lai-mar

[lai-mar]

dungeon meshi tarot cards! i'll be making these into wooden charms and stickers, maybe individual cards, too. let me know if you'd prefer sticker sheets (smaller, cheaper) or a sticker pack (larger, more expensive). i am tempted to make a full deck but that would be a very big project and expensive to produce. i'd have to kickstart it for sure, and i dont know the legalities of big scale fan projects like that. i might make more cards in the future for fun, tho!

card explanations under the cut because i did my research~

VIII Strength: Laios. Represents inner strength, courage, compassion. While he’s a decent fighter Laios’ virtue relies more on his bravery and his love for his friends. It’s not his physical power that allows him to excel but his compassion and fascination with monsters, as well as his care for the health of his friends.

I The Magician: Marcille. Represents willpower, ambition, skills, and resources. Marcille is extremely ambitious and works very hard to perfect her magic in order to achieve her goals. Everything she does in her life from learning magic to researching dungeons is in order to find a way to achieve her seemingly impossible desire of eliminating the difference in lifespans. 

V The Hierophant: Chilchuck. Represents tradition, education, group identity, and conformity. As the leader of the Half-foot guild Chilchuck is a leader in his community. A lot of other half-foots look up to him as their elder or boss, and he stands up for their rights to guarantee equal payment and fair treatment.

IX The Hermit: Senshi. Represents spirituality, introspection, solitude and meditation. Senshi has lived most of his life alone in the dungeon and that solitude and closeness with the ecosystem of the dungeon has influenced his personal philosophy. He has a strong sense of himself and how it fits into the world.

II The High Priestess: Falin. Represents intuition, wisdom, mystery, and inner voice. Falin has always been deeply in tune with her intuitions and the feelings of others, even beyond the grave. She’s an extremely empathetic and emotionally intelligent person. I also chose this card because it’s right after The Magician in the major arcana and so Marcille and Falin compliment each other. Marcille is driven and ambitions to change the world to fit her desires, and Falin is much more in tune with the mystery of the world and finds peace with it, instead.

XIV Temperance: Izutsumi. Represents patience, moderation, adaption. This is a little tongue in cheek because Izutsumi is none of these things. Instead these are things that she comes to learn over the story. She is a picky eater and struggles to adapt with the party’s monster diet. She knows what she wants, she wants it now and she wants more. But as she grows up she learns that’s just not possible, she has to do things she doesn’t want to do sometimes.

VII The Chariot: Kabru. Represents determination, willpower, victory, focus. Kabru is an extremely determined person, like Marcille he has a very specific goal and everything he does is in service to that goal, to prevent another disaster like Utaya and save human lives. This is also the card before Laios’ because Strength and The Chariot are compliments; the Chariot holds the physical willpower to achieve his goals and Strength is about taming inner beasts. Kabru is the action and forward motion, while Laios is the inner curiosity and compassion that The Chariot might lack. 

XIII Death: Mithrun. Represents endings, beginnings, change, transition. After his time as a dungeon lord Mithrun experiences a death of his past self and has to cope with a new beginning as a completely different person. When the Winged Lion is defeated and demons are no longer a threat to the world, he experiences another kind of death where he must again rediscover who he is and create a new purpose for himself.

[lai-mar]

Struggles of being aromantic and a shipper

✨Click for better quality✨

Dunno if anyone can relate. The thing with me is that I'm a sucker for love. I love romantic books, movies, shows,... I love seeing people happy. I love that other people experience the good part of it even if it feels abstract and distant to me. The thought of me doing any of the things I see in fan art is making me uncomfortable but seeing others being comfortable like that is so nice.

[lai-mar]

So about Marcille's smile...

So if you've read my Laimar dump you may have noticed there's a bit of a weird jump. There was a whole bit about Marcille's smile, how it related to the succubus, and why I think it's so important to Laios.. But then I accidentally deleted it. So here I am, trying again. This time I have pictures to back it up! The images are from the EDH scan so not "official" but I find their translations seem pretty spot on.

So let's start with Laios' whole dying flashback thing. Laios is meant to wait for Marcille and Falin to arrive at the inn. While waiting, a lady drops her letter. He hands it back to her and is so enchanted by her smile, he's frozen.

