#and laios is literally me irl

[theonetrueyeet]

laios and lycion are some of my fav characters in dungeon meshi oh i am not beating the autistic furry allegations whatsoever

[fumifooms]

Kaka compilation

Because everyone is sleeping on him. Witness his greatness!! First two Kaka colored icons were colored by me, lineart by Ryoko Kui though!

Kaka & Kiki are kinda like Laios & Falin… Kaka being stoic and giving repressed energy like early Laios, Kiki being cryptic and always smiling and kinda soft-looking. Autism siblings 2, ostracized and othered as kids and have a deep bond due to sticking together through it all, though unlike with Laios their parents are very loving so Kaka developed family as a big value more than Laios (bc asides for Falin Laios doesn’t care much about it).

In the gnome festival comic you can see Kaka is more emotive than he seems! Full with a :3 face, and he’s the one crying at the end. He’s insecure about his legs and being tall… It really got to him. Conceal don’t feel. In the gnome festival comic you also see him sensing others’ gaze on him and that something is off unlike Kiki, again Laios-like in the way that judgement from others gets to him more than her.

[askthetoudensiblings]

MY LIEGE! MY LIEGE!!

ARE YOU OKAY?

Huh? Yeah...Did something happen? I'm sorry, I must've fallen asleep while doing paperwork...

[azelletown]

im so glad this series got big and now i finally get to read it but also this is going to destroy me by the end of it huh

chapter 38 absolutely fucked me up, this shit is just real, i've been in situations and arguments exactly like this (minus the dragon sister and all) where i've lost what i thought were friendships because i had finally failed one too many social awareness checks

especially these panels had me pause and take a second

like, laios' point of view of their friendship was so nice and sureau, instead of being honest, bottled it up because he applied his assumptions of social awareness onto laios who then couldn't have ever known something was wrong

harmless examples of things i used to do and can talk about here: in middle school i would tap my fingers onto my desk to the rhythm of whatever song was in my head, and at the end of the 4 entire years we spent together, one of my friends lashes out at me about how i'm annoying everyone with it, and then more of my friends and other classmates would start telling me and scolding me about that and all the other habits i had that were annoying them as if those were things i were doing to purposefully piss people off. i even had a teacher yell at me seemingly out of nowhere because i'd lay head on my desk in her class and she apparently always took it as me being rude and "falling asleep" ??? in highschool i mispronounced a guy's name for 2 years until he called me a dick for it even though he never told me how to pronounce it correctly!!!!! i would also stare a lot, all the time, but again people only told me after so much time had passed that they just got mad at me

it got so bad that i started to minmax most of my social interactions, and i still do it with most of my IRLs to this day

i was literally hit with the Laios to Kabru Pipeline

Anyways this manga is peak, the show is also peak, go read/watch the neurodivergent dnd lesbian cooking show, i feel like im going to have a LOT to say about kabru in the future chapters

[honeymilkbubbletea]

Is this a safe space?

Jesus this sounded bad 💀

But honestly? I got into Dungeon Meshi solely because I saw fanart with Laios and Falin hugging (they were both drawn as plus sized) and thought, "omg chubby main characters? That's so awesome!"

And people on Twitter were talking about how it's so nice to have "actually chubby" characters (some people, on the other hand, were mad that "they made Laios fat")

So finally I watched the show and was like??? Where chubby??? Where fat??? (I'm talking about Falin and Laios here, just to specify)

Like c'mon

I think people have such a distorted view of how bodies look like, that they will call muscular/broad character fat only because they don't have a six pack poking out all the time, and it's kinda sad :/

I was so excited for fat Falin, but she's literally just regular, she does have bigger boobs, yes, but she's not fat, sometimes I wonder if some people actually saw a fat person irl cause...

I love Dungeon Meshi, and Laios is probably my favorite character (he's just like me frfr) BUT this man is NOT chubby, and I'm not saying this with ill intent, because I would actually LOVE if he was!

