#this is longer than i lot of the writings i post

[xelinielx]

Even Broken, I Still Love You

The ending of book 7 has just WRECKED me and I wrote some hurt/comfort because I have feelings about my dragon boy. I put a link to the AO3 post as well. I usually never post writing on here but this piece doesn't fit in on my other blog so here it is.

SPOILERS FOR THE END OF BOOK 7

Header by MagicPaint. AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63793984

“Do you think I’m a monster?”

Malleus’ voice was uncharacteristically quiet, tone so low that you had to strain to hear him. The question hung heavy in the air.

He still hadn’t turned to face you, staring out of the small window of the bedroom that he slept in during his stay at S.T.Y.X. There wasn’t much of a view out of the windows besides dark, moving water, so it was clear that Malleus was using the window as an excuse not to look at you.

It was clear just by looking that the overblot had taken an immense toll on him. He looked completely different from his usual self. Not only had his usual dark robes been changed to the S.T.Y.X-themed clothing that test subjects wore, but there was something about the way he held himself that was fundamentally different from before.

The noble dragon fae usually held his head high in a regal posture that was hard for anyone else to replicate, authority and power exuding from his very stance. It was a far cry to the way he was posed currently, hunched over as if trying to make himself seem smaller, trembling fingers clutching onto the windowsill. 

There was also a different aura surrounding him that was different from how his emotions could manipulate the weather around him. It wasn’t the feeling of crackling electric anger, or even the heavy, suffocating pressure drop as rain clouds formed. It was a deep, exhausted sorrow that seemed to weigh the entire room down. 

As Malleus had a collar to monitor his magic usage, the aura was, for once, not physical, yet it somehow felt more tangible than any emotional outburst you had seen from him. More real despite not actually being there.

A few days had passed since the final battle that had marked the end of Malleus’ overblot. When he had been reassured that Lilia was alright, Malleus had been taken by the Ferrymen as well as both Idia and Ortho to S.T.Y.X for monitoring and data-collection. No one had wanted to take the risk of leaving him in a state where he risked a second overblot, so once he had stabilized enough, the Director allowed him to request visitors. 

It had not seemed like a wise decision to keep Malleus cut off from the rest of the world as was S.T.Y.X’s norm since almost losing Lilia was what had brought on the overblot in the first place. Leaving Malleus not knowing how the people he cared about were doing was too high of a risk.

The first visitor that Idia had (begrudgingly) been tasked with delivering to the Isle of Woe was Lilia - to the surprise of no one. Both the Director and Idia had been hesitant to risk putting the strain of travel on Lilia so soon after everything that had happened, but Lilia had been uncaring of the worries and insisted that he had to go. 

Silver and Sebek were still in recovery - where Lilia was also supposed to be - and while Malleus had wished to see both his retainers as well, the Director had put his foot down. It was too dangerous to bring all three over already, so after negotiating, Malleus had agreed to let Sebek and Silver heal for a while longer before he got to see them. 

Lilia had also threatened the director, saying that if he refused to pick him up to go see his ward, Lilia would jump into the water surrounding Sage’s Island and swim until he managed to find the Isle of Woe. 

Besides researchers checking cameras and vitals to make sure both fae were alright, the two of them had been given space to speak alone. Whatever they spoke about was kept between them and S.T.Y.X, but it had involved lots of hugging and tears.

Two days after Lilia’s visit, Ortho had contacted you through your phone, telling you that Malleus had requested your presence at the Isle of Woe, which is where you currently were, staring at his trembling form for the first time since he had been taken in for monitoring. 

Normally, you’d have cracked a smile seeing the fae-prince surrounded by this much technology that he had no idea how to use, but the items in the room were the furthest things away from your mind.

Slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal, you walked over to Malleus’ shaking form. With a gentleness that Malleus wasn’t used to feeling, you placed your hand softly atop his. It felt a bit strange at first, feeling his cold skin instead of the gloves he tended to wear, but the feeling of strangeness quickly disappeared. 

A pair of wide, emerald-green eyes stared down at where your hand rested on top of his, filled with an unspoken question.

Why?

For a moment, the two of you stood still in silence as you searched for the right words. Eventually, you took a calming breath and spoke up, voice soft and calming.

“Mal,” you began, using an affectionate nickname to hopefully help him relax.

His breath hitched for a moment, surprise evident. 

“I understand why you used your ultimate magic. Why the circumstances caused you to overblot. You wanted to protect the people that were precious to you and keep them from harm, protecting both them and yourself from getting hurt.”

A single tear ran down Malleus’ cheek as he finally turned to fully face you, leaving a wet track across his porcelain skin. He still refused to meet your eyes, scared of what he would see reflected in them.

“You had good intentions. There is nothing evil about wanting to keep your loved ones safe. If I had been in your position, I think that I would have overblotted too,” you admitted quietly, giving Malleus a small, weak smile. “So there is no way that I can possibly blame you for making the same choices I would have if I were you.”

In a silent plea, Malleus turned his hand around to face palm-up. You responded by lacing your fingers together with his, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Please look at me?” you asked in a small, yet hopeful voice.

Slowly, Malleus’ green eyes moved from your intertwined hands up your arm, then neck, where they paused briefly before finally meeting yours. 

The hate and anger he had expected to see was nowhere to be seen. He could see his reflection, and was unable to determine whether the sadness he saw came from you or himself.   

You lifted your free hand to his face, letting it gently rest against his cheek. Your thumb moved to brush another tear away. 

“Malleus Draconia,” you said, staring deep into his eyes.

“You are not a monster.”

Those words seemed to snap whatever makeshift dam he had constructed to keep his emotions at bay, shattering it completely. 

Malleus began to cry. Tears flowed down his cheeks and sobs tore their way out of his heaving chest as he finally let go of control and allowed his emotions to run free. 

Unable to stand up anymore, Malleus fell to his knees on the floor, burying his face against your stomach as he cried. His arms wrapped around you tightly as if you were the only thing keeping him upright. He held you like he would collapse if there was even as much as a millimetre of space between the two of you.

His devastating sobs and the desperate way he clung to you broke your heart. You wasted no time sinking down to kneel in front of the dragon fae so that you could properly return his full embrace. 

Tears soaked your shirt as Malleus clung to you so desperately that it felt like you would bruise or your clothes would tear from his strength at any moment. That didn’t matter, though. Bruises didn’t matter. Clothes didn’t matter. S.T.Y.X didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered in that moment but the sobbing fae in your arms.

Malleus sobbed out apologies in between cries, and you did your best to calm him, whispering reassurances as you alternated between rubbing his back and petting his head gingerly, being extra mindful of his horns.

At some point, you ran out of new things to say, defaulting to a reassuring ‘it’s okay’ as you held him. Hopefully, he would feel better after letting it all out. You weren’t going anywhere.

It could have been anything from mere minutes to several hours, but eventually, Malleus’ sobs began to die down to sniffles.

He lifted his head from where he had buried it against your shoulder, glancing up to meet your eyes with his red-rimmed, puffy ones.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice cracking. “For everything. All the people I hurt. The things I-” 

Fresh tears spilled past his lash line, and you didn’t hesitate to cup his face in your hands, brushing them away as they fell. Malleus leaned into the warmth of your palms, seeking the reassurance your touch held. 

“You don’t need to apologize, Mal,” you whispered, smiling at him. “Not to me. Never to me.” 

Leaning forward, you pressed a featherlight kiss against the scale on his forehead which peeked out from between tousled locks of hair. 

“There was nothing unforgivable about what you did. The people who were hurt are recovering, the school is being rebuilt, and everyone is safe.” 

Malleus’ breath hitched. Tears glistened in the corners of his eyes and across his long lashes like tiny diamonds. 

“Aren’t you afraid?” he asked, voice still quiet and trembling. The ‘of me’ was left unsaid, but you knew it was there. 

Your immediate smile was all the reassurance Malleus needed, but you still decided to verbally reassure him as well.

“I could never be afraid of you, Mal.”

The relief Malleus felt was palpable as he finally relaxed, shoulders dropping from their tense position as he leaned his weight into you. 

His head shifted to press a pointed ear against your chest, listening to the steady and even thumps of your heartbeat.

To better support the body weight of the dragon fae, you shifted your sitting position so that you could lean your back against the wall. You refused to let Malleus get up so you could move, holding him close and carding your fingers through his hair with soft, comforting motions. 

“But I saw…” Malleus’ voice cracked. “When my horn broke, I saw the look in your eyes. You looked terrified.” The last part of the sentence was a mere whisper, but the close proximity between the two of you made you able to pick it up. 

“I was scared, yes,” you began, feeling something in your chest ache as you felt the powerful mage in your arms flinch. “But not of you.”

Malleus tilted his head to meet your eyes, brows furrowed in confusion. 

You let out an airy laugh, brushing a stray lock of hair behind his ear. “I was afraid for you. Afraid that you would have to be killed to stop your overblot. Afraid that I would never get to hold you like this again.”

You could feel tears brimming in your own eyes as you poured your heart out. “Mal, I love you. Nothing you have done or will do could ever change that.” 

Cold lips pressed against yours with a soft reverence. The kiss was slow, unhurried as the two of you conveyed a thousand words between each other in a silent, intimate moment. 

When you pulled apart, Malleus rested his forehead against yours, the cold of his forehead scale comforting. “You wish to stay by my side still?” he asked, knowing the answer deep down, yet still fearful he would be mistaken.

“Always.”

“Even if I look like this now?” he urged, leaning away far enough to do a sweeping motion towards his face and now uneven, damaged horns. “Even if-”

You cut him off with another kiss, this time more demanding than the prior. You tried pouring all your love into the kiss, trying to clear the insecure thoughts from Malleus’ mind. Taking the opportunity provided by Malleus as he had leaned away before, you climb into his lap, making yourself comfortable. 

Pulling away from the kiss, you cradled his face gently but firmly in both hands, making sure he couldn’t look away from you.

“Malleus, if you think something as insignificant as you looking different is enough to take me away from your side, you are far from correct.” You let your left hand travel up his face until it was gently tracing the base of his broken horn. 

“You could have four horns, eight and a half horns, or no horns at all, and it would still have no impact at all on my feelings for you.” 

Carefully, you gently ran the pads of your fingers over the broken part of the horn where it had snapped off. Malleus shuddered beneath you as your touch danced across his exposed, extra sensitive nerves.

“I love you because you are you. Not because you’re a Draconia, or a powerful fae. None of that matters.” Your hand returned to cradling his face once more. 

“Of course, having a strong, handsome partner is a bonus,” you added with a giggle, delighting in the small, pale blush that crept across Malleus’ cheeks.

“But I’m not with you because of those things. I’m with you because of all the things that make you you. The care that you show for me and those you care about, how fireflies follow you at night and circle our clasped hands. The cute way you pout when Sebek mixes up gargoyles and grotesques, itching to correct him. The childlike wonder you show to every new thing you learn…”

You take a breath, wishing in vain for your voice to stay strong, but failing miserably.

“- the way that all you’ve ever wanted is for people to see you for who you are, and be able to be yourself, unburdened by expectations and prejudices.”

Tears were flowing down your cheeks now, making you feel embarrassed. Right now, you needed to be the strong one supporting Malleus - not the other way around. 

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you placed your hand against his chest, right above his heart.

“I see you.” 

A relieved, genuine smile - the first one you’d seen since the overblot - stretched across Malleus’ lips. He leaned into the touch of your palm, eyes shining with both residual tears and adoration. 

“What did I ever do to deserve you?” he asked.

You immediately shook your head in outrage. “What do you mean deserve? You silly, silly dragon. You didn’t have to do anything at all but exist.” 

Letting out a sound that was something halfway between a laugh and a sob, you continued as Malleus’ arms wrapped around your waist, holding you close. 

“If anything, I’m the one undeserving of you.” 

His mouth fell open in shock, about to cut you off, but you forced yourself to continue, undeterred.

“You’re the prince of Briar Valley. Not only do you have magic, but you’re one of the most powerful mages in the whole world! And the most ethereal, gorgeous person I have ever seen. I’m a nobody compared to you. A magicless human from another world with nothing really special about me. My life is so much shorter than yours, and I-”

This time, Malleus refused to let you continue and cut you off. A slender finger pressed against your lips as he let out a dry laugh. “My love, do you hear yourself? You are bringing up all the things you said didn’t keep you from loving me to put yourself down. Just as these things don’t matter to you, it is the same way for me. I did not fall in love with you because you’re a human or because it would benefit Briar Valley. I would renounce my claim on the throne in a heartbeat for you.”

Malleus cupped your cheek, mirroring your own earlier actions. 

“I fell in love with the first person outside of my country who truly saw me for myself, was undeterred by how awkwardly I engage in conversation, and extended invitations to me - being the first person to see me as a choice, someone they wanted to be around. You have never looked upon me with the fearful gaze of a subject kneeling before me, and have never made me feel excluded in any way due to being a prince.” 

He let out a laugh, gazing fondly up at you. “Any and every day with you is an adventure. No matter where you take me, what we do together, or what people around us whisper about, it’s the fact that I’m doing it with you that makes it special.”

“Even though I laughed at you when you were startled and jerked back when they were popping popcorn at a market stall and me and Silver had to fight to keep Sebek from drawing his sword at the poor owner of the stall?” 

Malleus let out a loud burst of laughter. “Moments like those are my favorite. Spending time with people I care about, and learning new things while not a single thought about my royal lineage crosses my mind.” 

Falling quiet for a moment, Malleus seemed to ponder something. With a resolute nod to himself, he resumes speaking. 

“Like you said, I am aware that the differing length of our respective lifespans is a source of conflict and worry. I do not wish to ever lose you. You saw what happened when I was afraid I would lose Lilia…” he trailed off for a moment, but quickly collected himself.

“Even though that is a fear I harbor, I do not wish to give up on loving you. If you are willing to stay with me despite all that I’ve done, we have many years to find a solution… and…” Malleus took a deep breath, meeting your gaze again, tears pooling at the corners of his eyes. 

“...and should we not find a solution, then so be it. I would much rather have lived a life with you in it and then lose you than never having had you in my life at all.” 

Terrified of loss and sadness, and knowing the potential consequences of that, he still wanted nothing more than to spend as many years as possible at your side. A century is a short time for a fae, yet even if that is all the time with you that he gets, he is certain that it will be the most memorable and most valuable hundred years he ever lives.

“You ass,” you choked out with a laugh, wiping your nose with the sleeve of your shirt. “I’m the one supposed to be sappy and reassure you - not the other way around.” There was no mirth or anger in your eyes, and the remark was playful, attempting to lighten the mood. 

Malleus let out a chuckle, chest rumbling. “Who is to say that I am not supposed to be the so-called ‘sappy’ one?” he asked, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. “You are truly precious to me, and I cannot in any amount of words in any language properly convey just how much you mean to me.” 

He fell silent once more, peeking up at you through his lashes. “Are you truly certain that you wish to be with me after all this?” 

There was no need to pause and think. You already knew your answer and had known it for a long time now.

“There is no place I would rather be.” 

Eventually, the pair of you fell asleep cuddled together on the floor, clutching each other tightly as if fearing that the other would disappear otherwise. Your head rested on Malleus’ chest, lulled to sleep by the soft, rumbling purrs he let out as he slept curled around you like a dragon guarding its hoard.

And for the first time since the overblot, neither of you worried about what you would find in your dreams, content to exist in the perfect reality that could only be found in the other’s arms.

[yandere-sins]

The Orcas’ Tale - After End

[My Commission Info] | [My Ao3] | [Ko-Fi]

a/n: Another lovely commission for a sweet anon ♥ Thank you for commissioning me to write about my sweet fishy boy again!! :') It was a lot of fun!!! ♥

Characters: Nerrocan (OC) x AFAB!Reader Warnings: Yandere, Sexual Content (Non-Con, Rubbing, Penetration with too big penis, Reader's first time, Breeding Kink, Cuminflation, Creampie), Violence (Biting, Blood mention, Scratching, Mentioning of wounds), Mentioning of Testing on the Mermaids, Obsessiveness, Overpowering, Monster, Monster Features, Dual POV, Long Post Words: 8157

You should have been used to emerging from water by now, yet, you still gasped for air the moment you breached the surface. 

The pool water parted to reveal the indoor basin of the new cave constructed in Nerrocan's habitat. For a moment, you were almost taken aback by the deja vu as it reminded you of the original cave you had been relocated to by the three orcas way back at the beginning of your journey. But the longer you looked around, the more the illusion vanished. It was familiar, but not the same.

Strong arms wrapped around you from beneath the blue. Arms that should have induced a fight or flight instinct inside you, but the feeling had long turned into acceptance. After so many days spent together, there was almost nowhere Nerrocan hadn't touched you, and considering he swam across the ocean with you, there had been much more closeness between you two than just this simple touch. 

"How do you like it?" he whispered expectantly into your ear as he emerged after you. By now, he usually let you swim alone if you two had some time together aside from the experiments. Nerrocan found watching you use all your limbs to get through the water amusing, and you wanted to go easy on him, especially whenever he had gone through something painful or gotten wounded.

Somehow, this only made this situation more nerve-wracking for you. 

"It's familiar… and yet, not at all," you replied vaguely, assuming he knew what you meant. Nerrocan hummed softly in agreement, and you swam to the edge of the water, putting your hands on solid ground. By then, all the memories shattered as you felt the unnatural material beneath your fingertips, a stark contrast to the stone cave Nerrocan had lived in before with his cousins. The material this cave was made of was nothing like that. It was just an imitation—a fake. Because that's all it was.

"I wanted it to resemble your old home. I was hoping you'd feel more relaxed in a familiar environment."

Lifting yourself out of the water, you were given a small push as Nerrocan used his tail to help you up. It didn't make for the most graceful landing, but you were thankful regardless for the assist. Now standing in the cave, you inspected the dimensions, glad the facility hadn't saved on making it big enough for a species like Nerrocan. This way, he could move around comfortably, although you observed him pacing around the pool even after receiving a proper retreat. Staying indoors must have made him restless regardless of how much effort you put into making him comfortable. It still hurt in your heart that he let himself get captured just for the sake of bringing you back to your people. 

You heard Nerrocan come out of the water behind you as you checked out the cave, walking the perimeter around the exit. Very quickly, you found where he stored food and, strangely enough, stones. Even though you didn't question him why he'd pick out stones from the bottom of the pool, you made a mental note to ask other researchers if this was perhaps a sign of boredom and if you had to get him something to busy himself with. It wasn't always the best idea to ask Nerrocan directly, as he usually resorted to saying he was fine as long as you were around. No matter how close you two lived, you couldn't always be there. So, instead, you would have to ask around later what others thought. It was just how things were done here in the facility. 

Another thing you noticed was the lack of decorations. You remembered the cave of the orcas had trophies and skins hanging on the walls. Nerrocan wasn't allowed to make or wield weapons anymore, obviously. Still, since he couldn't hunt, there was no way for him to actually decorate. Maybe that's what the stones are for, you thought quietly, furrowing your brows. 

"Something displeases you?" he suddenly asked, and you had almost forgotten that he was still around, observing you like he did most days. 

"Oh! Oh, no! It's fine!" you replied quickly, moving on from the barren walls. Although, you wondered if Nerrocan would appreciate art. But how would you get a painting down here without the water ruining it?

Next up, you found an obviously assigned sleeping space, and you sighed a sigh of relief, seeing that, at least here, the makers of the caves had taken note of what you told them. It was a more private corner in the whole cave, even slightly covered by an extra wall so Nerrocan had at least a tiny bit of privacy from the cameras that you saw blinking around the wall encircling this space. It would probably be your job to analyze the materials and repair them if they broke, which would be a hassle. But not anyone could just jump into Nerrocan's pool and especially enter his cave. That privilege went to only one person: you. 

"Do you get some good sleep here? Looks comfy!" you asked, pointing at the fur-bedding. It wasn't as smooth as seal fur but thicker, slightly elevated from the ground, reminding you of a futon. Perhaps Nerrocan could like this new added comfort. You definitely were glad about lying down on a mattress again rather than fur on the ground. 

"It's fine," he answered, a familiar response. You almost jumped a bit hearing him right behind you, looking back to find him having closed the distance to you while you were thinking about his bed. His eyes dragged away from the fur, Nerrocan's expression unreadable. Still, somehow, it gave you the feeling he didn't like the bed as much, considering it was just "fine". He might not have been an orca of many words, but you did feel he'd expressed himself differently had he actually liked it. It was time to change tactics!

"Do you prefer seal fur for–"

"You can sit down if you–"

Both of you looked at each other, stopping halfway through your sentences. It was rare that you two spoke up at the same time, but even Nerrocan's lips curled into a smile as you chuckled about it. However, he had no idea what that invitation elicited inside you, a knot forming in your stomach as you stood there, nervously thinking about your options. 

You two were a team; it wasn't right to distrust him. He had done a lot for you, and you weren't ungrateful for all his efforts, but you've noticed Nerrocan pushing. Pushing for something that you simply couldn't wrap your head around doing. 

The staff and the professor had told you extensively about your role and how to conduct yourself. They weren't shy and didn't make any of it sound goofy or pitiful as they explained the terms and what to do. Somehow, you were able to avoid it all this time up until now. Yet, the thought came back to you with the same fear and reluctance as when you first listened to them explain what it meant to mate. 

Essential, they had called it. The most important factor to the whole facility. Mermaids that didn't bond and mate with their caretakers were usually dead within months as they slowly withered away without a reason to live. Nerrocan had to have a mate, or he would probably die too. Despite your best care, the stones possibly were the first indication of his mental health declining. It was for the best of the test subjects, but you… you couldn't do it. 

Taking a deep breath, you nodded, giving him a fake smile before replying, "S-Sure!" as confidently as you could. Carefully, you took a seat at the edge of his "bed", feeling the soft material below you give in beneath your body, yet cushioning you all the same. It didn't feel bad at all, but when you brushed your hand through the fur, you noticed how different it was from the softer seal Nerrocan was used to. 

"You know, it's no trouble to change this if you'd prefer a softer material to sleep on. How about we add some pillows? Do you know what a pillow is? You place your head on it. It's pretty nice!"

Perhaps you were rambling a little as you drew in your knees, hugging them tight to your chest like a defense barrier. You had to accept his invitation if you wanted information that would ultimately help him. Knowing what he was sleeping on right now would later benefit your case if you needed to ask for other things for him. Even if you didn't like how exposed you felt like this, it was your job to take care of him and make sure he was doing fine, even if he wasn't the best to communicate his feelings and thoughts to you. He had no one besides you to rely on, so you couldn't let him down even if you were uncomfortable.

Nerrocan had crawled closer once you took your seat, waiting for something it felt like as his muscles kept tensing and relaxing visibly. But there was a small sparkle in his eyes that you couldn't quite pinpoint. Maybe excitement? He seemed happier when you two talked about whatever came to mind, so perhaps he enjoyed the conversation despite your rambling. If you could make him happy just a little bit, that would be good. It would keep him healthy in the long run despite the awful things he had to endure. Tightening your arms around your legs, you tried not to think about it and instead focus on him. 

"It's fine. Perfect, now, actually."

There it was. Nerrocan, sly as he was, knew how to intensify words if he wanted. He had no problems with telling you if he liked something, if he actually meant it. And he did, now, after you sat down… in his sleeping spot… oh no.

Nerrocan let out a soft chirp as he leaned down more, almost bending over you and trapping you in his resting area with his big body. You couldn't outswim him, but a moment of surprise could be the only reason you left his cave alive. No matter how well-disposed he was towards you, you could never let your guard down around a predator like him. 

"Well! Great! I see you've been settling in nicely!"

You laughed nervously as you jumped up with too much vigor, almost banging your head with his, but Nerrocan reared back just in time. He was just like an animal in such moments, immediately alert and reactive. And you were just a human, you… you couldn't be his mate. You couldn't stay here and pretend that wasn't what everyone—including Nerrocan—seemed to want from you. Hell, how would that even work?! He was so big and you were average at best! You two were so different, there was no way he would even fit—

"I-I should go!" you announced, suddenly overrun by your emotions. Somehow, you had managed to spiral yourself back into a state of panic, your heart racing while your head filled with unnecessary ideas. Imagining yourself with Nerrocan… that was simply too much for you. 

"Wait!" Nerrocan called out as you stormed to a smaller part of his body so you could step over him and get to the pool. You didn't need to look back to know he was following you, the cave slightly creaking as he turned over to go after you. You had freaked yourself out enough that you didn't stop. This wasn't the ocean, and you were good enough of a swimmer to get out of the pool on your own. However, your footsteps grew smaller as you got closer to the water. 

Your reaction wasn't fair. Nerrocan had done nothing to you, and yet, you treated him like a pervert just because some scientists wanted you to think about him that way. Mate this or that, but in the first place, he was your savior and fellow sufferer. If anything… he was your friend. He didn't deserve to be treated this way. It was only you who interpreted the things you were afraid of. Nerrocan wasn't at fault.

Taking a deep breath, you turned around, laying your head to the side questioningly, deciding to give it one more go before you chickened out for no apparent reason. "Are you okay?" he asked, shifting slightly from side to side to look you over. Worried, he stared at your body, goosebumps erupting on your skin as your stupid brain imagined him undressing you with his eyes. You told yourself he was just concerned about you, but the icky feeling remained. 

"Your heart was beating very fast. Do you need to rest?"

"Ah, you know…" you stumbled, avoiding eye contact with him. Of course, he heard that. Stupid orca senses! "I'll just get back and take a nap. I'm sure it's going to go away again soon!"

You gave him a curt smile, pointing at the water. But before you could turn even to look at the pool, his big hands reached out, faster than you could register, lifting you up from the ground.

"Woah!" you exclaimed as Nerrocan tugged you in against his chest, twisting his huge body over and facing his bed again before scooting closer. Even this touch wasn't unfamiliar, and neither was the feeling of his skin against your palms and face. But your body only decided to freak out more. What was he going to do? Would he demand his right to mate? Did you delude yourself into honestly thinking Nerrocan wanted you like this? Did you really think he'd be okay without a mate?

With your eyes closed tightly, you only felt yourself lifted off the orca and sat down on the soft bedding again. Once more, you had let the intrusive thoughts take over your critical thinking, and when you slowly blinked open your eyes, you looked straight into Nerrocan's, his gaze filled with concern. One hand supported you on your back as if he was afraid you were going to faint at any second now, while he used the other to cup your face, clearly still looking for wounds he had missed. He would have smelled the blood, of course, but it seemed even his rationality could be thrown out of the proverbial window when it came to you. 

"Do you need food? Water? Are you in pain?"

His questions were so innocent, his voice breaking with worry, making it hard for him to speak clearly. No matter how well he spoke the human language, his instincts were always at the forefront, and those allowed only the orca way of communication, the soothing rumble in his chest being evidence of this. When you didn't immediately answer him, his expression merely darkened as he chortled, trying to coax what you needed out of you. 

