#Fumi rambles

[fumifooms]

Mickrin

Fifth entry of my “Dunmeshi rarepairs I will birth with my own hands if I have to” series. This one’s straight up embarrassing, like of course the shadow version of Chilchuck and Marcille would get me.

It suddenly grabbed me out of nowhere. What got me thinking about it is this exchange, first comic third panel, because like… Woah. He knows she has a thing for Kabru? Or something. And he has NO FEAR. Like it’s so forward and has 0 pretenses lmao. And then I thought… And oh no. Oh no.

"I can fix him" x "I can make her worse"

Very uptight and strict and rules-following and too self-aggrandizing tbh x will not hesitate to insult you to your face and sleazy and free spirit…. Kuro is involved in an ot3 of sorts in my head and basically they drag her into Situations of various moral standing aka scams or idk going to a club god forbid. I think she needs to relax and get taken down 1 peg maybe, and I think he needs like…….. Someone to teach him what is unhealthy lmao, also remind him to get work benefits, and if they can like get to feel safe and comfy with one another (and god just the road there would be a beautiful trainwreck to watch) they would be gossip besties worsties.

Kabru needs to be the epitome of morals but like, if it’s Mickbell she can lower the bar… Just for him… <3 She can fix him just a little and she’ll be like "wow! Ok I can settle for this amount of upstanding behavior from you Mickbell you get a gold star"

I never expected it ok I read this extra expecting nothing and god knows why I saw him be like "hey u like Kabru right. You’re his babysitter right. Which poor sap is being Kabru’s maid" with 0 fear and her being so casually pissed back at him and idk, how they’re so comfy being not polite with one another but they’re still coworkers-friends despite it… Crazy for how prickly they both are that they manage that much. They bicker and see each other as annoying at best but weirdly dependable and friends despite it all and……….. I am going to grow them in a lab and observe how I can make it work

MICKBELL IS A REBOUND MORE AT 9??? Maybe Rin and Mickbell have a one night stand and then the aftermath dynamic is this….. She probably regrets it. And then it gets more complex and grows into something odd as she becomes hyperaware of him and they have this little complicity thing going on….

I think cuddling with Kuro (who would be more like a platonic protective & soothing presence in his and Rin’s relationship rather than romo) would destress her actually I think she needs and deserves it. Go to a dog cafe bbygirl it’ll fix you. So what I’m saying is the three of them watch a movie and Rin and Mickbell are sitting on Kuro’s laps and everyone is so comfy. Kuro’s legs die halfway through but he’s self-sacrificing it’s fine….. Actually Mick is on his laps Rin’s just nuzzled into his side. There, fixed. I am so weirdly invested in them… They’re funky to think about. Rin seeing Mickbell and Kuro like "you guys are aware that what you two have is fucked up right" and then joining them in the messy dynamic 🤝  Put them in situations. That will be all.

The sheer amount of sass on their own, let alone together…

Make them get drunk together it’ll be glorious

[fuumiku]

Wip. I do want to finish this, i really enjoy doing even digital art of Metal, digital which is usually painstaking for me to do, and I’ve got sooo many angst art pieces of him in the works lol

But this is vent art. And I’m thinking it can be a nice opportunity to give an update on myself? And have a talk about flowergore, machines, sketches and disability, because I’m in that kinda mood

I didn’t want to put a read more split on this post but it became too long to comfortably fit on my blog, so alas... Life doesn’t often go as planned, yeah?

Cw for the next paragraph, just skip if these make you uncomfortable, or if you want to go straight to the flowergore & metal convo: discussion of chronic illness & disability, with references to disordered eating. I’ve been diagnosed a bit less than a month ago with a chronic autoimmune disease that has been severely impacting my life for a long time without my knowledge: coeliac disease. Basically, my intestines see gluten as something to defend the body against, and that not only causes painful indigestions but also damages the intestines over time, so much so that the body starts having trouble digesting other things and getting nutrients from food. This has caused chronic pain, a miriad of ungodly symptoms like hair loss and skin rash, but honestly, more impacting? Chronic fatigue. I cannot express just how much psychological and emotional damage it has done to me, to have that decline of energy come in waves, but also steadily going down over years right up to now, where I spend most my days laying in bed, where sitting up in bed and booting up my computer is a “good day”, where I’m either sleepy, exhausted, bored out of my mind or frustrated that I can’t just be making the creative content I want to do. The self-esteem utter destruction, having to work through with myself that it’s okay to be idle and abandon all ambitions, to prioritize physical survival and keeping the will to live even as you stop eating to protect yourself from pain, struggle to keep up with your daily schedule and even thinking takes so much energy. My ipad, my accessibility tool that allows me to do something even as I can’t do anything irl, has become super old and dysfunctional. It gets overwhelmed easily and works slowly, closes randomly, corrupts art files and loads apps uncorrectly. Doing anything with it is either incredibly frustrating, time-consuming and difficult, or straight up impossible or a risk to lose work. I have a Metal Sonic artwork I’ve lost and redone twice, I’m currently taking a break from redoing it a third time. It’s been rough. But tbh, in another way, I relate to it? Massive brainfog energy, lmao. When I have to remind myself that machines are faillible too, I end up humanizing it and validate its struggles, even tho it isn’t alive and it just malfunctions because it is what it is. It has taught me patience and the ability to build back up work that I have lost. But hey, there ain’t no reason to add another layer of inaccessibility to my pile, and I ordered a replacement for it just today! I’ll be so much more productive and happy with material that works smoothly and allows for more. But anyways, back to flowergore.

