#i can make whatever laios i want if you think that one i draw is top of my headcanoning ability like

[imaybe5tupid]

Why bother? (Why bother?) It's gonna hurt me. (It's gonna hurt me.) It's gonna kill when- (Why bother!) -You desert me! (Gonna hurt me!)

Set after Nightmare. Laios is reminiscing and contemplating.

[nwarrior777]

"fat!amputee!fem!laios" bro just make an OC instead. that's no longer laios

well i made one

this oc and laios inspecting each others bodies in ways which i am afraid person bitching about jpegs can't handle

[holmsister]

The labru chess meme but like serious: why Kabru bets on Laios and wins

If you're like me (mentally ill (I can say that I'm diagnosed) about labru) you have seen several variations on this meme:

With Kabru and Laios. (To see a small collection of them, please click on the "labru chess meme" tag on this post). Would you like me to hyperanalyse this aspect of their dynamic to death and not even in a shippy manner, therefore sucking all of the fun out of the meme? Keep reading!

Spoilers for the whole manga ahead. Contains also a quantity of Winged Lion.

First of all: as noted several times, it's not that Laios is eating the pieces to win at chess, it's that he's hungry, chess pieces are available, and he thinks Kabru is a fellow chess piece eater as well. Because he offered him a chess piece. And kabru ate it. While still trying to play chess because he thinks Laios is playing chess in some novel way he wants to understand better. If you think I'm beating this metaphor to death now you haven't seen anything yet.

The thing is. Kabru's whole thing is about finding someone who can defeat the dungeon, whatever shape that takes. And Kabru knows he cannot do it. He lacks what it takes, again, whatever exactly that is. And at some point, he makes the call that Laios has that something.

What's that something? Well. He's eating the chess pieces.

In another post I have already talked about the parallels between Kabru and the Winged Lion. Without going into it again: I think that all things aside, those two have very similar types of intelligence. They're fascinated by people and finding out what motivates them. They can be manipulative and even cruel in the quest for what they believe to be the "good ending". And they both think their end can be achieved through Laios.

See, *those two* are playing chess. Have you ever played? It's a very ancient and noble game, you know, very storied.

Two opponents, Black and White, take turns moving pieces on a checkerboard according to rules that depend on the piece itself (Towers move only horizontally but of as many squares as they please, Pawns only of one square at a time and only move towards the opposite side of the board, Bishops move only diagonally, etc etc). Players can only move one piece per turn, once per turn. Two pieces cannot be in one square. When a player moves a piece in a square that is already taken by a piece of the opposing colour, the piece that was there already is "captured" and removed from the board. The rules are actually much more complicated but this is the barest bones.

I hear sometimes the win condition in chess being described as "capturing the King". That's not entirely it. The win condition in chess is putting the opposing King piece in checkmate, that is, in a position in which the King will be captured by the opposing player by the next turn no matter what moves either of them makes.

Chess matches between masters are notorious for being impossibly long. Some last YEARS. Not only that, it's possible to draw in chess - when none of the pieces on the board have legal moves left but nobody is in check. This condition is called a stalemate.

Since the pieces can move in limited ways, mathematically, it's possible to calculate a most efficient way to move them. In 1997, the AI (real AI, not the stuff that passes for AI nowadays) Deep Blue beat then chess world champion Garry Kasparov for the first time in what is considered a milestone achievement.

It's a complicated game with very set rules and almost infinite yet calculable possibilities, is what I'm getting at. It's why it's a favourite mental exercise for mathematicians and people with similar minds. It's a problem to solve in a certain number of steps according to certain rules. There's a solidity in chess reasoning - even when you're trying to guess your opponent strategy, you still know there are things they are NOT going to do. Like eating the pieces. That's why the meme is funny. I think. I've lost sight of what normal people find funny years ago.

This is the game Kabru and the Winged Lion are both in. They are both positioned to move in checkmate (conquering the dungeon/escaping the dungeon), but they have both reached a point in which they cannot move further on their own power. They're in stalemate and they know it. They both need Laios to move them out of the stalemate.

