweet lol.

[the-greatest-magic-of-all]

"Why do Fabian and Riz have to get married? Why can't they just be fri-" BECAUSE WHEN ONE OF THEM DIES I NEED THE OTHER TO BE LEGAL CLASSIFIED AS A WIDOWER!!! THAT’S WHY!!!

[kacievvbbbb]

Honestly despite my feelings about how the last arc of MHA went down I really love Deku and his story.

I just feel like a lot of the time we get these protagonists whose whole philosophy is it doesn’t matter what you were born as everyone can achieve greatness. But then the series goes on and it turns out that actually it DOES matter because the protagonist has this really great lineage and these really great powers you can only have through birth they were actually born born, predestined if you will, to do this.

But MHA actually sticks to its guns. Midoriya wasn’t revealed to have some great connection to all might that the universe had put in place. He wasn’t defended from some great lineage that makes him uniquely suited to this. Hell All for one didn’t even turn out to be his father, there was no hidden powerful quirk he was always meant to have. He was just Midoriya Izuku a boy who was in the right place at the right time and simply decided to act while the world did nothing. And that’s what really made him a hero.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I believe him a bit more when he goes anybody can be a hero if you just decide to act