I'm saying this in more, "That's not what I expected, and you got my hopes up for nothing 😐"

And again, the show is great and has awesome and diverse character designs

I guess I was just sad for a bit because people don't know how to call any other body type besides skeleton skinny anything other than "chubby"

Okay end of my silly little thoughts

Laios and Falin will forever be fat in my head 🩷

[funnywormz]

I think this shitshow with Toshiro stems from the trend of people INSISTING that interpersonal conflict must be a moral failing. Like I think there's something to be said about how people afford so much less patience to people who are autistic in the "wrong" ways, but also Laios and Toshiro just clash on a fundamental level that has nothing to do with that. Hell, you could read Toshiro as autistic as well. People related to Laios' side of the argument but instead of getting any nuance out of it they started projecting their experiences with ableist people onto Toshiro.

AGREE AGREE AGREE. i think that Fandom Brain gets people very used to thinking of conflicts in terms of "who is the bad guy and who is the good guy", so when they encounter a more nuanced conflict they don't really know what to do. i don't think toshiro is a bad person at all, in his conflict with laios he's just exhausted and starving and has been pushed to the limit and from his perspective, laios doesn't even seem that emotionally affected by the situation. i don't think what he said was right and it was pretty cruel, but i don't think he's a villain or deserves to be permanently hated as a character just bc he fucked up this time lol

also yeah you could definitely read him as autistic, and i think that highlights an issue in the autistic community in general bc like....... a lot of autistic people have conflicting needs which can lead to conflict between them/make them unable to stand being around each other. and it's not because either of them are neurotypical or bad people, they're just incompatible. like autistic people who loudly stim vocally and autistic people who meltdown when they have to be around loud noises, for example. it doesn't mean either of them is bad or not autistic, just that they have conflicting needs

i 100% agree with the last part too. i disliked toshiro at first myself bc i had been (and still do ngl) projecting onto laios hard and the conflict they had reminded me of times when people have been mean or angry at me irl for social blunders i've made unintentionally, or when someone i thought liked me/was my friend turned out to actually hate me. it's a common experience for autistic people and that scene resonates with that! but i think it also helps to take a step back from projecting our own traumatic experiences onto the scene and just look at it objectively. laios isn't perfect either and he's the one who actually starts the physical fight by slapping toshiro (i feel like i don't see many people mention this lol). i feel super bad for him in that scene but he's not a perfect victim and has done things wrong himself too

as an autistic person i've also been in situations where i can relate to toshiro too lol, like where someone is overly physically and emotionally familiar with me when we don't know each other well and i've wanted them to back off but haven't been sure how to say it without hurting their feelings. this kind of conflict is far from just being a "neurotypical vs neurodivergent" thing as a lot of people portray it in the fandom

idk i just wish people would think a little more deeply about the scene and put their own emotions and experiences aside to instead consider the conflict with the added context of the individual characters and their respective cultures + the situation they're in. people don't have to like toshiro but i wish they wouldn't paint him as a villain or make up awful shit about him just to justify their feelings when he isn't even that bad of a dude in canon yknow 😑. also we literally see him at rock bottom struggling and freaking out and i think that's important to remember. in a different context i doubt he would have ever said those things to laios

[demontouched]

okay. finally time for me to try and address my thoughts on laios vs shuro. (not that anyone cares, or that i'm an important figure in the community. but it hits a little close to home, and i want to talk about it.)

when i was younger (and my various undiagnosed problems were even more rampant) i was a lot like shuro. reserved, seen as wise, generally levelheaded. i didn't have a lot of friends, and on occasion, i had a laios. notably, my little sister.

my little sister has adhd like crazy. when we were younger, she was on medicine for it, but it was mostly for school. so at home, she was very much like laios. a little brash, very confident, loud, very much herself with no shame. she would charge into things head first (matephorically and literally) and drag people along with her. it was never malicious, but it was foolhardy.

we got into a lot of fights back then. never quite the knock-down-drag-out fight that laios and shuro had, but we got into some pretty epic screaming matches. neither of us were really in the wrong here, we just didn't mesh well. i was bad at communication, my sister couldn't read social cues, and it just caused a lot of arguments. neither of us were wrong for being like we were, but we were wrong for literally screaming at each other about it.

but that's this world, laios and shuro live in a world where it's not entirely unacceptable to just. have a fist fight. they got healers and shit. if we had healers irl, my sister and i would've clawed each other's eyes out multiple times.

