Spy X Family
The Apothecary Diaries
Natsume's Book of Friends
Yotsuba
My Dress Up Darling
Dungeon Meshi
Sengoku Komachi Kuroutan: Noukou Giga
Campfire Cooking
Frieren
VeilSecret Love
The Witch and The Beast
On The Way To Meet Mom
There are other series I also love and follow. I'm just too lazy to list them all.
James being the one to say 'When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." to Sherlock hits me knowing it is something Sherlock will say in the future.
Like how he gets all the best of James and carries it with him despite them no longer being friends
Milsiril being postboxed into Kabrus adopted mom whos dehumanising shortlived races by adopting them and infantalising them makes me fucking miserable.
Here is a woman who was bullied her whole life, born in a long line of military hero's who after seeing the oppression of shortlived races by elves as well as the dismissal of their deaths withdraws from her military role, withdraws from her family and dedicates her life to creating a safe and comfortable environment for the shortlived race children who's parents are lost due to the elves inaction and oppression of said shortlived races.
Sure she's not the best at it, yeah she kinda bulldozed whatever the kids probably wanted in favour of putting them in bubble wrap and keeping them safe. But she's clearly trying to give them better lives than the ones they had, which she clearly feels responsible for ruining because of her races actions. When Kabru tells her his honest dream of destroying a dungeon she challenges him, she makes him work to prove himself and then she let's him pursue that dream. She, like every other character in the manga, is flawed in her views and her expression of said views to others, but that doesn't maker her a bad person. It just means she still has some learning and growing to do, and considering how much she still loves Kabru and feels responsible for his safety and happiness I have no doubt post manga she probably will learn to help shortlived races in a more constructive way through her involvement with Kabru in the Golden kingdom.
I think she's a genuinly interesting character and I wish people would take the time to consider her story and it's parallels to the real world (first worlders adopting third world children in hopes of giving them a better life but often inadvertently alienating them from their own culture through their own lack of understanding of those children's pasts and lives. As someone who lives in a third world country talking to people from first world countries is like talking to aliens sometimes and I think the discussion that could be had around Kabru and Milsiril could be genuinly interesting but everyone just wants to hate on her without genuinly considering her character and the impacts she's had on the story and opportunities for further character growth.... Milsiril save me.... Save me nuanced discussion....)
Okay I think I'm ready to write the second part of this post about Milsiril
To make it easier for me I'll just divide this into her relationship with Kabru, Mithrun and Helki (her ex-canary prisoner teammate)
First about Kabru
This is an extra from the daydream hour 5. The caption says "Something like this might as well have happened" so its probably not canon but could be. I honestly think his reaction to Milsiril visiting and being overbearing says a lot about the type of relantionship they have. This is the fakest bitch in the whole of dungeon meshi, he never says what he trully thinks unless there's an advantage to doing so, he's a people pleaser that does and says anything to make people like/trust him. And yet he immediatly converts into "Mooooooom you're embarassing meeeeee" when he sees it's Milsiril.
This translation used "Mom" but as I understand the original he uses the more formal version so I think it would be closer to "Mother" but still he acknowleges her as his Mother, and he acts like her kid in every interaction we see between them.
I really don't understand where the idea that he learned to be fake from being "forced" to be her adoptive son comes from.
(Continuing under a cut)
The other interaction we see between them is the Kabru extra from the Adventurer's Bible
Kabru comes to her with a deep fear he clearly has had even before she adopted him, he trusted her with this fear and she did not disappoint him, she comforted him and then gave him the information he needed to believe what she was saying
I'd also like to point out in no moment she discouraged him from calling his his bio-mom "Mom". He also says she taught her children everything they asked
I doubt this would only be true for him, it also mirrors something she said in the manga
"You can go ahead and learn all you want about something else." I believe it when Kabru says she made every effort to answer her children's questions. I think this is also the way she expresses the love she has for them. Plus I love the thought bubble with Kabru mirroring what he learned from her. I also love this daydream hour, she sacrifices her own comfort to do something for Kabru.