Turns out, that's Marcille. And she's not very happy to see him. Falin and Laios scheme to get Marcille to join them on their dungeon adventures. The pair manage to get her in a dungeon and then she dies. But this doesn't deter her, it excites her! So much so that she decides to join them!

I mean look at that cutie! Look at Laios' reaction to her! He may not know it yet but that smile is about to be very important to him. Remember, this all happens while he's actively dying. Sure, Falin is there but Marcille is who he's thinking about.

Okay, now on to the succubus! A lot of people have been confused on why Laios immediately chokes out the succubus. I think it's pretty clear that the smile is off somehow. See the examples below of Marcille and the succubus. Also note that he says she starts by not smiling. So the succubus screwed up in two parts. She just wouldn't behave like that, wouldn't smile like that. Laios may be ass at reading the room but as seen in the Changeling arc, he knows his friends quirks pretty well. (Also note these two arcs are directly one after the other within the timeline of the story.)

So why does Monster Marcille work on him? I think there's a few reasons. One being that she says she'll turn him into a monster. That one is pretty obvious. The second, I think, is that her smile seems more genuine. She's smiling and offering to turn him into a monster? Of course he gave in to her! (I would too omg she's so cute)

Those are kind of the biggest, most blatant examples. But we see it show up through out the manga. I've included a few more examples, both of sweet moments between them and moments I think show how much Laios finds comfort in her smile. He knows he can handle anything, as long as she's there to smile alongside him.

Also I'm sorry but saying he will do whatever he can to keep her smiling is... That's romantic! He tells her she puts him at ease! I think if he had said it at any other point in the manga, she would've been a blushing, stammering mess. Like who casually says that?

Anyway, I should stop before tumblr gets mad and nukes my posts again. Thank you all for coming to my rant sesh.

[lai-mar]

So a handful of people liked my post about wanting to talk about Laimar's dynamic and why I like it so I'm going to assume someone wants to see it. This is probably going to be a bit all over the place but I'll do my best to make sure it stays kind of on track. First, let me address the people who don't like Laimar. It's perfectly okay to not like it! Dungeon Meshi is full of wonderfully interesting characters and any combination of ships can be interesting because of that. And this is just my take on the story and the characters. Our own life experiences will shape how we read and understand things. That said! I'm totally down to discuss! Feel free to ask questions or talk about your ship!

Hokay, on to the Laimar. Let me preface this by saying I am glad they don't get together in canon. I don't think it would've fit the tone of the story as it was presented. The story is about love but it is not about romantic love. It's love in general. Love for your family, for your friends, for your food. It's about the connections we form over meals and the friendships we forge through times of strife. That lending a helping hand can create a better tomorrow. So why am I so fixated on a ship if the story isn't about that kind of thing? Mostly because I think they are interesting characters and I want them to make out. ... On to the real stuff! Laios and Marcille are both alike and very different from each other. We see that Laios often admires how Marcille wears her thoughts and feelings on her sleeve. He never has to figure out how she feels about him or any situation. Laios, on the other hand, starts the series holding himself back. His love of monsters seems to be somewhat known to the party but the extent and the desire to eat them isn't. We also know that Laios is very wary of what other people think about him, even if he's not the best at reading the room. Marcille takes all the guess work out of figuring out what she means. Because she wears her emotions so openly, Laios finds comfort in her smile. If she is smiling, it means she truly thinks things will be okay. He's also very confident in her skills. Several times through out the manga, he backs her up or compliments her. During his fight with Toshiro, when she was attacked by the bat, when she was teaching him. It's clear Laios really enjoys Marcille and appreciates her presence. It seems to take Marcille a bit longer to bond with Laios than the other way around. It makes sense as she seems to hold some resent towards him for Falin leaving school. That said, she also compliments him the most out of the party. She also trusts him, even when it's something she doesn't want to do. That doesn't mean she isn't occasionally critical of him though and she actively pushes him to be a better leader. And when he steps up, she recognizes that. They're both also massive nerds. The bone sorting "game" is a good example of this. Marcille is as eager to teach Laios as he is to learn and he teaches her in turn. Where Falin seems to accept that nature is how it is because it is, Laios and Marcille seem more curious about the why's. When Marcille brings up the dungeon cleaners, she gets smug and you can see how excited Laios is. Although her interest is in dungeons and not the monsters, there's an overlap of interest. I really enjoy relationships where the interests are more vin diagram than two overlapping circles. There's a common ground but also room to grow and learn from the other person. I think Laios and Marcille show this super well! It's also very cute when they get excited about the other one being excited. I can see them sending each other links to new scientific breakthroughs and freaking out together. Nerds! I also find Laios' seemingly budding crush throughout the story really interesting. It happens so organically that it's kind of a back note to the story. We know that the scene where Marcille resurrects Falin really left an impression on him. Both his changeling of Marcille and his succubus of her have their hair down. (More about his succubus in a moment.) I also think the Lion eating her desire to do her hair was a two-fold play. More on that in a moment too. The bit about her smile is so very cute. While it can be taken platonically, my guy was dying and thinking about how he met Marcille for the first time. Prior to Falin's resurrection, Laios pretty much exclusively reminisces on their childhood. I assume it's a similar reaction to the uncanny valley. There's gonna have to be a part 2.. Maybe even 3.. Or 4. So please hold! Tumblr is mean...