since then, my sister has matured a lot, and she's not really like any dunmeshi character now, so she's being discarded for the purpose of this metaphor. (we no longer have epic screaming matches)

nowadays, i'm much more laios. i've been working on unmasking (which is both a privilege and really fucking hard) and getting more comfortable with just. being annoying to some people. making some people unexplainably angry. because that's what i do. i know not everyone likes me as a person because who they are as a person is fundamentally different. because that's ultimately what's happening with laios and shuro.

shuro is a poc who grew up learning social cues like his life depended on them (it does). he's learned to be quiet, respectful, aware. he is, at his very base, different from laios.

laios has just been Like That his whole life and deals with people's negative reactions as they come. you see how he handles marcille's adverse reactions when she cringes from his love of monsters and monster food.

neither of them are in the wrong, not for who they are or what they did. again, they live in a world with healers, where they fight monsters on the daily and get resurrected regularly. a fist fight between two tall men is the least dangerous or damaging fight either of them have been in, if we're being honest.

having empathy or sympathy–or at least understanding–for other people is important, not only for real life, but for media as well.

(this leads into a whole different thing about also remembering the lines between fiction and reality, and not giving more depth to fictional characters than they are shown to have in their source media. which is a very academia sort of idea, so like. write fanfiction and have ideas and give life to these characters. nobody can stop you and you can't do fiction incorrectly.)

[mobblespsycho100]

🍳 bc i love ur takes

I was wondering whether or not I should share a Kabru hot take, Mithrun hot take, or Okonomiyaki trio hot take, so I'm going to share all three (lmao)

Starting with Okonomiyaki trio, I think they should be in a QPR post canon. I think they should get married, but not married for benefits, but like. An intricate song and dance, courting rituals beyond traditionally romantic understanding. I think Toshiro should show up at Toshitsugu's place holding Kabru and Laios' hand and Namari his bestie should be there also and he should go "Oyaji-dono, here are my two partners, The King of the Golden Kingdom and his Royal Advisor, and my bestest friend ever Namari of Kahka Brud, and yes, I'm going to go live happily with them in Melini. Also, we're going to beat you to death. "

I think Kabru has low empathy. Hear me out. He's highly emotionally intelligent, but his affective empathy (feeling how others feel without direct emotional stimulation to oneself) is low while his cognitive empathy (the ability to recognize and understand another's mental state) is high. I think, a lot of people who like Kabru tend to like ignore/brush off the fact that he can be manipulative and cunning because they associate those traits with evil or abusive people. Like, no. I see a lot of NPD traits in Kabru, and he's still an ultimately good/kind person who cares for others. He's a great character, and he has sooo many complex issues. Like, as a Kabru lover with NPD I see a lot of traits in him, and people need to understand that NPD (and other personality disorders) usually develops from childhood trauma... He isn't an awful person because he's manipulative guys. He's very complex. He has layers. Also I think he was totally in the right for "killing" (they show up in the end) the corpse retrievers. Let him enact his justice, they literally JUST tried to get him and his friends to kill each other, and then offered to work together to kill inexperienced adventurers. I would've tortured those fuckers, but Kabru is so kind he just kills them quickly.

People who baby Mithrun or call him ugly, even if its in an "affectionate" way, should stop. Lmao. Like, its literally ableism. No other explanation. Mithrun is a grown ass man (gender neutral). He isn't even an old man by our standards, or elven standards (hes 185??? thats not even close to 400???) he's more like a young man with old man energy not an old man with young man energy. He's clearly a very capable individual, while also being physically disabled and visibly scarred/has facial differences. He even has a prosthetic eye and stuff. Like people who call him ugly... can y'all be normal about irl disabled people? Or does every fictional character exist to be "pretty" and always have to follow like the Western societal beauty standards. Please, just think about stuff before calling Mithrun a dying old disfigured dog or a sad little baby. He's 👏 a 👏 disabled 👏 and 👏 neurodivergent 👏 grown 👏 ass 👏 man who just happens to be a lil emo. or goth (vampirism) just.... goodness gracious. 😭😭😭 stop being ableist people, it's really embarassing

sorry for how ranty / rambly this came off as , I just think. I should speak forever. LMAO Thanks for the ask :] I'm glad people like my takes

[thenixkat]

It's still just wild to me that between

-> the setting (fantasy medieval-ish europe-y place where it's established that sometimes folks don't get to eat between lack of funds and bad harvests)

-> the worldbuilding (stuff like heavier adventurers likely being more skilled/too skinny means risking being unable to be revived)

-> and the themes (having a healthy relationship with food)

you would think that Dungeon Meshi would actually be kinda fat positive. But no. There's an undercurrent of fatphobia that runs through it that feels so jarring that once you notice it it's hard to stop seeing it.

