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ohgaylor · 1 day
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flowersosa · 1 day
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The thing is, the Rat Grinders have fucked themselves since the day they decided to kill Lucy Frostblade. What makes the Bad Kids time, after time, after time, better, stronger, and more popular and respected, is the fact that they find strength and communion amongst eachother.
It is the Bad Kid's at the end of the day, ensuring that each of them will make it home to their loved ones that unites them.
The power of fuckinng friendship is what makes them wanting to do better and be stronger for eachother. What the Rat Grinders did by Killing Lucy (aside from pissing me off) and killing Buddy, is showcase how expendable they are to eachother. And Cokebear Nettlelip is singlehandedly gonna cause the death of her party mates because of her groups very dangerous, and unknow motivations
And what are the repercussions of the Rat Grinder's actions, after killing not one, but two clerics of different religions? What of the cleric community within the school? What of clerics of Spyre?
Are we deepening the holy war?
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rwbyrg · 2 days
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So, we can all agree that when Oscar eventually gets his semblance, it's going to have something to do with Ruby, right? And I'm not even saying this from a shippy lens. Kid has an immortal wizard move into his brain at 14 that he can't kick out, immediately becomes a child soldier, lives through a train crash, countless grimm fights, crash lands a plane, gets shot in the chest, falls for - quite possibly - a few kilometres after blowing up a hole in the bottom of a military compound, gets beaten up and abducted by a goopy grimm super monster, magic blasted by his headmate's ex-wife, tortured and beaten up by a man six times his size, fights off Salem again to save his friends, and not ONE of those instances has been stressful enough to awaken it.
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But both times he's talked about his semblance manifesting, it's been with Ruby. The first is in v5 after they spar and Ruby cheers him (and Jaune) on about getting there one day, while Ren makes a comment saying:
"One common philosophy is that a warrior's semblance is a part of who they are".
The second time is in v7 when Ruby does something new with her own semblance and Oscar asks if she's always been able to do that. Eventually leading to him lamenting again about how he's not unlocked his yet while everyone else's are evolving. And it's Ruby that responds with:
"Well, I'm sure we'll all be jealous when you do (figure it out)".
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And then, from both Ruby and Oscar's perspectives, we are shown their attachment to each other. Ruby throughout V9 with Neo's illusions, and Oscar with - many instances - but especially in the recently released epilogue where he speaks at her grave. And in this speech we're reminded of that attachment as well as his struggles with identity. Specifically how those two things are intrinsically linked together:
"You always believed in the best. Saw people for who they really were. Some of us... don't know anymore. "
Oscar can't grasp his own personal super power that's "a part of himself" when he doesn't know who he is. He's losing himself to the merge, the boundaries of where he ends and Oz begins are blurring by the day, and he's only 15 and still growing into the person he could become. And the one person that was always certain of who he was, always made him feel like he was his own person... isn't around anymore. So he feels even more detached from his identity and the parts that comprise it than ever before.
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But she returns in Vacuo before their final fight, and his semblance has been teased too many times to never appear. So my current guesses are either:
he's going to unlock it under stress to save Ruby from certain danger, because he "lost her once and won't risk it a second time"; or
he's going to unlock it in a different, maybe even quieter moment, where - once again, thanks to Ruby's certainty - he starts feeling like himself again.
Only one way to find out.
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I’m confused. Why would he get deported? He’s married to (presumably) a US citizen already. Not sure if I missed something?
Well, the simplest explanation is that everyone who immigrates/emigrates to the US has to fill out paperwork to stay here. Doesn't matter who you are, who your family is, who you're married to, where you're from, what money you have. Everyone fills out the paperwork.
Being married to a US citizen only affects the type of visa (Spouse of US Citizen) you get and which application (Form I-130, the Petition for Alien Relative) your sponsor fills out to start the process.
The longer/more detailed explanation of the process, and the background for the lawsuit about Harry's visa application, is this:
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(Apologies for how small the text is. I didn't want it to be a multi-page thing.) I'll describe it below the jump.
But essentially, Harry's process to become a legal permanent resident through his marriage to a US citizen is:
Sponsor/Meghan submits Form I-130 to the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), requesting approval to bring her spouse to live with her in the US.
USCIS reviews the form and will approve (left green circle) or deny (left red circle) the application. If they deny it, that ends the process. They can try again later. If they approve it, then:
Sponsor/Meghan pays a bunch of fees and a visa case is opened.
(The big giant square text) More paperwork and documents are submitted. Meghan and Harry do this together. (I'll explain this in a bit.)
The Spouse/Harry has his immigration interview.
USCIS will review the visa case file and make a decision on whether to approve or deny the visa request. If they deny the visa, then depending on the justification for denial, the Spouse/Harry may request a waiver or he can submit additional documentation for further consideration. If the visa is approved, then the Spouse/Harry is given approval to travel to the US and once he's here, he gets permanent residency - aka "the green card."