Flowergore is vividly poetic, but I only realized why it has always appealed to me as a comfort/vent and cathartic aesthetic while drawing this: There’s an innate stillness and loss of control to flowergore. Pretty, but tragic. Illness stops being an evil, and becomes a simple product of life that does its thing regardless of the will of the soil it grows in. You have to tend to the plants, whether you trim them to get them under control or must care after them to coexist.  No matter if you find the flowers pretty or not, it doesn’t change anything. The flowers aren’t an innate good nor a moral wrong, they don’t even have an opinion about growing on you. They don’t care, they can’t, they’re just flowers. And yet there’s something so comforting about it, something that can be sad but that can just be peaceful, too. It’s about living through the effects, and dealing with the weeds as they come and go. Resigning yourself, or the process of getting there. It’s about acceptance, and compromise. I think flowergore has innate ties with disability and illness that can’t be denied, nor broken honestly, when you think about it. I also think it can represent/relate with dysmorphia a lot, bodily or otherwise. In my case, I have various skin and sensory issues that give me dysmorphia, and an otherwise “I hate my body and my body hates me” feeling.  The stillness of flowergore often resonates as fatigue, sadness or anguish. It personifies the illness in a way that you can better reflect on your relationship with it, and your relationship with your body & yourself, in a way that allows you to better vent about them. It’s very healing.

These sort of things are the kind of thing that sometimes, you kind of have to personify to distance it from your identity and properly cope with them, you know? Or it’ll just consume you. Even way before I developed my disease, or was regularly fatigued, I loved flowergore, and I think it’s just... A really nice way to frame things weighing you down, that you just kinda have to deal with and process through. Even vague or “normal”/”light” things, like fatigue or negative thoughts, feelings or insecurities.

And don’t get me STARTED on the metaphors and feelings of plants sprouting from an inorganic machine. It’s the classic “sprout growing from a crack in concrete” dystopia trope, except with a negative punchline hah. I’ve always loved to humanize the dehumanized: robots, antagonists and otherwise. I love having characters that feel like they’re on a high pedestral of innate difference and superiority away from others, but that makes them unreachable by default, deeply lonely and misunderstood for it, wether they’re truly an exceptional being or not. I love characters thinking that they’re above physical or emotional weakness getting a slap in the face and having to acknowledge their vulnerability and neglected/suppressed needs head on. I love the delusional, emotionally repressed with anger issues robot having a moment of clarity where he allows himself to be honest to himself for a bit, and resigns himself to the pain of his past and future, before returning to their regular schedule or self-destruction, or not. Ignoring is often the only option you can manage to choose when you don’t have the strenght to make a change or admit to something you didn’t want to about yourself, but ignoring is a lot harder when the proof grows ever bigger and more out of control everywhere on your body. It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t grow on you, impossible. But it does. So what are you going to do about it?

I think I finally get the appeal of hanahaki stuff too. I never understood before, but now I can see it in that same vein. Unreciprocated love causes flowers to sprout wildly, causing, at best, only body horror and/or wounds, when weeding them out or otherwise, and at worst proves to be fatal, most often by suffocating. Except that instead of illness or things like that, the thing you experience a lack of control over and feel some sort of detached destructive blame or resentment for is feelings. Feelings of love, like falling deeply in love, without your own consent, and the pain that being unloved brings. Your love, like a damaging parasitic disease.

Yeah, this isn’t gonna be my last flowergore content.

I didn’t end up talking about sketches, I don’t have the energy to and I don’t think it fits in with the rest anyway, but basically? It’s been an healing journey to allow simple, unclean sketches to be “enough”. To not be shameful, to represent progress and be pretty in their own right and a valid art format. And so, with all of this, I post my messiest sketch on social media to date. One of my very rare public wips. Freedom, baby. You get what you get, and that’s fine. Low standards art is part of my disability recovery arc ✨

[fumi-faust]

Please send me some kink prompts!

As you all know I’ve been participating in this year’s Kinktober challenge! I just wanted to ask if any followers wanted to request prompts and ships for this event because I’m a little fried at thinking of them on my own. I know most of you follow me for jeanmarco, but if there’s anything else you’d like to see and/or any specific kinks you’d like me to cover please feel free to drop me and ask! You can find the list of days and prompts here. 