Milsiril isn't a perfect mother tho, besides the fact she is overprotective she comes from a very different culture from her children. I like to call her Kabru's white mom cause I think that would be the real world equivalent. This extra is the one I think the most about showing this context perfectly
Kabru wants to share Utaya sweets but looks at his mom looking gloomy/rejected so he talks about fruitcake instead. This very rude for Milsiril to do since she's kinda trying to overwrite his actual cultural background, but I think its done more as a "I want you to like the things I like" rather than something nefarious, and once again Kabru doesn't hide at all his distaste for it, he does the bare minimum to please his mom since she's being dramatic but he doesn't lie to her, he shows how displeased he is about fruitcake, something he refuses to do when eating the harpy omelette that is way worse, because he must make a good impression for Laios. Kabru is honest with his overbearing white mom once again.
Now a little about Rin, from Kabru's context, this is her extra in the Adventurer's Bible
(look at Helki he's such a gremlin i love him) anyway, Rin has a trauma about elves, they really mistreated her so she hates them, but when they notice she isn't thriving they go to Milsiril for help (Helki specifically I'll talk more about him next). I think this indicates she really has a better understanding of short lived kids, her kids are thriving differently from the ones the other elves try to care for. I'd also like to remember she lives secluded from other elves so while Kabru probably had lots of interactions with elves during his life, most of it was probably spent with Milsiril and her other adoptive kids. She also asks Kabru if he would do this to help Rin, he isn't being forced or anything, I also think it's good that Milsiril knows she cant take in any more kids, this to me shows she's worried about the quality of life her kids have. That is all to say, Rin is the one with elf trauma, not Kabru, because Kabru had Milsiril to shelter him from them.
Helki
This will be short and sweet since there's barely anything about Helki, he's her prisioner companion from her time in the canaries, but he was pardoned after Utaya, it says so in the Canarie's Structure page in the new adventurer's guide but I cant really find it translated again... so here's google's machine translation (I remember it saying "Retired and pardoned as a reward after Utaya", something like that)
so officially he isn't a prisoner anymore, but I think he still works as a canary, even so he and Milsiril seem quite close, he is the one to go talk to her about Rin, He is there when she's training Kabru (both laughing at Kabru and then participating). I saw people theorizing she stays close to him because he is also someone who she can feel superior to, but I don't believe it at all, he's STILL in contact with her even after they have nothing to with each other, I think they really have a friendship, and there's no point where it seems like she feels like she's better than him or that he's less than her, people seem to interpret Milsiril and her relationships in the worst possible ways every time and I don't understand why.
This segways into Mithrun
I've also seen people assuming she only got close to Mithrun because now he needs her and has no power over her, once again with the theory that Milsiril surrounds herself with people she can feel superior to. But once again, Milsiril had a change of perspective about Mithrun after seeing his Dungeon
Rather than she feeling superior to him I think rather she realized he was just like her. (And I think she's friends with Helki for a similar reason, it's probably easier to see him as an equal than other nobles)
I've also seen this part used as proof of that. "He said that you've got suspicious ulterior motives and that I shouldn't listen to you" as if that's true, but this is past Mithrun, the one that didn't trust anyone and thought ill of all his teammates, ofc he doesn't believe someone would help him without an ulterior motive. This doesn't prove much about her real motivations.
Also before she showed up, Mithrun was being cared for by servants hired by his brother, he isn't someone helpless she has power over, he is still a member of an important Noble family that has a caring brother providing for him, he can do without Milsiril, he had done without her for 20 years before Utaya happened and she quit the Canaries.
This is all to say I think Milsiril is just a white(elf) adoptive mom doing her best, I don't see much of anything nefarious about her or her motivations, she is flawed as all the dunmeshi characters are, she isn't a perfect mom, she isn't an evil mom, she's just a person.