Now, getting back to the giant text block and the "more paperwork" requirement. In this phase of the process for a spousal visa, the couple must provide:
An affadavit of support from the Sponsor/Meghan (this basically says that she has enough income to support Harry and they won't need government assistance)
Supporting financial documents (probably tax declarations)
Harry's passport
Additional photographs of Harry
Form DS-260, the Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration Application from Harry (this is Harry's application for residency)
Harry's birth certificate
Their marriage certificate
Harry's military records (the US requires anyone with military service in any country to submit)
Harry's police certificate (information about whether he has been arrested or charged with crimes/what kinds)
Harry's Medical Examination form (which sometimes is done after the interview)
Form DS-260 is the big one. It basically asks the immigrant (Harry, in this case) about everything in his life: his childhood, his work history, his social media accounts, where he's lived, his family of origin, his children, previous travel to the US, medical and health details (including history of substance abuse. communicable diseases, and vaccination record), criminal history, security and background details, and social security.
If you're found to have lied about anything on this form - for instance, something pops on the background check that isn't disclosed or your answers in the interview are inconsistent with what's reported on the form or your social media tells a totally different story - it's grounds for your application to be denied and, if you're already here in the US, you to be deported.
This is what the DHS/Homeland Security lawsuit is about. The DS-260 has a question about drug use. The Heritage Foundation (the plaintiff in the case) is suing DHS to find out what Harry reported about his drug use on the form and in his medical history because historically, the US does not allow people with drug addictions or past drug use into the country. After Harry's admissions in Spare that he's basically a functioning addict, the Heritage Foundation assumed that Harry said "no" on the drug use question (which would be a lie) and they want to find out if he was given special treatment because of being Queen Elizabeth's grandson. (I also suspect the Heritage Foundation wants to find out if Harry has a regular passport or is traveling/living in the US on a diplomatic passport as well.)
So going back to your original question, yes, Harry can still be deported even if he is the spouse of a US citizen and even if he is a permanent resident. All the marriage to a US citizen means is what forms get filled out and what supporting documentation is submitted. That's all; there aren't any other protections involved in being married to a US citizen.
But there is a benefit to immigrating via a "green card marriage" - if you come to the US on any other kind of visa, the requirements are much stricter and the waiting period for eligibility can sometimes take much longer. Particularly on the latter, the US actually has requirements on how many people per country can immigrate/travel in a given a year, even if you're sponsored by a business or a friend or a family member (eg a brother or uncle). So some people end up waiting years to move to the US; that's just the demand on the system. But with a "green card marriage," you get to jump most of the queues and your waiting period for eligibility disappears in an instant. You can literally begin your application to move to the US the day you get engaged to a US citizen or the day you get married.
But you still have to go through all the hoops and fill out all the paperwork anyway. No way around that. No matter who your grandmother is.
Now for the part that makes all of this even more complicated: COVID.
A lot of rules government-wide were relaxed because of the COVID national emergency. One of the areas in which a lot of rules, standards, and regulations were relaxed is immigration, which caused an enormous backlog of paperwork and cases. Why? Because we're the goverment, y'all, and we move at slower-than-glacial-pace. In March 2020, we still processed a million things by hand on actual physical paper. (Remember, I'm a fed. I've got horror stories for days about this.) So part of the issue with everyone going home is that the paperwork didn't come home with us. It just kept stacking up and stacking up and stacking up in the office because we were still using paper systems and there hadn't been enough time to automate processes or digitize systems when we were ordered to work from home on March 16th. (Particularly in the DC area, talks/plans to send us all home started literally the week before, on March 9th. That was zero time to do anything but scale up the VPN and give everyone a laptop so whole entire agencies can work from home - because remember, before March 2020, it wasn't a thing for us in government to work from home.) So in June/July 2020 when the local stay-at-home orders were finally lifted, we all went back to the office to huge backlogs of paperwork and casework. Backlogs that were still growing by the day, and backlogs that needed to be handled quickly. As a result, there were a lot of decisions made to just "rubber-stamp" everything as quickly as possible. In DHS/USCIS, that meant citizenship and visa applications weren't as closely reviewed as they may have been in the past because the bosses were telling us "just get it done" because the Trump Administration was breathing down everyone's necks to deliver results that they could use in his re-election campaign.
So there's speculation now that Harry's visa/immigration application is one of those cases that got "rubber stamped" to get through the backlog. And part of that speculation is an attempt to understand when exactly did the visa paperwork get processed and whether there was undue special treatment in doing so. Was he part of the backlog that was grandfathered/rubber-stamped into the US? Or was his application processed before that?
Because if his application was processed before he moved here in March 2020, well, then the Sussexes aren't telling the truth about where they lived or what they were doing. Reason being that typically on a spousal visa, you usually can't already be living here in the US when you apply for it. You apply from your home country and come to the US only once your visa request has been granted.
So did the Sussexes apply for Harry's visa when they were living in Canada, starting the process as early as November 2019 when the BRF forced them into a vacation and panicking in February 2020 when COVID started closing borders? In that case, did the Sussexes apply diplomatic pressure to expedite DHS's review of Harry's case so they could be in the US before borders closed? Or did they say "screw it" and moved to the US without waiting for a decision and then applied diplomatic pressure to have Harry's case approved retroactively?
Or did the Sussexes apply for Harry's visa much earlier, when they were still living in the UK/working as full-time royals? And if that's the case, then did they really go to Canada like they said they did, or did they just hide out in the US for a bit so Harry could pick up his green card, and then they traveled to Vancouver/Canada for New Year's?