[cyruune]

Winter break has started Idk what to do

[fumifooms]

Do you know about the Marchil h-doujin, just called "Marchil Meshi"? (Dunno wether you're comfortable about adult content regarding the ship. If not, sorry and feel free to ignore).

Imagine my surprise… When a few months ago, I was looking up places to buy doujins for dunmeshi online bc of that new-ish laimar (sfw) doujin and I find, many many nsfw ones bUT AMONGST THE HORDE… MARCHIL MESHI. I ate it up. It’s a lil iconic to me ngl, I quote it in my head sometimes. Marcille angrily gesturing always gets me cackling. It honestly has no business being this good, it was made pretty early on in the story so many years ago, and STILL! So in character, and honestly so funny, AND no weird business either. Like listen, I scour the internet, looking for any marchil content, any marchil content at all… And find a dry af desert, no life here, literally jackshit nothing. Only Pixiv has some afaik but the nsfw is def… Hm. 😔 (2 fics tagged chirumaru on there btw!! That aren’t mine lol) Thank you marchil meshi author if I had to pick 1 piece of marchil nsfw to exist I’d choose this one (honestly that’s already so close to reality lol) Thank u Asaki Takayuki I owe u my life. I like zines but I’ve never bought doujins before so it didn’t cross my mind, but dunmeshi is taking a lot of my first times in fandom engagement and I bought said laimar doujin just the other day hehe 

I do want to keep my blog generally sfw but yes I’m 100% cheering on nsfw marchil content from the shadows, glad that ao3’s finally getting some too. I hope that fic writer makes more… Tallman Chil is so so good but I hope they also do some more general premises, which the end notes on that one do make me hopeful 👀 I want more marchil writers in general. More marchil fanartists. Sfw nsfw idk I need to be fed 😭 (<- This post was drafted before that new marchil smut fic WOOHOO. So much new marchil content this week!!)

Oh while I’m here, I find this so funny/odd, but in japanese fandom ship names are simply the beginning of each name smushed together, like marchil or chilmar. The order of the names is that the first one is the "top"… Idk how jp fandoms live without switches but aight, but in m/f ships this means that typically the man is the first half of the ship name right. WELL WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT marchil is so much more used than chilmar lmaoo. Even more stats: On Pixiv, the tag marchil had all the artworks, but the chilmar tag had all the fics. Ain’t that wack to think about. Anyways marchil or chilmar idc you go guys

Sighh thinking about them. They are so "I beg your pardon??!" "Then beg", "Fuck you!" "Fuck me yourself you coward"… Forget stamens and pistils, Chil is the cursed "You see, there are keys and there are locks…"

More under cut since I don’t get to talk about this often, screenshots and hcs for horny time

^ said panel that lives rent free in my head and makes me giggle. I wish I’d just put the whole page here it’s my fave but nahh go find it yourself

Why are they like this. Like what is thatttt

I need to stop collecting these I’m making myself feel insane (thank you fic writer for that last one I’d never noticed but omg)

Alright hc time what was I gonna talk about… Ah yes ah yes. I def think Chil is a pest, he’s horny and he wants sex and is flagrant about it, but also we know that he stayed faithful for 4 years without getting any, I feel like realistically the relationship sex wise would 100% be on Marcille’s pace. And this is the fun part, bc would Marcille be very eager? Would she want to do the romance book correct™️ route and that means no tapping until marriage, or he needs to court her all princely first? I hc that elves have a much lower libido than humans because of the whole long af lifespan thing, it’d be kinda funny if Marcille was like "Let’s take things slow… 🥺" aka first base achieved after two years of being together lol

But seee that’s the thing too bc Marcille is so afraid of loss she might rush through things as well, she very well could like, jump on him right after confessing. Is Chilchuck kind of a shithead or is he very gentlemanly and romantic, wanting to do it right and treat her well? They are such a blank canvas of sexual chemistry listen LISTENNN there are just so so many ways you can go with them they are so special. God the banter… They cannot stop bantering for a second I swear So many kinks they could fit… I like uhh praise kink for him and for her… Idk she just really loves him and the emotional adoration is what’s at the core of her enjoying it all so like, loving Chilchuck kink, which turns out those two really match together 🫶 He makes her sing and ummm um you see where this goes. They are so grossly in love and into each other

They are so domestic. I hate them

[fumifooms]

Wake up sleepyheads it’s the marchilpocalypse

Today marks the SEVENTH consecutive day a marchil fic got posted. Yes, a full week streak! Do you know what this means?!

This is crazy. Historical. The relationship tag with the most fics right behind the Big Three?!!

The og marchil fanfic writer mvp and two anons have been passing each other the ball I feel like a sports fan rn watching a tennis match my head going back and forth to see who makes their move next…

Just a week ago a friend recommended I make an IFTTT ao3feed for marchil and I was like "Pffft there are never any new fics for it that’d be useless", well well well well well 🤡 I made one after all @feedmarchil

[fumifooms]

Hi I adored your chilchuck/marcille fanfic, "grind me down sweetly", that was so lovely!! i ate it up with like no hesitation! i was wondering if you were considering writing more of them? thank you so much for all your work and thank you for sharing it with us!