"I'm really fine, Nerrocan," you reassure him, much softer than you thought you were able to. Somehow, his concern and efforts to make you comfortable warmed your heart. You were unjust to assume the worst of him, and he had proven to you yet again that he was simply concerned about your well-being. Maybe he was right, and you needed some rest, this situation had already taken its toll on you. 

"Good, okay. Your heart is still beating very fast, what can I do?"

"Maybe… let's just talk?"

"Sure." Nerrocan nods thoughtfully, imitating your gesture while seemingly trying to fulfill your request. "What is that thing you talked about like? That… pillow?"

"Oh!" you exclaimed, delighted to hear him remember. It seemed like such a small matter to talk about, but you were happy that he listened and followed up on what you said. "It's soft and slightly elevated! You can tug it beneath your head so your spine rests evenly, although I know you can't lie on your back, but at least turned to your side?"

You took a moment to think about whether Nerrocan could sleep with a pillow in the first place, something you should have considered much earlier before suggesting it, but now, you just had to go with the flow. However, you didn't notice him shift, laying down flat on his stomach before asking, "Like this?" And suddenly, with no small strain on your thighs, his head fell into your lap, arms reaching up and around your body, keeping it in place.

"Y-Yeah," you mumbled, stunned. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that Nerrocan could really understand you and make logical connections. And in moments like this, it was even harder to make yourself believe he didn't do it with some ulterior motives. Not like this was the first time he ever laid his head in your lap, but still, under these circumstances, it made you nervous again. 

Inhaling deeply, you reminded yourself to trust and stay calm, slowly letting your hand fall on top of his head and brushing through his hair. Nerrocan's lips trembled before he gave up his composure and smiled, the rumbling in his chest almost like a purr while he made a few satisfied clicking sounds. 

"Don't get too comfortable, big guy. I'm just taking a quick rest before going back to work!" you joked with him, running both of your hands through his slick hair. As always, it was untangled despite the length, still as beautifully shimmering and glossy as you were used to it. A good sign, you figured, considering his hair had fallen out yet from the stress and procedures. 

Making a sound of disapproval, Nerrocan turned his head forward. His arms tightened around you, and you gave a small, nervous chuckle as you watched him nuzzle his face into and between your thighs. His hold on you got even stronger as you noticed his upper body lifting and staying like this for a moment before sinking, as if he just took a deep breath. Shame ran over you, the wetsuit you wore smelling like water and fish, but who knew what he could smell with his enhanced senses? You washed up this morning, but that was a few hours ago… 

While fearing about your body hygiene, you didn't notice the mischievous glint in Nerrocan's eyes as he watched your expression, his body weight shifting more and more on top of you. It wasn't until you felt yourself losing balance, toppling backward, that you started to struggle against the inevitable, big hands catching you before you could hurt yourself. At the same time, Nerrocan took the chance to scoot up higher, hovering above you when your head fell into the cushioned bed. 

"I've waited a long time for this," Nerrocan mumbled, a guttural sound as his head dipped into the space between your head and shoulder, slick skin against your wetsuit, the tip of his nose dragging down the side of your throat, smelling you again. "For this place to be set up and for you to visit here. It being just us."

"Ne- Nerrocan!" you protested, bracing your hands against his shoulders. It was foolish to think you could lift him off you. Nerrocan's head dipped lower and lower, driving between your collarbones and your breasts, the feeling of his breath pervading even your clothes and tingling over your skin. His hand slid out from beneath you, and you saw your chance of slipping upwards and away. But the second you moved, his palms closed around your sides, holding them firmly in place and tugging you back down again beneath him. 

"Nerrocan, stop!" you said more firmly this time, and he stilled as if snapping out of a trance. 

"Why?" he asked, looking up again. This time, his expression seemed hurt, as if you denying him this was causing him physical pain. 

"We aren't the same species! We can't do this!"

"We can," he replied without hesitation.

"They told me it was possible. That if I prepared you well, you'd be able to take me. It's okay to mate with a human, they said."

"They? Who told you these things?! How would that even work?! Do you even know what that means?!"

Panic raised your voice, and you watched his expression change briefly. Perhaps the sound disturbed him, or he was questioning what either of you knew, but eventually, he simply replied, "The other humans. Those with the white clothes," and it dawned on you. While you thought you had things under control, the other researchers started feeding Nerrocan a very different narrative. One where all of this was normal. One where he could do as his nature demanded. 

And when you didn't react fast enough, nature won over him. 

One hand retracted from the side of your body, reaching down between your legs and settling right against your pussy. You squealed as a bolt of surprised arousal drove through your body, Nerrocan rubbing his dangerously clawed finger up and down your slit. Immediately, you shut your legs around his wrist, but it did nothing to stop him. Instead, it made your pussy grind upwards into the touch, and you bit your lip. 

"It's- It's not right!" you stammered, reaching for his hand. 

"But you smell so good. You came here to mate, claim my cave as yours. That's a sign, right?"

"N-No! I didn't! I never intended to claim this place or you! Stop smelling me!"

"It's tough," Nerrocan admitted, gulping while his finger worked a unique magic on your cunt. He could move his joints much like a wave, teasing your clit at one point and your entrance at the next. Together with the friction of the wetsuit it was a deadly combination. Yet, you didn't want to dwell on it, feeling the treacherous heat spreading through your body. "Every inch of you smells so good, mate."

His head reappeared in front of yours, his massive form crushing as if he was going to swallow whole. Nerrocan's eyes were lidded, dark dots one could get lost in, but as if sniffing wasn't enough, his tongue suddenly slipped out of his mouth, dragging from your jaw to your cheek bone. You'd never taken much note about how long it was until he was licking you, making you feel even more like a delicious snack rather than a respected friend. This was getting out of hand, and you had to do something fast!

"Nerrocan, we can't– Mmpf!"

Not giving you the chance to finish the sentence, Nerrocan slipped his tongue between your open lips, his mouth crashing down on yours while his fingers stopped for a brief moment. He dipped deeply into the kiss, filling you with his tongue and breath, both hot and relentless as they explored every inch of your mouth. Your head was spinning with how much Nerrocan there was and how little of you. But even when you tightened your grip on his shoulders, nails digging into them, he didn't let off, instead picking up the teasing with his finger again, although his movements were rougher now than before. It felt like he was desperate to make you agree with him, however he had to. Perhaps those were his instincts taking over again, forcing him to claim his mate however possible, but it didn't help you at all. 

Shrieking into his mouth was all you could do as his other hand furled inwards, claws snagging at your wetsuit and running over your back. The sting revealed the damage to your skin, yet the fabric ripping was what horrified you. Pulling your head back, you tried to escape, tried to appeal to his reason, but Nerrocan followed every one of your movements with the precision of an instinctual predator. 

All this time, you tried to assure yourself it wouldn't happen. That you two were better than the vulgar things the researchers had told you about. Just because some caretakers had intimate relationships with their protégés didn't mean it had to happen to you two! You thought you were better than this! That you could make it without crossing the line between two species…

You should have listened to your gut telling you to run a few minutes ago.

Because now you were stuck.

The sound of a big chunk of your wetsuit tearing, pulled you out of your spiral of misery. The hand that had fondled you through the fabric slipped into the tear, going straight back between your legs even though you shut them tight. However, your strength was nothing compared to Nerrocan's, and he easily reached his goal with the sheer mass of his palm. 

You wanted to yell at him, insult and tell him how dare he did this to you, but instead of your anger, an unwelcome moan slipped from your tongue over his. Immediately, it was answered by a rumble from his throat. Nerrocan's tongue kept assaulting your mouth, flopping out whenever it became too much to lodge it inside you, all while he was prying open your lower lips, coating his hand in unmistakable arousal. Even though your body's reaction wasn't your fault, you felt ashamed of the squelching and sloppy sounds coming from above as well as below. 

It also made you wonder if Nerrocan knew what he was doing. Because you did, but only to a certain extent, and if you both had no idea, that could be deadly. 

With all your strength left, you finally turned your head, signaling the kiss to stop. Nerrocan was like a truck, speeding through this process as if he had something important to deliver. But at the same time, he was crushing you with his instincts that were driving him wild. It almost seemed too late to stop, but you had to do all you could to tell him how you felt and how this wasn't right. 

"I can't!" you gasped, coughing really hard once his tongue had pulled out completely. "I can't take you! It won't fit! I never… I've never done this before!"

Nerrocan said nothing, the silence stifling. What was he thinking? Did he understand what you meant? Would he stop now? His finger ceased moving, although his palm kept cupping your pussy, completely covered in your slick by now. 

"I am… your first," he finally said, but it didn't sound like a question. "No one's ever touched you before."

Heat rose to your head as he spoke it out so clearly. Hiding your face with your hand, you whispered, "No," hoping this would finally deter him. But when you snuck a peek through the gaps between your fingers, all you saw was a mysterious glint in his eyes, and the next thing you heard was a deep rumble resonating through the whole cave. 

"I'll take such good care of you," Nerrocan said solemnly, his free hand falling to your head and brushing back some of your hair. He kissed the top of your head multiple times, muttering promises like, "You'll lack nothing, my mate," in between kisses. It didn't seem like he had any intentions to stop, you realized, if anything, this had turned him on even more.

"That's not what I meant!" you protested, but he wouldn't listen. His hand between your legs tensed, pressing outward, the fabric giving way quickly and exposing you completely. 

"I'll make you happy, I promise."

"What?! No!"

Panicked, you tried to sit up, only to brace your arm against Nerrocan as he began to move. His weight could crush you, so you had to relent when he rolled onto his chest, hovering above you. Your legs spread outwards to accommodate his tail between them, and Nerrocan crouched a bit higher to line up your hips with his. Still, he was arching his back, keeping his head close to yours. 

Even though you found hold on his body, no amount of strength could push him away. Horrified, you looked down between your legs, watching as the tip of his cock pressed out of the slit on his tail, and before you knew it, the massive shaft emerged completely, already twitching as beads of precum ejected from its tip. 

"That– That's not possible! We can't! I absolutely can't!" 

"You'll do well, mate. I believe in you. I know you can take me, relax."

Lining up his tip to your cunt, more precum bubbled from his cock, the fluids almost as heavy as the air suddenly felt. You'd be fucked to death if he managed to get this monster cock inside you. This was it. This would be the end. And all because you hadn't been more careful, didn't keep your distance like you should have. Trusted him. 

"No, no, no, no…" you mumbled, looking up and giving Nerrocan one last fearful look, which he reciprocated immediately. However, instead of understanding, all you saw was desire in his eyes. Lust, pleasure, want. Nerrocan couldn't be reasoned with, not when he wanted to spear you on his cock and use you as his toy to satisfy his needs. You didn't believe he truly thought of you as a mate. A mate would take care of the other, right? Help them get through these situations that made them anxious and afraid! But he was doing the complete opposite, not even giving you a chance to safe yourself. 

With a pained groan stuck in your throat, you felt his cock move slowly inside you, prying open your walls. The preparations had given him a small chance to penetrate, but your hymen was tearing just from inserting the tip. Nerrocan, too, took a sharp breath, feeling your tightness as he nudged his shaft inside with small pushes, and already, you could take no more. Nerrocan was going to ruin your poor pussy, and take your first time as if it belonged to him. 

"It hurts!" you whined, tears shooting into your eyes as the pain was threatening to overtake you. 

Immediately, the merman sprang into action, leaning down, kissing your forehead and face, chirping encouragingly between his sentences. Every time he pushed, a new praise fell as a reward. "You're doing so good," he muttered as you shrieked, his bulbous tip reaching its biggest point. Worse was yet to come, but it hurt like hell. You knew that in a matter of a few pushes, Nerrocan would take your virginity and your pussy for his own pleasure. There was absolutely nothing you could do, and it made you despair. 

You clung to him desperately, no deep breath helping you relax. "You can do it; look at you taking me," he tried to soothe you, but there was no chance you could do either. You didn't even want to see him getting inside you, much less experience it. But Nerrocan left you no choice as he advanced. With one rough push, he finally breached the abilities of your pussy, and it gave way to him much too easily.

Your back arched, voice getting stuck in your throat, and you blacked out for a short moment as your hymen tore. The pain of his massive cock taking your first time was too much to handle, but after Nerrocan let out a guttural moan, more juices mingling inside you that were probably equal parts yours and his, he pulled his cock out again before jutting it back into the same place and shaking you awake. 

Even though it felt like a nightmare, it was very real and frightening, especially as Nerrocan advanced. 

"That's it," he praised, kissing the top of your head. "You're doing so good, my mate, just a little more."

There were more words, but you could barely register them as you felt your walls spread impossibly wide around his shaft, his cock pulsing and throbbing inside you as if to make more space for itself in a completely cramped place. It still felt impossible, but Nerrocan managed to keep digging inch by inch, spreading and claiming more of your pussy for himself. Nerrocan kept trilling next to you, working his shaft back and forth to ease it inside, and you were stuck between helplessness and feeling your body slowly adjust. The idiotic thought of "maybe I am made for this" came over you as you felt the tears spilling from your eyes, allowing you to realize it wasn't supposed to be like this at all. 

But here you were, betrayed by your only friend in this strange life you were thrown into, allowing him to call you his mate and fuck you with his big, monstrous cock. You had screwed up, that much was sure, and you didn't know if you'd ever recover from it. Especially not when instead of a scream, another moan escaped you, the moment Nerrocan finally had used up all the space inside of you to claim you. 

You sounded so heavenly. 

Not only that but your scent, body, everything about you was perfect. The researcher told me that the moment I got to claim you would be the most wonderful thing I ever experienced in my life. And for once, they weren't lying. You smelled heady, the air around us filling with the scent of your need. A need for me. Finally, you wanted me, too, taking me and uniting us as we should be. This was what mateship was all about, the feeling of belonging together, both body and mind.

It was exhilarating.

Your body wound itself beneath me, squeezing and moving around my cock that I finally filled you with. You said you couldn't take it, but you did. My mate. My perfect, beautiful mate, your eyes dazed and filled with tears as I bucked my hips forward gently. You made the most adorable gurgles, biting your lip, although I would have preferred to hear all of your voice, you really didn't have to hold back. Surely, you, too, must have felt the bliss of our union, the beautiful play of our bodies?

And even more exciting than that, you gave me your first time. Your insides were shaping themselves around my cock, learning to accommodate it despite the tightness. Yet, you did so well taking every inch of me, your beautiful thighs pressing against the sides of my tail, keeping me firmly situated inside you. Our mateship must have been meant to be if you waited for me to come into your life before giving me your new, beautiful pussy to mate. To fill, to breed.

Sinking my hands into your hair, I couldn't help myself from pulling your head back, exposing your throat, the most vulnerable part of your delicious body. The slight smell of blood coming from your cunt only made my cock twitch more, tingling all the senses of a hunter. I wanted to bite you so badly, taste your blood on my tongue, and coat my teeth with it that it hurt. There was way too much of your body still covered, even though we had no need for clothes any longer. I almost felt resentful towards the fabric covering you, denying me the view of the most beautiful treasure of this world—you. 

I had waited too long for this moment to not leave my mark on your body as I should. 

If you were to get lost, anyone should know who you belonged to. Whose fangs they'd have to go against to claim you in the same way I had. As if I'd ever lose a fight when the prize was my mate and the right to keep calling you that. I didn't fight, hunt, and train for so long that just anybody could waltz in and take you from me now. 

"I'll be gentle, I promise" I murmured, driving my lips over your shoulder. It was the perfect place, above your heart, next to your throat. My face fit nicely in the curve between your neck and arm, as if this spot was made for my mark. Perhaps, you were. Made for me, that is. I had never seen someone rouse as many emotions in me as you did or induce this constant, mind-numbing heat that I was acting on now. With your pussy around my cock and my teeth about to sink into your body, I was the closest to you that I ever had been, and there was no place I'd rather be. 

My throat rumbled in contentment, my whole being agreeing with the thought of marking you. Lips splitting, my teeth were ready to punctuate, to clamp down, to tear. But I wouldn't treat you like that. I'd only taste the sweetest prey I had ever encountered. I wouldn't linger, wouldn't hurt you more than necessary. Hurt, it would, so I fastened the pace of my hips, distracting you with the added friction until you were whining softly with every push. It was adorable when one of your hands clung to my arm, digging your puny little nails into it. But I hoped it would scar. That you'd mark me just like I would, you. 

Which gave me the idea to cup your face, prying your mouth open by pushing a finger between your blunt teeth. The damage would be small compared to mine, but it was only right you got the same chance as I did. With all the preparations done, it was time to claim you. I knew it was meant to be, and yet, I hesitated because of the thought of hurting you. But I had to believe in myself. I knew I'd never cause you great harm. I could control the urges and stop when it was necessary. You and I had been through worse together; we'd also get through the stages of mating. 

At least, mating was more pleasurable. 

"Shh, it's okay, I'll be gentle," I repeated softly, hearing how your breathing turned unnaturally fast after seeing my teeth. A shudder went through you, and I couldn't help groaning as I felt it around my cock, too. Your voice grew louder, vibrating against my finger, but I gave it no heed. Resting my lips on your body, I took one more deep breath, soaking in the scent of your body, your arousal, the tinge of blood I had smelled before. 

Delicious. 

And with that, my teeth opened, sinking deep into your flesh. The fabric covering you was no more a hindrance than uncovered skin, giving no resistance. But my tongue immediately went to lap up the droplets of blood that formed around my teeth, a strong, desirable taste filling my mouth. Together with the smell of your body they completely fogged my mind, my hips snapping forward harder as your cunt tightened around my cock, reluctant to let me go. 

Was this it? The sign that you were cumming? Would I be the first orca to take and claim his human mate in every aspect? A guttural groan resonated through my body, my pace growing harder. I knew it instinctively, it was a mating call. We were now bound to each other. There was no more space to stuff my cock into, but I still hadn't had enough. Gripping one of your beautiful thick thighs in my hand, the flesh so soft and pliable in my grasp, I adjusted our position and brought us even closer together. Our size difference was but a small obstacle when it came to mating, and I was determined to make up for it with my strength and skill. 

I had barely heard the first scream you let out when I bit you, much less the beautiful symphony of moans and cries that my finger muffled. Blood coating my tongue, my lips, my throat, I felt my cock swell inside you, the feeling eliciting another shriek against my finger. However, this time, I did notice it. You were biting down so hard as if your life depended on it. It was a cute effort, considering you barely broke through my skin, much less tore junks out of it like I wanted. I could feel your heartbeat in my mouth as it wouldn't stop hammering in your chest, and your pussy held on tight to my cock as I lodged it as deep as possible inside you.

I was going to fill you up to the brim. As much as your little human body could hold of my seed, I'd give to you and then some. Everything was perfect, the sound of your voice, the beating of your heart. The taste of your blood on my lips and the tightness of your cunt as I made the last few pushes towards my release. They promised everything would turn out well, but no one could have prepared me for how wonderful it was to finally be with you. 

Roaring wildly into your shoulder, my cock exploded. Little stars clouded my vision as I felt your body spasm beneath me, trying to adjust to the amounts of seed I was pumping in you. A small part hoped it would take root inside you. Would make you round and full with our calves, and I got to care for you throughout the whole pregnancy. Even if this was our first time, I couldn't help but want to breed you to the point you'd be unable to walk on your own anymore. I wanted you to depend on me, lean on me, letting me do everything for you while you created our beautiful little babies. The product of our love for each other. We'd be a perfect little family; nothing could take this from me. 

We'd have to wait and see, but I couldn't wait for the day to come. 

As fast as it had happened, it was over. My cock was still splurting more cum inside you, but you laid limply beneath me, your own orgasm having taken all your energy out of you. I unlocked my jaw as slowly as possible. However, it made a slight jerk despite my best efforts. But my teeth were finally pulling out of your flesh, leaving only the beautiful marks of our mateship behind, bleeding and sullying the bed, which I more than welcomed. 

You groaned, and I finally pried my finger out of your mouth so I could listen to the sound. Your eyes were unfocused and dull. The intensity must have taken a toll on your strength, but you were no less beautiful, your belly swollen with my seed, and your body marked and satisfied. 

"You did so well," I purred, giving you small chirps to ensure you'd understand my sincerity. Not everyone could have done so well, but my mate. My mate could. You were beautiful, perfect. Made for me, for our family. I had regretted it many times to have brought you to this place, but just as often did I think it had been the right choice. Now, we were inseparable, and I felt more validated in my choice. 

Slowly, I pulled back my cock, your pussy making it hard to exit with how much it clung to me. All while cooing and kissing your face and your body. Already, I felt myself grow hard again, my cock barely able to retract into its slit with how massive it still was. There were still so many things I wanted to do with you. The thoughts of marking other places like your breasts and those delicious thighs were driving me insane with their allure, but I stayed strong for you.

It's what we did for the people we loved, and right now, you just needed me to hold you as your body tried to come down from the height and adore you like I always did. The humans called it "aftercare," and I listened closely to their tips, although I couldn't bring myself to fetch some food and water for you yet. Not when you were curled so adorably in my arms, my hand on your swollen belly, making it easy to imagine what it would be like if you were carrying our little pup inside you. I did feel spent, ready to take a long nap by your side, but not before I made sure you were settled in comfortably, your eyes still wide open as you lay limply on my bed. 

Even if this was only the first time, it had made it all worth it. All the pain and suffering, all the fear and traumatic experiences. The fights, the humiliation. Now that I had you by my side, able to call you my mate completely without any doubts, it had been worth the troubles. It would be worth anything that may come in the future as long as I got to hold you again like this, fill you with my seed, and forget everything else that was happening around us. It had taken so long until we finally got this space we could call our own. Decorate, be together in, share love. This was where only we existed, and I couldn't wait to see what we'd do with it in the future, but I knew it would be great. 

And no one would get in the way of our happiness, even if you still had doubts.

You let out a quiet shudder, feeling Nerrocan's hand combing through your curls, ruined and messy from what had just happened. It still felt like you were waking up from a nightmare, but the pain had always been there. Both your shoulder and your pussy hurt. You felt the semen run down your lower lips and coat your thighs. Every time Nerrocan rubbed over your belly, another spurt of his jizz shot from your hole, and you felt degraded and disgusted with the feeling of semen sloshing in your womb. It wasn't possible to get pregnant, right? Was it? They were half human-like… that didn't mean you two were compatible, right? 

Tears filled your eyes as you couldn't help sobbing out loud. The bitten shoulder had no strength to pull up your arm so you could muffle yourself and the other was almost as dead still from the shock. Even though it hurt, even though you didn't want it, eventually, pleasure caught up to you, making you cum on his huge, massive cock as if you wanted it. It had felt good every time the pain vanished. And even now, Nerrocan was purring and chortling, soothing the pain in your soul even though he had torn it apart. 

You'd never be able to trust him again. To work with him even. You'd have to find a new purpose in this facility, but something inside you told you they wouldn't let you. This would be your new life, and you'd have to adjust to it to survive. It was unfair. Painful. You wanted to hate him, yet you still couldn't because of all you two had been through and all he continued to do for you. And although it wasn't right and should have never happened—not like this, at least—you could also understand him to a degree that it was the comfort Nerrocan needed, even if he made it seem like you did, too. 

"We're going to have such beautiful calves. You'll be such a good mommy," he praised you, and you sobbed out loud again, taking a deep, unbelieving breath. This couldn't be real, it was just too cruel. 

Nerrocan kissed your forehead, cradling your back further against his chest, his cock having slipped back into the slit, and you were thanking any god that was listening for that. You couldn't take any more fucking than that, and you'd never come down into his nest again and indulge him like you had that day. He had already ruined to much, destroyed your body and the relationship you two had. 

Moving you only made you feel more of the cum spurting from your pussy, coating you both as you whimpered, and Nerrocan trilled excitedly. "We're going to make so many babies!" he announced, and you wept, the image alone too hard to handle. 

"You did so well, today, my mate. I can't wait for the next time," he whispered into your ear, kissing your temple all the way down to your jaw. Every bit of adoration, praise, and intimacy appalled you, and you turned your face away, wanting to grieve your innocence and stupidity as you swore to never allow a repeat of what happened. 

"I'm not your mate," you slurred as the exhaustion hit you hard. Even in this situation, dangerous as it was, your body still felt safe enough around Nerrocan to sleep. Traitor, you thought as your eyes closed. 

"Yes, you are," he replied softly, noticing your drowsiness as he placed an arm beneath your head, cushioning it. Ironic, wasn't it? Luckily, you were already asleep when he spoke up again, able to preserve the last bits of your sanity from being lost forever.

"I'll do everything to change your mind."

[creatingblackcharacters]

Howdy. Wanted to ask your opinion on a specific micro-topic that I do not believe has come up in your longer posts yet: intentional language choices in historical fiction. What do you think the best approach is for a non-Black writer to take when dealing with time periods pre-Civil Rights Movement, when terms that are no longer acceptable were more commonly used? Obviously going with “totally period-accurate” dialogue isn’t going to work because nobody, especially not Black readers, is gonna want to slog through a bunch of slurs, and there’s ways to write around it when you’re dealing with, say, abolitionist protagonists. But making the dialogue and descriptions too “modern” (for lack of a better term) risks diminishing the reality of the racism of the time, especially if it’s a story about opposing said racists. So I’m interested to hear where you think the balance lands.

Well first, what you (and EVERYONE) need to understand is that you can say something extremely antiblack without dropping a single slur (white and nonblack "leftists" and liberals are NOTORIOUSLY good at this, in the worst way). Part of the chronic pain that is dealing with racism is the mundanity of it. People can be antiblack as easy as breathing, if that's what they're used to.

No one has to outright call your Black characters the n-word to show that they believe they are above them. How do they behave when Black people are in the room? How do they treat them? What do they believe and say (e.g., brain sizes and intelligence are smaller and lower; gorilla related; meant for servitude, etc.) and how does it reinforce how they act? What do they say in the company of white people they believe to be on the same page?

Study the beliefs and common behaviors of the people at that time! Because incorporating that will be far more powerful, and have a lot longer staying power, than someone just dropping the n bomb and us going "le gasp! A bad white!"

Also, be honest. Totally period accurate writing is what you should write! Sometimes writers don't want to alienate their (white) viewers during stories like this by saying or implying "look, the good white is like you!" Stop that. Many white abolitionists were still antiblack lmao; just because they didn't believe in slavery didn't mean they believed Black people were equal. So if your protags are Black, they're still gonna have to deal with white folk talking over them. Read the narratives of Black abolitionists to see how the people in the room treated them. Or, if they're white and they're very serious about equality, the other white people will likely be a serious threat to them!

You also have to accept that many Black readers just... Don't want to read a story about their enslavement. There's no romanticizing it, really. What's the payoff? But if you're gonna do it, then center the Black people in the story. This is getting subjective, but I personally don't want to read a story about abolition from the perspective of a white person or their accomplishments anymore, especially when it often shies away from the nuance and aims for a "we work together as humans, not Black or white!" narrative.

