If we consider that DMS in the dome work kinda like gods of fate or the universe or something, then for a brief, brief moment, the god of all of spire walked away for a minute and was fully replaced by a new guy because British Kristen said blimey
also congratulations to riz for being The dragon killer of all time. kalvaxus and oisin's grandmother took that picture together thinking they were hot shit and little did they know centuries later they'd both get absolutely rocked by the same 4'4 goblin teenager with a briefcase and glasses. get fucked losers
this is possibly The Most brennan caption ever
Zac Oyama is the funniest person on this show because the ABSOLUTE lack of hesitantion to move to the dm seat and not only enable but fully spur on Ally's development of K2's character- and he's so into it too like he recaps everything dramatically.
CORRECT
Zac Oyama is the funniest person on this entire godforsaken planet
Yuki Sohma!
Dog Meshi.
a party with a catgirl and a dogboy
your honor, she's JUST a girl!!
dating simulator where it starts normal but it slowly becomes clear that all of the romanceable characters are attempting to cover up an extremely specific murder they committed a year ago before you arrived
like this
My mom briefly bred Siamese cats when I was a kid and one of our last males was like this. He would regularly kidnap (kittennap) fresh babies to ‘nurse’ and mother. Carried them around and everything. Never got him to successfully breed, he wasn’t interested. My mom told me animals are like people so sometimes they are gay and trans (it was the 80s so we said ‘transsexual’) and we will support him so we got him fixed and gave him a stuffed animal kitten to fawn over so he could live as the housemarm he was always meant to be.
with everything else that happened it's easy to forget what an incredible entrance this was
found someone on twitter who stitched together the pan up and. dude.
That post about Marcille and Laios' relationship actually got me thinking about Chilchuck and Laios' relationship. Which is harder to see in some ways because it mostly consists of positive absences.
At first, viewers might be inclined to wonder why Chilchuck sticks with the party. He says it's because he took payment up front, but he could give back part of the deposit and leave. Two other party members left; Laios explicitly gave Marcille and Chilchuck a choice as to whether they would stay or go, and they both chose to stay.
We know why Marcille chose to stay; she wants to save Falin and she considers the other party members her friends. Why did Chilchuck stay?
Chilchuck actually respects Laios a lot -- food and monster weirdness aside -- and that mostly comes I think through the positive absences from above. The things that Laios does not do.
All the other party members infringe on these boundaries in some way. Izutsumi tries to egg Chilchuck into combat; Marcille pries into his home life; Senshi deliberately provokes him when he's trying to work. Not Laios. Once Chilchuck sets a boundary, Laios does his best to always respect it. (And I think Laios appreciates having clearly defined Rules For Chilchuck.)
Laios is a good party leader and he takes care of his team. Maybe this is my age showing, but when you find yourself in a good work situation with a good boss, you stay in that job.
It's never stated, but it is implied, that Laios *respects the Guild* as well. Chilchuck is the Guild (union) Head. He knows every single Guild Law. He has negotiated every single one. If he was in a party that didn't respect said negotiations, it would look atrocious (see how he analized Namari's money situation).
Chilchuck: okay. Here are all the things you must follow before I even consider taking a deposit.
Laios: That sounds reasonable. But can you explain rule 3b a bit better?
"arent you hungry" in reaction to unthinking self-deprevation response to trauma is going to haunt me forever actually.
something about suppressing your needs to feel safe and in control. something about someone not admiring the endurance or self-control but instead asking "aren't you hungry," a question which you are entirely unequipped to answer. "Aren't you hungry?" Aren't you impressed I can tune it out? I worked hard for that, for everyone else's sake, don't you get it? "Aren't you hungry?" I don't know, stop asking me questions I can't answer, why is answering so easy for you? "Aren't you hungry?" All I'm any good at figuring out is how much longer I can go without eating, and I thought that was the same, but it's not, is it?
Oh, tumblr recommending me this post was serendipitous. I'm glad other people are feeling this way because I seriously haven't stopped thinking about that moment and Kabru's shocked reaction since I first read it. He really is unequipped.
I only alluded to this idea in my original post (frankly I was self conscious about how long it was feeling), but what I see as one of the core themes about food in Dungeon Meshi is the idea that eating is a declaration to the world that you deserve to be in it. When we kill and consume another living thing to survive, we are making an active choice to take up space. We're saying I want to be here. This is important for Laios, who has spent most of his life running from the world or being rejected by it in small ways. It's through his journey as an active participant in the dungeon's food chain that he comes into his own and asserts his right to belong in the world, with all its mundane heartaches and joys, enough that he can step up to become king by the end.
So when Laios asked Kabru Aren't you hungry? It felt like the narrative speaking to Kabru directly. Kabru, aren't you hungry? Aren't you a creature with needs? Don't you want to be here too? Don't you deserve to live?
And the answer to all of these is No. Yes. It's complicated.
To me, this is even more of a turning point for Kabru than his cooking efforts in the dungeon. He was willing to deal with monster food in order to help another person who couldn't help themselves, and to stay alive for his ultimate goal, but it still made him miserable.
This is the second time Laios offers to feed him, and the first time in the story that anyone offers to feed Kabru in a way that won't end up hurting him. Laios wanting to share a real meal with him but willing to compromise to respect Kabru's desires clearly means a lot to him. It's Laios saying Come eat with me and Kabru saying Yes.
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.
now that youve spelled it all out, its really hitting me how much he grows during his time with mithrun--he still doesnt enjoy what hes eating, but he is doing it. he's making food for himself and is forced to caretake for someone else and in that process must be aware of his own bodys needs to guess at mithruns. mithruns condition is very much an exaggerated state of kabrus own ptsd: kabru ignores his body until he must attend to it, where mithrun cannot feel it at all.
his journey to get reacquainted with his needs is still in its infancy when the story ends, but it is a journey he starts, and starts it by having no choice but recognize he needs to survive and that takes food, no matter what kind.
Soren(s)
sometimes I just draw things because I want to see more of it out there I guess.