First of all thank you so so much!! Every nice word and kudos mean the world to me, and for rarepairs they're all the more cherished 💖 And yes anon, I absolutely do plan on making more for them! As much as I can manage, a library's worth if possible. They're my absolute Dungeon Meshi OTP and Dunmeshi’s been my obsession for like 10 months now, I'm a huge shipper & I love making fancontent and yeahh it's not stopping anytime soon. Though I am a slow writer... And I really should get around to finishing my older non-dunmeshi wips too 😫

I’ve talked about marchil fanfic prompts/wips a couple times on here, and very recently even about a sequel to Grind Me Down Sweetly actually! The fic’s a lot about having a familiar routine with someone and sort of growing used to that, to knowing someone like that and with sharing his days and his living space with someone again, about growing open to the idea that maybe just maybe he and Marcille could have something in the first place. And it’s kept pretty platonic due to that and whatnot, but I recently thought that, since the arc of him becoming more aware and open to the relationship got done in GMDS, doing a sequel where we actually see the relationship grow more romantic would be cute!! Warming up to the romantic nature of their relationship like settling down into a cozy couch. And this time rather than coffee it’ll be centered around what all the best cafes have… Cats!

Gonna summarize the concepts of some of my marchil fic wips under the cut, if you’d rather go in blind when they… Eventually get written, then you can just stop here and safely be assured that I am 100% planning on writing more for them! Oh, btw I also take prompts and requests, though I can’t promise anything.

Alright so GMDS sequel: I think in canon both Marcille and Chilchuck have a special dynamic with Izutsumi, where they care after her, not unlike Senshi but with more feelings attached. With her traveling around, I feel like every once in a while they’d talk about her, dealing with the worry and the uncertainty. Marcille is like "My fragile baby bird out into the world… She needs to at least live to be 100 years old 😭" while Chil knows how it’s like and just trusts her to be alright, like with Puckpatti. And so!! Every time she sees a stray cat while strolling out her heart pangs… There are many strays in Chilchuck’s neighborhood, and with her pushing for it they start leaving some food out for them. At one point she sees one standing out in the rain all pitifully in front of Chil’s shop and she invites it in (to Chilchuck’s despair), and from then on it’s still a stray but it has a home to go back to… Until Marcille officially adopts it. And it can showcase Marcille and Chil’s growing relationship alongside that metaphorically, where she sorta moves in and they grow more boldly affectionate, and it’s like… Domesticating love… 😌 Man didn’t want a cat, a cat daughter nor a new lover, but they took a liking to him and were stubborn about getting close to him and now there they all are. I like to say that post-canon despite Chil living alone in his shop he gets a second family of clingy asses, and this is exactly what I mean. Vibe wise I’d like it to have that cozy energy of spending a slow afternoon at a nice quiet cafe on a rainy day, but we’ll see how I manage it! It’s not the highest on my writing priorities currently though.

Other marchil fic ideas I’ve talked about are… Following them on that time pre-canon where they went to shop for a pouch together would be cute. I have a long post talking about them being sick and caring for each other would be like and that’d make a fun whump fic too. He gets sick and she dotes on him, she indulges herself and kisses him anyways, and then of course he passes it on to her right as he gets better so then it’s her turn getting taken care of hehe.

This one’s more convoluted, so either Marcille invites him to a fancy social event at the castle as her plus-one (aka emotional support) maybe already dating maybe on the verge of confessing, OR they’re already dating and then Marcille’s mom visits them and it’s very sweet and maybe marriage talks happens~, but in both cases Chilchuck is going through SO much stress. Just Chilchuck’s heart being on the absolute edge of giving out, going through the five stages of grief over the banquet not having his favorite kind of alcohol and Marcille not letting him be an ornamental plant in the corner of the room and doing the bare minimum. Or having to engage with her mom and seeming worthy of being her lover as his shit is only barely pulled together after they hurry to ready his house to host her as a guest. And I have a bunch of wips where I tackle them properly doing a confession or a proposal… I was planning on making a comic about it even. Here’s a lil taste of them talking about getting into a relationship together~

And you know what, here are some new exclusive ones I hadn’t shared yet that I’d really like to get around to making

In the meantime if you want I have a ton of analysis and headcanon posts about marchil on this blog, and fanarts here, and @fumiku is my fanfic blog with updates + for fanfic related asks (which rarely gets used rip).

I have non-marchil dunmeshi fanfics I want to prioritize too, but idk idk I’ll see what I end up getting around to… I like having a new vision to offer with each fic, so I tend to prioritize fics that take a new angle for the same ship or tackle different characters and themes, so I can see myself pushing myself to do other stuff before falling back into my marchil comfort zone.