(The type of narrative I'd like to see, John Brown attempted, and a lot of folks don't like how he pulled that off so 😅)

[physalian]

The thing about this is—and I’ve said it before—putting your characters in a situation where them not knowing what to do can be just as compelling and even easier to write than if you try to skate by on “idk this looks cool” for a character who should be an expert in their field.

I am not an experienced battle tactician, and I write fantasy and scifi, and I also hate blocking and choreographing big fight scenes with a lot of elements.

A few things I’ve done instead of a straight up A vs B battle are below. Character cannot rely on their otherwise expertise in this situation because doing things the right and smart way is…

Too expensive (money, resources, or time)

Too risky with unplanned collateral around them

Too dangerous

They’ve been caught completely unawares

They’re impaired in some way (drunk, drugged, blinded, deafened, anesthetized)

They’re majorly emotionally compromised by some other event and not thinking straight

I have a character who is a living weapon and a veteran of warfare. I am not either of these things. The mechanics of the war he fought relied heavily on being insanely reckless with his health, and half-hoping he’d never make it back from any one mission. Due to magic, if he went and lost a limb on the battlefield, a mage could just make him a new one. He was very, very hard to kill.

The current plot takes place after the fact, when that magic is unavailable. When he gets caught in Situations, all his training relies on tactics he can no longer use, so he’s constantly having to improvise, on top of being traumatized. Therefore, his dumb mistakes and erratic behavior are perfectly in-character for him and make sense for his powers and the world when he can’t spam the insta-kill button without serious consequences like he used to.

But, obviously, not everyone is writing that type of character.

In my other series, I have so far one big battle scene fought entirely by immortal vampires who have been ambushed in their own castle. This battle is an uncoordinated mess, but (I think) it works for a few reasons:

This is a post-war setting and many vampires in this fight have no actual battle experience and just are not prepared for this. They haven’t trained in a coordinated effort in any capacity, as no one ever believed they’d have to.

They left a massive hole in their defenses open that no one would ever think to exploit and the initial surprise attack sends the competent leaders of this resistance scrambling to get their orders heard and keep people from scattering

Because of this surprise, the competent leaders quickly get spread thin trying to patch leaks in the metaphorical dam, and, without phones or radio, lines of proximity communication get cut instantly, and no one has any idea where anyone else is, all now with suddenly different and critical priorities like fires, vulnerable mortals, and a zombie horde scaling their wall.

Basically, I’ve put my characters into a situation that they were horrifically unprepared for, so the emphasis of the story focuses less on actual tactics and more on the creativity and ingenuity of individual characters backed into a corner.

—

Both of these work really well for the stories that I’ve set out to tell, because I know my strengths and duct-taping a scene together with two real, competent armies going at each other just isn’t in my wheelhouse. You don’t have to write the big coordinated battle scene just because it’s popular in your genre. You can set up the stakes and elements in your favor to remove the need to study complex strategies if the situation the characters are in demands all that pre-planning or expected knowledge just isn’t useful or isn’t possible.

In both of these books, should the day come when I do need to have a coordinated campaign war effort, I already have my secret weapon: In both books, neither hero side ever has the numbers for a proper battle, they always have to rely on guerilla warfare, ambushes, and pretty dirty tricks.

Which are a whole lot easier to plan and visualize as a lone writer than studying battlefield mechanics at the scale of tens of thousands with infantry, cavalry, archers, and heavy weapons.

Make it easy on yourself and, well, write what you know.

the problem with knowing things about battle tactics is that an ever-increasing subset of popular media becomes impossible to enjoy properly because you have to sit there like 'wow Captain Protagonist good to know all those dead people on your own side are a direct result of your total lack of anything resembling brains'

[tec-a0l]

personality analysis, pt.2

a continuation of this post analyzing dylan’s personality.

stating this again beforehand that these analyses are based on accounts from their friends/families and primary source documents (journals, official reports, etc), and are purely speculative as i never met them personally. with that out of the way, i now present my analyses of dylan & eric!

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part 2, eric:

eric’s personality is a little more tricky to place—he didn’t seem to have many close friends besides dylan, and his family never spoke out about him, so the information we have on him is much more sparse.

he moved around a lot, due to his father being in the military, and i think that was probably one of the biggest influences on his personality—he even stated in his diversion files after the van break-in that moving away from plattsburgh (where he lived prior to moving to littleton in 1993/7th grade) was one of the most traumatizing experiences in his life. for him, constantly being the new kid and having to leave friends behind made him feel outcasted and “othered” in a way.

he spoke about that feeling quite a bit in his journals, but the last proper entry he wrote is especially notable in my opinion:

“I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things, And no don’t fucking say “well that’s your fault” because it isn’t, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. no no no don’t let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ooh fucking nooo.” — eric’s journal, 4/3/99

part of what caught my attention about this entry is that it feels so honest. a lot of his journal (to me) reads like he’s writing for an audience, playing up this grandiose “godlike” persona that he wanted to be viewed as—but this specific portion just feels truthful and defeated, almost.

eric had a lot of insecurities, both physically (his pectus excavatum, having a “big head on a skinny body,” his height, etc), and socially (re: being the new kid, not having a ton of friends), which i believe also contributed to both his feelings of being “othered” and his resulting anger.

i do think his anger was two-sided, however: one side being genuine frustration with the feeling and unfairness of rejection, and the other being fronting—like if he makes himself seem tough and mean, then he can’t get hurt.

in a psych assessment found in his diversion files, he marked his frequency of feeling “mixed up or confused” as “all the time,” and while he didn’t elaborate on this feeling in the report, that answer is as clear of an indication one could get that he was experiencing a lot of turmoil within himself.

while reading interviews and testimonies of those who interacted with him, i noticed there were two main, yet conflicting, things said about him by his friends—or more precisely, dylan’s friends who he was also friends with, largely by association—and by his classmates:

1) eric was short-tempered and angry.

2) eric was polite and mostly kept to himself.

of course, these observations don’t necessarily negate each other, but they do show a clear dichotomy of the same sort of “inner/outer-self” like dylan had, though slightly more situation-dependent.

in my opinion, eric was influenced greatly by his environment—whether that be in the form of having to move around a lot, having a military-strict family, or getting outcasted and bullied at school—and everything combined into this perfect storm of turmoil he found himself in.

it’s unfortunate that there weren’t more people willing to speak on the positive aspects of who eric was. though, in a way, if there had been more people like that in his life, we very well may not have even known about him in the first place.

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this is much longer than i was expecting it to be, and there’s still so much more i could say, but i’ll end it here for now lol

dylan’s analysis/part 1 is here.

[thresholdslut]

Please Read

After a couple days of reflection, I’m a little surprised I have to say this, given my vibes and all the warnings I post. But please do not interact with me or my account if you don't like what i write. I have never once claimed to be the writer for everyone. I write darker content and things relating to human nature along with the very disturbing parts of it. I will never stop writing these topics, it’s not my problem if you don’t like it.

I hate to do this because so many of you have been kind and supportive, but I'm no longer allowing anon asks and comments (on either ao3 or tumblr). If you have a problem with what I create, then either face me yourself or DNI!

You can say that I'm "playing the victim" but at the end of the day...You're spreading hate to a complete stranger on the internet over a ship. I do not care for nor engage in ship wars/discourse. These are fictional characters in a fictional world. I do my best to make sure I tag appropriately and some of you decided to interact with a dead dove fic. This story is much darker than just it being rivamika having sex. If that is what you got from it, then you lack the literacy of just the basic tags of the fic. In the future, I'll do better at wording things a little more clearly and using tags on social medias. I will take responsibility there.

I do like eremika a lot and they are pretty much endgame in all of my stories so far. I'm not using it for "attention" or to build an "audience". I've been brainstorming and creating ideas/fics where they has been the center for two years now and I've liked the ship since I started the manga. I’m not going to stop continuing any story even if some people don’t like it, again that’s not my problem.

Anyways, I'm sorry if it feels like I’m taking everything away, but I really should protect myself from further negativity and non-stop spamming. Call me a coward, but I'd rather not listen to someone throwing a hissy fit on all my fics. It’s more fucking annoying then anything else.

Side note: won't really be sharing the step-dad au, maybe this is all I can be, and any future stories (aside from Antidote) on any platforms aside from ao3 (maybe I'll post snippets here and there). I'm doing it like this for now as to prevent it from leaving it's target audience. Everything will still be on ao3, but currently just for archive users (may change my mind later). Please subscribe to my ao3 for future updates if you want ❤️

IF you can’t find them, feel free to message me for links. I’m nice I promise, this situation just pissed me off that’s all.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I know this is just a silly bad quality random screencap of a screencap that I found on facebook lol, BUT it's a succinct enough image to easily describe the concept in a quick/accessible way hopefully :

-

(and of course, feel free to elaborate in tags, etc.! (especially elaborating about other senses as well.. can you "hear" in your mind just as well as you can "see"? taste? etc.) It's an interesting topic to me, as someone who's like a 4.5 at MOST lol. I'm curious what option will be the most common :0c )

[shamera]

this expresses about 1.5435432% of how much i've been enjoying this series lately, and touches even less on its amazingness, but what can you do.

if you have the time and energy to spare, please go read My S-Class Hunters / The S-Classes That I Raised!!!

[samioli]

Are you doing the "Drunken Love Confessions" game? If so, I'd love a 16. "This is not a dream, I think. In my dreams we're usually kissing." - narumitsu. Thanks!

Hi there! Thanks for the prompt! I can't believe this is the first narumitsu thing I've written in months, CRAZY. I hope you enjoy!

16. "This is not a dream, I think. In my dreams we're usually kissing."

Phoenix never expected Miles Edgeworth to be this much of a lightweight. 

He always pictured him drinking glass upon glass of wine and still being his perfect, elegant, slightly-pompous self. 

Who knew if you got him to do a few tequila shots that all went away?

Although to be fair, he’s definitely been less of an ass these past few months, Phoenix thought to himself, gazing at the man who was currently dozing off on his shoulder in the taxi they were in together. Once you’ve seen a guy drool on your suit jacket, he kinda seemed a little less scary to you.

Besides…he’s been through a lot. 

Phoenix softened as Edgeworth started to snore lightly in his sleep. After everything with the von Karma case, he thought the man deserved as many naps as he wanted.

Still though, Phoenix wasn’t sure what it exactly meant for the two of them. Were they acquaintances? Co-workers? Friends?

…Could they ever be more?

That’s not fair, Phoenix, he chastised himself. Let the man breathe; no need to smother him with your weird crush that you’ve had since you were kids.

He had to remind himself that the guy just found out his mentor (and kind of adoptive father) killed his dad all those years ago—a crime he blamed himself for.

Edgeworth deserved a break.

Which was exactly why Phoenix practically dragged him for a post-trial celebration. He wanted Edgeworth to get his mind off of things, to even let loose a little bit, but he wasn’t really sure if that was possible.

After tonight, Phoenix knew it was. Edgeworth turned out to be a really goofy and happy drunk, which surprised the hell out of him. He honestly never thought he’d associate the word goofy with Edgeworth before, but hey, never say never.

Edgeworth was laughing at Phoenix’s sub-par jokes, giggling to himself and practically beaming at him all night.

It was…nice.

Addicting, even. He wished he could see that side of Edgeworth more.

“Is over here alright?” The taxi driver asked, shaking Phoenix out of his thoughts. He looked out the window at this really fancy-shmancy apartment complex, hoping Edgeworth had given the right address.

Phoenix gently raised his shoulder, attempting to wake the man up. “Psst. Edgeworth. We’re here, I think.”

It took a moment, but Edgeworth started to wake, opening and closing his eyes a few times. “Hmm?”

God, he was adorable.

“Is this the right place?” he asked, trying not to fall head over heels in love with a man who could barely tolerate his existence up until recently.

Edgeworth blinked a few more times—first at him, then at the apartment building. He seemed to think about it for a bit before perking up. 

“Oh! We’re home.”

Phoenix attempted not to choke on his own spit at that, at Edgeworth implying that it was their home, but was it a fucking task. 

He didn’t mean it like that, he’s drunk right now.

Phoenix tried to get his shit together and thanked the taxi driver, shuffling Edgeworth out of the cab. He was a little wobbly in his movements, but he could still somewhat stand up on his own.

Thankfully.

“Alright, buddy,” Phoenix started, deciding to take the chance to call Edgeworth that when he knew he could totally get away with it now, “lead me to your place.”

Edgeworth nodded sagely. “Certainly,” he said, sounding almost like his usual, eloquent self.

Until he bumped straight into a wall.

“Woah!” Phoenix half exclaimed, half laughed. He rushed to Edgeworth’s side to make sure there weren’t any injuries. “You okay, bud?”

The man in question responded with a hum. “I’m fine. Tired.”

He chuckled. “Point to which apartment is yours, okay?”

They got to Edgeworth’s apartment with little to no issues (Edgeworth was wobbling here and there) and Phoenix asked him for the key to open the door. Once they were inside, he was going to ask where Edgeworth’s room was, but the man plopped himself on the couch in the living room.

“Hey, don’t you want to sleep in your bed? That’s gonna kill your back tomorrow.”

“Hmm. No. Don’t want to move,” Edgeworth said, closing his eyes and lying down on his couch.

“Come on, you have to at least change out of your suit.”

Edgeworth groaned, a bit like a child. Phoenix tried not to laugh.

“C’mon,” Phoenix urged, trying to lift Edgeworth. “Up you go.”

Edgeworth obeyed him the rest of the way until they got to his room, only muttering to himself a little bit.

Phoenix sat Edgeworth on his bed as he looked in his drawers for some kind of pajamas. 

“The top drawer has my night clothes,” Edgeworth slurred, lying back on the bed.

“Yes, sir,” Phoenix said, hearing Edgeworth giggle behind him. He grabbed what looked like really fancy pajamas—pink satin ones.

Wow. This guy lives a life of luxury.

He turned and placed them on the bed, tilting his head when Edgeworth was still giggling. “What’s so funny?”

“You…you called me—” Edgeworth went into a fit of giggles. “You called me sir. I usually call you that.”

Phoenix laughed, scrunching his face in confusion. “What? You’ve never called me that in your life.”

Edgeworth’s brow furrowed. “Oh. Really? I guess I’ve only said it in my dreams.”

Phoenix froze, feeling heat creep into his cheeks. 

He didn’t mean…No, that’s crazy.

“U-Uh.” He coughed. “Okay, then.” He cleared his throat, patting the pajamas on the bed. “You think you can change by yourself?”

Edgeworth nodded. “Indeed. Verily.”

Phoenix raised an eyebrow. “Well, okay. I’m gonna get you a glass of water okay? Give you some time to change."

He led himself into the kitchen and prepared two glasses, feeling a bit thirsty himself. 

He tried not to think about the comment Edgeworth made.

He failed. Several times.

After trying to calm himself and get rid of any inappropriate thoughts, he went back toward Edgeworth’s room holding the two glasses of water. 

“Edgeworth?” he called out. “You changed?”

Phoenix heard some sort of affirmative sound, pushing the door open. He placed the glasses of water on the nightstand.

When he looked at Edgeworth, his breath stopped.

Why does he have to be so goddamn cute? WHY.

He looked absolutely adorable in his fancy pajamas—even had a little sleeping cap on. It was so unfair.

“Before you sleep, drink some water for me okay?”

Edgeworth opened his eyes, gray irises staring at him. After a moment, he smiled softly. “Alright,” he said, rising a bit out of bed into a sitting position. He took the glass of water closest to him and started to drink.

Satisfied, Phoenix took the other glass and started drinking some of his own. Edgeworth settled his glass down on the nightstand and looked at him intensely.

He lowered his glass a bit, tilting his head. “What is it?”

“This is not a dream…is it?” Edgeworth mused, before shaking his head. “No, I don’t think it is.”

Phoenix smiled softly before taking another sip of his water.

“If this were one of my usual dreams, we’d be kissing.”

Phoenix promptly inhaled his water, going into a coughing fit.

What????

While he coughed and coughed, Phoenix’s mind went racing. Surely this was just Edgeworth talking nonsense, right? It had to be. The guy hated him until a few days ago! And even then it was pretty shaky ground!

There was no way Edgeworth had dreams about kissing him. No way at all.

…Right?

“Are you alright?” Edgeworth asked, and woah, when did he get up out of bed? He was in Phoenix’s space, putting a hand on his shoulder. 

It didn’t really help the situation.

“I’m fine,” Phoenix choked out, in between a few coughs. He waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about me, go sleep.”

Edgeworth peered at him for a few more moments, before he relented, going back toward the bed and laying down. “If you insist.”

I gotta get outta here before I do something stupid. 

There were a few moments of silence as Phoenix simply watched Edgeworth settle himself on the bed.

We’ll talk about it in the morning.

There was always going to be morning. And if there wasn’t, they’d find a chance to talk about it eventually. Phoenix would make sure of it.

It’s not like the guy was going anywhere any time soon—they’d find the time.

After a few more moments of silence, Phoenix figured Edgeworth had fallen asleep. He clicked the lamp on the nightstand off, cascading the room in darkness.

“Goodnight, Edgeworth,” he said softly. 

Tomorrow.

He walked toward the door, ready to leave the room.

“Phoenix?”

He stopped. That was the first time Edgeworth called him that in years. It made his heart pound.

“...Yes?”

“Thank you again,” Edgeworth murmured, so softly it made his chest ache. “You saved me.”

And it was the way Edgeworth said it, like he was in awe, that made Phoenix speechless.

He swallowed. “Of course.” He lingered for a few more moments. “Goodnight, Edgeworth," he repeated, feeling like it was the only thing he could say.

“Goodnight, Wright.”

Phoenix stared for a beat longer in the darkness before he forced his legs to move out of the doorway.

They’d talk about it tomorrow.

[transformers-synergize]

so is the first chapter just human characters? ):

No, it's not just human characters. Chapter 1 part 2 will be posted tomorrow, and it has robots, please be patient.

If you are a transformers fan who dislikes any humans in transformers media for the fact they are human, then Synergize is probably not going to be your thing, sorry. Synergize focuses a lot on human and cybertronian relationships. Synergize is an ensemble cast with multiple characters who get a decent amount of focus, some of those characters being human, I intend to put just as much care and time into developing the human characters as I do the bots. The human characters are not an afterthought or something I'm adding just because I felt like it, they are important members of the cast, both the human cast and cybertronian cast are essential for each other development/character arcs. cybertronian in Synergize are written to be much more alien than in most Transformers media. Synergize's cybertronains have more alien-like behavior, morals, instincts, social dynamics, social structure, anatomy and society, having human characters to contrast that help better show the alienness of the bots. Along with having a character who can learn about the bots alongside the reader and ask questions a cybertronian character wouldn't. It also creates a lot of interesting human bot dynamics and plot opportunities.

Human characters also have an extreme amount of plot utility, Sure, they can't fist-fight a giant bot, but that is not the only way a character can be useful. They have more knowledge on Earth than the bots, so even an unintelligent human has at least a little useful Earth knowledge a cybertronian wouldn't know. Earth is built to cater to humans, and my bots don't have Haloform, so if they need something done only a human can do, then they gotta rely on a human to do it. Humans are also great for disguise, and my bots are trying to stay hidden, getting pulled over and having a human in the driver's seat is way less suspicious than a car driving itself. Humans are small and quiet even compared to small cybertronian, humans joints and internals usually don't make as much noise, along with humans having a much fainter energy signal, making them perfect for stealth and sneaking around. A human might not be able to fight a robot, but if they are mechanically inclined, they could learn how to fix/repair cybertronians. Once you know how to fix cybertronians, you can usually figure out sneaky little ways to break one without needing to be a giant robot (though you still have to risk getting close to one). Humans are immune to some very common cybertronian security systems and weapon types, magnets, EMP devices, malware, and stasis tech, yes, humans are squishy, but you're not gonna kill one with magnets or EMP blast or by trying to give them malware. Also, humans are also just smaller and can fit in more places. Humans are clever creatures, and even though they aren't as strong as a bot, it doesn't mean they can't contribute a lot. Not every plot features human characters, but most do because of both their utility to the plot and the fun dynamics they have with many of the bot characters.

Synergized as a story, both plot structure-wise and thematically, does not work without human characters.

[fumifooms]

Kabru party analysis - Trust, and codependence vs emotional unavailability

I flip flopped on calling this a masterpost a lot, but looking back, yeah. While I do compile every fact I can about the party and its characters a significant part of this is interpretation, extrapolation and speculation enough that it's an analysis more than compilation at this point. Feel free to skim, skip around, whatever makes the experience more enjoyable and useful. I’ll also try and compile parallels they have with their Laios party counterpart, since them being foils and ‘shadow version’ of sorts to our main party is a big part of their fun fact meta, I am however most interested in analyzing them as their own characters- and as a whole together as an entity & narrative device. I did end up getting into narrative and thematic analysis for the main story... Mostly the Kabru & conclusion segments though.

But ultimately the goal of this post is mostly to analyze their relationships with each other because I think that’s the messy interesting part of their group, beyond just being a kabru party facts list.

Table of contents:

Kabru + party timeline

Rin

Holm

Daya

Mickbell

Kuro

Relationships and overall dynamic

Do they matter at all to the story?

For easy finding if anyone wants to do a focused reread, the main chapters featuring the Kabru party are 10, 15, 31 and 32, and then with chapter 45 everyone but Kabru (and Rin) stops appearing until the final battle.

Kabru of Utaya & his party

What to say about Kabru that hasn’t already been said, how to summarize him as perfectly and concisely as possible… I don’t think I can reasonably do him full justice here! This is an analysis about his party and not just him so I don’t want to spend forever here. Unlike every other character in his party Kabru is a main character of Dungeon Meshi so plenty of analyses around, meanwhile information can be hard to find and string together for the rest of them or the party as a whole. This isn’t a deep dive on Kabru but a summary, I’ll go over his timeline, goals and general attitude.

This'll be critical for later, but notice here that this means Kabru's party formed 2 years before the story happens. We get no indication of whether or not party members have changed much or little over those years, even if the party overall seems somewhat incompetent. Kabru's profile says that despite his skills, his lack of experience makes him a mediocre party leader and we do have that inexperience with monsters and dungeons, from what we see in canon. It's partly due to his foster mother training him intensively in combat against humans but seemingly not monsters or dungeon survivals, and partly from what we see with canon's framig because Kabru has no interest in monsters- You know and understand what you love better than what you hate, so Kabru is good at fighting humans and Laios is good at fighting monsters. The party does have rather good chemistry in action, with Kabru orchestrating everyone with commands, but they still end up being defeated as often as not, and despite Mickbell's warnings Kabru pushes to go to a dungeon floor lower than he thinks they can handle with their current ressources, for example. Laios' party at the start of canon were broke, but it's only because their money got lost in the dungeon and (chap 28) the bank would take too long to get their tokens back & take money out to save Falin- meanwhile Mickbell talks about being in the red just because of their current unfruitful dive, meaning they aren't as successful and have tighter finances overall. We see the party hanging out in taverns off-work (though not unlike Laios' very occasionally does as well) and things like Kabru meeting Dia's fiance and the party visiting Kabru's room, so they mayy be paralelling how it's said Laios' party hung out very little outside of work? They don't seem much closer for it, though.

One other thing to note is that Utaya is not necessarily his birthplace/hometown? The details are unclear, the adventurer's Bible does refer to it as his birthplace twice, but it's also mentioned several times that his mother was "chasen out", even in the original japanese. It sounds like leaving a town to me, but it could be that they were only driven out to their house and moved to a different part of town...? Either way, his mother was "chased out of home" after he was born beause of his blue eyes. Of course, Utaya is where the dungeon overflow tragedy happened when he was 6-7 years old, so it's the town Kabru and his mom were living in, one way or another. It's also mentioned kobolds lived near Utaya, explaining him speaking some kobold, which kobolds also implies the region had conflict beyond the dungeon overflow considering what Kabru says about kobolds in the kobold page.

Her mom having been "chased out of home" over him and then working hard as a single mother to support both him and herself is likely to have made him feel like a burden, which may have influenced his selflessness: the way he's hardworking, the way he neglects himself, the way he keeps others at arm's lenght (maybe thinking getting closer to him would do them no good)*, the way he can be very quiet and a great listener, gauging others' needs- the same way he was his mom's venting outlet when very young whenever she got drunk. *I explore this possibility more in this kabrin brainstorm post. The insecurity of being an incubus/monster, especially with how Kabru did see people transforming into monsters in Utaya- A very interesting recurring angle for him.

Let's be clear, as Kabru shows again and again his goal was 1) to pierce the mysteries of the dungeon, and 2) ensure that if anyone defeats the current dungeon lord that they won't accelerate the process of the dungeon overflowing or use the power for evil, essentially that the dungeon's power won't fall into the wrong hands, which includes him thinking the canaries shouldn't get the final say in how to handle it all. His goal/plan of becoming dungeon lord himself was to take care of both of these in one go.

He's been at this for years and he's seen a lot of things firsthand when he was 6, so already when he first confronts the canaries at the Island governor's he explains the stages of degradation of a dungeon quite well, he has his own theories that turn out accurate, but he's made them while being barred from most information on dungeons, which the elven monarchy controls access to. Goal 2 is always the main point, but goal 1 is important in order to be able to do it efficiently. Once this, goal 1, is achieved and Kabru learns about the demon through Mithrun, he becomes solely focused on goal 2 again (whereas the On Floor 1 chapters ended with him breaking alliance wth the canaries to demand answer) to ensure the demon stays under control and to stop the current (and possible next) dungeon lord. And then, well, the meeting at Thistle's house happens. Defeating the dungeon then at the beginning of canon was half-cover, a simple unsuspicious way to present his goals, half-goal 1 which would also take care of goal 2 by Kabru himself becoming the dungeon lord, as said. The canaries show up so he indulges in goal 1 while carefully teetering on being an obstacle to the canaries and helping them, and then it's right back to goal 2 with renewed determination together after he and Mithrun fall down into the dungeon and Mithrun spills everything. He doesn't trust Laios as dungeon lord, but he also doesn't trust the elves having the sole duty of managing dungeons.

It becomes this sort of tug of war of distrust, of who does he trust less to ally against, who does he trust more to ally with, which side to take once it's clear his own side isn't viable alone- he ends up somewhat playing double agent covertly through the story, but ultimately he ends up more or less trusting everyone and playing double agent openly with the final battle, quote unquote having faith in humanity & others, which he'd been cynical about for so long, finding red flags in everyone. But yes yes backing up again, he came to trust Mithrun during the six days in the dungeon together, but not the rest of the canaries and when they meet up again he's still on bad terms with them, we see it at Thistle's house where he tried obfuscating Laios' party's secret and pinned Mithrun to keep him from chasing after them, preferring for the ball to be in their court and for Mithrun not to go kamikaze mode.

His interest in Laios also extended to Falin, their party was quite capable and was more or less next in line to beat the dungeon, but since she died and Laios went into it on a shocking desperate mission, Laios becomes a focus of his as they make very quick progress. No one dungeon diving ever went beyond the big doors guarded by the gargoyles, but Laios' party passes through them just a little after Kabru and Mithrun team up.

