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.
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endless love!
[ID Two drawing collage pages of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. In the first collage, top corner, Wolfwood looks upwards disgruntled with a flushed expression, lying against a pillow, as his hair is being pet by Vash's hand. Next shows Vash and Wolfwood from behind, Wolfwood with his top bare and hickies covers around his nape area. Vash lifts hair away from his nape and asks, "More?" Wolfwood nervously says, "No." Next is a side profile of Vash, his arms around Wolfwood from behind while Wolfwood rests his hands against Vash's arms. Next to this are two smaller drawings; Vash turns to Wolfwood and says repetitively, "Wolfwood, Wolfwood..." Wolfwood, not looking at him, says "What?" He finally turns his head and looks shocked as he exclaims, "So close!" Vash says plainly, "You just noticed?" Below these is a drawing of Vash and Wolfwood sitting together as Vash kisses and hugs him from behind with his right arm around Wolfwood's neck and his left hand around his side. He also has his right leg propped against Wolfwood's knee. Bottom of the page has a comic. Wolfwood looks annoyed, speaking to himself, "Where is that idiot?! Need to get out of town before--" A chat bubble exclaims, "Wolfwood!" The next panel shows Vash running from the townspeople, small text saying "Get him! Vash the stampede!". Wolfwood, mad and about to pull the Punisher off his shoulder, says, "Argh, you fucking dumbass!" Vash exclaims, "Ah, don't!" before pulling Wolfwood into a quick kiss. He then tugs on Wolfwood's collar and says, "There's no need to shoot, just run!" Wolfwood stammers, "R-right..." with a flushed, dumbstruck expression.
Second collage; Top left, Wolfwood spoons Vash in bed, his arms around his chest and the other beneath Vash's head. Vash has his hand on top of Wolfwood's as he sleeps while Wolfwood lies awake. Behind this drawing is faint sketches of Vash's face. In a small panel, Wolfwood hides in Vash's neck as he mumbles to himself "Stop. Stop thinking embarrassing things, Wolfwood..." Beneath this drawing is another of them in bed, Vash now turned to Wolfwood and a hand on his cheek as he kisses him good morning. In a simpler style, Vash wraps an arm tightly around wolfwood with the text "snork mimimi" next to him while Wolfwood says, "We need to get up. Spikey! HEY!" In this corner, there are faint sketches of Vash and Wolfwood; one of them looking at each other; Vash kissing Wolfwood's forehead; Wolfwood saying, "Hand" with an outstretch hand and Vash says "ok" behind a drawing of them holding hands, both turned away from each other shyly. Next is a 4 panel comic. First shows Wolfwood's face getting squished by Vash's hands with the text "squish" around his face. Next, his cheeks are stretched with the text "Chee--" Wolfwood then hits Vash's face with his palm, exclaimining "That hurts!" The last shows Vash on Wolfwood's lap, smiling to himself as he continues to have Wolfwood's face in his hands. Next to this is another comic; A close up of their hands, Vash holding Wolfwood's with both of his. He then kisses the palm of Wolfwood's palm and says, "They're soft!" Wolfwood looks at him with flushed cheeks, "There's no way that's true..." END ID]
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Gale telling Durge that he's sure that Durge would have people to invite to their wedding is ofc Larian half-assing things, but it's funny to hc that Gale just had an oopsie social interaction where one says smth kinda weird/incorrect and then later realizes that it was weird/incorrect but it's too late to correct now. However, Durge takes that as a "you should invite someone to our wedding" kind of expectation and tries to comply. Family members are absolutely out of the question even if they weren't dead or a god he hates. And outside of Bhaal's temple, Durge is pretty sure he had only one friend. But he was apparently a very good friend. And Durge has Gale's resurrection scroll that never got used. Death's not a problem yeah. Perfect solution yeah.