[fumifooms]

no one can convince me Lycion isn’t a borzoi

[fumifooms]

When u laying down and your neck starts wailing like a cicada in heat you know something’s at least a lil messed up

[fumifooms]

The Shuro-Laios fight scene : One-way respect & the trauma of social expectations

I physically need to talk about this scene. I am going to go full feral mode. Sure cultural differences play a role in the dynamics at play here, but it’s much deeper than that. It’s not an equal playing field, Shuro is simply straight up wrong here. No, no no. This is about failures in communicating, otherization and treating someone like some village’s fool.

Like, bringing up ableism for these kinda things gives me a bitter taste because to most it doesn’t seem deeper than just an issue on social etiquette differences, but also like… I don’t know what you’re expecting if you actively want people to read your 8d chess like a book and get angry when some people don’t. Soo yeah I speak about this scene through the lens of just being an interpersonal issue, but just know that the autistic subtext is definitely there and it haunts me & every narrative.

This is your usual kind of Fumi essay, but also honestly it’s kinda tamer than usual; there are no breakthroughs or anything I just needed to get in depth into the backstage of this scene, the meat of it and the ties with Laios’ past and psychology.

Laios’ infantilization

To get into it, I want to first show this post I screenshot for this. 

So real, so so real. And I’m not gonna talk about how some fans don’t understand Laios here or some dividing stuff bc that’d be weird, but : I have seen some fans around insanely infantilizing Laios. Comparing him to a child or saying he’s innocent like one?? Wanting his voice to not be manly even though it fits his build & character and one person in particular asking if shipping Laios and Chilchuck is morally wrong because LAIOS is too childlike?? I’m going fcking insane

So I want to talk about the reason why he slaps Shuro here. This scene was so important to me y’all, I cried. It’s never stated why he slapped him, but to me it’s so obvious. And it’s not so much that the reason isn’t hinted at, esp as the last thing he says and the way the slap is impulsive indicate, but moreso because to many readers it’ll have seemed like something out of character for him to do. Like many fans, Shuro assumed while knowing him (that’s the biggest insult tbh: how could you possibly think that of me, as someone that I know?) that Laios is some disconnected from reality butterflies and rainbow airhead guy. But that’s not true at all! Laios had already shown times and times again that he understands the deep importance and nuance of taking life and risking your own, both in the way he treats monsters & faced off against the red dragon, everything. Laios is dense when it comes to social things, yes, risk-taking when fighting, yes, but he’s never been thoughtless or airheaded. And people would know that if they literally just read the text and didn’t assign more traits because of conformity bias.

The straw that breaks the camel’s back

The thing that makes Laios snap in this scene isn’t learning that Shuro only ever pretended to be his friend, no, he’s too used to that, that’s a rage suppressed for another day (Of course that’s probably part of it, but it’s not what made him snap). He slapped the shit out of Shuro because Shuro kept implying that Laios wasn’t serious about saving his sister. That because he’s not showing misery 24/7 the way Shuro is or his plans are unconventional then he doesn’t truly actually cares about her, or worse, that he’s unfit to try and save Falin. And for that? Shuro really needs 1) a reality check, 2) to stop only ever interpreting people in the most shallow way possible, 3) to not assume Laios is too stupid to not understand the insults leveled his way or too passive to react in any other way than turning the other cheek. BECAUSE THAT LAST POINT IS WHAT SHURO EXPECTED.

And that’s not just insulting on surface, but deeply triggering. Triggering not only to Laios but to me lol. Because not only is he assuming you’re not serious because he thinks he knows how you are based on some caricaturizing judgements he’s made of you, but he’s implying that you’re not showing enough concern. You’re not performing your grief and showing emotions enough, you’re not showing them right. You’re not grieving enough, the right way. This sort of thing is exactly why Laios has this distrust of humans in the first place btw.

Laios approached Shuro with new information about Falin’s situation, even trusted in him enough to tell him about the dark magic. He brushed off Shuro putting a blade to his neck, was the perfect peacekeeper and friend, doesn’t share even slightly the same disdain as Marcille for the party members who left them when it mattered most. He offered good faith to Shuro all the way, and that is precisely what Shuro doesn’t give him back.

What Shuro is resenting here in Laios’ attitude wasn’t thoughtlessness, it was trust.