And it's not just the two really blatant places that it happens in the manga, like characters deciding to insult the only fat noble/rich person in the setting on their weight (which never gets counterbalanced by any character like complimenting a fat character on their figure in the whole manga) or our main characters going 'oh no he might get fat' about the hero gaining what is effectively a disorder (that could very easily kill him due to accidental self inflicted injuries due to no longer being able to feel certain physical sensations) from the defeating the biggest bad in the setting.

But also the smaller stuff like the gag about Izutsumi being shocked to see the fat-looking succubi after it was drilled into her head that the things are mindbreakingly hot. (Hmmm)

Or how you see folks point at characters like Nemari, Dia, Senshi (and Leed) as examples of positive fat rep but like. If you actually pay attention to like the examples of fat dwarves in the extras or in a few minor characters, what they look like if they were turned into tallmen (more or less if they were built like real world humans), you'd notice that they aren't fat at all. They're just muscular and not dehydrated, much like how Laios isn't fat just built and not starved.

Or even looking at like Leed and Zon (named and important) compared to the unnamed background orcs after the artist changed their orc design by the second time orcs show up in the story. And you just notice how much thinner Leed and Zon are compared to every other orc in a scene.

(And of course, the extras that reveal that orcs and dwarves actually have a lot less body fat than it looks like they have b/c they are *literally just big-boned*. They are leaner than a irl human would be at their height and girth due to literally having thicker and broader skeletons.)

Or the whole thing where apparently fat elves just... don't exist. Not even fat civilian elves or fat adventurer elves. Like we know that there's fat half-foots even though none of the half-foot major characters are fat b/c being able to do their job in a dungeon means they have to be as light as they can to not set off traps. but we at least see some thicker half-foots. But elves? Apparently only come in noodle.

[niklas-sagara]

Wait oh my god laios knows japanese

Kensuke is a japanese pun that doesnt translate in english(not really a pun maybe iirc correct me if im wrong) but maybe it shouldnt be translated, because in story its japanese being spoken!

Like not irl japanese that the series is written and voiced in, but the fantasy japanese, the language if the eastern isles that shuro speaks!

He literally learned part of shuros language in order to try to get close to him!

Laios is a WEEB!!

[toxycodone]

ive BEEN thinking about dungeon meshi modern au and id love to develop it because itd only help me create a more immersive experience as i drag my fictional boyfriend through my day 🥰. my only thought rn though is how me and laios would literally look like the classic big tiddy goth gf x painfully normie bf irl lmaoaoaoao -ez

THANK YOU EZ MY BELPVED. I love that too…Laios is such a normie and he needs love

I really love what that other anon said about Laios being like. An aspiring furry artist who works retail and hates it so much.

I think when he befriends reader he should make them a fursona and they’re just like “um. Okay.”

[johnbottoms]

so many fics writing laios as a virgin who has never heard of sex ever in his whole life and it's like . HOLD t he fuck on. Im sorry I have to derail this post bc there was a very heavy rainstorm that happened earlier today and there's literally frogs outside croaking. i haven't heard a frog croak irl in so long this is huge for me I don't think u guys understand

[fumifooms]

Laios Touden and autism; admiring the non-human

Do you think people exaggerate when they scream about Laios being autistic? Do you feel like it’s weird that so many people including autistics are so set on Laios, the problematic (but incredible and kind) king TM, being the most autistic that has ever autisticed? Why do we cheer on autistic people wanting to be monsters?? Isn’t that weird?

Well, of course it depends on the way it’s done, it can be done quite offensively, but long story short Kui blew it out of the park. The thing is, autistic people really do like monsters and animals and robots. Nonhuman does not mean subhuman, it just means Other. Feeling a connection with them has been shown to be an extremely common autistic experience for that very reason.