The difference is what they choose to do.

The Winged Lion treats Laios as another check piece. An important one for sure (the Queen, even. That's a chess joke AND a gay joke). But a piece he can manipulate, that moves around in predictable ways.

Kabru, however, has spent enough time chewing on chess pieces to realise thats not where Laios' potential really lies. What he does is step aside and leave the board to Laios. He says "OK, dude. Eat the damn pieces if you must. I trust you know what you're doing."

You see. There's no rule in chess about eating the pieces. I think. Maybe they added one. But still. Most people when teaching someone to play chess would not think to add "and don't eat the pieces!" There at the end because they will assume that goes without saying. It's an unspoken rule that when you are playing a game involving pieces on a board, the pieces are not for eating.

Laios, our beloved autism knight, needs his rules spoken. Otherwise he's just gonna do whatever comes to mind. And that's what he has that Kabru lacks, and what leads him to outsmarting the Winged Lion. Because he does not think in terms of rules and limits. He does not try to guess what's the catch. He does not go after the King.

When Laios figures out what the primary motivation of the Winged Lion is (wanting to eat wishes), he does not wonder about his wider plan. He stops and thinks. That makes human wishes sound so tasty, he thinks, that a creature so powerful can give up on its life of perfect bliss and immortality on another dimension to taste them. I wonder if I could eat them too. I wonder if I could eat away the Lion's desire to eat desires - I could kill two birds with one stone!

He doesn't know or care what the aim of the game is according to the rules. *His* aim now is to eat the Winged Lion's desire. Because it would solve things, because he wants to know how it tastes like, who knows, who cares. The point is: what's the fastest way to get at his aim?

Well. The Lion promises to turn him into his ideal monster... the same one he wrote about in his book. Maybe he can add a line about the monster being able to eat desires. That would work, right?

It's such a stupidly simple plan that almost has no right to work. Neither Kabru nor the WL think about it. Because of a variety of reasons, but most importantly, because *that's not in the rules*. The rules are: Laios makes a wish, the WL realises that wish, in exchange he gets Laios' body. Laios' wish: to be turned into his ultimate monster that he wrote about in his book. It goes without saying that he can't just go ahead and add whatever to the book description. Right?

Kabru would not have thought to add a line in the book in a MILLION years. The WL does not think to check if Laios added any strange condition. It's like using one wish of the genie to wish for infinite wishes - I mean yeah nobody SAID you couldnt do that but it's obvious right? It's basically cheating... Who does that? ...what's this? Laios, what are you eating? Spit the King out!

Ps: in Italian, the word for "capture" on a chessboard and the word for "eating" are one and the same.

[ph-cutie]

3, 13, 16 for the choose violence asks 👀👀

LETS GO 3 (screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr): hdb being some kind of master manipulator who pulled the wool over everyone's eyes to get his way except with jean who can See Through It due to having been closest to his trickery for uncountable ages (2 years of working together) or whatever the fuck. I try not to dwell too much on jean apologia takes sorry cause I don't wanna remember names 13 (worst blorboficiation): tbh im not too sure what blorboficiation means here ? I don't wanna go with jv again but precinct 41 as a whole gets so cutesy fandom steamrolled... actually you know what, it's trant. i'm not mad about shipping but while h/k or even h/j and k/j fans lean a little into the actual material facts of these characters, every trant thing ive seen makes him such a placeholder nicey character... I personally found him a pleasant presence but don't think he's a purely nice guy, I think he's weird (in a bad way) about hdb and the city's misfortune And if you want to draw him fucking people you need to grapple with that ! 16 (you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon etc)). Ok gonna be less serious with these ones um I do nott understand bodyswap fanfics ive tried to read one for something I wasn't even really into and I just couldn't, the concept is insanely stressful to me😭 Like even as a kid I couldn't watch cartoon episodes about this. Also out of all pre-made fanon archetypes, the one I least understand the hype for is himbos... I've briefly seen people do this with laios and I just don't get the appeal ? I think the possibilities of a character who's smart in their own weird way are always going to be more engaging than the same passé 2020 haha head empty golden retriever jokes.