All these deeper thoughts were largely unknown to his party members before the story.

He’s secretive and often cold with his party. Even Rin, presumably the closest friend he has, the one who’s devoting herself to specifically following and helping him (while the others also seem to admire him and partly follow him to put him on the dunlord throne, they have their own reasons too), is left in the dark with an arm of distance kept between them. Kabru first reveals he's been keeping an eye on the Touden's party during the sea serpent 2 chapter for example, and goes into it a little more during the Toshiro-Laios parties meetup chapters.

Although, it might be more appropriate to say that rather the party members aren't really listening. Kabru spoke about his goal to keep the toudens away from the dungeon lord title here, has a whole speech about influence and power falling into the wrong hands, and their reaction is "we know, only you is fit to be dungeon lord!" when that's never been the actual core of the matter, the point. It was the red herring being set up yes, that that was only what kabru wanted, but ultimately looking back he's always had that guardian type motivation more than leader, being a judge and executioner more than a king on a throne, he wants to support what's good and dismantle what's bad, so it suits him to have become a politician in the end instead of the ultimate chief. That also goes into his arc- him learning that sharing duties and goals is good, that he doesn't have to do everything alone and fully trusting others when teaming up can be beneficial, that he alone doesn't have to be the sole voice, that his shouldn't be the sole choice to be made about matters or courses of action. So going back to the topic- another instance of his explanations being dismissed is in this convo with Rin above- Again he talks about dungeons and reveals hints about his true goals, yet after all of this Rin literally only goes "hmm" and silence falls, and then she says she's hungry. Wether she was contemplative or uninterested, the change of topic is rather quick and unceremonious. And this is the person who'd know best about his motivations too, knowing his past well.

And maybe this phenomenon is also why he gets peeved at Rin here and silently chides her. In a "she should know how to think this through by now, she should've taken a second to observe and remember how we do things, she should think deeper about the true important matters" way etc etc. What are we doing this for, what do you take me for? This kind of righteousness is detrimental rather than helpful and strategic, Rin.

I place both Laios and Mithrun to be very important to Kabru's character and arc, and with Mithrun a significant part of the puzzle imo must have been that Mithrun listened, easily understood. Mithrun understood the gravity and danger of dungeons, was even similarly a victim of one. Where everyone else shallowly misunderstands or dimisses what he says about dungeons and his goals, they're very understandable and familiar to Mithrun, and such bumps don't happen with him. Mithrun isn't playing the social game the same way as others, he just dishes out whatever blunt straight to the bottom of the matter points, he skips the social dance Kabru often gets so hang up on, in a way that helps kabru communicate with him honestly rather than hinder, especially since Mithrun is still quite good at reading between lines. This could be a good part of why they take to each other rather quickly and team up, each other's rationale and plans feel intuitive to the other and they find someone else traumatized by the dungeon, someone who understands, understands not only what he's talking about but also what must be done, the ruthlessness needed. And Laios comes to ultimately balance this out, not invalidating their wants and needs but showing there are other ways to proceed, other people to trust, even when they don't intuitively understand them.

And on that note I want to talk about Kabru and laios' confrontation. I've already said that his "Laios obsession" is about his dungeon goals and that's very straightforward, and it only got to this point because Laios previously dodged his every attempt at closeup info gathering and still now he can't get a read or grip on him. BUT while some think Kabru's "I just wanted to be friends with you" is just a bullshit he made up on the spot complete lie, I don't think so. We see Kabru cycle through some explanations, angles and speeches he has like scripts, like one of them on the second page is close to this. And we know they're like scripts because that's what he said and how he spoke with his party, the backstory talk, the framing, it's all how he presented it to others as well. But he knows none will work on laios, Laios pushes him like Mithrun to go offscript, to find new approaches and communicate in ways that are more vulnerable and uncomfortable. And Kabru has trouble finding that angle that'll work with Laios, because he doesn't know Laios well enough, and that's what he wants, too, it feels so frustrating and vulnerable not understanding him. As his desperation mounts it sort of just slips out- I wanted to be friends with you. Childish, simple, inappropriate for the grave context and very embarrassing. And he immediately freezes and backpedals- BUT Laios endlessly dunks on the very idea that it could be true and that sets kabru off- after which he unloads a more personal perspective of how it was like chasing after him. And I think that's what it is, it's not a lie but it's a bit of an oversimplification- Not the full reason, but a part of it. Kabru wanted them to get to know each other better and get along, for him not to have to kill Laios, a want he still clings onto even when stakes are rising. He says it all himself here, explains his statement after Laios all but laughs in his face in disbelief. I think this scene and the slip-up shows that Kabru does have a desire for connection, that even when he's all calculating and manipulative with his business mode on, there's that desire under it all. And with Laios, well, what better excuse is there to be interested in someone that so conveniently is at the center of his plans and goals for the dungeon? Meeting practicality and genuine interest makes for this- I don't think that's unique to Laios perse, I do think Kabru is interested in people in general like he himself puts it in contrast with the touden siblings who don't, but with Laios the difference is the utter onesidedness of it, the brick wall of social cues he doesn't know how to approach but both needs and wants to. Repressing a desire for social connections, being bound by it despite wanting to not need them, is a common theme in Dungeon Meshi! And I think this fits into that. It's in the grabbing of Laios' arm too. Yes it's from despair, from the situation and from not being heard out, but that despair hides a desire, and it's a desire both to fix everything and to be seen and heard finally. And you could theorize it's his time with Mithrun that made him help realize here that yes there's some truth to wanting to be friends with Laios, and learn to seize the opportunity, to chase it not just through mind games but also try honesty, bluntness...

His arc with Laios (and with Mithrun) is a lot about teaming up imo, his party disappears and accomplished little because he never fully opened up to them, but when push came to shove and he was thrown into teaming up with someone (Mithrun) unfamiliar with no pretenses possible in an urgent situation he slowly gained trust for him, he learns that trust can be valuable even through the risk, enough that by the time he has to make his ultimate choice of going against Laios and even killing, vs helping him and letting him do his own plan, conflicted as he is Kabru still chooses to defend Laios from Lycion and have some faith- and this despite having his own opinion dismissed by Laios in the scene we just looked at. He is putting faith in Laios to have the weight of that world he was carrying alone for years put into someone else's hands, upon their choices, despite it meaning everything to him. Dungeon Meshi is a loooot about community and unity, about reaching each other halfway to have understanding and accomplish things together, better, and Kabru's arc very much is about that whole thing. Laios decides to go with his own gut instead of agreeing with Kabru's pleading, and there's much to say about that, but ultimately I see it as Kabru being forced to reckon with having to put full trust in another person's judgement yes, terrifying and risky, but sometimes it'll pay off. Seeking to understand each other earnestly IS good, and it's only after all pretenses are out the window that things start to look up, compromise shows willingness to do that.

So like. Mithrun's half of kabru's storyline is about being understood, getting some of that social connecting need he's been neglecting and showing how genuineness pays off, meanwhile Laios' half is about understanding others, seeing the flaws in how he approaches others. How do you expect people to understand you if you aren't earnest with them, Laios asks? Lycion hammers it home too, being the one to expose Kabru having been fake with Laios and trying being very blunt and direct with Laios. With Mithrun he learns to socialize without playing 4d mind chess again, it's easy with him befause he's so uninterested in respecting social conventions anymore and is so blunt and honest, and with Laios he learns to apply that. Mithrun is his parallel and Laios is his contrast.

Okay this was the story arc bit now getting back to a character analysis focus. Kabru is interested in anthropology in general, with a genuine interest in learning about people and languages & helping people at large. He's concerned with the greater good and "preventing Utaya from happening again", not because he himself doesn't feel safe but because he wants to prevent tragedies in the world, tragedies that affect others the way he's been before. Kabru is individualistic in the sense that he takes everything upon himself, doesn't readily trust others with decisions, but he's also incredibly selfless. He's dedicating his life to investigating dungeons and stopping their meltdowns, thinking someone else than the elves must get involved, he has personal reasons to be motivated to stop the demon but unlike Mithrun it's not out of revenge but out of a concern for others' wellbeing, while Mithrun's motivations are stuck in the past Kabru's are in the future's. In his determined pursuit of his goals he neglects his own needs and wellbeing- Due to his upbringing with the sheltering Milsiril, Kabru has a hard time even doing basic care tasks like cleaning and cooking, if it wasn't for his landlord doing the cleaning of his rented room for him it'd be very messy, bottles laying around because he drinks alcohol to help with insomnia regularly for one. Dungeon diving isn't all that profitable, especially being Kabru's party, and it's unsafe, and it's uncomfortable, and not exactly well seen- He's not enriching himself either in wealth or status, and yet Kabru his spending his every day and every ressource researching about dungeon diving parties on the Island to keep an eye out for possible future dungeon lords, making influential connections like the shadow governor, and of course dungeon diving itself. He even puts it himself, that he'd rather die in a dungeon in pain than stay at Milsiril's, and it's very important to remember that unlike Laios Kabru hates dungeons- He loathes monsters, is terrified of them and the threat the dungeons make, and doesn't even seem to have true curiosity or interest for dungeons' workings beyond how to stop them from causing harm- his dedication to dungeon diving is solely in relation to his mission. While I'm sure he does find some interactions fulfilling here and there, he also keeps himself from connecting with others, treating relationships either as tools (like drinking is to him) or situations to people please and focus on helping fix their issues like with Dia's fiance, sinking a lot of time into it and not opening up himself, gaining nothing from it except maybe some loyalty and reputation, a sense of satisfaction and a sense of having done a good thing.

The end very much justifies the means with him. He's one of the more politically conscious and few greater good caring people of the cast but he's not without bias, his talking about kobolds for one... more on that in the kabru & Kuro section. He's not blinded by ideas of good and evil since he has no problems with greyer areas if the ultimate result is good- but he can be blinded by laser focus somewhat. His fear over Laios- while clearly not unfounded since kui herself stated that at the beginning of serialization she really thought Laios would become a demon king as dungeon lord in the end- makes him take rash decisions, where if it wasn't for people reviving and saving his party again and again and again, Kabru would never have even met Laios. See, again the theme that he can't achieve his goals alone even if he tries. He doesn't want to share burdens and plans, refuses help sometimes, but he does rely on it like everyone else, and ultimately I think that's what his arc is about like we covered- from being so distant with his party to opening up with mithrun and ultimately, in his kill Laios vs trust Laios dilemma he picked trust.

I do think growing up with Milsiril shaped him into who he became a lot, not only because he had access to knowledge with her ressources and her teaching yes, but most importantly imo he learned to manage an emotionally needy adult. It's mentioned his dead mother would sometimes vent to him when drunk, and it's different but similar to Milsiril being a sensitive recluse hermit who jumps from tears to anger in the blink of an eye, with emotional manipulation whether intentional or not, guilt tripping for even small things like which home cuisine he picks to talk about. Kabru grew used to having to anticipate and pacify or counter Milsiril's moods, to push through the wails and downright threats to be able to make a point and be heard like when saying he wishes to go into dungeons, and she seems to overburden her kids with the task of managing her emotional stability like I implied. She doesn't have friends except literally maybe just Helki her employee, she likes dolls and interacting with her kids and that's all that we see, so she seems emotionally dependent on her kids and esp Kabru imo. So like with how he operates in the present, he learned to "manipulate for good", what words tend to set people off, what ways to phrase things make pills easier to swallow, what face is most pleasing and soothing, what gestures are too much and what gestures are too little. Daily life and ineracting at home with his foster family became a visual novel with right and wrong answers and for smooth days he needs to be a good kid. Milsiril & Kabru is a topic for another day but I do have a lot to say. I do want it to be kept in mind here that Kabru's opinion that it's impossible for elves to see eye to eye with shortlived races is explicitly linked to his experience with Milsiril, as written in his Adventurer's bible pages. This coming up is definitelyyy a headcanon though but since [Helki is the only friend adjacent relationship we know milsiril has] and their relationship is master & servant there's grounds to theorize about how much kabru interacted with him too- how much Kabru saw Milsiril and Helki interact, his only father adjacent figure you could even say... As @room-surprise puts it, growing up in that house watching Milsiril and Helki and himself he learned that life is not to eat or be eaten but instead "to use or be used". Having grown elsewhere than the rigid elven kingdom first, that place with its tons of social etiquette rules and hierarchy, helped him be more critical of that society even as he observed how it worked and how he could work it, his original home may have not been much more welcoming, but sometimes difference is all that's needed to start comparing and realizing how systems are built, and not innate or unchangeable. I think being thrown into it rather than born into it shaped how Kabru perceived it. Psychology also helped him deal with his own trauma imo- in the incubus & parasitic bee comic it seems rationalizing the people from his hometown's superstitions helps him make his peace about it, makes it feel less personal, more distant- it's not my great aunt thinking I ruined my mom's life by being born, it's the human instinct and phenomenon of people being scared of what they don't understand, like a child with pale blue eyes. People being scared by what they don't understand, hm, it really always goes back to this in Dungeon Meshi doesn't it.

I think it's needless to say at this point but it's obvious Kabru is a character very affected by trauma. Faced with monsters, which've ravaged his home in the blink of an eye, he shakes and hesitates. He gets flashbacks when thinking about eating monsters. Wild topic swing but believe it or not there's a recurring "is it ptsd or autism" debate that often happens with characters, including L from Death Note for example, and Kabru has had this phenomenon in a niche of the fandom too. As one myself I do heavily relate to Kabru in the lens of him being an overachiever masked autistic, who unconsciously was drawn to learning psychology out of a need to do so and used to approach social interactions as a more scripted and logical affair than intuitive, and that was in part due to trauma yes- but autism and social-based trauma that pushed you to overcompensate and overachieve is, well... There's a causal link there yes, and it's a tendency that does happen with autism, especially in its afab presentation. And Kabru having ptsd is pretty much undeniable, so then, both? Personally I would claim kabru suffered not only the trauma of Utaya being destroyed but also social trauma living through being feared and hated by villagers and then taken in by elves and being constantly talked over- again different but similar to Rin's own experience and trauma. Truth is Kabru not being autistic doesn't change all that much from the "Laios caught his eye because he doesn't mask well and Kabru has to teach him about it he has to tell him that's illegal and look out for him" magnetism theory because that's also what ptsd does, someone with ptsd depending on the trauma also can become very scripted and nervous about skirting from it. Autism just gives it a more personal lens, where it's not only trauma but just who you are, always feeling a bit apart from everyone else in a fundamental way. In the end what autism and ptsd share in situations like this is that they treat social situations like a survival game, no fun included. This isn't the kabru is autistic analysis that's another topic plus many exist already I bet, but yes just know that these are common and coherent readings that can give a good lens for his behavior or obsessive tendencies.

Last tangent last tangent- but words are Kabru's main weapon right, knowledge is Kabru's main warfare method. Being in a society and with a parental guardian who doesn't put weight into your opinions and wants, speaking and being listened to is hard, and Kabru learned to play the game and dance the dance until he could make connections anywhere. It's of course relevant with how he dealt with Misilril and just how he continues to approach problems and matters now too, it's a way to be, a defense mechanism too, again like Rin's. It's interesting to note that it's Milsiril who taught him a lot, which he mentions is what he's grateful for her for most, teaching him and training him- and isn't that very in line with how Milsiril also felt spoken over and rejected by elven society as well, how she despises elven society even. Almost as if knowledge is a tool when you're devalued and pushed down in a society- Something that was important for Milsiril to teavh to him, which also fits nicely in with Kabru teaching Kuro the common tongue later on too. Milsiril's approach to the game of hierarchy was to keep her head down and obey orders until she could retire living rich as a hermit and foster parent, though, and that's emblematic of where they differ too- Kabru wants to be proactive, do more prevention with dungeons to have less damage control to do, even if you have to throw yourself into danger, even if you have to seek it out, so he makes connections and builds influence and goes dungeon diving. Milsiril wants to go away from trouble, leave to be safer, avoid danger, in life like in work, so she decides to live away from wider society to deal with her trauma and social anxiety, and so she retires and doesn't understand why Kabru would ever want to go near a dungeon again. Words are Kabru's main weapon but ultimately he drops arms and shed this attitude for open communication instead... 😌

I've started doing more analyses with enneagrams, I'll link back here when I make my first enneagram character analysis feature with Laios but in the meantime, sorry if you know nothing about it... If I had to call one for Kabru right now, 5w6/6w5 and 163 for tritype? Which would somewhat complement my reading of Laios as a 4w5 478, being his contrary in the action center 1 vs 8 which is the center that dictates how you judge/approach others/interactions, and the order being that the socialization center is the facet that's most important to Kabru vs what's least important to Laios. Inversely what's most important to Laios and least important to Kabru is the heart center aka how you judge yourself, your relationship with your own self-importance, Laios is very concerned with his own identity and interests and flees oppressive places that make him need to conform too much meanwhile Kabru is to himself only a tool for his greater goal and is ready to sacrifice individuality and his own comfort for it. But hey why would Kabru be 6w5 but still have 1 has his most important type in his 163 tritype? Well 6 is the desire for stability, security, and 1 is the high strict standard & concern for what's right vs wrong. I would consider 6 as his more important type because it's that desire that shaped his 1 importance given to morality, justice, good on a wider scale, etc, especially as someone marginalized where moral policies naturally benefit more people, often especially those devalued ykwim? Bettering the country with policies is right and also benefits him, he thinks everyone should have stability and safety, that it's the most important thing for everyone, but it presents as a 1 way to deal with that issue.

I think an important recurrent theme you can notice here too is onesided and unbalanced relationships. Kabru had the role of significant emotional support to both parental figures he had in his life, when as a child you're the one supposed to emotionally unload and the parents are supposed to take on them and manage the both of you, and it's made him be stuck into that mode sort of by default, letting others open themselves to you as much as they want but not opening up in turn, being more detached and unemotional- and of course, that's what's needed when you need to fix things, when you have to make sure everything is taken care of. It's the approach he takes both for his life and for relationships, so he shuts out his own emotions and pushes himself for others and for the world. He likes knowing, but not being known, because that's not supposed to be his role or purpose. He knows how burdening that can be. It does make the reversal of Laios being interested in Laios actively and Laios being uninterested in Kabru himself interesting. I don't know Kabru knows himself all that well, it's always about others so he doesn't take nearly as much time pondering his own wants, I think that plays into the "I wanted to be friends" too. It's how he's so able to get Dia's fiance to emotionally unload on him and vent over a couple hours and so at ease with it- he's used to it. Ah and even with Rin! He was specifically asked to befriend Rin as a kid, a very heavily traumatized girl- he was asked this because he's a shortlived race kid like her and nice, was asked this by his foster mother for the canaries' sake- he was literally put into that emotional support situation there too.

I am not mentioning every parallel & contrast he has with Laios I don't wanna be here all day!! But hey where Kabru had his town ravaged by monsters as a child and has always holds importance for having community, Laios fantasized about monsters tavaged his town because he hated his community, for one. In this precise scenario, Laios saw flaws and he immediately wanted to give up on that community, meanwhile Kabru saw flaws and wanted to fix them- Well, mostly, since Kabru did give up on relations with elves for a good while, and both end up amending those beliefs and seeking to make a better society within the golden kingdom together.

Here is my very quickest Kabru analysis apparently 😭😭 I NEED to get dragged offstage this can't go on- Idk man I still haven't gotten THE ANGLE with Kabru's narrative in the story I still can't see one thread that makes everything seamlessly connect together like it usually happens with Dunmeshi for me, but there's so much going on here about typical dunmeshi themes like authenticity, balancing considering others & your own needs and connecting...... But my biggest impression after my first read that still lingers now is that Kabru was in good part there to embody that people are a tapestry and that we're like an ecosystem, you can't carry the weight of the world alone because you are not alone and humans are creatures that accomplish feats through being social, like how Kabru couldn't have defeated the monster without Laios' help, Laios couldn't have gotten this far without Kabru's interference. Again it's all comes to that final battle where everyone, different as they may be, come together to fight on the same side, to save their collective world... And the guy everyone believed in least being the one on who all hope and faith and trust is placed in the last desperate shot at winning. Idk man!!! What are we doing here go touch grass breathe in the breeze hug your loved ones what a joy it is to be alive and human!! Take example on Kabru and love yourself. Because you're human and he loves humans I mean- don't actually take notes on self-love from Kabru that would not go well I feel. But yeah like to me Kabru's party gives me a nudge of what direction I should go in to figure out what his portion of the story is getting at, the importance of Kabru's party then becomes showing the state of his relationships at the start of the story before things get shaken up, as contrast and a reference point...

Rinsha Fana

OKAYYY here we are. Not everything is about you Kabru! <- said with Rin's voice (it really truly actually is lol)

I've already done an incomplete analysis of her here, please look at it for Rin pictures & material, but basically her sour and strict attitude seems to be a defense mechanism she can't fully control, like how she tends to frown when she wants to smile. Kabru's words about it are somewhat dubious to be sure, we don't have a guidebook on "when is Rin truly angry and when is she just smiling upside down :) ", but it is notable that Kabru does have a point with that, from what we see.

Her nagging attitude is part of that defense mechanism- As explicitly stated several times, her main purpose in following Kabru is that she's worried he'd get himself into trouble without her. Not unjustified, since he has trouble even cleaning and eating well, and then he gets all wrapped up with the canaries during canon, but yes according to Rin he's too smart and reckless for his own good. This may be why he sees her as a big sister figure, she nitpicks every little thing but at the end of the day her support is unconditional and she'll stand with you whenever you need her. Sort of like a big sister, she gives tough love but ultimately just wants you to be healthy and to take your pain away.

She had a very difficult upbringing, seen as a heretic to burn at the stake in her early childhood then treated like an animal when growing up with the elves. Her parents had an unaligned religion and its practices are tied to how she learned magic, which is why her family was reported to the canaries as dark magic users, but not in time for them to arrive before the townspeople killed her parents. Where with the elves Kabru learned to people please in order to gain more agency and safety when he grew up seen as a pet, Rin learned to be irreproachable and stand her ground when she grew up treated as an animal. The townspeople in Kabru's hometown sought to break up his home and chase out his family, and they may have threatened heavily for all that we know, but Kabru was able to keep his love for humans and belief that humanity is good, the trauma he has is of monsters killing people during the dungeon overflow- Rin's trauma is townspeople burning her house down and lynching her family until she was the only survivor. She sees others as a threat, and not without reason.

Both Rin and Kabru wear masks socially. They go in opposite ways though, Rin oversells her toughness to tell people not to mess with her, she makes herself closed off and intimidating, meanwhile Kabru is more of a chameleon but mainly, he makes himself seem open and appeasing, unthreatening to be trusted and liked more.

She was sent into shock and suffered through severe trauma especially since the people who collected her amidst all this, the canaries, are very ill equipped to deal with emotionally/mentally fragile people, especially shortlived race kids. Because of this whole situation she has some contempt for those who had it "easier", like mages who went to magic school instead of having to self-teach like Rin did. And some of this is disdain that where she had to study everything on her own others have teachers to guide them through it all, a sense of superiority, but imo it's also doubtlessly a defense mechanism, an anti magic-elitism where she sneers at them before they can sneer at her. Before they can call her uncultured, she calls them talentless. Counter before they can even strike. Defense mechanism. In the main story, we hear of this tension Rin has about academy mages with how she speaks of Marcille and her spells- specifically she's rude about Marcille's protection charm/ward and says something about how the one who did it was definitely an academy mage because the spell is too by the book in chapter 32- and this is what I mean, she takes issue with how strict about rules and spells they are, how much they conform, because her own background is being severely mistreated and sotracized for being an unaligned unconventional mage, for doing magic outside of these rules and books. Interestingly, we also see in chapter 10 though that she looks down on people she sees as not successful or capable, saying that they'll definitely defeat the mad mage and "we won't be hand-to-mouth adventurers like you people", perhaps from trauma too- wishing to put a distance between the group she'd normally be categorized with and who she wants to become, or having felt mocked by the guy who talked to them before by having been related to them, because she's so on guard and bad faith always. We don't really know the details of Rin's time with the elves, escept that she was "minded like an animal". We don't even know where she stayed, even, just that Milsiril couldn't take her in because her house was already full. Where did she stay, then? Some shitty orphanage? I like to think she stayed with the canaries as "an impounded article" until she became an adult and left with Kabru, explaining even more her attitude since she'd have all the military influence, and further proving the point that any success she earns was self-made, that anything she knows she had to teach berself because her environment never gave her opportunities. But yes wherever it was, we can only assume that it was close enough to Milsiril's mansion or easily accessible, because Kabru and Rin continues seeing each other. It seems like at first, they would have made trips just in order to have Kabru befriend Rin until she could talk. They may have continued through letters eventully too if they couldn't meet. Hust a lot of uncertainty on every ground, all we know is Rin and Kabru became important to each other.

We actually know little of Rin and Kabru's pre-canon relationship, but we know that Rin was taken in by the elves some time after Kabru was, after her parents were killed by townsfolk and report them as black mages to the canaries, who arrived too late to be able to tell, so just took Rin in and...... Well we know very little of how she was treated, too, even where she was kept, just that Milsiril couldn't take her in and that they "minded her like an animal". We know that Kabru wanted and wants to "get her away from the elves somehow", something he doesn't say about the other kids living with Milsiril and explains his reason as being because Rin has bad experience with the elves, but it's unsure how Kabru left home and how Rin came to go with him. Because of that quote of his though it's likely he invited her along when he left, and she followed. But it's not confirmed, for all we know Kabru could have only invited her after 2 years after leaving when he founded his party. It's obvious Rin holds no love for living with the elves anyways, but we don't know how much freedom she had- it was hard for Kabru to be allowed to leave because he was coddled, notably only leaving 2 years after he reached in-world adulthood despite having first voiced his want to leave when he was a kid, but meanwhile I like to think Rin left very easily because no one cared, she was something that took up space and food where she wasn't wanted or needed, an obsolete "impounded article". She was catatonic when she was first taken in, but it's likely things were cleared up once she was able to talk that no, her family wasn't practicing black magic, and then the canaries just didn't know where to send her because she had no home or family anymore. But then, if she could leave whenever she wanted why wouldn't she have left earlier? Probably precisely because of Kabru too, because she didn't want to leave him. She loves him, and they're more or less the only friend each other had, so she couldn't just leave him behind and try to build a life without him, similarly to how he couldn't do that either. She stayed for Kabru and she left for Kabru.

I made another little post speculating more about her life with the elves and the possible impact of Flamela here if you're interested, as well as elaborating on her abandonment issues and the importance of Kabru to her.

