#i think about laios a lot….

[trustywukkiii]

did you guys know that I like Laios a lot…

[yeepof]

I understand that tall men are our POV characters, but surely being like a foot taller than everyone around them would have some occasional consequences

[moxie-girl]

im so normal abt sibling relationships in media i swear

[ciderjacks]

dwarven brew

+

[feelo-fick]

OH LIKE MONEY sorry i was just confused cause you sounded so sincere

(it wasnt that funny though i still dont really get it...)

EDIT, JUST IN CASE, IM GOING TO ADD THIS :

[poltergeist-punk]

got super inspired by @basilisk6 and their art/au of the freaks <3333 post here

[bloodsbane]

what i love about laios is that he's actually very good at putting puzzle pieces together BUT HERE'S THE THING 1) he needs to HAVE the information, and 2) (this is important) he needs to KNOW it is information he should care about

and i think this could be said of anyone but the thing with laios is that people tend to view his lack of awareness wrt social etiquette and memory problems as pure indifference and/or obliviousness; sometimes they misinterpret his motives based on their inaccurate expectations of him and therefore don't give his thoughts on a subject the credit he deserves

one of the most obvious examples of this happens at least twice in the manga as i remember it, but the most recent incident was when they were trying to resurrect falin. there's a moment where laios mentions reconstructing both of the warg skeletons, as their bones are mixed in with hers. both chilchuck and senshi balk at this, with chilchuck complaining aloud, questioning laios' priorities,

and laios quickly, angrily retorts. his reason for making the suggestion is perfectly logical and practical, but because his friends are used to his interest in monsters influencing his judgement, often in ways they see as frivolous or dangerous, they don't come to the same conclusion. one which i'd argue is kind of obvious considering the situation

we see it again during his fight with toshiro, where toshiro demands to know what laios plans to do to save falin. laios takes a minute to answer, but he DOES answer, following the logic that if falin is a chimera because of (and controlled by) the mad mage, then the logical next step is to confront/defeat/usurp them

then in the following episode, when chilchuck brings it up again, laios explains what he (now) knows about thistle, mentioning that he's the same elf that laios saw in the living paintings, which is why he knows thistle's connection to delgal. the party reacts like this:

i'd say this is an example of them feeling frustration over laios' habit of having 'bad timing', not knowing when or how to speak at appropriate moments. theyre judging him for not saying something earlier, as if he already knew all this but didn't think to mention it when it was relevant, when the reality is that laios only just now had all the pieces he needed to understand the full picture

and i mention this bit specifically because i think it's a great way to explain what i mean by point 2: laios needs to know when information is important and worth considering

which, again, feels fucking obvious. but as someone who ALSO has debilitating issues with remembering important shit, i find this particular element of it pretty relatable and critical to my overall point. it's not laios' fault that he didn't know who thistle was or his significance - why the hell would he assume that a person he met in a living painting, presumably long since dead in reality, should be someone who's face, name, or motives he keeps in mind?

ultimately, i guess what i'm trying to say with all this is that the way others treat laios' intelligence is not congruent to how actually smart he is. one of the things i love most about laios, what is possibly his biggest strength and the reason he is such a great protagonist, is that laios is willing to think things through and find the most logical conclusion to a problem, no matter how outlandish or dangerous or seemingly impossible that conclusion may be. sister got eaten? race back down to go get her. can't afford food? fight, defeat, and eat dangerous monsters. sister's fully digested? use black magic to bring her back. now she's a chimera? defeat the mage controlling her and use that power to fix it.

anyways. what was even my point with this post? i guess it is that laios is smart, at least as smart as anyone else in the cast, arguably smarter than some. he is intelligent and utilizes that intelligence in many ways, not JUST when it comes to monster info (though that is his best and sexiest brand of knowledge)

and also please be nice to your friends with memory problems. it's rough out here for forgetful bitches

[termiken]

they should not have left him alone

[butterysalt]

Ahhh thoughts about Laios Touden who would love you regardless of who you were. Your species, your race, your gender, your sexuality, none of those things matter in his eyes. Because to him, what makes you so wonderful and easy to love is that you’re simply just you. And there’s no other combination like you.

I get especially sappy thinking about it if you’re a tallman, too. At first, it seems like Laios couldn’t care less about humans. He always talks about how boring he finds his own race in comparison to others but it’s all heavily influenced by his own experiences growing up and being ostracized and bullied by those around him.