Elves in general also see short lived species as "children" so I imagine this makes her "You'll always be my baby" attitude way worse, she really treats pre-teen/teen Kabru like he's a toddler sometimes. But she also respected him enough to go all out in training him. I think they're a family with everything that entails.
PS: I didn't get much into Interracial adoption since this is something that happens irl too and I don't know much about all the issues that entails, but in the end, in this case, it seems like a net positive for the kids she adopts considering all we see about how she raised Kabru.
Saw a "milsiril is terrible mother" post and i almost fainted, so here I am again, rereading character breakdown post, so people would understand that she is not "terrible", just someone "complicated and flawed" (THE SAME WAY OTHER DUNMESH CHARACTERS ARE)
peeta tried to save him and katniss by saying she had a baby, because he knew that would pull at the capitals heart strings. In a dystopian society, peeta mellark knew the capital would care more about a fetus than the real dying children . this sounds oddly familiar
Peak trans woman experience is knowing you can remove the word trans from any sentence about our struggle and everyone will easily recognize it as a true and valid battle against patriarchy. But the moment trans is inserted back and we get radio silence from half the people who would otherwise agree. If we're lucky.
The Apothocary Diaries... I have never seen a show where every character is genuinely in violently different pieces of media. Like usually people post this and I'm not convinced, but in this show it's literally true.
Gyokuyo, Lihua and most of the ladies in waiting are in a court drama in their respective positions.
Xiaolan is in a slice of life as the pure and adorable protagonist.
Guen (the physician) is also in a slice of life as the clumsy grandfatherly figure that serves the main character and their friends tea and snacks at his workplace where they hang out.
Lihaku is (in the most literal sense) canonically a shonen protagonist. (Open your heart, you know it to be true. He's working hard and training to obtain an "unobtainable" goal.)
Lakan and Shishou are in tragic romantic dramas (with two different endings) as the male love interests.
Shenmei is in a Disney movie as the evil stepmother.
Loulan is in a soap opera where the melodrama is turned up to 9000 as the tragic heroine.
Basen is in whatever torture complex work from actual real life is, as an employee at their wits end.
The Madam is in a Business Strategy & Networking 101 seminar as the fucking instructor.
And of course:
Jinshi is in a weird romcom version of Undercover Boss as the undercover boss.
Maomao is simultaneously in the Hunger Games as a tribute, Sherlock Holmes as Sherlock, and a workplace sexual harassment training module as the teachable moment.
And Gaoshun? Well. Gaoshun's in the Apothecary Diaries.
cats are great first pets for children because they immediately teach the child the consequences of overstepping boundaries and mishandling animals LMFAO. I grew up in a household with 5+ cats as an only child and every time I would come crying to my mom after I got scratched she would be like âwhat could you have done differently?â
people buy their kids reptiles and fish and hamsters and then find out theyâre extremely delicate creatures that are not ideal for little humans to be responsible for but learning to refill a food bowl, scoop a litter box and dodge claws are things that young minds can grasp relatively easily while also having a furry friend. as much as it makes me cringe to see a toddler dragging a cat around, cats are far better equipped for babysitting than most of the traditional âletâs get our 5 year old a little petâ animals. and it totally depends on the cat too, some wonât stand for it and will spend all their time avoiding the kid and some will willingly put up with being dressed in silly outfits.
late to the Good Omens, but my favorite thing is Crowley calling Aziraphale "angel" in public. Like yeah yeah I know it's in a literal sense but am I gonna take it as a lover's endearment? why yes. yes i would.
My only piece of advice to girls and young women is that you have to become financially independent no matter what it takes. Do whatever you need to do to become financially independent in this world and donât ever let it go for anybody.
I love the KNH/TAD community bc in one hand, you have anime onlys watching season 2's second ending song saying "oh wow I love Maomao having friends" and then you have LN readers crying and screaming bc of Maomao's friends.