Rin does seem to believe in Kabru's cause, in making him dugeon lord and that being important, but her main motivation is still pretty clearly that she's doing this for Kabru because it's Kabru. She doesn’t seem to really know why or what, just that it should be ‘someone who deserves it’ that beats the dungeon and becomes dungeon lord, and her first lines show her determined to prove everyone they can beat the dungeon. Like stated, her main motivation is she wants to make sure Kabru's safe and out of trouble, so hey why not put the "heretic" magic she learned to use and become his offense mage, why not use it to manage a feat so big and desired (defeating the dungeon) that everyone will have to admit she and her art are worthy of respect, to prove to everyone she can make it with her own skills and own unconventional knowledge. Her magic, the last remnant of her family. Her house burned down with everything she possessed, and she's said to have little attachment to her culture due to having been an immigrant on top of everything else, so the memories and knowledge they've taught her, the lessons they instilled in her and the person they tried to shape her to be, that's all that's left of them. She never speaks of them, at all, likely due to the whole heay childhood trauma thing, so we don't really know her feelings on well, everything, beyond that it was traumatic. We don't know what her relationship with her parents was like. She's a very closed off person. That's another contrast we can point out with Kabru, Rin flees her pre-canaries past and never brings up her family, has little attachment to places she's lived in or her culture, but Kabru is fixated on remembering, brings up his mother and culture whenever he can like in the halloween local sweets extra, has made the tragedy of Utaya at the center of his entire life mission. Rin and Kabru really are contrasts of each other in how they deal with trauma I think, whereas they both become very guarded in very different ways I think this highlights how simlar he may have felt with Mithrun, the both of them having become obsessed with their trauma and eradicating the cause of it which happened to be the same thing, having become workaholics and consumed over it.

She's in love with Kabru, but the way I see it it doesn't seem like she's particularly pursuing him romantically. I do think Kabru's occasional flirting with her gives her needless hope, but I don't think getting with him is either her goal in following him or her plan, I think she's content just following him to taking care of him selflessly, even when she knows he can be a womanizer and dishonest asshat, albeit she'll complain every step of the way yes. Again, unintentional big sister attitude.

Post-canon, she keeps in touch with Kabru and becomes a pharmacist, presumably living in Merini but there's no mention of the location, we just know she's kept touch because of a post-canon extra with Laios and Kabru. Her new profession supports that 1) Rin likes caring after others and 2) Rin never had an interest for anything about dungeon diving in itself. It's also ironic, since she was a offensive mage and didn't do healing.

Contrasts with Marcille, where to start... Marcille is optimist and rather open and Rin is pessimist and fully closed off, Marcille is social and smiles a lot and Rin is the reverse. Both of them have a caring mom friend attitude, but Marcille is more gentle and coddling about it whereas with Rin it's pure tough love, both of them do this to a often stifling degree (Falin, Izutsumi, Kabru). There's the contrast in their appearances too, and how Marcille dresses practically but Rin is more flashy, with an... Ambitious skirt cut? They're both elegant but in different ways, they're both very bold in fights, and stubborn and loud in their beliefs. Marcille was a more or less sheltered girl who learned magic in an academy while Rin learned on her own at the cost of blood and sweat. Both of them seem to have grown up in towns rather than cities, a more rural setting, since there were large fields and chickens roaming where Marcille lived and the little we see and know of Rin's town makes it seem closed on itself. They were presumably lonely growing up, Marcille had no peers because of her irregular aging and spent her time absorbed in novels, where Rin because of her family and culture/race was mistreated and avoided and it seems she spent a lot of her time focusing on learning things instead, perhaps paralleling novels with textbooks even in young age. Marcille lost one parent of natural causes and was traumatized by it to the point it became at the center of her life mission, and Rin lost both parents to murder and was traumatized by it to the point she avoids thinking and talking about it ever again. Both of them seek to learn, use and even create unconventional magic eyond the rules set by people. Both of them have cat energy, thank you for coming to my ted talk

Holm

Holm is actually rather mysterious. The biggest thing to notice here is that Holm has been to elven jail before, because his research was too close to dark magic. We have no idea of what his research was about at all, we have no details and little clear hints. He's a man of theorics though, it shows in how he talks about magic and spirits, and with his christmas gift exchange gift it shows how nurturing living things with magic really is something he enjoys and has interest in. It's not a lot to go off of, especially since we know canaries are trigger happy when it comes to dark magic, both arresting people who had minor brushes with it or that seem suspicious without any confirmed crime, and with elves exaggerating people's crimes so they become a canary for manpower. Who knows, maybe he is dungeon diving to try and subtly do research at the same time, but the way we get no hints of that and he just keeps working as a spirit user post-canon makes me think it's just work to him. He never mentions researching or seems to be studying something in the dungeon so it doesn’t sound like that was significant part of his reason for dungeon diving. So he had his run-in with authorities and decided to live more simply from thereon. But that could also just be because of the nature of dark/ancient magic and how it more or less poofed from the world after the demon left, too. With the truth revealed and ancient magic unavailable to channel anymore, research becomes less needed and viable. I doubt Kabru knows about his past. Again, much like Laios' party pre-canon, what got them together is work before anything else, with the added bonus of Kabru spinning an important narrative about conquering the dungeon to become dungeon lord.

His chill laidback, more passive and calm attitude makes him feel more vague and mysterious too, hard to get a good grip on, but he’s also the most mature and put together of the group. Very mellow. He's not quiet to the point of seeming asocial like Dia somewhat does, he just seems... Average, in the extra about his sister for example. And good at keeping secrets. His skeleton in the closest is the jail thing and that's that, seems like it put an end to his researching career and he’s now settled for being a spirits magic user as a job which brought him to dungeon dive. Nope sir prison isn't worth it I'm keeping myself into trouble from now on. What job can I do now though, my specialization is spirits arts... Dungeon diver, okay sure. It could be theorized that his usual attitude + his secret are a persona of sorts, where he keeps himself largely hidden and keeps people at an arm's distance. It's pointed out he freezes in the face of conflict- it shows he dislikes fighting, even being worried for the spirits he makes fight, and that makes me think even more that dungeon diving wouldn't have been his first choice. It could also be a good part of why he's so laidback and quiet then, passive. He dislikes conflict, so he avoids being in the spotlight also helpful skill to have when you've had run-ins with the law, and he has such the nice guy reputation that Mickbell doesn't think twice about crashing at his place in the middle of the night- and sure enough Holm lets him in and practically serves him. You could think him a doormat, but we see with the comic of him & his sister that he's very capable of being mad and agitated and go more on the offensive in a social situation, but yes he has that helpless -panics and wails while all his coworkers does things around him against his will- energy that's pretty sopping wet cat. He seems chill and cool but oh no he was actually the stressed overworked protagonist of a sitcom movie. My condolences for your life Holm. In general he's also a decently judgemental person, and although casually and often with a smile he has no problem "telling it like it is", calling out Mickbell's treatment of Kuro and talking about how Kabru can't clean for shit, how he'd "be willing to do anything to achieve his goals" and is too people pleasing, etc. He's confident in himself, and pretty set in his beliefs though we see him debate and compromise with Kabru.

His sister is the only personal relationship we see him have, but it's stated. She must live on the island too, considering Kabru visits her. The Island isn't exactly a place you're typically born in, so it's interesting to wonder what it means that both Holm and his sister would have moved there. Did their parents disown him after he got arrested over his research? There's nothing to say they did, but nothing that hints they didn't either, honestly, so Holm is a bit of a blank slate backstory wise as well. We know his religion's very important to him too though, and it affects his diet. His spirits are very dear to him and it's mentioned for example that he's raised his undine since basically the spirit equivalent of a baby, so it's implied he's been raising spirits for a long time. If his social life doesn't seem to be thriving, his spirits are definitely filling some of his social & connection needs as pets would. He does both healing and offense.

His contrast with the Laios party would be Falin since they're both healers lowkey doormats who notice the flaws in the people around them but don't act on them and prefer being passive and take upon themselves. They both love nature and were pushed by capitalism and rigid structures that prioritize conformity into work they aren't passionate about. The most important thing in Holm's life seems to be his spirits, and the most important thing in Falin's life are her loved ones, I'd say his enneagram is 592 while Falin's hmm, 926.

I ramble more about Holm in this kabuholm post and compile more of his moments, but it's more speculation than analysis, it's a take on him essentially. My personal verdict is- king of staying in his lane. He's here for work and he keeps his thoughts to himself to speak when it's necessary, he's not afraid of letting people have it outside of that though. The separation of professional and personal life is not going to great with his coworker occasionally imposing on his home lol. Reflecting his maturity, he lets others handle themselves and only steps in when he's needed. Hm, sounds like someone else doesn't it?

Daya

First things first: Daya or Dia? You'll probably have noticed I use Dia, and the reason is pretty simple: Daya/Dia is a nickname. Her official name is Diamond, but the shortening is always used instead- Diamond we have an official spelling for, the nickname we do not. Since it's in katakana (da-ya) and a fantasy world, translations call her Daya, but that's the same pronounciation as the "dia" in "diamond", and isn't it logical for her nickname to just be a shorter version of her actual name? We do know that Kui translates names to katakana being mindful of their pronounciation and not just spelling, like how Tims in Chilchuck tims is written as timzu. Yenpress the official english translator has messed up character names before and this even after official spellings came out, like Mikbell and Sissel, but notablyxthe anime english translation has also gone with Daya. But so, yes, I call her Dia, but of course there's no right or wrong here and by going against official translations I'm making things harder than they need to be. It's just...... Hard to unsee.......

Daya is very underrated for having such an interesting background! She was esentially raised in a cult? The "dungeon keepers". That protects dungeons, in that they keep people from going into it. She never knew why it was an important thing to do, and never questioned it, but as readers at the end of canon we now can imagine that they kept people from going into dungeons so that there would not be new dungeon lords and dungeons would not overflow. Ultimately, Dia fled her home and community because she refused the notion of marrying an older relative to have a child. There's a mistranslation from Yenpress that Namari is from the same tribe as Namari, when the original japanese sentence is just about how they're both from the same race- both dwarves.

No wonder with this background that she "has a slightly otherworldly air". She's very stonefaced and hard to read, but with the focus on duty and discipline she had growing up it's easy to see how she'd have become a somewhat emotionally constipated person in this way. She fell in love with someone of her choosing and is intent on marrying him, contrasting with the man she was ordered to marry back home. It's with a renewed interest in understanding what the life she'd spent so long upholding was about that she went back to work with dungeons as a dungeon diver, in her own words with the goal of understanding what they were protecting. In this way, it seems the marriage order was truly the thing that made everything snap and finally caused her to shake up her life, to look back and start questioning everything- and now she's free, she chooses what to do with herself and who to be with. It's said she loves her husband, and her husband seems very attached to her as well. Somewhat paralleling Chilchuck and his wife, we can imagine how nervewracking it must be to be the spouse of a dungeon diver, who faces death for a living. Dia is very independent and disaffected on top of it, so we see that her fiance feels insecure and even doubts she may cheat on him with Kabru. This insecurity is born from feeling like Dia doesn't need him- and so may leave him in the future. He feels neglected, and Dia probably doesn't show him love and how much he's valued in a way that he sees or satisfies him. That said, her fiance after a couple of cups and an hour with Kabru is shiwn to be very open and emotional, which would presumably complement her well. Dia seems unemotional but she does have her bouts of strong emoting, whether it be distrust, worry, frustration or even wonder- That said, she's not the greatest conversationalist around and I can definitely see her not really understanding how love, care affection and attention, is supposed to look like- Again, she grew up in an extreme social environment.

She's bold and fierce, confident, and notably very very strong. With training from a young age not only in discipline but in fighting she's a warrior born and raised. These are considered tomboyish traits, but I do like how Kabru and the adventurer's bible calls her a lady- she shows wonder at the treasure insects too! She's not disinterested in oretty things, or anything of the sort. We just have little window into her interests, since her life centers around work so much. She also calls out Mickbell for his mistreatment of Kuro, but also does nothing about it. She's quiet and is most often seen closing up the tail end of the psrty looking around for threats while they're on the move. She's quieter than Holm and also more standoffish. The queen of staying in her lane, if you ask me. We'll be talking more about it in the relationships section but you can already see this very interesting party dynamic forming of Rin and Mickbell having their nose all up in others' business while Dia and Holm are very permissive and quiet even while kabrin and mickuro look insane from an outside perspective. Who knows what normal looks like to Dia, though. She disliked Namari because her father made things rocky for dwarves on the Island for a while, so that can show how critical she can be and how her value of not sticking her neck out and staying put & not rocking the boat manifest/the why of it. Like in her home community we can imagine, you have a role in society and being overly disruptive can ruin things for everyone including yourself- even if the one who did the mistake was your parent the fault befalls on your whole family. Very strict hierarchy based outlook on society and community I think... It's interesting that despite of having been a victim of such behaviors herself, part of those faulty lessons stuck with her and she upholds much of the same fallacies.

All of this is very interesting foundation for a character, but yes not much else is developed on Dia and that's wher her story starts and ends- I'll make a diaholm post eventually that delves into her themes of freedom and emotional wallbricking but that's about it from me. I like to think that she likes her husband, but rushed into marriage- that going from a life where everything was structured and decided for her by others to having nothing but choice, from the prospect of marrying an old relative to anyone she chooses, she sort of picked the first guy she liked and made a move on her. Pure speculation, because I like exploring the side effects her upbringing would have had and this sort of detached attitude she has, with some typa off attachment style...

Fun facts: if the modern au christmas gift exchange extra is to be believed, Dia enjoys reading and has some books of her own. In a Daydream Hour she's drawn with Holm out of their work uniforms but she still has a sword at her hip, which may mean she carries a weapon with her even just around town. She has two younger siblings that she never mentions and we presume she left behind at home.

Mickbell Tomas

Okay okay okay now the true insanity may begin! Please refer to this post to see Mickbell's profile pages. Also see the bath comic for another great show of his character! I cannot make a mickbell collage for this there is no pic page umm ummmm additional compilation here.

Despite being an adult of 22 years old, even older than Kuro both literally and developmentally, Mickbell often acts rather juvenile. He tends to be very black and white, he wanted to steal the corpse retrievers’ stuff and was mad when Kabru didn’t allow it, he thinks Kuro talking to others will make Kuro leave him. He's judgemental (exhibit A: comic about Rin smiling) and critical (esp with Kabru). All means justify the end (him having fun, becoming rich) but if others do something wrong efficiency or annoying behavior wise you better believe he'll voice it. He’s very expressive, both in body language and words, swinging his arms as he walks and jumping and stomping the ground in anger. He also has a mischievous streak. He’s casual with touch, touchy feely if you will, and clings to Kuro a lot, both for safety and because he simply likes to. Cough cough separation anxiety and abandonment issues. He knows how to be serious however, especially when it comes to money or risky situations. He does his job well and does it conscientiously. In many ways he's similar to Fleki, if Fleki was more dedicated on the job. He may be very layered, and manipulative when he wants to be, but he seems to value in others the same type of directness that he has with emoting and interacting with others, as seen with his distaste for Rin being a tsundere. He's blunt and straightforward (whenever he isn't with Kuro or scamming), and in that way it seems those are values of his, which may be why he does usually gets along best with Rin, especially on the job.

He has loose ethics and likes to goof around but is otherwise often highstrung, reflecting Kabru's "relax a little" view of him. He's serious on the job- a contrast you can especially notice in the christmas exchange special. He had to steal and do scams to survive, again the christmas special shows he's good with money and making deals- mischievous and full of himself when he has to sell stuff and quick to flee when he smells trouble, but very focused when it comes to calculating costs and revenue.

Again, despite all his troublemaker toddler behavior Mickbell is surprisingly serious! It's still undeniable that he has capital i Issues, from being very uncaring about how others may see him and developing this "it's us vs the world" mentality with Kuro, to how emotional, exaggeratingly expressive and impulsive he is- in a way that lacks emotional regulation skills I'd even say, to what he says when something displeases him like "she'd be a lot cuter if she smiled more" about Rin after she doesn't laugh at his jokes... This all seems to point towards Mickbell having pretty bad emotional intelligence. You could even easily call him stunted. He doesn't seem very self-aware, his manipulation of Kuro is not something he can do solely unconsciously but it is genuinely debatable how much he knows he cares about Kuro, how much he's aware of what he feels & why, why he says what he says and does what he does. What would he do if you told him that trying to manipulate Kuro into thinking that everyone except Mickbell wants him in shackles and in pain and wanting to have a house and a nice domestic normal life with him is sort of mutually exclusive? I don't think he thinks about the wider picture like that, I think it'd cause some dissonance a bit. He thinks ahead when it comes to finance, but socially he seems to very much live in the moment, not really trying to anticipate how much others will appreciate his input or behavior or thinking about how he'll keep up the charade 2 years down the line. He wants to hustle his way out of being homeless, but in many ways he still has the mentality he had to have for running scams and surviving on the streets at his lowest, one day at a time, succeed this step so you can then succeed the next. In his mind he's constantly making charisma rolls on Kuro and he needs to not fail them.

Don't you worry Mickbell & Kuro is getting a whole section, buuut with Mickbell and Kuro both, character analysis is inseparable from analysis of the two's relationship. The ethics and circumstances of Mickbell working Kuro for peanuts are surprisingoy complex- because that is how Mickbell sees their dynamic, but Kuro sees it completely differently and assigns himself full agency in wanting to stay. Kuro obviously wants to follow Mickbell, and that’s what Mickbell takes advantage of unknowingly, what he thinks is Kuro’s helplessness. What I find much more alarming is Mickbell’s need to control not only Kuro's economical and social life but every aspect of his life. He’s not only overcontrolling, paranoid that someone will want to steal him away from him (both for Kuro’s sake but very transparently desperate to not allow Kuro to leave him as well- will get expanded on), but he also wants to isolate him. It’s no coincidence Kuro has no friends apart from Mickbell- the closest thing would be Kabru and even with him, communication can be difficult and Mickbell does interfere. It's not Mickbell's fault there is a language barrier, but it is Mickbell's fault that Kuro has amassed so few tools in navigating the world without Mickbell, but it is his fault that Kuro feels like he can't tell him he's learning common with Kabru, and it is Mickbell's canonical intent to render Kuro just that, powerless enough to need him- again I cannot overstate how it is straight up said and confirmed in the Adventurer's Bible that Mickbell mistreats Kuro the way he does because he's scared Kuro would/will leave him. Mickbell sees their relationship as employer-employee while Kuro sees it more as guardian & guy who needs to have one, but it is also said that Mickbell sees Kuro as family, and I do think that makes sense, and I do think it can't be overstated how on a deeper level it's Mickbell who needs Kuro, and that Kuro is Mickbell's absolute most important person in the world- his only person in the world, even, in many ways.

"Until he met Kuro, Mickbell was all alone in the world, so he seems to see him as family."

Mickbell is desperate for stable relationships, both seen with his clutch on Kuro and his wanting a house to settle in. Or I suppose, relationship singular, he seems very ride or die on the idea that Mickbell and Kuro are the only thing each other needs, he never seems to particularly try or want to befriend others, is a bit clammed up on himself. Distrustful, assumes bad faith, especially as we see with the half-foot union. Perhaps because he's never felt a sense of community where helping each other out of good will was a thing, survival made everything transactional living on the streets, so he has a hard time having good faith with organizations like unions, and this notion of relationships being transactional would have also shaped why he would frame his and kuro's relationship that way, as employer-employee. Not to say he doesn’t like socializing though, we see him work a room all self-satisfied and tell jokes in an extra comic, and he gets peeved when Rin doesn’t laugh at his jokes, he does like getting general social approval. As he isolates Kuro he also willingly isolates himself, and is ready to burn bridges or opportunities for him.

He's sleazy! Debate about egg or chicken all you want, but I think Mickbell running scams definitely shows in how manipulative he is in relationships as well. With the christmas gift exchange thing we see that he can do scams the straightforward way, selling an item to be much more than it us for an inflated price, but it is specifically said that Mickbell doesn't have half-foot pride the same way Chilchuck does and has no problem using his race to "curry favor", so I would think he's done the emotional manipulation kind of scamming as well, acting like a child in need or such. "If you can use something, you should" is stated to be his motto. Because in a life like his you don't have a lot, you seize the opportunities you get because it's a matter of survival and there's no ace up your sleeve dirty enough to justify not taking advantage of it. All this to say- Mickbell's most iconic scene is arguably his short interaction with Kuro here, and it's extremely blatant manipulation. The anime even ups this with the teary eyes and voice acting- the borderline tears followed by a grin shows just how conscious and intensive his manipulating really can get. Again there's a transactional lens he sees relationships through I think- and that plays into Mickbel scamifying his relationships up... Which in the end I do think he feels scummy over. Simply because, chaining someone to you like that is not something you do if you think you're lovable- if you're all that, if you're great and likable and worthy of unconditional love. That man can't believe in that, he can't believe in his life partner of many years choosing to stay if that didn't happen to be his only viable option. Mickbell lives in fear of being abandoned and it's in good part because the world has taught him he's not valuable on his own.

I think Mickbell lives in fear!! And I think that's deeply interesting. Makes sense for someone with such an harsh extreme upbringing as him to be hypervigilant, with food like with money the way he is with the party, he keeps grudges, both in his backstory extra comic and during canon. He lives in fear and distrust and all these little ways he knows toxmake himself feel more powerful than he is. And I think it's so, so interesting how when he finally accepted Kuro following him, inventing something about him becoming his bodyguard, it was because Mickbell just witnessed Kuro kill and maim a man and he was shaking, so afraid but also accustomed enough to violence and needing to bullshit his way through situations to tell Kuro things like "I'm your master" and for Kuro to just go along with it. Mickbell's is the art of faking it till you make it. Mickbell was afraid of Kuro then, and I do think Mickbell was scared of the idea of what this kobold man stranger could do if he decided that Mickbell wasn't his master after all, until his attachment grew and keeping the charade going was less out of a need for Kuro not to hurt him and more out of a need for Kuro not to leave him. So the fear of retribution because he did not know Kuro became a fear of abandonment when he did learn to know and love him- Kuro leaving him alone, the very thing he desired the firt time they met and Kuro followed him after Mickbell freed him. And this is why I made this web weaving about them this makes me ill good god. He lives in fear of being "found out" by Kuro in a way, for this scam of a relationship to be discovered so he only gets tangled up in his manipulation more and more to keep it going as the stakes keep rising and rising because Mickbell is only more invested with time- and he fears that Kuro would realize it one day but he also fears others will expose him, a big part of why he monitors what others say to Kuro, why he wants to be there whenever Kabru talks with him, why he's so scared at the slightest conversation had out of his hearing range. But! Part of it I'd say is also genuine fear that they could take advantage of Kuro, perhaps because due to his own taking advantage of Kuro and how readily the kobold accepts it Mickbell sees Kuro as a particularly vulnerable person, that he could get tricked by anyone, and let's remember that Mickbell met Kuro in a slave trader's cage- Mickbell's fear of others "taking Kuro away from him" is a double edged sword, it's 'them turning Kuro against Mickbell' but it's also what he always says about Kabru or others trying to 'kidnap' Kuro, what he says about how the half-foot guild wouldn't like his bond with Kuro and take him away from Mickbell. He's drunk his own koolaid in many ways. Separation anxiety and abandonment issues!!!!! Distrust at the world and feeling like he can never have nice things or be safe!!! And this plays suuuuuch a role in Mickbell's dream of having a house I think. Because a house is safe- a house means routine, means a place you can stay in and be protected by, is there a more emblematic symbol of stability and safety? In a house Mickbell is shielded from others' gaze and judgement, he's sheltered from the rain and he can keep food inside, he doesn't have to sleep with one eye open to not be attacked or have his things stolen through the night anymore, no there are four walls and it's warm and he and Kuro can live a peaceful life unbothered, away from the rest of the world that seeks them harm and wants them separated. Which hey that could parallel surprisingly deeply Chilchuck's feelings about a house actually, a house and family as something he has but that can be lost and destroyed- both in people leaving and in nightmares of home invasion.

But like Mickbell telling Kuro to stop snarling and growling because it's scary is such a good and fascinating example of this. How much of it is "it scares me" and how much of it is "you're damaging your own reputation, I'm scared of how people will react if you look too beastly and dangerous and what they might do to you- to us"? And this is especially true because Mickbell knows that kobolds are discriminated and how- for these years they've known each other Mickbell has been the one being the middleman between Kuro and the whole world- he's the one securing board and room for the both of them, noticing how people treat them and what they whisper about them, he's the one who gets told "this bathhouse doesn't allow kobolds" and he's the one who decides to leave and visit every bathhouse until they find one who does allow kobolds, becayse he's not taking a bath without Kuro. Mickbell is sticking with Kuro. They are ride or die for EACH OTHER not just oneway. Mickbell washes Kuro, he did that first time after they met each other and Kuro was a ghastly sight and very stinky, and he does now too, Mickbell patiently explains to Kuro how everything works, and when Kuro messes up something like getting Mickbell wet from shaking off water Mickbell gets mad but offers no punishment except chiding. In the bath comic, we see Mickbell spend HOURS brushing Kuro after his bath. There is immense care put into Kuro from Mickbell's end, as well.

"Now you're the cleanest dog in the whole wide world. No one can look down on you."

But hey, where did Mickbell learn "people leave"? That he’s unlovable and no one would stay for him? It’s a common fear that could be from anywhere honestly, whether insecurity alone or a very specific experience- but we do have trails we can follow... Mickbell lived in the slums of Kahka Brud, which he may have been birn in or interestingly enough since Kahka Brud is seen as a city of opportunities might have moved there. First of all, we have to wonder how he got into the streets in the first place. His relatives are listed as "unknown", but well, as a rule of thumb everyone has parents. Not even Kuro has "unknown" listed in his relatives section, and he's had cut contact with them for a long time by canon. What we know about the "relatives" section of Adventurer's Bible profiles is that it only lists living relatives, for example Marcille only has her mother listed, her father isn't listed as deceased and her step-father isn't listed there, meanwhile Kabru only has Milsiril listed, not his mother or even his father (which we don't know the status of, but Kabru doesn't know him either since he left when he was born). So what does this mean for Mickbell's relatives? Either he doesn't know what family he has, or he doesn't know if they're alive. It's not unlike how Kabru's name is stated as unknown, which either means he was renamed Kabru or that Kabru doesn't know just a part of it, like his last name- perhaps forgotten due to trauma, or his mother never told him due to their disowning them.