“You’re the only one in blissful obliviousness and everyone else has the burden of dealing with you”. Holy fucking shit imagine being Laios, thinking this guy was your friend, begging him asking him why he never said anything about it and let you believe a lie and he’s like “yeah well you had the gall not to know I was only acting!” YOU WERE THE ONE TO ACT?????????? ACTING?????? WHAT’S THE POINT OF ACTING IF YOU WANT OTHERS TO REALIZE THAT YOU ARE

The disrespect & the trauma

 And so here Shuro is, parading undernourished and sleep deprived, crying about Faling constantly, being utterly useless. Here Laios is, making consistent progress in the single minded goal to save Falin, his team making sacrifices like eating monsters to be faster and braving every obstacle. They just almost all died facing off the red dragon. And then, because he doesn’t bother losing time making his plan sound sensible, because he doesn’t bother losing time and becoming vulnerable to talk about how much his sister fcking means to him and how yes his plans may sound insane but they’re the best ones they’ve got, he gets labeled as unserious, as unreliable, as incompetent. This fucking bitch!!! I wanted so bad for Laios to slap him and he did, bless. Wasn’t surprised at all that he did, he deserved to let some wrath out so bad. Imagine being treated as he does. (I don’t have to lol </3 but my point is that he’s stronger than me fr). The whole Winged Lion showdown where it’s revealed Laios actually dislikes humans and that’s the origin of his interest in monsters? Um yeah no shit? Duh

Laios constantly extends empathy and a will to understand to monsters because that is exactly what he wishes he was given. Like with Kentsuke. The little guy’s just hanging out in a sword, the others would have tossed him away or eaten him but it’s not doing anything harmful, it’s just a little guy. Erm, moving on, this connection Laios has with monsters is not only because monster/animal psychology is much more straightforward and easier to understand than humans’, more earnest. But his urge to bond with monsters is because companionship with them is safer, because if it’s humans vs monsters all he knows is that he doesn’t want to be on the humans’ side. Because you’ll never know when they’ll suddenly stab you in the back or let the other shoe drop. Monsters are for some reason innately otherized and disliked by humans, seen as something so vile that even eating them is backwards and an insult to nature. Like how humans innately stick together, innately think more of a human than they would a monster, Laios innately relates to the underdog, to the dismissively misunderstood and beings that actively revulse humans. Beings that are deemed not worth the thought that maybe they are living beings as well who have the right just as anything else to be, yet are assigned ill intent simply for their way of life. Laios wishes to assign personability and humanity to monsters because it’s what humans have constantly stripped him of. Common courtesy, just an errand thought that, maybe Laios has feelings too, has a brain, has complex thoughts.

I’m gonna be honest I still haven’t truly forgiven Shuro. I’ll forever hold a grudge and feel uncomfortable around this guy fr. Fuck him. It’s good that he and Laios managed to move on from this and become something like friends in the end don’t get me wrong. But like I’m not sure y’all realize how legit traumatizing thinking you’re friend with someone then learning that they hated you all along and you were living a lie is. It fucks you up. Can you even trust yourself if you can’t notice someone being fake? Can you trust people when they say they like you? Is it your fault, are you just not enough? Shuro is my nightmare, he’s terrifying to me.

Laios gets a punch as a treat

But Laios is so much better than me. Incredibly kind, and surprisingly forgiving with how much he struggles with his relationship with humans. It’s kinda so sad how no matter how rough fighting they get Laios stays cordial and wishing Shuro good while the guy just insults him.

Happens again. And again. And again

When they first realize that they could eat Falin’s dragon part to separate her souls:

See? Laios is practical, but because of a lack of saying “now I’m not saying that I like this but-” before every idea he gets misunderstood, but literally, he’s just being practical. Finally, a plan that very well could work, the only one! And he rightfully gets frustrated with his party members when they react to him like that! But what separates his friends from Shuro is that even if, yes, Laios truly seems completely unhinged often, they do give him good faith, stick by him, value him and his input. Trust him with their lives, the same way he does them. The party reacts that way in the moment, but right after they are apologetic and they move on.

Laios is not stupid. He’s not fully unaware. He trusted Shuro as a friend, but he still has this distrust of humans that he hides well. Laios is very sensitive to human emotions, in fact! As seen with how as a child the energy of hatred in his village sickened him. Laios has a very friendly attitude, but generally tries to keep emotionally distant from others, such as how he brushed off Kabru when on the surface, or how possibly he suppresses any romantic interest he may have, topic explored in this other analysis of mine. Laios has seen human cruelty again and again, he’s seen people team up against someone they deem strange and monstrous.

How Laios says he was so happy because he thought he had made his first friend on the island with Shuro was no small meaningless thing.

In conclusion

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Vampires walked so catgirls could run

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Comparing Asaden to other ships for comedic potential

Idk about y’all but I’m desperate for asaden content rn and my brain has dug far into my memories until it found an old ship of mine that is a goldmine of asaden energy: sorayla from The Dragon Prince. Oh also, disclaimer: this is about shipping fanon for funsies lol I’m going very off the rails here. This is mostly comedic “enemies with romantic tension” stuff. There’s another ship at the end of the post too. Definitely putting this under a cut bc I am more capable of shame than Denji tbh. Anyways so let’s-a go!

Sorayla!