Or - perhaps the more tinhatty scenario - did the Sussexes apply for Harry's visa right after the marriage, at the earliest opportunity Meghan could've filed the paperwork? In which case, their secret honeymoon could really potentially have been a trip to the US so Harry could claim his green card.
Option 3 is incredibly farfetched. We know the Sussexes can't keep their stories straight so I feel like if that's what had actually happened, there would've been holes poked into their "fleeing to Canada" narrative already.
I probably lean towards Option 1 (they exploited COVID to move here) but Option 2 is pretty plausible too.
Anyway, that's a ton more than you/anon probably expected. (It's a whole lot more than I expected to write about too.) But hopefully this clears up some confusion about what exactly is happening with Harry's immigration status, why it's possible he can still be deported, and sheds a little light on the Homeland Security lawsuit.
Edit: added some clarification (see bolded part under the flowchart)
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theballsbriefcase · 3 days
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My current Fantasy High Junior Year theories:
1. Kipperlily has beef with Riz because she immediately clocked him as her biggest competition to be top of the rogue class for their year.
2. Kipperlily has a natural rage that she has internalized into a type A personality with the need to be the best whatever it takes
3. Lucy Frostblade died in an accident caused by Kipperlily’s rage.
4. Kipperlily was found by the roque teacher, the roque teacher is who Kipperlily is working for.
5. Jace Stardiamond is the one using the Devils Nectar Honey either on himself, other teachers or the RatGrinders.
6. Mary Ann’s mango soda is spiked to make her stronger
7. Gorgug is worried that his friends will ditch him if Mary Ann becomes their friend because in his mind you don’t need 2 barbarians and she took him out so obviously they’d choose her.
8. Only Ivy and Oisin are actually friends the rest of the RatGrinders fell out of friendship after their sophomore spring break project.
9. The RatGrinders went to the mountains of chaos in their sophomore year where Kipperlily had an encounter with lore about Ankarna’s corrupted form.
10. Porters family comes from the Mountains of Chaos and were longtime devotees of Ankarna but he doesn’t know the gods name and practices her original tenets.
11. Porters warhammer is the warhammer of Ankarna passed down through generations.
12. Bobby and Buddy Dawn came to Solace to evangelize after Sol and Helio lost followers in the Long Night, and possibly remove Kristen as Helios chosen.
13. Buddy Dawn was requested by the Kipperlily for the RatGrinders because Kipperlily knew it would annoy Kristen which would annoy Riz.
14. Jace Stardiamond is a bored sorcerer who has been doing shady deals under the guise of being an Auegfort professor for years.
15. The rogue teacher found Kipperlily after an unaliving attempt by Kipperlily.
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im-a-regular-joe · 2 days
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Don't murder me i'm dumb
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so i know that we know for certain by this point that Crowley used to be a very high rank angel, an archangel or even the former supreme archangel, and i know it will have a big dramatic reveal in the show but wouldn't it be so funny if it got revealed just because Gabriel tries to makes a joke like 'we should start a former supreme archangel meeting club when Aziraphale naturally gets kicked out of the heaven' and Crowley just keeps on drinking his wine with no mimics in his face and Aziraphale is like 'um excuse me what the fuck'?!?!?!'
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mydarlingbat · 10 hours
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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BATMAN ROGUES AND THE JOKER.
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Let's get down to business. I mean yes! I can talk about how long it took me to hunt down comics, but I rather skip all of that. It's not really irrelevant, although can I just say I adore this relationship. I might sound a little insane right now, but their relationship is just full of so many things at once. i can't even break it down right now, especially now. however this is going to focus on Batman and his other rogues unfortunately. I just want to announce and of course elaborate that I don't dislike any ships I'm about to mention. It's just to demonstrate the difference, in addition to that i do believe that mostly all of Batman villains has a level of like for the dark Knight. Maybe not romantically I suppose, but even perhaps so. Now sadly i can't post every villain on one freaking post, but I only can do one at a time. * Cries * nah, I'm just joking, but we are going to get a lovely display of both of their relationships. I will of course start off with theses panels.
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He leaves Riddler to die more than once?
Riddler desires a sort of relationship with the Batman, but he yearns it to align with Batman and Joker relationship, and that will never ever happen. I honestly can't ship Riddler and Batman. Batman treats riddler horribly and he's very hostile towards him the majority of the time, which makes the ship unlikable for me, however I don't have any issue with anyone who ships Batman with the Riddler. They're not terrible. In the meantime let's chat about theses panels. Batman leaves the Riddler tied up in a warehouse in a chair? Now don't get me wrong, he does leave a knife near him, but he shows absolute no remorse or any kind of concern for him. He even goes on to say 'partner' sarcastically. Batman has repeatedly demanded The riddler to not call him partner or friend, while the Joker has repeatedly called Batman friend and partner. This is just one example.
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Batman has never said don't call me partner to the Joker. He said don't call me bats, but partner? I haven't seen it yet, and let's not jump over the fact when you scroll up a little, Batman helps a tied up Joker. He helps a helplessly Joker. He goes down to see if a bloody half dead Joker is alive, and there's concern present. Not the ' are you okay ' Not the simple Riddler ' where's the sadness at Bruce? By the way this isn't Edward. He just thought it was at first.
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Batman doesn't enjoy The Ridder like the Joker? You know someone ask me this before, and I honestly didn't even really desire to give them an answer. I didn't want to ruin their ship, but no he does not in fact enjoy his time with The riddler like he does with The Joker. How i can prove that? It's easy.