It could mean he was abandoned on the streets before he could remember so he doesn't know of any parent or caretaker they had, or it could be a lot of things. I do want to point out that both Mickbell and Kuro have "permanently out of contact" with their siblings, but Kuro still has his siblings listed on his profile, not "unknown". Since we get this info I do think Mickbell knew his sister, and I think it all lends itself to the "he doesn't know if they're alive" theory more. I mean, so much could have happened! But I think it's pretty safe to assume that Mickbell and his sister were on the streets together, until they were separated. Due to her messy hair and dead inside look I used to like to think she fell sick and as the older brother it fell on him to take care of both their needs and he couldn't manage to heal her before she died- or they were separated or something happened and he had to assume the worst. But something like some big event making them flee on their separate ways and then fail to see each other again, some other tragedy that made him part from her without knowing of her state... Or my favorite: one day she disappeared. Maybe he told her to stay there while he went to steal some food and he came back and she wasn't there, maybe one night she didn't come back to the alley where they always slept and she never did again, just. Did something happen to her? Was there an accident and she died in some ditch somewhere? Did someone kidnap her? Did she just leave him behind? He doesn't know. He doesn't know and he never will and he can't get an answer. And not having closure is almost worse than suspecting she's dead, or even if he knew it for certain. Because there's always a doubt. There'll always be that he doesn't understand what happened. There'll always remain that knowledge that things can just suddenly disappear one day, it'll be a normal day until it isn't, that people can leave, that everyone he's ever had (and there weren't many) HAVE left they're GONE and he's ALONE, and there'll always be that knowledge that Mickbell couldn't protect his little sister, couldn't even know she was in danger that time, if she was. Again in a way there's that parallel with Chilchuck where Chilchuck is very muh someone worried about the people he cares about's safety and has a protector role the best he can, and Mickbell usually is the one getting protected but he is very possessive and overprotective of Kuro, the one person he has. And just. Waughhhh. Idk if I'll make another post about Mickbell backstory speculation or his sister now if unprompted but for the record I like to call his sister Yukibelle/bella. Yuki because it means snow like deathly pale sickly skin, and it's a 4 letter japanese name, which being 4 letters 2 syllables suits half-foot names aaand most importantly, since Kuro isn't Kuro's real name and it just means "black" in japanese I like to think esp because of the language barrier taht that's just what Mickbell named him. And having no parents imo Mickbell would have named his sister, or even renamed her if she did have a name to spite whoever abandoned them...... In big brother fashion he likes to call her Yuckbelle. Ickybell and Yuckbelle the sublings ever. I was the one who chose your name so I can't make fun of it? Haha try again!........ I need to cope somehow guys. Having lived in the streets with the highest degree of life or death survival on the daily it's also easy to speculate Mickbell had other hardships and trauma like, say, selling his body and to people who are less than ideal. Just saying!! A lot of things you can resdy into his backstory that further explain or explore aspects of his character.

Unlike Chilchuck "I will never fight" Tims, Mickbell actually never fights. Like at all. Ever. His skills are clinging, cowering and getting covered, and giving orders. Both Chilchuck and Mickbell can be both mature and immature, but Chilchuck tends to embody maturity within the narrative and Mickbell is usually much more remembered as immature. Enneagram 6w7 (wants stability and simple pleasures & freedom on the side), same as Chilchuck. 6 is the fear of being without support and that's exactly what Kuro offers..... Very 8 as well, there's a case to be made about him being 683 like Chilchuck but I could see him be more of a 2 or 4 too. God he wants to be loved so bad. He's also quite tall but never mentions a diet to not set off traps, which may be because his diet is already poor. To me he seems like he doesn't care for culture at all having lived in survival on the fringe of society, similarly to him not having much half-foot pride, but he does smile as a dwarf so dwarves being the ideal body type still seems to be something he's in line with.

Post-canon, he opens a variety store with Kuro, and it's said his relationship with Kuro stays unbalanced. We don't know where it was opened, if they stayed in Melini or went back to Kahka Brud- but since Mickbell's dream is to specifically get a house in Kahka Brud's best neighborhoods and it's where he lived before on the streets, it seems to make sense house in Kahka Brud would still be his goal and to set up shop there. Not that we get an update on the house funds, the post-canon blurb is still in the near future after canon so their futures are still very much left open.

Kuro

Please refer to this post to see Kuro's profile pages.

Mickbell is so tragedy coded but Kuro is honestly... Like he's vibing. He has normalized the abuse (emotional manipulation & isolating the target both so that they need you for stability and emotional supoort + control their life and relationships are literally abuse tactics come on guys) but so much so that it appears both to Kuro and to us like that abuse has little grip on him, we see that he has more agency than we'd assumed. Kuro allows Mickbell to lower his quality of life way too much for sure, partly because Mickbell plays the part of vulnerable lil guy well, but what's so funny is that where Mickbell thinks he's being a mastermind all "🥺I was the one to save you from the streets, without me you'd be lost!! Everyone else wants you suffering, better stick with me!!😊" Kuro literally explains their relationship with "he's so pathetic and anxious, he needs me there :(" - which lends a whole new look to how pokerfaced Kuro always is when Mickbell is giving him his manipulative drivel lol. It flips the dynamic Mickbell was presenting because where Mickbell tries so hard to force their relationship to be that Kuro needs him, Kuro correctly identifies that it's Mickbell who needs Kuro- even more than for safety and financial reasons, because of emotional ones. So where it felt like their relationship was one where Kuro was fully tricked in that Kuro can only live by Mickbell's side for his own sake, Kuro wants to stay for Mickbell's sake and is well aware of Mickbell's issues and wants to help as a therapy dog would?? He doesn't care about the money or the food, he cares about Mickbell. The irony of it all is that Kuro could have left anytime, but stayed for Mickbell all along. It's easy then to assume that Kuro has it all figured out after reading the secret study session comic but that's also oversimplifying. Kuro seems emotionally intelligent in many ways- but sort of lacks sense in how it should be applied and how things should be, I guess is how I would put it? I still call their relationship abusive because it still is, Mickbell still isolates Kuro and manipulation is still the intent of a lot of what he says and does with him, and "well I know very well they're shitty but they need me" is a common dynamic irl in abusive and toxic relationships too, but it still reframes their relationship a lot to know that Kuro is not at the stage of "Mickbell is always right about everything and I'll follow him to the ends of the world because of it" but at the "this anxious miserable boy needs me and it's my duty to protect him". Mickbell is running a manipulation onemanshow against himself and Kuro is taking another path entirely, he has an immunity called language barrier lmao. /hj Kuro is hiding things from him Mick has no clue about, that he's having nightly study sessions with Kabru, but he's not hiding this out of a sense of fear but out of care.

Their relationship is based on misunderstandings and lack of communication, and that's due to a lot of things both the language barrier thing and how they tend to run with their own interpretations of things (Mickbell thinking he knows why Kuro stays, Kuro thinking MICKBELL IS A KID WHEN MICK IS OLDER THAN HIM). Kabru himself thinks that when Kuro becomes fluent in common and the two can truly speak together is when they'll really become fruends. It's a hopeful outlook! But it makes sense, because again their relationship is based on miscommunication, Mickbell is afraid Kuro only stays because he has to because Kuro can't reassure him that he cares for Mick, and Kuro only has part of the picture because they can't talk it out, so giving them the tools to truly be able to talk and understand each other fully would completely flip the dynamic. It's truly interesting how they only have each other, but even in their relationship they're both very isolated.

"I don't want to make him anxious if I can help it. He's still a kid, but he's been through a lot of rough stuff. I'd like to be somebody he can feel relaxed around."

So yes, Kuro explicitly thinks of Mickbell as a child he must protect and watch over, care for! He has a more mentor way to talk about it, but it's easy to assume Kuro sees Mickbell as family too. Especially since he has a lot of siblings, many younger! He has a bit of a protective instinct and thinks he should be a protector, simply because Mickbell needs him, not for other more grand or personal reasons. He takes upon himself, both duties and in general for everything, he can't talk with others but that's fine, he's a dungeon diver who gets worked hard and even fights and that's fine by him, he just takes upon himself incessantly, like with Mickbell he sort of shrugs and says it is how it is.

Kuro still thinking of Mickbell as a kid has interesting implications. During the main story Mickbell is 22 and Kuro is 18- how many years could they really have spent together? He left his hometown to see more of the world and was kidnapped at a port, so we could assume he left home after coming of age at 13. He was kidnapped at a port and was part of slave market on the eastern continent, where kobolds are rarer and thus probably more profitable, so it makes sense that he'd have gotten sent to the eastern continent straight away. Just travelling the sea can take a while- the world map makes me think the sea between the western and eastern continent is of Atlantic Sea size, which irl can take a little under a week to travel through at a good pace, but with the lack of navigation technologies compared to today if you're less sure of where to go it can be more around a month. Unlikely for Kuro to have spent all that long in a cage on a boat then, but where it could get messier is once he's on the eastern continent. Mickbell freed Kuro from the guy who was holding him in a cage calling him a demihuman trader rather than an owner, so Kuro wouldn't have gotten sold yet? Or traded between different slave merchants, I wouldn't be surprised if he changed hands a couple times without having been ever sold to a customer really. It's said that the Island has a slave market for example so there seems to be large demand in many places and for it not to be done in secrecy really. But their meeting happens in Kahka Brud let's remember- which is a city with a big economical growth and market & sompopulation due to the dungeon cluster there, so it'd make sense for Kuro to have been sent there straight. Kuro was obviously mistreated, shown to stink and likely starved not unlike Izutsumi's experience caged in a freak show, but he's not bony enough for me to really be able to give a time estimation of neglect and starvation with his looks alone. This is a lot just to say "Well if we assume he left home at 13 and was enslaved soon after leaving home, and the process of getting to Kahka Brud could have taken a month at fastest, he could theoretically known Mickbell since then". During canon they're both on the Island rather than Kahka Brud, but we have nothing to be able to tell when Kuro and Mickbell came to the Island, just that they came together and that he was probably hired when Kabru formed a party 2 years before canon. We can try to compare him with Chilchuck- Canon happens in year 514, but Chilchuck came to the island five years ago, when he formed the half-foot union. Comapring them is relevant because Chilchuck comes from Kahka Brud too, again the place with a cluster of dungeons, so Chilchuck and Mickbell choosing to come to the Island for dungeon diving prospects shows the same attitude that the Kahka Brud dungeons are already all pillaged and overworked and to seek dungeons elsewhere. And who knows, maybe Mickbell didn't really choose to become an adventurer, maybe it was just about fleeing Kahka Brud since that was where he stole and did scams, but dungeon diving does seem to be a desperate man's job in many ways so it makes sense either way. The way Mickbell talks about Chilchuck, I don't get the feeling Mickbell's been on the island for longer/as long as Chilchuck and for longer than the half-foot union's existed, which makes sense if we go by the "maximum 5 years ago" theory of Mickbell and Kuro's meeting. They likely stuck around Kahka Brud for a while before deciding to go for it and move to the Island. So I guess, we can shoot to say that they knew each other for a maximum of five years but a minimum of two? I like to think Kuro spent at least a couple of months enslaved and so I'd put my own estimate at around 3-4 years, which is already a lot if you're them. A looot of time to bond with the only person in your life.

It's a bit odd, usually in a character who's been stolen away from their home a goal of theirs would be to go see their family again, but Kuro never brings up anything like that. Whether that means his homelife wasn't great, or that he feels closure enough just continuing to travel as he wanted, or even that he more or less forgot because of the trauma, who knows truly. You'll notice his stated dream is to travel with Mickbell, which ironically is directly incompatible with Mickbell's dream of settling down and getting a house with Kuro to live in. Since he was kidnapped by slave traders at a port in his original continent, we can surmise Kuro always had a taste for travel. Kuro isn't even his real name, Yodan is! His detachment from his homeland, family and cukture is very interesting. He has no problem just leaving it all behind indifinitely.

So yes Kuro isn't his actual name- so "Kuro", meaning "black" in japanese must have been a nickname given to him, and I bet it was Mickbell. Being a half-foot and a kobold who can't understand each other, the language barrier made Mickbell just start referring to him by the color of his fur. Kuro never mentions his real name so it doesn't seem he particularly cares- which is a wider point about Kuro actually, that he seems to be very laidback and laissez-faire type, unbothered and passive. Things are how they are and he goes along with it. He's not a confrontational person but he also trusts his guts when someone like Izutsumi feels off. He never questions Mickbell. When Kabru inquires about him and Mickbell, Kuro goes "oh don't worry about it it's nothing tbh". Which is also in line with how it's stated Kuro doesn't give a rat's ass about honor or wealth, he doesn't really seem to have a moral compass as much as "Mickbell is what matters to me so only what Mickbell wants and thinks matters", he follows Mickbell's orders with blind devotion when it comes to work or what they decide to do with their lives and that's just well with him. This reminds me of Falin a lot, the way I perceive them. Just utter devotion to their loved ones without really caring for what's morally right or wrong- because love is the priority and loved ones' wellbeing and happiness are all that truly matter, and sacrificing themselves and their own agency to make that happen. Kuro overlooks his own needs because he prioritizes others', Mickbell's. I think his views on relationships and what’s normal are very skewed. That said, Kabru calls Kuro overprotective too, and I think Kuro can be very stubborn as well, and as we see with the comic where Kabru and him talk about Izutsumi's smell he's perfectly able to have strong opinions, he's not only the stoic type. Kuro's very coddling with Mickbell, and while I do think he's a nice guy I definitely think Mickbell is an exception where that's pushed to the extreme for Kuro, Kuro's fixated on Mickbell just as much as Mickbell is fixated on Kuro. Codependence has never been truer a word gdbdgd. Kuro is rather polite and conscientious, in a regular conversation you'd think he very well-adjusted, he's smart and very observant, not just aided by his nose but with how aptly he notices psychological aspects of Mickbell for example, he's eager to learn and hardworking.

Kuro's biggest interest and dream is referred to be travelling, he left home to do just that before he was ever kidnapped already so it's not even an acquired taste from being encaged. And that fits well with Kuro just following the flow imo, Kuro's wants like Mickbell are small pleasures in life like that, just walking around and seeing new sights... Mickbell wants food and a roof over his head and Kuro wants food and freedom. Ironically, their wishes are directly contradictory- Mickbell wants to live in a house with Kuro and Kuro wants to travel around with Mickbell, Mickbell even has his dream of a specific neighborhood. But it is very notable that both their dreams mention the other, whatever it is they end up doing they want to do it together. Post-canon, he opens a variety store with Kuro, and it's said his relationship with Kuro stays unbalanced. We don't know where it was opened, if they stayed in Melini or went back to Kahka Brud- but since Mickbell's dream is to specifically get a house in Kahka Brud's best neighborhoods and it's where he lived before on the streets, it seems to make sense house in Kahka Brud would still be his goal and to set up shop there. Not that we get an update on the house funds, the post-canon blurb is still in the near future after canon so their futures are still very much left open. Just wait until Kuro learns common...! That'll solve everything........!

Hmm 7w6? Noo 7w8 actually god... Too real... Get me out of here the Mickbell and Kuro double whammy is making me need a smsooo many characters in Dunmeshi have this theme of learning to live for yourself, be comfortable in your skin and get in touch with your needs and desires more Kuro!!

Relationships

: Overlook

Ok THIS is the fun part. So I made this chart as sort of a summary- we'll especially be looking at the personal bonds and work besties relationships through sections, but that's not to say those dynamics are the only things going on. I tried to keep only the basics and essentials, but you could also totally have added a Kuro to Kabru arrow mentioning how Kabru is teaching him common, or one from Mickbell to Holm about how Mickbell crashes at Holm's place occasioanllu. I made the purple lines based on what we see in canon, but it’s totally possible that Rin also judges Mickbell and Kuro, and that Holm and Dia judge Kabru & Rin as well, even though I don’t really think so, not particularly.

And that's what I’m getting at here: their party has a lot hanging in the air that everyone is more or less aware of but don’t truly acknowledge aloud, don't speak about or resolve. Holm and Dia needle Mickbell about his treatment of Kuro but don’t actually do anything or push, Kabru tries to help by teaching Kuro common but seems to be content "meddling" in only small subtle ways over time like that doing just what he can, concludes that the relationship mess goes bot hways and decide to just keep an eye on it quietly, meanwhile Mickbell seems tired of seeing Rin and Kabru bicker over her crush when Kabru teases and they argue, but doesn’t think to have a tal kabout whatever the fuck it is they have going on- it’s routine, it’s just how things are. It's commonplace- so their serious accusations about Mickbell are mentioned a grand total of twice and that's that, and only Mickbell out of everyone acknowledges aloud that Rin and Kabru have a weird thing going on and that Rin is weirdly deoted to Kabru/loves him implicitly. Everyone is much more ready to comment on Kuro & Mickbell than Rin & Kabru- which, absolutely deserved yes, but are what Kabru and Rin have not intensely weird behavior. Would you not get a headache trying to understand what's going on there and listening to their flirting and scolding and arguments on the regular. Do they never get "this needs to stop"? No, only Mickbell? Okay

Made this lil collage above but it's notable that the whole party throws casual jabs at Kabru all the time also, whether about how he can't take care of himself or how obsessed or weird he can be. Although everyone has respect and trust for kabru, they're also all fairly comfortable criticizing him. We see this in the shapeshifter "what if" comic too- his party members often find KAbru too extreme and overly dedicated, but ultimately trust him and follow his lead. Dia keeps her nose out of things but beyond hater duo Mickbell & Rin, even Holm comments regularly on his people pleasing and bad cleaning and organisation habits. Paralleling the Laios hater duo of Marcille and Chilchuck in the main party, Rin and Mickbell are especially critical and harsh on Kabru, here's a short and incomplete compilation to illustrate the point. Do they do fuckall about it though? No not really.

Everyone at some point or other shows concern for Kuro, it shows they don’t default to treating him as furniture or a tool after a long time of working together, they value him, but there’s always a third party barrier through which they have to interact, Mickbell- except for Kabru who can communicate with him on Kuro's own territory and have alone time with. But no one except Kabru and Mickbell even try to talk to/with Kuro, and you could also easily argue Kuro is not fully humanized, there's how no one except Mickbell worried for Kuro here for example.

I want you to imagine being Dia or Holm. I want you to imagine what it must take for there to be not one but two insane dynamics in your party amongst your coworkers, with who your job is so to camp with for weeks at a time, and not even blink at it anymore. I want you to imagine being kind and queen of staying in your lane and having these two obvious codependent situationships amongst your coworkers and just go "if I don't acknowledge this things are gonna go more smoothly". Save them get them out of there. Just the occasional long suffering sigh and "Mickbell that's not right :/" and yes, your job here is done.

You really start seeing this pattern looking closer where their party are fraught with interpersonal drama. The will-they-won't-they casanova leader & his angry tsundere childhood friend and Mickbell and his "employee" he exploits and isolates from the wider world??????? Truth of their relationship aside as we've discussed, this is how people around them perceive their dynamics and the optics are insane (/negative hello). The true doom of Kabru's party is all this interpersonal drama going on??? The very thing Chilchuck fears about parties lol, HOW has this party not imploded on itself yet. And personally I think that's a good part of what they contrast with the main party about- Where Kabru's party failed, Laios' party succeeded because they talked their differences out, they challenged each other on topics they disagree on and argued, instead of always just brushing everything under the rug. The reason canon happens at all is becase under the emergency of the situation Laios decides to be vulnerable and come clean about his interest in monster cuisine after all, and yes judgement and racism is rampant at first, but they reach an understanding through open communication. Meanwile, Kabru's party doing social 8d chess.......... Just keep on making passive aggressive comments forever see where it gets you.

This party also has a running theme with unabalanced and onesided relationships, and emotional dependence/burdening. It feels weird for it to be so weirdly intricately developed and consistent even though it does nothing in the main story- except for strengthening the whole diverse living cast thing which is important to the lesson and theme of people coming together despite differences is good, and like, "you can't judge others' relationships and sitations without knowing them" you know, but. It's here man it's here and present and too loud for me to unsee. Rin is dependent on Kabru and there's an argument to be made about the reverse being true as well even if Kabru is emotionally unavailable, and then there's the codependent Mickbell & Kuro mess, and even Dia and her fiance are faced with some unbalanced relationship and emotional unavailability. So our lineup is kabrin, mickuro, Dia & fiance and Holm who has a barely breathing social life. I suppose the latter's not uncommn though, the same can be said with most of Laios' party including Namari and Toshiro.... But good lord. This combined with how Dia & Holm get along together the best does make the party dynamic really funny though in a vacuum, everyone's going razy with intense tea meanwhile Dia and Holm the quiet judgers who glance at each other like do you see this shit. You are the only one normal here. (One has researched illegal magic and the other grew up in a cult.)

To me it's also really interesting Kabru hiring Mickbell and Kuro especially. Kabru is someone who works off reputation a lot, he has his homegrown informant web called gossip buddies and whatnot, and we know that while he's willing to go to questionable lengths for his beliefs, he has a pretty strong sense of right and wrong where stealing from people who ripped you off and repeatedly led you to death was a no-no. With all the shit Mickbell is catching even now about his slave- ehem, business partner, I doubt Mickbell would have seemed anywhere squeaky clean. Kabru hired a pretty blatant morally loose person who has stolen and scammed- and I think that's very interesting. Was Kabru desperate for party members? Maybe with Dia and Holm, believing in his cause was important-? No no, it's more likely the other way around- only desperate adventurers (or the ones who specifically want Kabru as their party member) stick to being in his party, with all the failures it experiences. Mickbell and Kuro are the only on who don't express loyalty to Kabru, so maybe Kabru's party was the only party willing to hire him- especially if he and Kuro are a package deal where they both get paid. And there's how Mickbell isn't affiliated with the half-foot guild too! Which means no work protections for him but also no salary cut? But yes yes, especially with the way he treated the corpse retrievers you'd think he wouldn't want anyone shifty on his side, but there's also the side of Kabru that loves to help others out, both on a societal and an interpersonal level- and I like to think that despite Mickbell obviously being from a rougher crowd he not only saw the two of them for the skilled people they are but also just, saw they were in a tough spot and wanted to offer a chance y'know? I had a convo about that once where I asked my Kabru expert friend what they thought about Kabru's grasp on socioeconomics and helping out people who are in tough situations for circumstances beyond their control, because you'd think Kabru would be understanding but then with the corpse retrievers, who seem Not Well Off and are comprised by many mixed races individuals like a half-dwarf and a half-gnome........ Helki and Mickbell are alike in many ways and it's interesting to think that may have played a part... Kabru seeing this disheveled obviously sketchy down on his luck Mickbell and being reminded of the only father figure he's ever had in his life, another blonde smartass with a ponytail, an ex-convict from a rough criminal background… And wanting to hire him to help him have a chance to get out of that place lowkey... I'M JUST SPITBALLING!!!!

Anyways so getting back to the crux of the matter, this is how the party naturally divides up with each other, the same kind of way Laios & Senshi and Marcille & Chilchuck did especially early on.

But the interesting thing is that Kabru keeps everyone at a distance, Rin included, so how does it divide up when Kabru and Rin aren’t interacting? She stays alone? Nope, oddly enough she seems to gravitate towards Mickbell. And the reverse is true- which makes sense since his partner isn’t a good conversationalist. Mickbell doesn’t really see Kuro as an equal, Kuro is his beloved fool he's tricking on the daily in his mind after all, so he doesn't seek out Kuro for opinions, because unlike Rin Kuro isn't a peer. In the page on the right notice the second panel, everyone gives each other a silent glance and this summarizes the dynamics here really well. Kabru is telling his plan of keeping going and this is everyone's moment to agree or disagree. Holm and Dia look to each other, more neutral. Rin and Mickbell look to each other, seeming more displeased, and Kuro looks to Mickbell. In that second of gauging each other's feelings through a glance, their resolve and opinion gets steeled and everyone tells their feelings after, Mickbell and Rin more reluctant. On the left you can see who sits next to who, who walks next to who in the party formation- Rin is always right next to KAbru but Mickbell is at her side, with Holm following without attracting much attention to himself and Daya closing the group on the lookout for threats. Mickbell & Kuro and Rin & Kabru as actual friends impotant in each other's lives tend to duo up, meanwhile Dia & Holm and Mickbell & Rin are more like "each other's favorite coworker" than actual friends, so Holm and Dia don't even necessarily stick together, at the risk of being third wheels. In fact the christmas gift exchange is a good character writing moment with everyone, if you want to look at their gifts and reactions.

So yes this explains how I divided up the chart, the duos are Rin & Kabru bond, Mickbell & Kuro bond, Mickbell & Rin coworker besties, Dia & Holm coworker besties.

Rin & Kabru

I made a rather in depth post on their relationship recently, specifically trying to nail down whether or not Kabru could have/had romantic or ambiguous feelings for her beyond/instead of "big sister":

It's a good look at it that covers most of the matter and has much, much more pictures than I could otherwise put here, so I'm allowing myself to go over this section faster here and summarize things.

Their relationship is obviously very onesided and... Needy, for a lack of a better word, because Rin is clingy and Kabru is probably her one friend in her life currently- but it's always been that way anyways hasn't it, did she have anyone else at the elves' too, did she have any in the village she grew up in that hated her family so much they killed them? She's overbearing and hovers over his shoulder for mistakes when they're together, but her reason for doing so is out of worry for Kabru, that because of his ambitious and self-neglectful tendencies he'll get himself into trouble, and she's not wrong about that! Kabru holds himself on his own currently, but it's not hard to see a future where he slowly descends into neglecting himself more and more in his focus on his work, but no currently he's still able to endear his landlord into cleaning his room for him and to put himself to sleep with alcohol. The relationship is onesided because Rin's always the one pushing and Kabru never truly opens up, but their relationship does have push and pull too- Kabru does pull sometimes. It isn't like Kuro simply passively enabling Mickbell's issues and bad behaviors, but in many ways encouraging them. Kabru flirts with her. He jokes and he teases in ways that come dangerously close to acknowledging aloud she has feelings for it, and never turning her down despite it being clear to us he has no intent on ever reciprocating them- He leads her on, whatever his intent is. And I go into possibilities of how and why in the separate post a lot, but overall I'd say that it's because he does need her back in a way too. It's that repressed desire for connection that rears its head with Laios and even Mithrun too. Maybe they're an ill-fitting match, but it's what he has, the friend he's had for the longest- Like I like to say, seeing Rin as his best friend is so sad and tragic but it’s also not wrong. From what we see she’s the closest to him, which is sad to think about. How can a guy’s social life be so thriving yet down in the dumps truly. She completely relies on him for purpose in her state in canon and dumps her emotions and issues on him, but he does play with her back and avoids his emotions and needs through her too. He has the uer hand in their dynamic, was even the one to ask Rin to come along with him when they left the elven kingdom. She's a fixture in his life, she's a safety net, she's someone who'll love him unconditionally, who even if he mistreats her a bit he knows she'll stick with him. He sees her as a big sister, after all. He knows her tough love is love. Does he give her jokes to latch onto as his way to keep her in check, or to make sure she'll want to keep following him? He can't bear to bare himself to anyone, but if it's Rin, she knows infinitely well how Kabru isn't perfect, constantly reminds him of that, and where in every other relationship he tries to be or has people believing he is perfect, with her he can be a little rotten, a little inconsiderate- and idk idk man. I don't think there's really a conclusion we can get to with them, but a lot of their dynamic feels just very. Mutually unhealthy. Like self-harm almost.