And this is how Gortash gets tossed from Bane's torture session into Durge's accidental torture session where he gets invited to the wedding of his ex that he's still very much into
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Hmmm... very interesting to me that Taylor Swift is trending rn and yet for some reason no one in that tag is complaining that her trending is taking away from what's going on in Palestine and what's happening in Rafah. And yet for some reason, people couldn't seem to shut up in the Kendrick Lamar tag when he was trending about how the whole beef was just two celebrities beef (it's much deeper than that) and were making up theories abt how the whole thing was taking attention away from Palestine and everyone talking about it should feel ashamed of themselves (every single account I saw in that tag was posting about Palestine too).
And the thing that's really getting me is that Taylor is trending bc of a change to the Eras tour. An objectively unimportant change to make, especially when compared to what's going on in Rafah. But that's not what gets hate, no, it's the predator getting called out in an industry known for exploitation by one of the biggest artists in said industry. The racism isn't even implicit atp...
Edit: ok so just to clarify no this wasn't meant to insinuate that Taylor trending was some setup of Israel (that's just... like objectively wrong lmao), it was to point out that when it comes to a black artist in hip hop (a predominantly non-white genre) people wouldn't let fans of said genre just enjoy the music and shenanigans happening in that genre and that's it's hypocritical to act like people can't care abt two things at once, but they can enjoy their white "feminist icon" pop star (a much whiter genre) without anyone bringing hate into that tag. like i put in the tags, the anti taylor tag is for filtering bc i honestly don't see this post as particularly negative for taylor swift, it's a critique of the fans. and i'm calling out swifties particularly bc the ones who were saying that the beef was manufactured to take eyes off of rafah were swifties, and the ones being racist in the kendrick tag were swifties. i'm not exaggerating like almost every hate post i saw mentioning the beef being manufactured was a swiftie account. it is weird to act like people caring about very serious allegations happening in a genre of music isn't reason enough to make a big deal of the situation and go INTO THE TAG and complain, but it is especially hypocritical and frankly quite infuriating to see the same people who complained about a big deal of a situation being a "distraction" from gaza and then blog abt taylor swift . it's fine if u want to blog abt music u like, honestly idc abt that, if that's all u do then this legit isn't targeted at u, this is targeted at the swifties who came into the kendrick tag to complain and then went back to talking abt swift two seconds later like they weren't doing the same thing they were complaining abt two minutes before. (sry for the long explanation, but i just don't want ppl taking my words out of context and i rlly tried to word this all clearly, but idk man sometimes u think u word something well and then nobody undrestands wtf u were on abt so i wanted to make sure it was clear) also, if you're a zionist or israel supporter, i will be blocking u if u interact with this post. ok ty bye bye
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what about some sort of buddy cop, same age, enemies to lovers au where obi-wan is a jedi and anakin is a coruscanti detective and they literally hate each other and have no respect for the other (obi-wan thinks anakin is a waste of the coruscant budget and a jedi wannabe; anakin thinks obi-wan is a pretentious space monk asshole)
(anakin has personally arrested obi-wan for speeding three times, drinking in public spaces 4 times -- the public space was a bar btw -- and indecent public exposure once. that last one was, tbh, fair cause obi-wan had his dick out in an alley way lol)
(obi-wan has literally stalked this asshole coruscanti cop off planet before and arrested him in his capacity as Jedi Knight for not using his turn signal when changing hyperspace lanes (once), for podracing betting (3 times), and for possession of a galacticly banned substance (twice))
it's not that they're obsessed with each other, it's just that something keeps forcing them together in the wildest, most unpredictable situations, and it's annoying as hell because they're completely fed up with each other
then the senate moves to have a new task force stood up to solve a series of Force-related crimes in the Coruscanti underworld. the task force would include a representative from the Jedi Temple and one from the Coruscanti guards, obviously. and really, obi-wan and anakin are the perfect choices! they're both highly intelligent, dedicated, trustworthy, and incorruptible.
if only they'd stop trying to push each other off the 51st story of coruscant and actually put their heads together to solve the crime
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