Because some people don’t understand why we autistic Tumblr Laios stans cheer “autism! Autism!” whenever he talks about monsters and feeling alienated to humans so! Here’s a post about how yes even research papers are analyzing the special connection we form with animals. I’m not even joking but Laios Touden & the mass cries of relatability with autistic people he gets and all the love for him could be used as study material and evidence for future papers because the link is that strong. Oh also I think it’s notable that being autistic and undiagnosed vs diagnosed makes a huge difference. In my experience as someone who was undiagnosed up until 18, it’s even more alienating to not know that there’s a reason why you’re different, being gaslit that you’re ‘normal’ and you just need to try harder and get with the program, etc. Personally when getting diagnosed I went through the 5 stages of grief because the thought of having been fundamentally different all your life (a difference which you will never be able to change) and mistreated for it when you weren’t “wrong” all along makes you unload all the anger and sadness and loneliness and sheer trauma you’ve built up over time. Like it’s world shattering.

So! Back to seeing dogs as family. Also I implore you to value experiential evidence when it comes to autism and other neurodivergences because brains are complicated and neurotypicals not being able to understand us well even with scientific research is like, a whole thing even though we’re right there speaking about how we feel and being right every time because the topic is literally us and how we experience the world. 

Disclaimer for this whole post that, of course, no group is a monolith and everyone has different experiences or can diverge from the norm of the group, and that doesn’t diminish the validity of either side! Like, I know autistic people who have trauma with dogs and hate them. But, trends do happen, and in this case... Autism is very “My experiences with humans make me feel dehumanized in a bad and lonely way so instead I’ll dehumanize myself in a good and inspiring way”.

“I was treated like a failed human my entire life and you’re surprised that my response was to become a dog.” -Patricia Taxxon

It’s literally well recorded that autistic people relate to animals more than humans globally. With this post, besides spreading autistic Laios truthism and explaining why the portrayal hits so deep for so many,  I want to show in what way this is a very specific experience and not looking at his character through an autistic lense really misses a lot of why he’s everything that he is. (Tacking allegedly onto here for legal reasons, different interpretations are valid etc etc /gen). This honestly isn’t super long though.

To define an important term, anthropomorphism in the studies and in this post means to attribute human traits to the nonhuman, which not only includes anthro furry designs but also animals irl, inanimate objects, and animated media as opposed to live action, to humanize them and empathize with them.

Paper: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/aut.2019.0027 

“Dogs taught me how to hunt and socialize and work in groups”, Laios having internalized body language... So real so real. I, too, make a great dog impression. And I want to emphase the part that it helps greatly develop a sense of emotions and relationships! For Laios, he didn’t get along with kids his age, it was him, Falin and the dogs against the world. Since it’s a group of dogs too, it taught him group dynamics and social hierarchies (like with Falin being considered as being below the dogs in authority according to the dogs rip), and the importance of group coordination when hunting.

For me, I cannot like, concisely explain just how much animals were important to me developmentally. I also grew up with dogs, but like I vividly remember encounters with like hamsters as well just radically shaping my understanding of boundaries, the importance of giving something space and the way you interact with them and respect their side of it. Unlike humans they don’t really mask how they feel, it’s direct cause-effect reaction and data gathering. There are no words involved, so the focus on having a perfect phrasing and tone is gone, leaving just pure interactions. 

There’s also no reason to mask how you feel either, and you don’t have to feel silly over wanting to form a connection and it showing, what, is the dog gonna laugh at you because you obviously want to make friends with it? Toshiro or Kabru might, but dogs and cats will just tell you to fuck off and leave it there worst case scenario. I often say that I think one reason Marcille is special to Laios and he feels comfortable around her is because she emotes INTENSELY, she gestures, she puts her whole body into it, her facial expressions are pretty exaggerated and her ears even emote too- like with a dog’s ears!

I think there’s def also things to be said about how he gravitated towards Izutsumi at first, all excited, was eager to sleep in the same bed as her, but in the Izutsumi sleep rating chart we see they really just casual and chill so it’s not a Laios talking to Shuro deep into the night situation just a “I like sleeping besides animals” situation and that is enough to hype him up. I love how he pet her in the extra about why Chil let her sleep with him too. He’s just so transparently eager to befriend her, even if in the end they weren’t all that compatible and he accepted that.