And like, look at the picture of them dancing below! Just it alone implies a dynamic already. They balance each other out somewhat, because they're severe about different things, Kabru encourages her to let loose socially but Rin keeps him from getting too full of himself in his own corner, because she always keeps calling out to him specifically, to the Kabru she knows and that he knows she knows- though maybe doubts sometimes. They both keep each other from being too caught up in themselves- but both of them are also frowning here. They also enable each other in very bad ways imo and inadvertently push each other into their bad habits, nagging Kabru makes him retreat into his shell even more and approach their relationship calculatingly or even coldly knowing of her feelings for him, and getting all the attention from Kabru in a way she doesn't want- because she can tell he still has his walls up- makes her more frustrated and it's all just a bad cycle of feeding each other to continue just as the status quo is. Rin nags him so Kabru throws her a bone so Rin nags him etc. But they're also genuinely dear to each other, maybe more iut of memories than because of the present, so they can't really let go of each other. Fucking doom tango fr

My take on Rin being particularly severe on Kabru, beyond just being worried that any mistake has a dangerous cost for people like them, is that like. She knows Kabru, from way back, and she sees his persona, how he tries to be perfect for others and caters to everyone's needs except his own, how he keeps himself hidden like that. And she doesn't wang Kabru the persona, just Kabru the person, the man she loves- and he's trying to be perfect but it's futile, and it just makes him more cardboard cutout, he's being fake and it just makes her so angry how he keeps his distance with her, so at every turn she tells him when he's not perfect, at every turn she reminds him of his flaws, as if to say, "you can't be perfect, just stop". And every flirt he sends her way during the story makes her madder because again she knows it's just empty air to toy with her, so she scolds harder. Like I don't think she's a self-aware person in general, so I think she mostly just feels this as sadness completely masked with anger that drives her foward and makes her impulsively say things, and she thinks what she says is right and she's being righteous, but also there's just this gaping void in her at the state of things, there's frustration whenever she sees Kabru smile a plastic smile at others all the time, and she doesn't know why. And the only worse thing is to have that plastic smile targeted at her- but it makes whenever he offers her more genuine unprompted attention all the more precious, like in the comic about her smiling.

They kept in touch post-canon! But it seems inevitable to me that the change in their lives made them grow a bit more distant, not working together all the time anymore. Rin figures Kabru is being taken care of by now, being a part of the royal court, and goes to pursue her own ventures, but they're still friends and that shows with Kabru inviting her to the castle. Rin can't help herself but to visit him once in a while to see if he's still breathing I bet- I do think she has a bit of a "only I don't get fooled by you (especially when you say you're fine)" way to think about him and their rekationship, a big of why she'd say the "Don't think everyone's going to fall for you". Anyways, it is fun to theorize Rin might be a pharmacist often hired by the castle hehe, but yes yes that's all we get info wise. Here's to hoping she mellows out some

Mickbell & Kuro

So, their relationship is more messed up than Kabru and Rin's, but it's less up in the air/free grounds for interpretation, much more directly explained. Their character profiles & extra pages alone give a really good look at their relationship and both their perspectives of it: Kuro's family that Mickbell has to find ways to chain to himself or he feels insecure, Mickbell to Kuro is a vulnerable kid that he chooses to look after and go the extra mile of being mindful & considerate of said insecurities. I already talked about it a lot in the Mickbell & Kuro sections, and the post I linked above has a longer but more compact analysis of them- but yes yes I'll still cover the essential and the new here. I said it earlier but Mickbell needs Kuro more than Kuro needs Mickbell- Kuro is like the entirety of Mickbell's emotional regulation 'skills' lol, where Kuro needs Mickbell in a material sense where Kuro wouldn't be able to communicate well with others or go far without money and Mickbell, Mickbell needs Kuro because otherwise he'd be shattered- not to say that Kuro isn't also very useful to have around for his muscles. Both of them are very physically and mentally vunerable both, the pyramid of maslow is not being met on any level eesh. Kuro needs a compass and Mickbell needs an anchor, both of them needed a purpose in the day to day life of survival and both chose each other for that- protect Mickbell, and buy a house with Kuro. The human mind thrives off of goals, desires. Again this thing with compass & anchor is very reminiscent of Falin with Kuro, the way she centered her life around others, so much so that when she was a mentally compromised chimera she defaulted to that way of being with Thistle. But they're in that spot very similar to them where one is especially very mentally vulnerable and easy to control whereas the other is very physically vulnerable if the other were to decide they've had enough and go murder mode on him. It's the dog loving the chain on its collar.

How long have they known each other? Who knows, but I estimated it between 2 to 5 years, between when Kuro became an adult and when Kabru formed a party- but even those are just guesses. I also think he named Kuro, since Kuro's name is actually Yodan and "kuro" simply means "black" in japanese, with the language barrier Mickbell wouldhave just started nicknaming him by the color of his fur.

It’s important to remember how they started: Mickbell saving Kuro and Kuro saving Mickbell, Mickbell freeing Kuro out of spite which made Kuro follow him and then Kuro saving Mickbell by maiming the guy who had kept him in a cage and was threatening Mickbell, prompting Mickbell to suggest hiring him (while being broke) as a bodyguard, half out of fear half out of seizing opportunities? And we'll get to that but this is a good way to understand why they're both so "It's us vs the world", they both came from a similar situation surviving in the slums together but even before that they had the same man for enemy, Mick helped Kuro out and Kuro helped Mick out in turn, and they stuck together. So that’s the origins of Kuro being "his employee" that he’s working for peanuts, it’s less disingenuous and eager than we’d expect, the attachment Mickbell formed to Kuro was over time, eventually associating Kuro with both safety and companionship. Meanwhile Kuro seemed ride or die very early, being saved helped I’m sure, but remembering that Kuro thinks of Mickbell as a child to protect also helps frame why Kuro would be so ready to devote himself to guarding him- seeing a small vulnerable "kid" in all this danger, constantly surrounded by threats and famine. So in the end, a big factor for their relationship is that they can’t communicate for shit. For several reasons including language barrier, overly controlling and dehumanizing behavior/abuse tactics backfiring- and emotional constipation. They both have preconceived notions and they both just.... Don't really know each other. I don't think Mickbell even knows his name- Kuro thinks he's a kid! They don't know each other, but they also know each other in the way of familiarity, in the form of having spent years inseparable glued to each other. Mickbell doesn't know Kuro's name and Kuro doesn't know Kuro's age, they don't know the other have siblings they have cut contact with and they don't know each other's dreams, they've never had an actual conversation especially on equal grounds, but also they know each other's mannerisms. They know each other's favorite foods. They know the sound of each other laughing and crying and the feeling of each other's warmth. They know each other but they also don't know each other at all!!!!! Crazy crazyyyy dynamic.

The "it's us vs the world" is so so strong with them especially from Mickbell's end, and can you blame him? Can you blame him when he's been kicked down like a dog all his life and he sees that in Kuro too? And perhaps no one else can ever understand Mickbell and know and stay with him like Kuro does, even when they can't even have actual conversations. This is it for Mickbell, Kuro is all he'll ever get in his mind and he's intent on never letting go, he's all he'll ever get and us all he wants and he cannot, will not, ever, let him go.

And the whole snarling-growling thing is very interesting too, especially since that's contrasted with Kabru (scroll down here for pictures). Mickbell has little experience with kobolds beside Kuro but also his first impression of Kuro was seeing him bite and maim a man to death. Kabru has experience with kobolds from his homeland where they're seen as more serious threat than cute doggy people, where there was fighting and rumors and presumably contact too since Kabru learned some of kobold language and he was only 6, AND Kabru has trauma with monsters and beasts in general. When Kuro growls, Mickbell goes "hey I told you to stop growling that's scary :/", and Kabru goes "Kuro, what's wrong?". And this is sooo so fascinating to me. Part of this already is again the language barrier, Kabru can ask Kuro to comfortably explain the issue where Mick cannot (he could still try though since Kuro can still speak some albeit broken common), so with Mickbell Kuro only has body language that doesn't come naturally to non-kobolds to communicate with- but Mickbell dismisses it as regularly as he doesn't. Part of it for Mickbell is having been on the other side of Kuro when angry, having seen how scary he can be and afraid himself- but then why? Does Mickbell still get scared of Kuro when he snarls and acts like that, the way a lot of us flinch when someone gets mad and yells? Does Kuro feel more unpredictable then, and that's scary for many reasons? Or maybe it's because he's scared of the way others see Kuro, that others will dehumanize Kuro if he emotes in ways like this. From where they come living on the streets, looking wrong at the wrong guy can cost a lot, so Mickbell may have extra developed a sense of keeping your head down at the right times and not provoking when risky- and he can't fully control Kuro so when that choice is out of his hands things feel a lot more shaky. Of course though in any case, growling or no growling Mickbell sticks with Kuro, keeps holding onto him when he snarls, it never crosses his mind to step away from Kuro or leave him behind, consequences or uncertainty be damned. Just, the justified concern mixing with the unhealthy possessiveness and controlling, the genuine fear... It represents their wider relationship pretty well in just one example.

He fucking sticks with Kuro with the baths!! Many bathhouses don't accept kobolds but Mickbell tirelessly keeps looking for one who will, Mickbell and Kuro are a PACKAGE DEAL and it stays that way even when it's inconvenient for Mickbell. Mickbell washes Kuro and spends hours brushing him afterwards with immense care and patience, there's effort there on his end too there is consideration and love!! They are sooooo ride or die!!!! "Now you're the cleanest dog in the whole wild world, no one can look down on you"!!!!!!

They have incompatible dreams of the future, Mickbell wants to settle down in a house and Kuro wants to travel, both want to do it together. My thing with Mick & Kuro post-canon is the only ways I see it develop and go down is: 1) Kuro becomes able to easily converse with him and their relationship changes with a lot of rough bumps but slowly and surely towards something better and/or 2) Kuro leaves to travel here and there while Mick manages the house, they’re still in a life partnership but they’re ok being apart for a while now. Mickbell learns that leaving doesn’t mean there’s no coming back and to live beyond each other ykyk <3 But while Kabru himself is hopeful that when Kuro becomes fluent in common Mickbell and Kuro can "really become friends", their post-canon blurbs break our hopes for a near future resolution, specifying that Mickbell "still works Kuro hard". They open a variety store together! I like to call it Mick & Kuro's knick knacks <3 Does Mickbell still keep his prices and product descriptions dangerously close to being scammy? Possible! He's earned it though he has his own store brooo his own building his own business... I know that shit got him emotional We do see that Kuro gets him to be healthier slowly but surely though- in the last chapters we see him push Mickbell implicitly towards the half-foot guild! Kuro is protective but not possessive and he encourages Mickbell to get out of his shell, reflecting how he talks about Mickbell as someone needing support and gentle care & understanding- he was being real about noticing his issues and wanting him to become happier.

Once upon a time back in my early days of shipping mickrin I entertained the thought Mickbell's attachment to Mickbell may have a romantic nature mixed in as well, whether it'd be "genuine" or maladaptive's too complex for me to say- but what was funny is that even in that case to me nothing changed. I think that in a world where Mickbell likes Kuro romantically, he would neverrr ever make a move because he'd be too terrified Kuro would dislike it and leave- so instead it just gets lashed out in different ways and he vents & seeks that out in other people kinda hoping it'd be Kuro or whatever. Kuro's too precious to risk is the thing. "It's us vs the world" and if Kuro leaves then is when he would be truly alone- like I mention in the Mickbell & Kuro I linked I think Mickbell is very afraid of change. It's why I think the possible future of Kuro learning to talk common well would be rockier than we'd assume at first- and I think in that fear of change is the fear of changing the nature of their relationship and lowkey even the fear of deepening it- What if Kuro starts actually understanding what Mickbell always says and decides Mickbell is stupid and unlikable after all? What if Kuro starts talking and Mickbell doesn't like what he says? What would Mickbell do if Kuro started being more inquisitive, asking more questions and requesting more things? Mickbell is terrified of Kuro having agency and it's for a reason!! Mickbell lowkey dehumanizes Kuro as a possession sometimes because that's less scary, because Kuro being a full person with his own wants and thoughts detached from Mickbell is scary!!

Mickbell needs to be Kuro's whole world- because if Kuro got a taste of the rest of the world, everything else there is beside him- beyond him-, then how could Mickbell possibly compete with that? How could Kuro choose Mickbell over the world? And the irony of it all the thing that gets me choked up is that along it was never a competition, the world has always been Kuro's love, travelling is his main interest, and he wants to travel it with Mickbell- The world is wonderful and Mickbell's presence doesn't take away from it but enriches it, makes the world even more valuable and treasured and life more enjoyable and full and god. God!!!!!

So yes these are insane coworkers to have and this is the dynamic that has Dia and Holm side-eye Mickbell and ask him when he's planning to free his house elf. Imagine having a group project in school and these dudes are in your group.

Rin & Mickbell

The hater duo, no 1!!!! Dia & Holm is the second one but they can't hope to match these two's intensity and hater aura. This is our moment to breathe we're getting back into Kuro & Mickbell madnedd after

I compile their most relevant interactions here, and you can also see a small compilation of them combining their hater powers on Kabru here. There'S a lot of things that make them really fun to pair up, like how they're easily the top 2 most unpleasant bitter Kabru party members and how they like each other best anyways lol, or how they're both in a codependent situationship- and they both have similar defense mechanisms of most things getting filtered through anger, but what's especially interesting is how they're different in the worst way, in Rin's codependent relationship she's the one who gives and devotes herself, the self-sacrificial one, and in Mickbell's codependent relationship he's the one who takes and takes, the self-centered one.

That's already me getting lost in the sauce though because these two are just coworkers and that ends there- in fact with the tavern comic about Rin smiling we see that they get along much more at work than outside of it. I think why they get along is exactly that blunt and critical nature of theirs- Neither hesitate or bother with politeness or little games to say what they have on their mind and when something's a bad idea- it's why with even just a "you see this shit?" glance at each other they get steeled and soothed into reluctantly agreeing with Kabru, "Well, if Mickbell/Rin is okay going along with Kabru's plan, it must be fine after all... Not that we won't shoot him with laser beams with our eyes". Like I said earlier even though Mickbell can be manipulative, but he emotes very strongly and openly and is very blunt as a rule, he seems to value in others the same type of directness that he has with emoting and interacting, as seen with his distaste for Rin being a tsundere in the same tavern comic. You could reach and theorize his distaste in Rin acting all happy because Kabru complimented her, despite her still being very sour, is also from a feeling that she's being easily manipulated, which could be interesting... But yes yes, and similarly Rin is drawn towards someone who is similarly severe with high standards and who's very cautious with plans and money, and with her distaste for Kabru's own playing around and fake politeness it's interesting to think she'd find someone who's authentic to the point of being unabashedly unpleasant refreshing. So yes yes, they're united in haterism, and they look to each other for opinions, and they sit together, and when they meet Laios' party with Toshiro's Mickbell tugs on her (the only other who took a hard stance on wanting the "thieves" to pay) dress to go "hey you see these bastards?", and when Rin casts waterwalk on the party it feels very familiar- which shows still how much familiarity the party has developed together. They don't get together to have a laugh or have fun, but they seem to be each other's favorite coworker and be often on the same wavelength, easily understand each other's thoughts from even just a glance.

You can feasibly theorize Mickbell has a crush on Rin and is jealous of Kabru for it, considering he's always hanging around Rin when it isn't Kuro, how he hangs onto her on the regular, when he sighs seeing Rin and Kabru argue because Kabru flirted, when he's always on Kabru's case, when he's the only one who brings up Rin & Kabru's relationship, when he gets frustrated she doesn't laugh at his jokes and says she woud be much cuter and more charming if she smiled more- which we see Mickbell beam at. Misogynistic energy? Yes. No one said Mickbell hasn't some incel tendencies in him lol. I don't think that's the intent though and all these things can be easily explained by other stuff, but all of these together make it a coherent angle, if you so wish for it. Mickbell lashing out at those he likes because he's insecure when he doesn't have their full attention who'd have thunk! The mickrin manifesto is coming another dayyyy though I can't get more sidetracked

Kuro & Kabru

I already went into some things a bit like Kabru's reaction to Kuro growling despite his trauma wit hbeasts and experience with kobolds' nastier side, and I have a post where I let myself ramble about the two of them here- I'm sorryyyyy I'm sorry everything is so interconnected I can't not repeat myself and link stuff!! But once again I'll cover the bases here- In a non shippy light but also the original post is 90% parallels and analysis too

So their relationship is really interesting in many many ways. Kabru is teaching Kuro to speak and write common in secret, which shows many things already. In the party he's by far the most considerate and caring of Kuro, we see him listen to Kuro's worries about Izutsumi also. We see him ask Kuro about his opinions, for Kuro that's revolutionary, we see him take Kuro's concerns seriously and extensively talk about them and he accommodates with talking kobold as well. For being the one with monster & demihuman trauma, he's the one who humanizes Kuro the most- perhaps because it forces him to take Kuro seriously and keep in mind the whole of him, not only appearances or behavior, in an hypervigilance and "I know what you are" way, if that makes sense?? We see Kabru's urge to spend time to give a voice to the voiceless, to help this one dude, his coworker living in questionable circumstances. And all of this, again, despite his trauma, despite him saying it's best to assume communication with demihumans is impossible in the kobold extra!!! Do see the irony!! And many say that Kabru only said that because it was the Touden siblings and he wanted to say anything to make them think twice about blindly approaching the "cool cute desert dog people", but even if that's fully the case I still think it's interesting that he'd be willing to throw demihumans he spent his early childhood coexisting with under the bus like that- in a way.

He's giving Kuro knowledge... Teaching him like Milsiril once did- the thing he himself most grateful to her for. From one disempowered person to the other he's teaching societal survival skills. He's tutoring Kuro on his own best weapon: words. And he does this in secret, with no laurels and no reward, at night on the regular. I think their dynamic really goes to show just how much Kabru cares about others, how even though he sees Kuro as more "photorealistic" and less cartoony than the others, both because he knows the dangers of kobols and he takes them more seriously- and inadvertently emphasing on the beastly animal side taking away the endearing exaggerated features..... Even then, he's so so very considerate, and kind, and he cares, and how much he wants the world to be better and equal and for everyone to live well. And this shows in how the nightly sessions are also a way he gets to interact with Kuro away from Mickbell's eyes- This is where Kabru inquires about their relationship and learns about Kuro's vision of things. Whenever Mickbell steps in Kabru immediately folds, makes himself as non-threatening and unimposing to Mickbell as possible and steps away without resistance to ease his worries, but when he's away Kabru and Kuro can actually talk. And Kuro does open up to him, and hearing his thoughts Kabru learns about them andconcludes that both of them are overprotective over the other- He sees that the issue and the overattachment isn't oneway, and acts in kind. Kabru keeps an eye on them, as seen also with the end of the extra about Izutsumi's scent, helping in the ways he can, subtly through acts like helping Kuro learn common so one day he and Mickbell may talk.

Kabru is likely the closest thing to a friend Kuro has currently, beyond Mickbell. Which is crazy to think about!! But also man I want you to imagine them having their late night study sessions, talking about their home the western continent together for a bit. Kabru gets to talk about the desserts he couldn't talk about in the elven kingdom and Kuro recognizes them, in just talking about the weather they find so much commonplace, in traditions and myths and habits and ways to be- And maybe from where he's from Kuro's heard of the evil eye as well, knows that tallmen with blue eyes are rare and seen as bad omens, disowned and chased out of cities, but Kuro offers no judgement and so Kabru offers none in return. Like their arrows towards each other are "kobold" from Kabru to Kuro and "he speaks my language", and that's so crazy!!!! That's so little but that's so crazy!! And I truly cannot handle typing these thoughts again so just scroll down here but my god my god!! The heartwrenching isolation of them.

Ah yes- there's also something to say about how only he and Mickbell don't follow Kabru with any solid sense of loyalty! Everyone else praises Kabru's cause and says they're there for him to achieve it, but Mickbell stays quiet on that lol and almost walks out at one point- and then Kuro very straightforwardly says that he'll follow Mickbell whatever he decides- As much as Mickbell is Kuro's "employer" Mickbell is Kuro's leader, Kabru might be the team coordinator in his eyes and he does respect him, but the only cemented in loyalty he has is to Mickbell. Ironically, he's also the one who rates him as a party leader best! At a high 95% score. Which still shows just how much Kuro likes and respects Kabru... And also might show how low his standards are, since the party keeps dying under his lead- Kuro hasn't had great impressions of bosses and workers' rights after all- like with people's behaviors and living conditions and whatnot he has bare minimums standards, a very low bar, like him thinking of Kabru as "The guy who speaks my language!" something that should be so normal, being able to communicate with someone in a language you're comfortable and fluent in, has become something exceptional and precious.

Kabru & Mickbell

Okay this one is sooo interestingly layered. So there's a lot that goes into Mickbell's onesided beef with Kabru- I can try to summarize it as that Kabru seems effortlessly charismatic.

Part of it is as Mickbell puts it here and here, that he's afraid Kabru will steal Kuro away somehow (and that's without knowing about their study sessions). Kabru is so charismatic and likable, and kind something that as we se Mickbell tends to approach with suspicion- nothing in this world's free. Believing that Kuro only stays with Mickbell because he has to and that Mickbell successfully fools him, it's not hard to see him being afraid of Kabru "telling Kuro stuff" that'll convince Kuro or turn him against Mickbell, "he's a smooth talker, don't let him kidnap you"! It's again that belief that Kuro is easily fooled mixed with Mickbell's belief that no one could choose him over others if they had option- who wouldn't go for the cool and handsome charismatic witty tallman? Even his fave coworker who's just as severe as him is all wrapped up around his finger after all. And then there might be more general jealousy at work, about Kabru being an ideal with all these qualities and how well off he seems despite being broke too, Mickbell possesses so few qualities and his party leader that he finds incompetent on top of everything else just has "every quality given to him on a silver platter" or whatever resenting drivel Mickbell would think up. And then yes there's as I put it, the incompetence- Kabru and Mickbell think & operate in very different ways, Mickbell is very direct while Kabru is very indirect, Mickbell is very practical while Kabru is very guided by ideals- they have very different conceptions of "the end justifies the means", very different goals of self-serving vs greater good. They have different morals and views on retribution with the corpse retrievers, he's the one who pushes most against Kabru's plan of keeping going into the dungeon even after things go wrong and so he's the one who gets his concerns dismissed by Mickbell most, alongside Rin. Like with Rin he seems to see Kabu as reckless and as someone who takes things too lightly, which as someone who takes his job very seriously is frustrating, and like with Holm and Dia too he seems well aware of his flaws with people and his "fakeness", which doesn't endear him lol. Also someone stubborn- which from someone stubborn to another is always a sign of a great war incoming lmao.

And I do want to reiterate the beef is onesided!! Kabru is maybe even the most charitable and patient with Mickbell. As much as Holm let him and Kuro crash for a night, Kabru was the one to give him the money to go to a bathhouse. You can see his look of concern at stinky Mickbell in the first panel lol.

Again I'll share this comp of Mickbell and Rin being on his case, to see some examples! And my personal favorite:

And notice the Dia-Holm sideglance in the next-to-last panel. Is it a "he spitting some truth rn" or a "Ahh Kabru is on his corny shit again"? Wouldn't you like to know lmfao

Daya & Holm

You looove to be unbothered and uninvolved in the love square happening. The hate triangle if you will (Kuro isn't involved in that one he dgaf). You looove to just give professional opinions on the party's plans and that's it, you love keeping things to yourself and being a quiet pillar of the party rather than anything showy or flashy. I just love their side-eyes I just love making them quietly judge everyone especially togther, "you are my partner in sanity" fr.

Even together they don't have that strong a bond, like with Rin & Mickbell it starts and ends with their work dynamic pretty much. Still, consistently over and over again when the party divides itself into subgroups naturally, these two gravitate towards each other. As above a Daydream Hour shows them hanging out (off-work considering their outfits?) and points out that they're the party members "closest in age", 58 and 76 respectively, the oldest beside them is Rin at 24. Developmentally, with just proportionally comparing their lifespan to tallman's and calculating in kind Dia would be 23 while Holm is 30, so this thing about being closest in age seem to be about them both being longlived races, thus having a more similar sense of time and outlook on the world for it. They do seem to be all around the most mature and well adjusted of the group- although those appearances can for sure hide some deep flaws we just haven't been able to truly notice.

OTHERS?

These are the ones I felt were worth commenting on but they all have litle dynamics between each other, with Mickbell & Daya the least probably, for example if you want Holm & kabru thoughts I made a ship post about them and compiled most of their interactions. Like, I do like to summarize Holm @ kabru as "i won't talk about it but damn you live like this??". Holm @ most of the party actually lol. Holm has bigger fish to fry anyways, like Mickbell, who already outranks Kabru there and then crashes at his house on top of it. Holm and Rin often team up to talk about magic, when shopping or when Kabru asks something.

Daya and Holm have less strong & deep dynamics because they have less ties, simple as, they keep themselves less entangled in what's pretty much office life- yes they're willing to risk their lives to dungeon dive with th party, but that's as with any adventurer, as with everyone desperate and unstable enough to have it as their main job. Rin is tied to Kabru so that gives her importance, but Mickbell and Kuro have each other so it gives the party dynamic around them a lot of layers already, their personal lives are more shown during canon and extra because of it, meanwhile Holm and Daya both keep to themselves much more and their personal lives are only hinted at in extras, they don't have drama on the regular in front of the rest of the party the way the others do lmao.

Conclusion

Kabru’s party is in a bit of a weird spot in the main story- I think we can agree they’re characters that feel largely forgotten by the story after a point, and don’t matter all that much. I do think they have a narrative purpose, but. It's all about Kabru and setting his character up, similarly to how Namari was to give Marcille growth and Toshiro was to give Laios growth, it offers us an early Kabru to compare middle and late Kabru with when it comes to relationships and alliances, and with how much they fail and the few scenes they have where Kabru has his mask on and even coldly rebutts Rin I think we're supposed to see the flaws in his way to lead and work in team, where Kabru changing on that end would be for the better. They're a window into Kabru's shortcomings in teamwork and social life, his status quo at the startof the story. Laios' team was as successful in the main story because they truly came together, became friends who revealed their authentic selves to be stronger even when they worked together and were all very different from one another- but what Kabru does is try to hide and compensate for flaws, especially his own, and he hides things from his party and he keeps himself at a distance from it. Laios wasn't all that different with his party pre-canon, but where in the emergency of current events Laios shed pretenses at the risk of being disliked and rejected by others, in early manga Kabru instead tightens his grip on trying to control the party- why Kabru pushes his party members into his plans with less and less care for their opinions with his rebuttal of Rin as the peak of that- until he even lowkey isn't all that motivated by his party members being hostages lol. Like- am I making sense??