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Batman is really over here saying. You missed me Joker? Bruce how gayer can you get. Haha! Now Riddler is practically begging for the dark Knight attention over here. I mean Batman doesn't even want to look at him, or acknowledge him. He just wishes this to be over with as soon as possible in this panel. Here's another example.
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Anything except him. God the way Bruce constantly yearns to disappear away from the Riddler, while he's here with the Joker smiling.
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Batman doesn't deny his dance with the Joker. He acknowledges it all the times, and even goes as far as to say I'm not in the mood. He doesn't tell the Joker to hire someone else to dance with, but he always dances with the Joker. Even if you say that Batman thought Riddler was going to die that night, but even Bruce wasn't an hundred percent sure if he would survive the bullet to his heart. The Riddler did wound up making it after all, so Batman was wrong about his calculations in the issue Batman #25 Jokes and riddles. When the Joker was dying on the Batman who laughs what did Batman do? He bought him back to life. He claimed he did it so the Joker could help him defect the Batman who laughs, but his own words demonstrated that that was not the reason. He told the Joker in these exact words 'you'll be safe here' This is why he bought him back because he didn't want him to live without his greatest foe. The Batman has let three people meet their demise to get to the Joker. It's not me trying make Batman into this heartless person, but this isn't the only incident that Batman has done this. What you all don't understand is that Batman doesn't have excuse for the Joker. He make a excuses. He like the Joker being alive. He goes out of his way to save him, and let's be honest the Joker was stabbed in the heart there was a huge chance the Joker wasn't going to make it in Batman cacophony #3, but he still let the killer go, and go saves the Joker. The point of this is to prove that Batman goes out his way to save the Joker, and go out his way to dance with him.
This isn't finish yet. We need more proof right? I'm going to be talking about Batman confidential #27 and #28 which riddler makes appearance in.
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me when Celia’s incident in episode 10, CAT1RB2275-06082021-09032024, was read out on March 9, 2024, which is a Saturday, and the incident in episode 12, CAT1RB4728-09032024-13032024, took place on March 9, 2024 and was read out 4 days later on Wednesday, March 13, TO GWEN.
At least we know Gwen didn’t send Colin to his death! Just a random dude on his stag night.
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axiian19-art · 2 days
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I JUST NOTICED THIS DETAIL IM FREAKING OUT
When Arle is sad abt her spider dying her curse acts up and her hands get darker, then they become less dark until they're almost entirely normal when she's with Clervie, but once Clervie dies they blacken again and the markings, long nails, and red nails show up
Also maybe she made her title "Father" so she wouldn't have to hear herself referred to with the same title as the previous Knave who killed the person who was seemingly her only friend
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room-surprise · 3 months
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Evidence that Kabru from Delicious in Dungeon is Indian, a Masterpost
(Some of this info is taken from my upcoming essay about the names and cultural origins of all the characters in Dungeon Meshi. There's a link in the source to the AO3 version of this essay.)
Since Kabru’s first appearance in the anime is upon us, I wanted to write something that compiles all the evidence we have that Kabru is meant to be a person of South or Central Asian ethnicity, or at least whatever the equivalent to that is in the Dungeon Meshi world. 
Ryoko Kui can and does draw people of many different ethnicities, and the way she draws Kabru matches the way she draws other Asian characters in Dungeon Meshi. He doesn’t look Black, or Hispanic, or any other ethnicity because he isn’t supposed to. He looks like a dark-skinned South or Central Asian person, because that’s what Ryoko Kui probably intends him to be.
So let’s go through the evidence! (There are no spoilers for the plot of Dungeon Meshi below, but there ARE spoilers for Kabru's backstory as explained in the manga, and in extra materials like the Daydream Hour and Adventurer's Guide book.)
KABRU’S NAME
The Dungeon Meshi Adventurer's Bible tells us Kabru’s real name is unknown. There are other characters whose real names are only told to us in the Adventurer's Bible and were never revealed in the manga, but then Kabru, Thistle and Izutsumi’s entries simply say their real names are unknown, and though Kui could tell us their true names, she doesn’t. I assume this means that the characters themselves don’t know what their real names are, and that the names they go by are not their birth names, but this is only a supposition on my part.
KABRU THE MOUNTAIN
Kabru (काब्रु) is the name of a mountain on the border of Nepal and India, and part of the Himalayan range. It’s the 65th tallest mountain in the world and it is very snowy and icy, with frequent avalanches. Because of this, even though it’s not the tallest mountain in the world, climbing it is challenging, and is not often attempted. Those few that have managed to climb it consider it a major achievement.
“This prohibitively fearful icefall… had thwarted numerous expeditions, perhaps even the 'thought' of attempting the mountain… Unstable seracs of the icefall, a complex maze of chasms, and delicate snow bridges spanning seemingly never ending, near bottomless crevasses… Each time the members stepped into the icefall, they stood a good chance of never returning.” (Kabru - Mountain of the Gods, Major A. Abbey, Himalayan Journal 52, 1996, editor Harish Kapadia)
WHAT DOES KABRU’S NAME MEAN?