Soren is like, so Denji. He’s more jock and like, wholesomely stupid? But also he’s mire of a jerk in that he has no morals ngl, and his ego is humongous. Rayla for this is Asa, she’s pretty Yoru-like too but just cringefail and bitchy enough to be pretty Asa lolol. But, where they really shine is their dynamic together:

Their first meeting is him attacking her. He’s about to attack her while she’s asleep, but then a moonbeam falls upon her face and it looks like he thinks she’s pretty?? But the point is she’s too vulnerable for him to kill her without guilt so he’s like “Sis can u wake her up… So it’s like, sporty y’know” which DOES make me feel very Denji about him

 Anyways, they fight on rather equal grounds after that and she of course doesn’t respond well to that whole mess. And though they become reluctant allies because of a mutual friend she keeps glaring at him because she knows he’s up to no good, this is his response: https://www.tumblr.com/sorayla/182939524430/poor-soren

-———-

From the comic: https://raayllum.tumblr.com/post/631343059979976704/soren-and-raylas-relationship-in-through-the

Just… Just watch this Soren compilation… You’ll get it. https://youtu.be/Tjm_S8DwYBM 

2:48 and onward is the best to get the Denji-ness (and Asa-ness). For Asa-Rayla, there’s much less good content 

Here are some extra moments I could find in image format:

And hey, the best part! : Soren’s character arc is all about stopping blindly following orders even if they’re from someone you hold dear and trust, and stepping into your own moral code and beliefs and standing up for yourself. Rayla’s character arc is about facing her problems, her flaws and figuring out her identity and getting over social judgement & being an outcast!!

Anyways. They’re funny, is what I’m getting at. Cringefail yet murder power duo. Somehow matches the level of asaden murderous intent and dead braincells but while being more functional.

OK NEXT SHIP BC I TRIED TO KEEP IT IN AND COULDN’T: 

Maomao & Jinshi from The Apothecary Diaries

This one will be quicker. They’re much different from asaden character wise and dynamic wise too, but a similar thing to sorayla where “she looks at me like she wants my head on a pike, omg I need her to kiss me” happens lolol

Maomao is just wholy uninterested and asocial, which, yeah, Asa much. Jinshi’s cute curiosity in Maomao is pretty Denji. But then it’s kinda like asaden reverse roles because Jinshi is tired af and bitter and childish and petulant, but he acts very elegant and flirty in public & for Maomao (at first), so it’s kinda like Asa & Yoru trying to woo Denji Lmfao. And then Maomao being untinterested and blunt af is very Denji when he isn’t happy with Asa, like when he wanted to avoid her and cuss her out just before she asked him out on a date. Anyways look at this

 Tell me that isn’t Asa looking at Denji & Denji being ecstatic over getting any sort of crumb of attention from a girl. YOU CAN’T THAT GUY IS JINSHI’S FATHER FIGURE. HE HAS HIROFUMI YOSHIDA ENERGY. IMAGINE YOSHIDA WALKING UP TO ASA LIKE “Please stop insulting Denji he rants about you 24/7, he rambles about you being wrong and gives 3 hours long point by point counter-arguments all while blushing and seething. It’s disgusting and I’m not paid enough to be his friend. Please. Do it for my sanity.”

“Please hide your disgust so I don’t have to hear him talk about his kinks” This post really said it best lmfao: https://virovac.tumblr.com/post/680214574839054336/the-apothecary-diaries

Also I think it’d be hilarious if they had some fake-out romantic moments like this: https://lunatic-fatalist.tumblr.com/post/696376478807490560/mao-mao-reaction-to-be-carried-bridal-style-by-the  Them being cute for 1 sec, the other picking up on the romantic ambiance and then them immediately dropping the ball. The post doesn’t have it but the page after that moment Jinshi cusses her out and they end up arguing-bantering lmao

This is a good summary of them lmao: https://wwcrld.tumblr.com/post/642320757689663488/the-apothecary-diaries-by-natsu-hyuuga Anyways go read The Apothecary Diaries. It’s really funny and interesting and cool, it’s a detective sorta story about medicine and politics in ancient China.

I know few people are likely to care about this whole thing but by good god I am obsessed and starved for asaden rn, it’s never enough and I have to start sucking in other fandoms like a black hole or some plague. I hope some poor souls may deride enjoyment from this

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Haruka Iseumi is a really interesting character actually.

Why does he pretend to be Chainsaw Man? Is it to boost his self-esteem snd social standing? Can he even devil hunt and fight at all, or can’t he and that’s why he always has his group of club bodyguards? It’d be easy for him to never be seen in a fight too, if everyone thinks he’s in his Chainsaw Man form when he’s fighting. Maybe he just wants "well-respected devil hunting club president” on his resume, esp since Kobeni’s brother(?) mentioned that being part of the club does look good for a future career.

Or maybe he has something more sinister going on. Maybe it’s a plan. Since it’s rather well known/rumored that Chainsaw Man is part of that highschool, maybe Haruka is actually counting on it reaching his ears that someone is pretending to be him (since it was rumored someone in the devil hunting club was him, it’s not exactly like he’s hiding it really well, telling it to every member), so that the real Chainsaw Man goes to confront him (to learn of his true identity, or maybe to fight him?). Maybe it has to do something with Famine, like they’ve got a deal going on that he’ll help her do something and for that he has to pretend to be Chainsaw Man. I’ve put my tinfoil hat on and I have theories Maybe his goal is to form a really strong devil hunting club/unit, and have it as some army or whatever. Maybe it’s a whole psychological scheme of turning the devil hunting club into his gaggle of fans that think highky of him and are loyal to him. 