Analyzing labru vs kabumisu interpretations of Kabru is honestly very interesting because the two ships' fans seem to often have a completely different take on him. Kabumisu fans tend to emphase on Kabru's need for agency and empowerment and labru fans tend to emphase on Kabru's need to learn to compromise and not taking everything upon himself only, and see like, both are true both are good, and which of the two ships you like more depends a lot on these subconscious little differences in interpretation you naturally develop I think, because while I'm a double agent I myself prefer labru a bit and I naturally lean towards the "Kabru has lessons and change to do" angle, where with kabumisu often the focus is on not Laios gaining understanding from another but Kabru gaining understanding from another. For Kabru to grow vs to be validated, for him to finally feel safe and comfortable, and that to be achieved either through growth or through comfort, though both through understanding one another. It's about trust it's about understanding others on your own terms vs theirs it's about how being willing to open up and delve in relationships makes your understanding of people better, truer!! Understanding others, debatably the biggest theme in Dunmeshi!! Anyways don't tell the fandom I said that

In the wider meta narrative- Dunmeshi has a big theme of conforming and fitting into society, all its main character have that as a big theme- Laios being a misfit, Marcille being a half-elf, Chilchuck being a half-foot in a bigoted society, Senshi being an exiled hermit, Izutsumi being a beastkin… The experiences are varied but it’s an universal theme, everyone has things they're ostracized for somewhere or other. And I think all of Kabru’s party have a facet, variance of that that’s interesting, one that’s less about social acceptance and finding your place like Laios’ party but has a bigger focus on economical struggle, Kabru and Rin are to put it very short powerless child refugees, Mickbell and Kuro are dirt poor, Daya was threatened to fit into a strict mold and Holm was put in jail for academic studies. They have codependent relationships and emotional unavailability all around in different ways, there's isolation as a theme there too. That also is largely a Dunmeshi theme. Does no one have a fucking healthy good thriving social life? A good work-personal life balance? Being in touch with yourown needs and feelings perhaps? The triforce of things you can never have all at once in dunmeshi. But all these similar yet different hardships, all these people with hard to pin down exteriors- it's all about understanding too. How can you judge without first understanding, you know?

They're doubtlessly minor characters, but they're also part of that large tapestry of diverse people that's needed for Dunmeshi to do what it does, thematically and narratively. For that final battle to have so many different people come together to fight on the side of humanity, for all its habitants for all the facets of people in it, together. "If even one thing had been missing, we wouldn't have gotten here" as Kabru puts it himself in the next-to-last chapter. This is Dungeon Meshi, everything is interwoven, it's all a web because our environment shapes us as much as we shape it.

They get sidelined by the story. much like they were by Kabru- but he does have their loyalty, like how Laios' party stuck together through it all, even Chilchuck and Izutsumi, and when it's time for the final battle they're there to help and it matters, they matter. Relationships, trust, goes both ways, it shouldn't be onesided. If someone proves genuine why not try opening up? Kabru's party always trusts him and show up when it matters- Because to put full trust in another is terrifying and risky, but sometimes it'll pay off, and still always they take that step to trust their leader. Trust and love and care isn't a transaction, earned or not, and all you can do is try to appreciate it and repay it in care. In the end Kabru's party reminds us of those things, that despite everything we all need someone.

[chaosduckies]

Friends in Small Places (6)

Long story short: hit a writing block, had trouble editing, school, but we're so back and I'm excited to write all of the ideas that I've been thinking about for forever! (and thank you to the people who gave me so many ideas for future chapters and scenes) Oh man I love writing size shifter stories. So anyways I hope you enjoy this very short chapter!

Word count: 2.5k

CW: None!

It was safe to say that things were slowly getting back to normal. Things weren’t as chaotic anymore. I was allowed to keep on seeing Cas, and I did every day after my classes. He seemed to like the company even if we never really did anything. 

I was still working on getting permission to at least let him see his parents. It wasn’t exactly going so well if I were being honest. Anytime I mentioned it they said that the idea was absurd. I tried asking several of the nurses what it would take to get his parents or someone he knows down here... They said that as long as he was still unstable then he wasn’t allowed to see anyone. But I didn’t understand. Cas seemed perfectly fine. That entire situation two weeks ago was a big thing but he’s doing so much better now! If anything he’s somehow even more cautious about his movements. I don’t understand why they don’t just let him have one nice thing. 

Even if Cas wasn’t able to have any other visitors besides me and a few nurses and doctors, I managed to get them to agree to another therapist coming in for a few days. Ryan had asked me tons of questions about what was going on, and I had to answer all of them. Of course, being the great friend that he is, he offered to help out by trying to get Cas either out of there or get his brother to come. Either one would be great, and since he’s older and more experienced they might listen to him more than me. 

After classes, Ryan said he had to go check up on his partner before we left.  I asked why he didn’t have to stay with her all the time, and he just explained that she was doing so much better under his care that they were already about to get him a new “patient”. If I were being honest I envied him. He was so much better at this than I was, and he gets along with pretty much everyone. I wondered why I couldn’t, but that was an obvious answer.

I hadn’t expected any of this to happen while watching over Cas. I mean I thought I was doing a good job up until the incident, but to be fair there wasn’t much I could do in that situation other than just try and calm him down after they lied to him. I would be upset if I wasn’t allowed to see my parents anymore and they kept me pretty much isolated for the entirety of my life. Who wouldn’t be? Cas has apologized more times than I count for “making things harder” for me. One it wasn’t his fault, and two, he’s so careful and gentle there was no way he’d make things harder for me. Of course, initially, I had thought it would be impossible to even do something like this, but I’m learning a lot about this broken world we live in.

Ryan came back a few minutes later, ecstatic as always. Of course he wasn’t scared. Why would he be? He was a shifter too. Hopefully the two will get along, I already told Cas that I might be bringing a friend sometime this week, so there weren’t any huge surprises. I just had to hang onto hope that nothing bad would happen. 

“You said he’s really anxious a lot of the time right?” He asked me as we walked along the sidewalk to the huge hospital building. 

“Yeah, it’s mostly him worrying about hurting me, or really anyone in the room with him.” He nodded his head, seemingly excited about this. It was almost like he had a plan. Maybe the same thing he did with his partner? Well.. maybe a little different since his partner shrinks. Meanwhile, mine is a literal skyscraper. 

  The awkward silence stretched on between us, but that was quickly put an end to, “Hey Liam, about that incident, you said that no one tried helping him at first? Just straight lockdown?” Ryan looked a little uneasy, but I had to nod my head. I had wondered why he asked the question, but I wasn’t going to question him. But it was a little strange why he was so troubled. For as long as I’ve known him he was the kind of person that hasn’t been afraid, so it was making me worry a little. What was he scared of? 

“Ah well, I’m glad to at least help! I can’t wait to meet him either.” The nervous look on his face disappeared almost as fast as it came. Another reason why I was jealous of him. It’s like he could just brush off any inconvenience, any tiny little negative thought he’s ever had in just an instant. Though, I guess that’s what makes him such an amazing friend. 

“Yeah, he’s extremely nice. Fun to be around.” I smiled. I wasn’t lying either. He was the nicest person I’ve met, and that’s saying something. After a while, you get used to being around someone who’s much bigger than you, and then you realize they’re more scared of themselves than you are of them… I took a deep breath, finally making it onto the ground of the hospital. 

Ryan has never been here before, so I had to help him get through checking in, and of course any new people that aren’t related to or working with Cas have to do a deep and thorough search for whatever reason. Ryan kept on joking about all of the safety measures he had to go through, even making him take off his hoodie. Seriously, what were they even looking for? I didn’t have to go through as many of the checks since I come every day and actually have a connection with Cas. 

After about ten minutes of finally getting Ryan to be able to come in the room with me, we were finally walking down the huge hallway as the nurse led us. We reached the door, the nurse opened it and gave us both a smile. Well, here's to hoping Cas isn’t too spooked by Ryan. I mean I did warn him. 

I walked in front of Ryan, slowly walking in, and seeing Cas finish one of the books that were on the bookshelf. When the door slammed behind us, he looked up and lightly smiled, eyes trailing behind me and I could tell that his nerves shot up almost immediately. Especially when he fumbled while trying to place his book on the ground, instead landing with a loud thud. It made my anxiousness get the better of me before I brushed it off and stopped in front of them. 

“Uh, remember when I told you that I’d be bringing a friend here? Well, this is Ryan.” I introduced them, watching Ryan confidently walk a little ahead of me. 

“Hi! It’s nice to meet you. Casper, right?” Cas stared, almost like he was shocked at how confident they were. 

“H-hi. You can c-call me Cas.” His eyes darted to me, as if asking what he should do, but not even I had an idea. If I were being honest I was just going to let Ryan figure these things out. Usually Cas and I just played a few board games even when the pieces were as big as I was, or watched whatever movies he was allowed, which weren’t that many. I know it doesn’t sound like much but if I were being honest it seemed to be helping a lot with his confidence. It helps me get used to it too. He still seemed a little scared to move sometimes though, even if he doesn’t admit it. 

“Well Cas, we’re gonna get you out of here once and for all!” Ryan claimed. Cas looked at me, a little shocked at the outburst but gave his best nervous smile he could manage. I didn’t know what Ryan had planned but I trusted that he would make the smart decisions. I know Cas gets a little scared of new things, especially with these new pills they have him on. Paroxetine? I could tell that it was a strong one. I guess they added whatever makes him hurt so much in it because every time he takes it I notice how he cringes at any movement he makes or how shaky his hands get. I want his pain tolerance, but I don’t want to get it like how he did. It was inhumane and didn’t even seem to be helping him control his height. 

“Uh hey, you won’t be doing anything too much right?” I whispered. 

“Yeah don’t worry I’m not gonna do much. You know me.” He smiled. I did know how he worked, and it always seemed to work no matter the person. It was kind of pathetic of me that I needed so much help, but I was doing this so Cas could have a real life instead of being cooped up in a house without being able to see his parents. I felt so bad, and if this was the one time I could do something worthwhile well then I’d do what I could. 

I walked over to Cas, sitting by him to let Ryan do his thing. I just had to watch as Ryan sat and played 20 questions, asking questions about each other. It really kind of seemed like they were getting along a lot faster than Cas and I did. Maybe that was because they could both kind of relate, and Ryan was a lot more of a people person than I was. This was a good thing though. Things would move along faster and we could get Cas out of here and able to see his family again. Now I just had to figure out how I was going to repay Ryan for helping me out. I wasn’t so confident that I would’ve been able to do this on my own, even if Cas and I were getting really close. 

At some point I think I fell asleep, and when I woke up it was getting late. I groaned, sitting up and yawning. One look around and I realized that I was still in Cas’s room, even in the same place. 

“Mmm… Cas?” I rubbed my eyes before catching his hand in the corner of my vision. I whipped my head around, seeing that he had a book in hand as usual. 

“You’re up?” He quietly whispered, his attention focused on me now. 

“Yeah. Where’d Ryan go?” I lazily stood up, searching around and not seeing him anywhere. 

“Oh uh, he left a while ago. He didn’t want to wake you up.” He laughed softly, wincing when he thought he was speaking too loudly. Guess I’d have to talk to Ryan tomorrow or something. Just to see what he thinks I should do. I trusted his judgment more than I trusted mine. 

“How’d it go? Sorry I fell asleep.” I asked, stretching a little bit and packing a few things up. I knew that the nurses would come in eventually and force me out, but I’d just like to use whatever time I had left to check up on him. 

“N-no. You’re all good,” He started, nervously smiling, “Um, he was nice. I liked him. I’m glad you’re trying to help me get out of here, but I don’t think that they’ll let me.” He sighed sadly, eyeing the cast around my leg and cringing. I looked down, sucking in a deep breath. 

“Could you help me up, please?” His eyes widened, hesitantly lowering his hand by me. I struggled to get on without moving my cast around too much but managed before holding me above his knees. I could tell he was nervous, maybe even a little scared but this wasn’t the first time I’ve been in his hands and I trusted that he wouldn’t drop me. 

“Well, I think they’ll let you out of here. They’re just being stubborn.” I shrugged my shoulders. I think it was ignorant that they wouldn’t let him out of here already. To me, he’s doing a lot better than when I first met him. 

“¿De verdad lo crees? You really think so?” His tone was sad like he was just losing hope of getting out of here at all. Well, if I just left him here alone I would’ve never lived with myself. That would just be too harsh. Plus, I like to think that we were friends. I mean, we hang out pretty much every day unless I had schoolwork to catch up on. Why would I want to leave him here alone in the first place? 

“Why wouldn’t I? Someone as nice and nervous as you shouldn’t have to be watched over.” We both laughed. 

“Nervous? What? I’m not nervous.” 

“I can literally feel your hand shaking right now.” I joked, getting a soft laugh out of him. He looked away for a moment, the silence stretching between us. 

“Liam, tha-” 

Cas went quiet whenever we heard the door slam open, a nurse walking in. For some odd reason, they just looked a little troubled with something but motioned for me to go. I sighed as Cas lowered me back down, watching carefully as I climbed down and walked towards the door, the nurse eyeing my crutches the entire way.

“See you tomorrow!” I waved bye to him, getting a tiny wave in return before the nurse closed the door behind me. She escorted me out, but instead of towards the exit, it was towards another room I’d never been to before. I was about to question her before she walked into the room, grabbing a piece of paper and sighing, a nervous look on her face. 

“I have no idea if I’m making the right decision, but don’t make me regret it.” She sighed, signing what looked to be a ton of important information, but what caught my eye was the bold print at the top. Allowance of family members. My eyes widened in shock, my heartbeat growing faster from excitement. I… did it? Was she letting him see his family? 

“This paper allows Casper to see one family member for one day. The professionals cannot know about this, but… I do believe that after hearing from you two earlier that he should be allowed this. So, here you go.” She handed me the paper and pen, with only one more place to sign to officiate that we were allowing this. I quickly grabbed the pen and signed, not even hesitating for one moment, “Thank you! I don’t know what to say!” I smiled, hugging the nurse. She sighed, hugging me back and telling me that I could go back to tell Cas. 

I was surprised that I didn’t trip on my way there out of excitement, and when I opened the door I couldn’t hold in my excitement for him. 

“Cas! How would you like to see your brother tomorrow?” I smiled, seeing the shock and surprise in his eyes, and it was priceless.  ——————

TAKE THAT WRITING BLOCK!!! Oh man I can’t wait to continue writing this. And so sorry for it being like five months since I’ve actually updated this but WE’RE BACK!!! Thanks for reading! :D

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[fluffypotatey]

To be honest I am a huge Nalu shipper. But the thing is I want to know the difference between the way Natsu cares about his guildmates and Lucy. Like what is the obvious difference since that boy sees every as Nakama so how can we say that the wag he cares about Lucy is different?

Like even when Erza passed away? (All the way back in first season there was a segment where the guild was gathered at her grave and all) Natsu was still very reactive. Plus he was also said to be depressed even when Lisanna passed.

What's the difference between all of them and Lucy?

the fact that he stayed. the fact that before he met Lucy, Natsu wasn't one to stay in a group or even want to work with anyone besides Happy at the start of the story. hell, he was ready to just file Lucy down as "New Guildmate" once they reached Fairy Tail

but then, Lucy doesn't leave. she follows him on his mission to save Macao despite her not needing to or even really understanding everything about it. she stays and then fights with him and saves him. it's no secret that Natsu is strong and can take care of himself really well. he's been going on solo missions for years now, and no one has really stopped him, but that means he's been in a lot of sticky situations where he and Happy are on their own and have no backup. and yet, without asking, Lucy offers it

and i think this is the moment when Natsu considers that maybe it's okay to have someone there to have his back (sans Happy)

"but Natsu only needed Lucy for the next quest because of the requirements," well, Natsu also wouldn't have taken or even considered that quest if it weren't for Lucy, yeah? he was not a team player (in the picking job's sense) or really wanted other people to help him on his quests sans Happy. and then he goes and picks a job that caters to their team whilst ensuring that Lucy can't say no

or maybe i'm reading too much into it 🤷🏻‍♀️

or maybe Natsu's got horrible abandonment issues that he will latch onto people so fast (Igneel & Lisanna) but also cause him to distance himself so far when left behind (his 1st time at the guild, Lisanna's death). Erza and Gray are Natsu's closet friends after Lisanna and yet they cannot reach him when he closes himself off. and then we have Lucy, who stuck by and had his back, so who is to say Natsu didn't make some contingencies to ensure whether or not she'd join him?

but maybe it's the rose, colored ship glasses i have on

because yeah, Natsu cares for all of his guildmates. the power of friendship is his biggest motivator. when we meet Natsu, our first introductions of him is defending his guild's reputation from Bora (who was using it as a guise for human trafficking) and saving Macao. and our 1st big arc (Galuna Island), where Natsu adamantly refuses to allow Gray to use Ice Shell and sacrifice himself despite how antagonistic they've been to each other. we get Natsu 100% at Erza's defense throughout the Tower of Heaven and he is even ready to defend Wendy though they only met hours ago

Natsu is a character with a bleeding heart and cannot help but wear it on his sleeve, but we don't really see him allow others to fight his battles or have his back until Lucy comes in. to be honest, i don't even think he had his heart on his sleeve until Lucy. he still has a bleeding heart (i don't think anything could stop that), but he was not ready to be open in receiving company because he was so used to it being ripped away from him

that being said: of all the characters he interacts with, he finds Lucy to be someone compatible enough for him to start going on team missions and inviting her on them (for example, his 1st S-class mission, which he stole, he went to her house to show it to her. the fact that part of the reward was a celestial key might be a coincidence, but i wouldn't doubt it as Natsu and Happy's trump card in case she refused)

but yeah, the difference is that he stayed and didn't push her away at the beginning, but instead continued to invite her along with him to the point that doing a mission without Lucy wasn't his regular anymore. compared to the rest of the guild, of whom he spent most of his childhood with, even if he spoke to no one, they would still be around and talk to him anyway. he might not invite them on job and only challenge them to fights, but the guild is his home and a constant in his life, a constant he needs (bc heavy abandonment issues).

"okay, but he still pushed her away after he watched Igneel die right in front of him. and he left the guild for a whole year, too. so what's the difference there?" you may ask.

so 1) Natsu never thought the guild would disband. he returns to Fiore after a year and is the last to know that they disbanded. he assumed, like all the other times before and while he and others were sealed for 7 years, that Fairy Tail would still be there when he returned. he assumed that his disappearance would not impact so hard because the guild would still be around and Lucy would have the others with her

which, did not happen :)

and like, so many guild members go off on jobs, quests, or even just leave for an indiscriminate amount of time (which i, personally, believe was his rationality for leaving), so him being gone for a year was nothing! right? no harm, eh? his plan was never to be gone forever :))))

2) he just watched his father die and lose any chance of having some semblance of a long term reunion with Igneel. he literally lost one of his main driving motivations for getting stronger and taking jobs. before Fairy Tail, before anyone, it was Igneel. and to learn that a) Igneel was always with him to begin with and b) he only got to see him for less than a day after 14 years of nothing......i would feel lost too ngl

man's needed space from everybody. and he also needed comfort, but Natsu has been shown not to really be the character who asks to receive comfort (and when he does receive it, it's usually when he's already emotionally compromised). he is in the habit of shutting people out after being abandoned or losing someone close to him, with his next rationale being to "get stronger" in order to prevent what happened in the past to ever happen in the future.

anyway

what makes this different? well for one, he sent the letter only to Lucy (or it's implied since no one else is shown getting one) because of how the two spend most of their time together. even the line that goes with the panel makes it sound like Natsu is unsure on how the note will be received (maybe even hesitant? but that could be my own hopes)

and one of the 1st people he reunites with after a year is Lucy and we get such a similar parallel to the first chapter of Fairy Tail between the two as if the narrative itself is slotting them together to say "ah yes, now everything is back to normal and new journeys can begin"

but yeah, this is just a long way of saying, that Natsu does love his friends and guildmates but even when he is close to them, he kept to himself (and Happy) and sort of stayed in their orbit but always with some emotional distance because of his fear of abandonment. and then you have Lucy where he will stay for and allow her to orbit around him and he will invite to new adventures no questions asked

that's the difference

[quibbs126]

Kind of wish the Autobots had a better reason for needing to destroy Megatron’s Matrix of Leadership at the end there

Because like, the Autobots have for the most part been the aggressors in this portion of the story. Like they keep crossing the border, which was one of Megatron’s express rules

And I mean okay sure, Astrotrain did shoot Jetfire with the intention of basically death, and kidnapped him and Ratchet afterwards to make sure it worked right this time. And Megatron did point Wildwheel in the direction of the Autobots after trashing his side, and also made sure the shield only worked for his side of the planet, he clearly doesn’t care about the Autobots

And I mean, I get not trusting Megatron to not cause problems or restart the war. But also, he saved your asses from the Quintessons, and his universe hopping adventure seems to have at least somewhat made him better? Again, he came back to save you guys when he had no reason to, that you know of. And he actually agreed to peace for once, to the point where rebuilding cities has actually been happening

Like the Decepticons haven’t really done anything other than that Astrotrain incident and I guess Wildwheel. And that unspace ray wasn’t even for them, but I guess they didn’t know that at the time. But again, they weren’t the ones hopping the border constantly

And it’d be one thing if these were off the books incidents of Autobots breaking protocol. But no, not only is Optimus well aware of these incidents, he’s actively encouraging them

Optimus, buddy. Megatron’s actually agreed to peace this time and you keep breaking one of his main terms. He hasn’t even done anything until the Astrotrain incident, which only happened because Jetfire was in Decepticon territory. You didn’t even have a legitimate reason to distrust him this time

And going back to the Matrix thing because I got carried away there, it was very convenient for Optimus that the eviler Megatron showed up and stole back his Matrix, needing it to be destroyed to save them all. Because of that hadn’t happened, he’d be in a lot of trouble for storming the other’s territory, not just with his forces but with himself, and demanding his Matrix must be destroyed for relatively weak reasons. Like if it had been the other way around, there’s no doubt war would be declared again

I get they needed to destroy the Matrix to get Windblade back, and they want their friend back, but bigger picture here. Megatron needs the Matrix to try and defeat a far more dangerous and malicious version of himself, which the Autobots may not know, but he has not given them a good reason to suspect he’s misusing his Matrix and that it needs to be destroyed. He’s only used it to help them. And yeah Windblade, but she is only one bot and they aren’t in dire need of a Cityspeaker at the moment. Like there’s no way Megatron would have agreed to this, even without the other Megatron thing

If they had some other reason to destroy Megatron’s Matrix, like it being a malicious Matrix from another universe that would have harmed Cybertron if it stayed, or if it being from another universe and being in this one for too long was making it unstable, thus potentially harming Megatron or worse if he continued to have it, then maybe it could be more justified

But like, as is, the Autobots were just being the aggressors here

[like-the-rest-of-la]

Happy Little Accidents

The last thing Eddie Diaz expects to come out of his trip to Buckley’s Plant Nursery & Landscaping with his son, is to develop an honest to god schoolgirl crush on the guy who owns the place (and not notice that that is what’s happening for an embarrassingly long time).  

The plan is simple. Get in, have Christopher pick out a couple of succulents or whatever he needs for his school project, and get out without infesting any of the gorgeous plants in the shop with his bad plant karma. 

But then, the first thing he’s greeted with is a hunk of a man, carrying two heavy packs of soil on his broad shoulders. Eddie swears he can see a drop of sweat running down the man’s face in slow motion. His t-shirt looks like it’s one strategic muscle flex away from bursting at the seams and Eddie—Eddie feels nervous all of the sudden. And he’s gaping like a fish. 

“Hey,” Hunk-man says as he hoists the soil on the counter next to him with a grunt, “What can I help you with?”

At least Eddie has enough self-awareness to close his mouth.

Or: the one where Buck owns a plant nursery and Eddie stumbles through his crush (and has no game during all of it)—oh and also, there are a lot of Bob Ross references.

Read on Ao3

(With a banner by the wonderful @theladyyavilee thank you so so so much <3)

[cq-studios]

Do you have any screenshots of your favorite details from KHUX?

HAHAHAHAHA, yeah I do

Gonna just drop a read more here 'cause if y'all know me at all you know this post is probably gonna be 10KM long lol

So, I'm gonna try to hold myself back a little because I literally have like 10 pages of notes about specifically stuff in the backgrounds and I doubt the internet will find my bench and lamppost count interesting. (Also image limit lol)

I'll list just 4 things for now (in no particular order) and talk about them a bit underneath.

NUMBER 1 || STREET SIGNS

So there are four street signs that we’ve seen in Daybreak Town. Two are in the Fountain Square (A and B), one is in the Marketplace (C), and one is in the Clocktower Outskirts map (D).

For B and D it’s pretty easy to figure out what the represent. B is a clock, probably representing the Clock Tower… or maybe the best place to see the Clocktower because it’s in Fountain Square. The overall shape of it is different from the rest of the signs so I imagine that means something. D is a gondola or canoe of some sort, which makes sense because it’s next to stairs that seemingly lead to the canal that runs through town. Maybe there’s a ferry system of some sort?

A and C I’m less sure about. The designs don’t really bring anything obvious to mind. Maybe C is Munny because it leads to the Marketplace? I’m not sure.

NUMBER 3 || DOOR UNDER FOUNTAIN SQUARE

See what makes this interesting to me isn’t just the fact that apparently Fountain Square is hollow underneath (maybe for pipe repairs or something, I don’t know) but just the general fact that a lot of structures in this town, that maybe shouldn’t be, are hollow.

If you look even some archways have windows, so there has to be an open space inside, right? Most of them seem at least connected to houses so I assume they’re basements or something. (The one by murder house gets me tho, like that’s right under the bridge. Who’s living right under the bridge)

And I also feel like this leads into the fact that, similarly but not as extreme as in Scala, Daybreak Town is kinda built on top of itself. Maybe that’s a symptom of being around so many (and possibly on) mountains but I still feel like it should be talked about more.

NUMBER 4 || LIGHTHOUSE INTERIOR MAP

There is so much to unpack here but I’ll try to keep it brief.

So I’m pretty sure this is one of, if not the oldest building in Daybreak Town. Two reasons.

1. Instead of having little wall lamps, like the rest of the town and buildings, all the light seems to come from mounted candles.

2. There are swords (A) on the walls and not Keyblades. Why would the Keyblade town not have Keyblades on its little shield emblem? Is it possibly because it was there before Keyblades?

This staircase here (B) is also the only known (not sewer drain) way into the waterways. It leads into the sewers then out to the little dock below the Lighthouse with the boat, hence the sign.

There’s these maps here (C) that I don’t really know what to say about, but is definitely worth pointing out. They’re all the same and I assume show the layout of the area surrounding the town (the darker parts being water). It could be a world map though (darker part being continents)… I don’t think we’ll ever really learn lol

And also I don’t know what this is (D) but I think it’s interesting that it has writing on it. It kinda gives me the vibe of those flat on the ground gravestones…

NUMBER 5 || BANNER

Daybreak Town actually has a flag it’s all over the place and you’ll start to see it everywhere if you look for it. They also kind of look like the banners in Radiant Garden. The colours and shape/mounting are the same but the designs on the flag itself (and mounting) is different.

I have no clue what that implies, if anything, but I figure it’s worth pointing out ‘cause it’s interesting.