Kabru is a character that is known for being very good at charming people, but who doesn’t express himself honestly, because he’s trying to manipulate the people and situations around him in order to maintain control at all times. I think nobody really knows who Kabru is deep inside, maybe not even Kabru himself, so a remote, hostile, icy mountain that’s hard to climb seems like an extremely appropriate name. 
Some of the oldest English sources I found regarding Kabru suggest that Kabru isn’t the correct local name for the mountain (a common problem in early Himalayan exploration by Europeans) and might just be a descriptor, or that it’s a misspelling. 
This makes the name seem even more appropriate, since Kui’s told us Kabru’s true name is unknown. It’s possible that Kabru was a place-name or a descriptor that Milsiril (Kabru’s elven foster mother) was given when she picked up a traumatized 7 year old Kabru, and she just started using it as his name, and that even he doesn’t remember his real name thanks to his severe trauma.
The fact that people in the real world can’t seem to agree on the mountain Kabru’s name, or what it means, reminds me of the running gag of Laios repeatedly getting Kabru’s name wrong in the manga.
"All the people near the Kabru massif call it 'Kaboor'." (The Alpine Journal, 1921-22 Volume 34, Edited by George Yeld and J. P. Farrar)  “It is also said that the name applies to a peak close to Kinchinjunga on the southeast, and not to the peak known to Europeans as Kabru… [The real name is] Pahung Ri [Pauhunri].” (Appendix I: Place Names in Darjeeling. The appendix says it was “compiled mainly from an article written by Colonel Waddell and published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Vol. LX, part I, 1891)”) “Kangchen is a Tibetan name… the Sikkhimese use it as the name for the peak called Kabru by Europeans.” (Charles Bell, Dyhrenfurth's Himalaya (Berlin, 1931)) “...Kyabru or the horn of protection. The name is… Kabur… possibly a corruption of Kangbur or the swelling of snow; it might also mean the white swelling (kar-bur).” (Appendix I: Place Names in Darjeeling.)  “Kabru literally means the 'White Avalanche' peak (Ka means 'white' and bru means 'avalanche').” (Kabru - Mountain of the Gods, Major A. Abbey, Himalayan Journal 52, 1996, editor Harish Kapadia)
I’ve seen one other mountaineering article cite the “white avalanche” meaning, and I think it’s plausible since the Appendix says it can mean “white swelling” or “swelling of snow”, which may very well be a literal translation for “white avalanche”. 
WHAT ABOUT UTAYA? IS THAT INDIAN TOO?
Utaya means “raised” or “uplifted” in Hindi, but it’s also a real village and a Japanese boy’s name.
Utaya (ウタヤ) is the name of the village that Kabru was raised in before his mother died and he was adopted by the elf Milsiril. Utaya is located in the southeast of the Western Continent. It’s worth noting that Kabru probably wasn’t born in Utaya, since his mother had to flee from her home to keep Kabru alive, so Utaya may be some distance away from his birth place… Not so far that a woman with a newborn baby couldn’t survive the trip, but far enough that her husband’s family gave up on chasing her. So Kabru was probably born in a close-by area.
In the real world, Utaya (Yakut: Утайа) is in an extremely rural and isolated area with a population of less than a hundred people. It’s located in the Sakha Republic, which is in the Northeastern part of Asia in the Russian Federation. The Yakut/Sakha are a Siberian Turkic people.  
The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages. 
Early and medieval Turkic groups exhibited a wide range of both East Asian and West-Eurasian physical appearances and genetic origins, in part through long-term contact with neighboring peoples such as Iranian, Mongolic, Tocharian, Uralic/Yeniseian peoples, and others. Turkic peoples share, to varying degrees, non-linguistic characteristics like cultural traits, ancestry from a common gene pool, and historical experiences. 
JAPANESE MEANINGS FOR UTAYA
Utaya can be a Japanese boy’s name with several different meanings, depending on which kanji it’s spelled with. In most of the spellings: Poetry, sing a poem, singing, compose poetry
In many of the spellings: The place where the sun shines, it's been a long time, distant, big, to shoot with a bow, to swear, affirmation, question.
The Utaya disaster happened a long time ago.
If Utaya is up in the mountains above the clouds it’s a place where the sun shines brightly.
 Kabru has sworn to himself that he will prevent another Utaya tragedy from happening.
In only a few of the spellings: to mend, feathers, wings, a word for counting birds and rabbits, sort them out, washing with water to separate the good from the bad, roof, house with a roof, a world covered with a big sky, infinite space, song that praises the Buddha, Eight.
Counting birds and rabbits makes me think of divination and also that the people of Utaya were like little birds and rabbits (small prey animals) to the monsters that devoured them.
Separating the good and the bad could hint to the “judgment” of Utaya and the greed of its people that led to their downfall, also sorting through things to separate good and bad is something that’s done with food and other resources.
The Himalayan region is often referred to as the “roof of the world”, with a big open sky above it. 
The infinite could refer to the dimension the demon comes from, or to the sky above the mountains. 
Buddhism is a common religion in the Himalayan region, and eight has auspicious connotations in Buddhism. 
With all that in mind, Utaya as a name for Kabru’s home village is an interesting choice, and adds another layer to his origins, maybe suggesting not just North Indian/Himalayan, but Central or North Asian cultural influence as well. 