But just think about what it’s like when he meets you, another tallman. Yes, you’re human, but when he realizes that you won’t treat him differently for the way he is, he sees you as so much more than that. So what if you’re a tallman? A little thing like that doesn’t matter to him.

It’s not just that you’re “different from other tallmen”… it’s because you’re you. And he’s him.

Nothing more than that.

In an odd unlikely twist of fate, it seems that this time, the mundanity of it all is what completely captured Laios’s heart.

Just… you.

[artfucksmylife]

Labru babies

[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.

[trustywukkiii]

Laios… pretty… im giggling and kicking my feet…

[zagreuses-art]

Discworld meshi! (Image ID's in Alt text)

Lots of people have made the comparisons between carrot and Laios, but I don't think they'd be able to be friends for long after Laios finds out carrot is dating a werewolf.

Laios and Sybil on the other hand, they would get on like a dragon stable on fire.

[possamble]

Do you have any headcanons or thoughts about Falin having a crush on Marcille pre-canon? Especially during her later years at the school/the years she was with Laios.

Just full on "awkward and slightly gnc teenage lesbian has a massive crush on the touchy-feely girly girl straight best friend" tropes everywhere. Even better bc it's the "best friend is also the popular girl while lesbian is the slightly ostracized quiet one" dynamic in school. Falin gets so so so good at not having a heart attack every time Marcille gets in her personal space. But she's so resigned to never saying anything bc why would a girl as blinding as Marcille ever like her back. She also doesn't make an effort to get over it either, she's just content to be trapped in that stable dynamic of silently being in love with Marcille while getting to enjoy CLEARLY being Marcille's favourite person. She gets so used to it that it's almost just background noise most of the time-- it would have to be, unless she wanted to be freaking out 24/7 bc Marcille is so goddamn affectionate.

Her feelings also definitely change throughout the time that they're in school together-- at first it was this "whooaaah pretty older girl" puppy crush that you can clearly see developing in the flashbacks we get (I think she doesn't even like... realize her fixation on Marcille is romantic at all until years after it starts, when she's 12-14 ish and all the other girls around her are talking about crushes). But then they get closer, over the years Marcille starts getting really attached and letting down her guard, and Falin gets to see the ridiculous side of her. She gets to calm her down from her tantrums when experiments don't work out, or help her clean up when something explodes in her face. I feel like the progression of her feelings from "schoolgirl infatuation" to "unrequited love" probably almost exactly corresponds to how slowly Marcille goes from trying to keep Falin at a polite but friendly distance (like she does with everyone else) to her facade completely eroding as she becomes her cheerful and ridiculous self again for the first time since her father died.

That's probably the saddest part: Falin knows that she's clearly Marcille's favourite person on the surface level, but she doesn't quite fully grasp the enormity of what that means to Marcille. She doesn't get that she's the person who made the world colorful again for Marcille, that she is the first person outside of Marcille's family to really and truly make her laugh. She just thinks she's the beloved but dinky little short-lived sidekick, one of many that Marcille has had and will have.

Part of it is that, despite Marcille becoming such a clingy and affectionate best friend, I think her initial demeanour already did its damage. You see Falin being super adventurous and weird at first, bringing Marcille berries and other stuff, only to be rebuffed by Marcille exasperatedly saying she's working or looking kind of put off by it. And by the time you see her a little older, shes already quieter and better at masking -- and I'm not saying that that's entirely Marcille's fault (being the weird girl at an all girls academy for almost the entirety of her teenhood must have been brutal, my god) but she definitely learned that she's a potential nuisance to Marcille if she doesn't tone herself down. She learned that Marcille most likely sees her as a weird little kid following her around bc she has no other friends. And for the most part, she was never given any reason to unlearn any of that.

And that all very very smoothly transitions into Marcille being her "first love that was never meant to be anyway" when she leaves the academy. Chapter closed in her mind: she loved and pined from a distance and that was that. Every now and then she'll see another woman with Marcille's build or her shade of hair and be like ":( I miss her..." But then just kinda move on with her day. Same with when she's going through her own spellbook and finds a note that Marcille left her/correction that she made-- she'll smile fondly and reminisce about how much Marcille doted on her, and then move on.

Sometimes she thinks about contacting Marcille but convinces herself that it's too late (she spent too many months focusing on getting Laios healthy again and didn't mean to go no contact, but ah well). It's only when she has a practical reason to be reaching out that would also benefit Marcille ("Marcille is studying dungeons and we need a trustworthy mage to go with us to the dungeons") that she feels like she's allowed/that it wouldn't just be 100% a nuisance.