[ecliip]

weeellllll since two people seem to be interested... have a doodle page

featuring goursenshi, rivuchuck, marsaint, and laiosurvivor (as well as falonk, shuntero, and namartificer)

tumblr is gonna destroy the quality. ough

also- no spoilers for delicious in dungeon please, i am a showwatcher only

ramblings for this au under the cut!

so first things first, the reason why i didnt just make the characters into original rain world characters and instead fused them with slugcat counterparts is because i really enjoy assigning characters to characters from seperate medias to fill their roles. idk why, its just really fun. and also, the slugcats are all more like dolls to me than characters, barely any set personality traits makes it so i can just put them into whatever situations i like.

but, i did assign each character a slugcat based on how well their existing characterization and lore matches!!

Gourmand as Senshi is the most obvious. theyre both very smart in the ways of the world theyre in (no way Gourmand would be such a perfectly rotund creature if they were bad at surviving), theyre both large, protector/guardian types, and most importantly, they both have heavy food correlation. also, the idea of Gourmand carrying around a large lizard skull that they cook all their meals on is great. Gourmand and Senshi are both the type to own a 15-year-old cast iron skillet that they love dearly

Rivulet as Chilchuck took a bit of consideration. it moreso stemmed from the widespread "fanon" interpretation of Rivulet as a silly, head-empty, carefree speedster. and while i do enjoy this interpretation immensely, it also made me think of how a lot of people in the show see Chilchuck as just a kid and not, yknow, a grown ass middle-aged man. i thought it would be very fun to give Rivulet that tired, sick-of-everyones-shenanigans attitude, but still have a lot of others percieve them as some cute, grumpy little slugpup. besides, Rivulet and Chilichuck aren't fighters, instead using other skills to traverse their dangerous situations. and i got to draw Rivulet really short and thats a huge bonus

Saint as Marcille also took some thinking. as Saint is the only truly diet-restricted slugcat in the game (you can gain a quarter of a pip as a carnivorous slugcat when you eat non-meat food, however Saint literally spasms on the ground if you eat a batfly) i thought it would be funny to give Saint the role of pickiest eater. Marcille also has that dark magic stuff going on, which i think Saint's ascension powers correlates to nicely.

Survivor as Laios and Monk as Falin were the last ones i decided on. i knew i wanted his role to either be Survivor or Monk, since i'd be able to make them siblings, but i kept flipflopping between if i wanted him to be Survivor or Monk. i settled on Survivor because 1: basic-looking main character thats actually really interesting, 2: Falin is more gentle, which fits Monk more, while Laios is the parties main fighter- cant afford to have fewer spear damage when you're the main defense, and 3: Laios and Falin have the same attitude when it comes to monsters, so we could just project that onto Survivor and Monk, bam personality issue solved

Hunter and Arti are Shuro and Namari because i wanted to include them. when more episodes come out and we meet more characters i will give Spearmaster and Enot their deserved roles. same goes for the iterators

additional fun facts:

i wanted the red dragon to be a red lizard, but i felt like it wouldnt be quite as intimidating in the same way the dragon was, since its so low to the ground. a king vulture seemed like a better fit for the vibe it gave off, even if its less dragon-y. of course, this is all due to change!! nothings set in stone

the rain world cycle and the dungeons curse kind of intermingle? im not quiiite sure how it works but i think the "soul remains attached to the dead body" thing would be incorporated somehow- hence why they embark to save Monk instead of just throwing themselves into the rain and waking back up at their last shelter

i am heavily debating on whether magic should be, like, a thing here. like theres saints ascension fuckery, but besides that? i got no clue. if i decide magic is a no, saint becomes extraordinarily useless, but if i decide yes, it might be too much of a tonal change?... but whatever its my au i will do what i want with it

my friend kidnapped me sat me down and binged all the currently available delicious in dungeon episodes with me and now my minds racing with ideas for a rain world au of it