It is also possible that the name is just telling us that Utaya is “up” in the mountains, or that it was “uplifted” by the wealth of the dungeon, or even that Kabru was “raised” there… The Japanese name meanings are also extremely fascinating and hint at similar ideas, as well as the tragedy that happened to Utaya.
WHY ELSE DO YOU THINK KABRU AND UTAYA ARE HIMALAYAN?
In the real world, the Himalayan mountain range is an extremely popular tourist destination, and the amount of people who want to visit and attempt to climb the mountains far outpaces the local ability to support it. This makes me think of the dungeon of Utaya and how people overcrowded it in their desire to conquer and exploit it. 
Dungeons as an unsustainable way for locals to make a living that leads to the destruction of their homes when the dungeon inevitably collapses is a major plot point in Dungeon Meshi, so I think the parallel is likely intentional. Characters often talk about someone “conquering” the dungeon, and “conquer” is also the terminology commonly used for climbing a mountain. This terminology obviously has a hostile, imperialist subtext in the real world, since it’s most commonly used by outsiders talking about proving their strength by climbing a mountain.
Also, there are local legends in the areas surrounding Mt. Kabru that there is a valley of immortality hidden on its slopes, which reminds me of the way that the dungeons can grant conditional immortality to the people inside of them.
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This image of Utaya could be showing us a village built on a mountainside. The house shapes seem a bit more Middle Eastern than Nepali/Indian, but it’s not a detailed drawing and the roof styles are a mix of flat and peaked.
CULTURE
In the Daydream Hour sketchbook, Ryoko Kui included a small comic about characters sharing desserts from their home countries. A young Kabru is shown enthusiastically trying to share an unnamed sweet, and he is interrupted by his elven foster mother, who insists he present a type of elven cake instead. We know that Kabru hates this type of cake, and he seems disappointed to have to eat it and talk about it.
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The white balls in Kabru’s dessert are very likely meant to be  an Indian sweet called rasgulla (literally "syrup filled ball"). Rasgulla are a dessert popular in the eastern part of South Asia, made from ball-shaped dumplings of chhena dough, cooked in light sugar syrup. While it is near-universally agreed upon that the dessert originated in the eastern Indian subcontinent, the exact origin is disputed. Rasgulla are as culturally important to the Bengal and Odisha regions of India as Parmesan cheese is to the region of Parma in Italy.  
Rasgulla are also popular in Nepal, where they are called rasbari. 
KABRU’S PHYSICAL APPEARANCE
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Kabru is one of several characters in Dungeon Meshi with clearly non-European features: he has brown skin and thick black/dark brown curly hair. He has almond-shaped eyes with long, dark lashes (fans like to joke that he’s wearing eyeliner). All of these are traits common to people from the Indian subcontinent. His blue eyes are not common for someone with his skin/hair color, but blue or green eyes are not unheard of in that region either. 
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(Indian man with blue eyes)
Blue or light eyes are often a cause for discrimination, like what Kabru experienced as a child. More on this in a moment.
Kabru is 5’7” (170cm) tall, which is short for a Northern European man (180), tall for a Nepali man (162cm), but close to the average height of Indian men (177cm). He has a slender build, which is also common for Asian people in general, and South Asian men in particular.
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Compared to the European-looking tall-men in Dungeon Meshi (such as Laios, Falin, Delgal, Marcille’s father), Kabru’s facial features look more like the other Asian characters, such as Toshiro and his party. 
CAN DARK-SKINNED PEOPLE HAVE BLUE EYES?
Yes. Light-colored eyes are very uncommon in parts of the world where most people have dark eyes, since dark eyes are a dominant trait in real-world human beings. That means that in order for two parents with dark eyes to have a child with light eyes, both parents need to have a recessive light-eyes gene (or for there to be an illness or genetic mutation), and that’s rare in populations that don’t have a lot of light-eyed people to begin with.   
THEN WHY DO SO MANY DARK-SKINNED CHARACTERS HAVE BLUE EYES?
Anime and manga often give characters with dark skin light colored eyes instead of allowing them to have brown or black eyes, which is much more common in real life. It’s a hurtful design trope that makes many readers feel that their natural dark eyes are somehow ugly or inferior to blue eyes.
This trope is used over and over again by authors who want their characters to look “cool” and “exotic”, and for their eyes to be high-contrast to make it easier to show their emotions.
I don’t think this is what Ryoko Kui is doing in Dungeon Meshi. 
UNREALISTIC HAIR AND EYE COLOR COMBOS IN ANIME
In a lot of anime/manga, blue eyes (regardless of skin color) don’t actually mean anything in the narrative, in the same way characters having green or pink hair doesn’t mean anything, the colors are non-diegetic, they don’t actually exist in the world, like the music that plays in the background without an on-screen source. 
It’s an artistic shorthand to make characters visually stand out, instead of giving them all black hair and eyes like most real-life Japanese people… Which is what most anime/manga characters are meant to be: Japanese people. 
Dungeon Meshi has a large cast of characters that are explicitly meant to be non-Japanese. We know this because there’s a group of characters that are Japanese, and they’re drawn differently from everyone else, they wear ethnically Japanese clothing, and have ethnically Japanese names. 
Unlike other series, where eye and hair color don’t mean anything, Dungeon Meshi has no unrealistic skin, hair, or eye color combinations. 
(Except for the elves, who seem to have different genetics than real world-humans. I’ll get into that another time.)