With the major theme of bullying in part 2 so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if Haruka used to be bullied, maybe for his interest in devil hunting or his shitty attitude idk. The way he tries to talk himself up and wants to introduce himself all fancy in chap 114 multiple times does lean towards him wanting recognition and admiration. Maybe he even loves being better and higher than everyone else. I do have a feeling that he’s just gonna be useless in a fight tbh. He seemed pretty composed and calculated in chap 114, so maybe he does have skills in the strategy department? He’s kinda just sitting and running his mouth otherwise, so maybe that’s telling of where his skills and true colors lie. 

[fumifooms]

My chapter 114 hopes are that Asa & Denji will be Miraculous Ladybug-ing all over the place— Making up dumb excuses to get separated while making sure the other is safe before going after the Eternity Devil believing they’re the only one who can save them from the mess, trying to keep their appearance as a totally normal human through it all “Hey what?? What happened to that devil that kept us trapped??” “Oh haha idk I guess Chainsaw Man found a way to come save us!! What a great guy right!!” “What” “Don’t worry about it” They’re not idiots despite significant evidence, so both of them would be like. “How come you didn’t die back there?” “Well ummm didn’t you know I’m an aspiring devil hunter!! Yep” Then the other finds it sus but remembers being an aspiring devil hunter is also their cover so they can’t act like it sounds fake. “Oh haha me too!! We make such a good pair!! Hahaha” “oh hahaha yeah haha” “hahaha” “haha…”. That or they just hate each other so much and seethe and are hanging onto their last shred of philanthropy to not leave the other behind for dead.

Someone else already pointed it out by Asa & Denji look like Marinette & Adrien from mlb and that is the funniest fricking shit ever. Take the love square but make it about eldritch entities and murderous betrayal.

You might say, but Fumi, he really wants his secret identity to be found out. Consider: they’re talking, and then Denji mentions Chainsaw Man will save them and Asa again says that she hates the guy, and this time Denji freezes and realizes blowing up his cover might actually get him to lose his date instead of win one. He already knows she dislikes him but if she speaks about her hatred of devils in general, plausible considering the eternity devil situation, getting all bloodlusty and tragic simultaneously + he got a bit more attached I think it could happen. And then it’d just add a glorious layer of fuckery, with Denji acutely aware that his secret identity is her hate boner. Or or, on the contrary, he  actually tries to make her find out in increasingly obvious and ridiculous ways but she’s set on believing he’s just a delusional fanboy. Either way I would be living and thriving for it.

Maybe they save a penguin together. Maybe the aquariums break in the fight. Maybe he sees her using her devil power, maybe- So many things could happen I need to exorcise my hyperfixation through writing fanfiction

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The fricking sheer autism of this man… Palpable, everywhere, so thick in the air I choke on it like dust. It’s incredible to me how I missed it when I first read his route years ago, must be the diagnosis I got in the meantime

Let’s not even talk about the masking or the trauma. The horrendeous hoarding, the picky eating due to bad tastes and textures (the vegetables having to be cooked and not cold), Cheshire the cat being his closest/most often seen pal, wanting the extreme seclusion he sees as normal while still needing some form of social contact even if it’s twisted…

His whole character arc is literally that he needs to touch grass. Eccentric neurodivergent art student weirdo, literally the trope. I love him and his crippling coping mechanisms. He has no hinges and the crumbs of sanity he still has aren’t enough for him to be even slightly hinged. No hinges in sight

It’s so funny too because it’s truly written in the era typical fashion of “this character is so autistic but we’re not gonna say it”. Him being a mess, head in the clouds and living in his own fantasy world from a young age, has sensory issues and fidgets and dreads social events… But oh, the queen of hearts said it’s pathetic for the son of a duke to be so “timid”.

I gotta say… I have to tip my hat off to the writers for being so bold and brave, like, they could have written a story about accepting a terribly lonely and delusional autistic character’s special interest that was like, idk, cars or maths. No! They wrote one about a rich guy whose sole interest always was being a clown secluding himself in a basement that he decorates and Larps to be Wonderland who also hosts black market auctions. The most crack concept possible, and yet they made it good representation and have actual good lessons about healing and opening yourself to the world?? What a gigachad power move.

[fumifooms]

CJ The X is notably really impressive because they’re the embodiment of “academia must use formal language and tone when speaking or writing” being wrong, wrong as hell. Sometimes and for many, casual language is better for learning and stimulate discussion and thought. You wouldn’t think a video essay of someone erratically rambling about complex and philosophical topics using big words with a casual tone and really fast speech would work at all, but it does. It’s even wildly better for it