There are honestly so many examples I could give for this. Like Grandin the famous cow lady.

More about autism & empathy:

https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/double-empathy-explained/ (Also mentions a study in which groups of autistic, allistic then a mixed group played a game of telephone and both singular groups had similar levels of information retention, but the mixed group was significantly worse. As an autistic person yeah duh, obviously autistic people are different from one another and can have plenty of interpersonal issues, but communicating with other neurodivergent people feels pretty intuitive and straightforward and comfortable. One of the reasons why neurodivergent people tend to naturally gravitate towards each other I suppose.) 

^ Paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5932358/  For good, extensive summary of why we relate to animals so much you can go to the “anthromorphizing and asd” section of the paper. This paper extends to our widespread liking of cartoons and robots as well. Ok so this is a whole thing I won’t get into here but this is a big reason why a lot of autistic people are agender leaning as well. Genders and queerness in general is a lot about social constructs, and being queer is being marginal to these, not fitting into boxes or challenging those social norms and conventions. Queerplatonic relationships are a great example of this, where the framework of the relationship is platonic but the intangible nature of what it is exactly is the point, not familial not anything but everything at once too, just adoration, I like to say having pets is a bit like it as well, bc obvi it’s not romantic and often not fully familial, very platonic but also sooo much cuddling and adoration and kissing and whatnot that you wouldn’t typically do with a friend or family member. I’ll talk about qpr and labels another day though.

I got carried away but queerness in Dunmeshi is something I 100% want to make a big post on one day. Experiencing the world with different guidelines and not registering things to have the same boxes, sigh. Personally I also relate to Laios on a gender level, “cis by default because I don’t care all that much but if I were to dig deeper I’m probably otherkin and I want to be socially associated with traits of monsters and animalistic rather than man/woman” sighh hard to be a cryptid in this day and age. I wish we had a term like furry but for monsters, I want to be in the fantasy or folk tale genre ty, like changelings. Goshh changelings... You know, the irl myth where people said their neurodivergent kids were fairies’ children instead of human. Diminished physical sense of self means I see myself as some unknowable black  void aesthetic wise, but like in a way that simultaneously makes me feel seen. Like becoming a monster, losing your sense of self but also somehow just being simplified and seen for what you are, it’s weird to try and explain. This post is more about relating to the nonhuman than about seeing yourself as such, but like connect the dots right, that IS an important point of Laios’ character. It’s because our brains literally work different than allistics which makes us feel as other, but also because of social ostracization and functioning in a different way than society at large, living in the margin of society, being weird and non-conforming.

Meanwhile, animals and social norms... Like ok, showing your neck and rolling on the ground to show that you’re friendly and harmless and play biting might not be proper. But have you considered that it’s also fun and feels very intuitive. Play with a dog in the dog’s way I promise it is so nice and freeing. Play tug of war and growl back when they growl. Hiss at your cat to tell them they do something wrong, engage with them on their level.

Autism made social life hard, but it made animals easy. Do you have anyyy idea how good it feels to mask all day every day and feel constantly misunderstood or like you’re doing a performance but then you can just, drop all of that in the company of animals and they understand you. They understand you. You form an understanding and rapport so easily.

And this whole thing with Laios is so explicit too, with the Winged Lion saying “You’re sick and tired of the human world”. Notice the choice of words. Sick and tired of the human world. Exhausted from the constraints, sick of the mind games. It really isn’t as much about loving monsters as it is about loving the nonhuman. Relating to them because you feel that you can actually understand how they work and think, and feeling like they could understand you back as well. Animals are safe.

Like I could go on about how Laios admiring even just demi-humans like orcs is because they’re socially seen as non-humans more than any true physical thing, that they’re not bound by human society and its rules and live with their own lifestyle. But it would deal myself 1000 points of psychic damage and I am not ready to cry today. It’s idealization 100%, and like, Laios DOES want to be treated as human, to be valued, but it feels like an unreachable thing meanwhile becoming a monster is instant gratification and freedom and a sense that now no one will be able to hurt you in a way that reaches you, never again shall you be defenseless, and then if people dehumanize you then that only strengthens your sense of identity as a monster and UGHH ugh ugh.