Ryoko Kui must be aware of the dark skin, blue-eyes design trope, because if she gave Kabru blue eyes just because she thought it looked good, surely she would have made some of the other Asian or dark-skinned characters have light eyes. Out of 9 Asian or dark-skinned tall-man characters, Kabru is the only one with blue eyes.
Kabru having light-colored eyes is central to his story, and Kui talks about it.
KABRU’S STORY AND WHY HIS BLUE EYES MATTER
Kabru’s father and his family tried to kill Kabru when he was born because he had blue eyes. Kabru’s mother ran away, and ended up raising Kabru by herself in Utaya. She didn’t try to return home to her own birth family, but instead struggled to raise a child completely on her own with no money or support, which implies she had no other options, due to the fear people of their region have for people with blue eyes.
This is a real thing that used to happen frequently in areas where most of the population has dark eyes, and it still happens to this day.
In a realistic story, this is logically what would happen to a character with dark skin born with blue eyes in a place like the Utaya region. It’s rare for manga or anime to show dark-skinned blue-eyed characters facing this. 
WHAT IS THE “EVIL EYE”?
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The “evil eye” is a supernatural belief in a curse brought about by a person looking at you. The belief in the evil eye has existed since prehistory, as long as 5,000 years ago. It is estimated that around 40% of the modern world's population believes in the evil eye. This concept is most common across the Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia, areas where light-colored eyes are uncommon. 
In areas where light-colored eyes are rare, people with green eyes, and especially blue eyes, are thought to bestow the curse, intentionally or unintentionally. Just one look from a blue-eyed person is often considered enough to inflict a curse.
One of the most famous and widespread talismans against the evil eye is the nazar, a glass amulet featuring concentric circles in dark blue, white, light blue and black. It’s supposed to “bounce” the curse away from the wearer. 
HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO KABRU?
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Imagine Kabru growing up in a village surrounded by people wearing and hanging talismans that look like his eyes, because the people around him think blue eyes are evil. They call his mother a witch for birthing him, and a whore because she doesn’t have a husband. Imagine parents forbidding their children from playing with or even talking to Kabru. People crossing the street to get away from him, or chasing him away by throwing rocks.
I think the reason young Kabru was able to learn how to speak some kobold is likely because he was so heavily ostracized by the other tall-men around him, the only children he could occasionally interact with in Utaya were kobolds, who might not share the same cultural superstitions that the tall-man do. 
This childhood trauma, combined with Kabru’s experience of the dungeon collapse in Utaya, and being raised by an elf that treated him more like a pet than a human being, set Kabru up as a character who has never had a home where he belongs. He has been an outsider from the instant he was born, and every place he has lived treats him as an “other.”
To his father’s family, he was a curse. To his mother, although she loved him, he was a burden. To the people of Utaya, he was a monster. To the elves, he’s a tall-man baby (no matter how old he gets) with funny looking eyes, to the people on Merini Island, he’s a foreigner from the West with elven ways and education. 
CONCLUSION
I wanted to write this because I know some people will see Kabru in the anime for the first time today and think "Oh, another dark skinned blue eyed character! This is a bad character design that is evidence that the author is racist at worst or ignorant at best.” And I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of Ryoko Kui’s work in Dungeon Meshi.
This isn’t to say that Ryoko Kui has never done anything wrong, or that her work couldn’t be more inclusive, or that there’s no way in which she could improve. 
But there are pages and pages of artwork she’s done that shows she cares about these issues, and I think it’s worth celebrating when someone makes that kind of effort with their artwork.
ANYWAY…
If you’ve read this far, you’re very strong hahaha. I hope you enjoyed this essay. I’ll be publishing more soon when I finish my Dungeon Meshi research on the names and cultures of all the characters. Wish me luck!
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g1deonthefirst · 1 month
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a while back in the discord server we were talking about the possibility of wake returning in atn and @katakaluptastrophy pointed out that we learn in HTN that revenants can attach to murder weapons and we get a very specific description of pyrrha pressing the gun against cytherea's skull when she shoots the body to kill wake's revenant — possibly creating an avenue for wake's revenant to jump into the gun.
then @eskildit pointed out that we get a clear chain of custody for the gun in NTN, so i wanted to highlight some of the passages where the narrative really seems to focus on pyrrha's gun. i thought it was particularly interesting that pyrrha's first priority is retrieving her gun even after camilla's just been stabbed, when nona describes everyone else as rushing toward camilla. admittedly this might just be because it has a herald bullet in it (which she later uses to shoot ianthe), but i thought pyrrha's fixation on the gun being because of wake's revenant was a cool possibility nonetheless.
[cred to @dve for the screenshots since i don't have the ebook tysm <3]
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silverlininghills · 2 months
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"300 tracks"
you know those hand signals tyler does during the line "300 tracks in my Adidas track jacket"?
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i, like probably everyone else, assumed that was him signing 3-0-0 with his hands.
but no. he's signing F-0-0.
consider the ASL signs for F vs 3:
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yeah, he's definitely signing F there
so what does F-0-0 mean? well, funny thing about that--you know hexcodes? those 6 digit codes that indicate a specific colour? well, there are also three digit codes as well, where you basically double each number to get the full 6 digit code. wanna guess what #F00 is?