I almost think she didn't expect Marcille to reply at all, only to get a telegraph (or some in-universe equivalent of express mail, maybe magical pigeon carrier) that's like. EN ROUTE TO ISLAND. LETTER TO FOLLOW. and she freaks out like AAAA LAIOS SHE SAID YES WE HAVE TO CLEAN UP NOW.

I do think getting a response accidentally sparks a little hope in her, judging by the way she acts in the chp 57 flashback-- she's pouty that Marcille sees her as a kid, gets really worked up about being presentable, and then tries to play it cool when she actually meets Marcille (as if she didn't freak out and force Laios to shave while rambling a mile a minute about Marcille). She's an adult now, really and truly, and she's seen and survived things that her 18 yr old self would have never even imagined-- then all of a sudden, the person she was in love with since she was ten years old appears, and she's so desperate to be seen as mature and competent. She's trying soooo hard to impress Marcille with her newfound combat and dungeoneering experience...

Only to fall right back into their old dynamic. RIP. At least she gets the girl eventually, even if it takes dying twice and being the core catalyst behind an almost-apocalypse.

[tofixtheshadows]

I see a lot of people headcanoning that Marcille and Kabru will become friends postcanon over a shared love of gossip, but to me the biggest thing they have in common is that they're both deeply concerned with the inequality between the races.

I think before anything else, as the two people closest to the throne, they'll probably end up banding together over their shared desire to fix the divide between the races. Marcille has to give up on her dream of magically changing humanity, but she can help Laios achieve it Kabru's way, through political and social change.

[sporesgalaxy]

The way Dungeon Meshi does gender makes me insane. It’s stated over and over that Falin and Laios really are more similar than anyone is looking for- Laios directly states as much at one point, Marcille mentions it when Falin wakes up the first time and starts bemoaning not eating any monsters, the magic mirror story even has fem!Toshiro crushing on Laios- but Laios is so protective of his little sister. Laios leaves home to start making a life he can one day share with her. And she leaves magic school because he has failed, and failed so hard that she’s worried that she might never see him again if she lets him leave without her. He wants to protect her from the way the world treats him, but he does not or does not want to understand the terrible truth- the world will never treat her as harshly as it does him, because she is a pretty ‘quirky’ girl and he is a big autistic man. Falin is happy, doing well in her own sphere, making a single friend (because she is still autistic, and has struggles of her own, even if they’re a different kind), but Laios still feels a need to protect her because his experience of this world has been nothing but cold shoulders and distrust all the way down. This story makes me want to sprint into the river. Laios and Falin are the best characters of all time.

Ouhhhhh I dont have time to reread dungeon meshi to give you good sources but based on my doodoo memory and vibes therein: I have to disagree that Falin was necessarily doing "well," and I especially disagree that the tragedy here is that Laios was doing something unnecessary by trying to make a place in the world for him and Falin.

Falin gets along seemingly ok in the world but it's because she's agreeable to a fault .

What's so interesting to me about the Touden siblings is the different ways they've learned to deal with being The Odd Man Out. Laios set out to try and forcefully carve out a PLACE for him and Falin in the world, where they could both openly and unabashedly be themselves.....Falin stayed behind, and learned how to hide the things that made her stick out too much, and how to appease people on the verge of rejecting her and Laios.

That can be functional, but it isn't good. It isn't happiness. It hurts in a million tiny ways every single day, to hide yourself out of fear of rejection like that.

At school, Falin must have spent a lot of time alone before she befriended Marcille, since Falin was familiar enough with the surrounding wilderness that she knew where that small Dungeon opening was. She sought out what happiness she could by following her unusual passions in more private ways, where no one would judge her for it. Falin didn't expect anyone NOT to judge her for her "weirdness" before she met Marcille, so Falin didn't even try to connect with anyone before Marcille at a level more personal than "classmate." That's not doing well. That's not living.

This kind of self-isolation is a coping mechanism for neurodivergence that functions for a while, but it eats away at you. Falin considered marrying Toshiro despite not loving him, essentially because it seemed like the normal thing to do and she didn't think she'd get another chance to be married at all. What if she had gone through with that, or something similar by the same reasoning? Laios lived in a state of being rejected over and over, which obviously hurts like hell. In contrast, Falin was willing to live a life she never wanted just to avoid total rejection. That can be incredibly painful too, in its own way.

Falin and Laios were BOTH tragically fighting doomed battles to find a place for themselves in the world during the time they were separated. Working together, supporting each other, they're able to do a lot more. Cries.