And like. This post is a mess at this point but if you want to kinda delve into the more “why” then I recommend this Patricia Taxxon video essay. It starts out on a very different topic, but it’s all about autism and finding comfort in the inhuman. Long story short is othering made us like this also animals are just simpler to intuitively get along with.

So when I post this

I mean it. I really mean it when I say he’s me. I have never felt so seen. So many conflicting emotions all wrapped so concisely yet so intangibly woven into the whole storyline so subtly. 

Not being depicted as a monster of an human being for feeling/having felt that way?? The manga understands you. The world can understand you. Other humans can understand you. You can bond with them. You can. And I think that’s a big part of Dungeon Meshi too- Laios opening up to others about how he really is and his interests, and all the bumps on the way but how it was the only way to truly get to know each other and bond. With the climax being Laios confronting head on his complex with monsters and humans, and his monster-loving side and animalistic side being exactly what saves the whole world, what saves humanity. Because Laios does value his friends, does think humanity has beautiful sides to it, he wants to help it thrive and eat and become more accepting, carving out a kingdom for misfits and demi-humans. At the end of it, transforming into a monster and being free is a daydream fantasy, and the reality of it is that Laios does belong in the world as he is, and does receive and give out love.

If you enjoyed this you’ll probably like some of my other Laios analysis!  Here’s an analysis of his succubus and what it says about his relationships with other humans. And here’s an analysis about his relationship with Shuro from his perspective.

[wired-for-weird]

hm. horny monster asks you say… everyone talks about being dominated by a big beast but imagine YOU domming THEM. a creature that could kill you in a second flat but you’re so entrancing and commanding that they bend to your will— sometimes literally

this is some GOOD SHIT anon i love this from both perspectives honestly.

like i prefer to be the Big Monster but if that's not an option, then having something so dangerous wrapped around my little finger would be a hell of a power trip. like commanding a force of nature to serve as your own personal entertainment. plus, something i see as being so much more desirable than any human form being attracted to me, who has always regarded my own body with a Laios-like dissatisfaction? once I actually believed that, it'd probably be a fantastic ego boost. Also. maybe if I make them fuck me enough I'll get to be a monster also. a boy can dream.

also, from the other side of things, I'm generally extremely wary of playing a submissive role irl cos of some personal hang-ups, but! I think being someone's terrifying guard dog of a mate, feared and uncontrollable by anyone except for One Person, with whom I am incredibly soft and adoring? Who is the only person who gets to see my strength and hunger turned to a purpose other than destruction? That'd be pretty good I think.

[authoratmidnight]

In regards to not explaining the why, I mean, I don't find that all that odd given that the same could be said for irl things too.

Like, there's a number of parasites who's entire life cycle is just, to spread themselves around. Like the cordyceps fungus or that flatworm that lives in snail's eyes. The only thing these do is hijack the host to get it eaten and spread themselves into a new host. Like that's it, that's all they do. They just make the host do things with the end goal of spreading themselves.

Which isn't to unlike the transformatoin shrooms here. They exist to change the host to make the host spread the fungal spores.

Why? Who knows. That's literally just what they do. That is their sole purpose.

And just cause someone knows what something does (and maybe why) doesn't mean they're gonna know how it works. So it's not too odd to me that the only info that Laios has/knows/can figure out is what they do but now how.

I'm loving Dungeon Meshi's mix of quasi-probable magical biological realism and "It's magic fuck you."

Red dragons swallow their prey whole and use the undigestible remains as fuel for their fire breath, which is lit by creating a spark with their tongue. Living armors are colonies of mollusks who expand and contract to mimic muscle movement. Actually "man-eating" plants is a misnomer, they catch small animals with a filament that retracts when touched and they use their decomposing prey as compost.

These mushrooms can turn you into a gnome. It's magic fuck you.

[thenixkat]

[Minor spoilers for the end of Dungeon Meshi]

It's still wild to me that after finding out that Laios gained a literally insatiable appetite/cannot feel full/permanently hungry no matter how much he eats after defeating/consuming the biggest bad of the setting that the party is worried about Laios getting fat due to it.

Like, yes, monitoring his intake makes sense, not b/c he might get fat but because he could I dunno **tear the lining of his stomach/rupture an organ from overeating** which could directly and immediately kill him. Like what can happen irl to people with disorders that prevent them from feeling full.