[lai-mar]

As he wishes

Ref:

[lai-mar]

i love laios as the number one clown for marcille. and he doesn’t even realise it. he’s just how he is as a person lmao

really loving how laios thoughtlessly says "it puts me at ease when i see you with a smile on your face, so i want to do whatever i can to keep you smiling" like he has zero thoughts only marcille's smile in his brain. doesn't think about the implications. doesn't think if it's "weird" or "romantic" or "cringe". he likes her smile and wants her to keep on smiling. it's not just his feelings, it's a fact of the world to him. her smile makes him happy so he wants to make her happy.

[lai-mar]

All laios ships are good but laios's crush on marcille is very canon and cute.

There's only one person that makes laios act like a blushy teenage boy in love. And that person isn't toshiro, nor is it kabru or chilchuck.

Marcille is the only person who can make him all shy and bashful. And it's downright adorable.

[lai-mar]

"magic circle but the writer ran out of space" will never not be funny

[lai-mar]

clocked back in to the chilshi factory, have more tallman au

[lai-mar]

The problem with commercial F/M romance is that it's written by the most heterosexual women alive and reading it you feel yourself slowly suffocating from the Gender of it all like a fish in a eutrophying lake. And what we actually need as a culture is F/M written by insane bisexuals violently allergic to heteronormativity

[lai-mar]

Bruh it makes me like. kind of upset how muchlaimar stuff is like. its a Miracle! marcille can have a Baby! Hooray! also laios is chiseled and MUCH more stereotypically masculine because i hate you.

[lai-mar]

i think. laios and marcille complement each other wholly because they represent core themes of dunmeshi and you cannot understand their characters without understanding those themes (acceptance of death, wanting to be accepted by peers, the importance of the dungeon to them and the temptation by the lion, etc). so their dynamic is important to understanding dunmeshi and you can see how their journey has shaped them into wanting to stick to each other in the foreseeable future.

dunmeshi is excellent at scaling characters’ importance. the protagonist (laios) and deuteragonist (marcille) have appropriate relevance to the plot and themes while being fully fleshed out characters. their bond— the one formed in dungeon and through dungeon lord temptations— makes a lot of sense. like of course they’re friends and of course she’s the advisor to his king. they keep each other company and the dungeon bonded them in a unique way.

[lai-mar]

“They’re so canon,” I say, about a ship that couldn’t be further from canon

[lai-mar]

Say it loud and say it proud! 🤗

Art by: Sagutxis on X

[lai-mar]

I have nothing against Farcille, genuinely. But it's been very interesting seeing that a fandom mostly defined by a femslash ship for once can get just as brainwormed about their OTP to the point of ultimately and fundamentally misunderstanding/mischaracterizing the entire thing as any other fandom dominated by mslash.

[lai-mar]

i’m gay but i’m always gonna choose the well developed straight ship over the 2 bland and incompatible white dudes that have 500,000 fanfics written about them. you guys just hate women.

[lai-mar]

May this new extra serve as a reminder that marcille truly, openly like laios. This isn't marcille embellishing the translation on purpose. Her natural way of speaking around someone she love just make the words sound "so charming" as laois put it :3

And look, if this is from laios's pov then he really think she's radiant like the sun.

God they're so fucking cute