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yup, that's pure red babey!!
and, better yet, wanna know what its complementary colour is?
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why it's pure cyan of course!!! y'know, like the whole __cla_im00FFFF.jpg = CLAIM CYAN = I AM CLANCY thing.
tyler, you sneaky sneaky bastard.
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tanoraqui · 26 days
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Theory: Elrond effectively wears headlamps like a Dad(TM)
Proof:
Elrond, at least on semi-formal occasions, wears “a star upon his forehead” (RotK book 6, ch.9)—that is, presumably, a pale glowing gem on some sort of coronet. This comes across as very classically Elvish (light, jewelry, star imagery), and a nigh-explicit reference to his father Eärendil. However…
Elrond’s children don’t see as well as Elves, as cited here. If his children don’t, then Elrond, even less Elvish by blood, certainly doesn’t. Now, I will admit that I forget if “Elves can see in the dark” is canon or very popular, D&D-enabled fanon, but it certainly makes sense considering that Elves flourished for centuries or millennia under just starlight, before daylight even existed…and it’s equally reasonable to assume that half-elven night vision is as relatively “weak” as their cited distance vision.
Elrond is the proud father of three, and exhibits traditional Dadly behaviors such as being a little bit of a nerd (loremaster) but also one of the most reliable guys you know, adopting any child left in his presence for a sufficient amount of time (Aragorn), and telling his daughter’s aspiring bf that he won’t be good enough for her until he has a steady job (also Aragorn).
My dad irl, who I promise is a pretty typical Dad, was positively delighted when he discovered casual-use head-mounted flashlights about a decade ago, and has self-satisfiedly worn them on every camping trip and nighttime dog walk ever since.
CONCLUSION: Elrond regularly wears glowing, star-evocative gems on his brow, especially while traveling or at fancy evening parties, and he looks great and it make people respectfully murmur Eärendilion (whether he likes it or not)… But really, it’s not a fashion statement or implicit political position or whatever; it’s because if he doesn’t have some sort of flashlight, he will trip on torchlit steps or walk into low-hanging tree branches in the dark. And it’s so much easier if it’s hands-free! (Especially when he’s spelunking for lost texts!)
His kids all go through a phase of thinking he’s mortifyingly dorky about this, then begrudgingly come to accept that it is really convenient to have a hands-free light for dark nights, caves, etc, and start wearing one themselves.
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Hi RTA 👋🏻 I don't know if you answer this kind of asks, sorry, and it's okay if you don't but I was just thinking that if Rachel has done sooo much research on Harold and Charles, she definitely would've done even more research on William especially his famous Windsor temper by the looks that she gave him. Narcs love to trigger anger in strong men, they think it's powerful and even sensual and seize that weakness or moment to overpower this type of men to their advantages. What do you think?
I don't think Meghan did that kind of research. I mean, she certainly could have, but everything people have said and observed about her is that her sole focus was Diana. Diana's popularity, Diana's make-up, Diana's clothes, Diana's mannerisms, Diana's relationships, Diana's work, Diana's family, Diana's problems, etc.
I'm also not sure that Meghan provoked William to anger because she liked the power imbalance. She likes to provoke Harry to anger because of that power/sensuality/weakness - and Harry essentially confirms this in Spare, when he wrote about the a time he got angry, Meghan gave him silent treatment, and he went begging for forgiveness. On the surface it's a story about how Harry's anger being explosive and traumatic but dig deeper into it, you also see Meghan's manipulation of Harry through his anger and the power she gets off on.
For Meghan to control and manipulate Harry to get what she wanted out of the marriage/BRF/UK, she needed to break the bond Harry had with William (and Kate) because William was the only person who could stop her plan for Diana-like world domination. That's where she used Harry's anger, and specifically to provoke William's anger, after which she would turn around and cry to Harry about how scared or upsetting it was to be around William when he was angry.
I mean, you want to talk about someone who weaponized her tears, Meghan is the picture definition of it.
I think you're on the right track, just with the wrong brother. 😀
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infernumequinomin · 1 month
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I think the biggest point ppl may be missing with Lucy Frostblade is that if she was ressurecting the rats, mechanically speaking, the Grinders wouldn't get xp for killing them again. Like if this is a self-aware xp grinding team, them the DMG addresses what happens if someone resurrects an enemy to try and "farm" xp. They only get xp for the first time they kill it. Regardless of how good intentioned Lucy was, she would have been fucking with her party's capability of advancing by resurrecting a bunch of enemies they have to kill over again without any XP. They'd be increasing their chances of not being able to get any xp with every time Lucy resurrected these rats. All this to say that my theory here is that they were trying to pressure Lucy into "toughening up" and changing her god, the whole thing went awry, and they killed her in the woods while being influenced by this rage god bc of this slowly building resentment of making their "lives harder" for the sake of what they assumed were mindless animals MEANT to be farmed for xp! Augfort literally keeps these critters back there specifically for students to grind against if they're falling behind! And then to "cover it up" this nameless god helped "I know what you did last summer" Lucy and they all swore to never speak of it again, or actively had a modify memory spell placed on them specifically to keep most of them from remembering, which I am leaning into with Ruben's response to talking abt her.
I don't think they meant to kill her or that killing her was part of the plan. I think they had all that rage without any doubts that what they were doing might be wrong, and it killed her.
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