I've seen a good number of people ask a question along the lines of "why do characters like Falin and hate Laios when they're so similar?" and i've also seen good analysis on the differences in how the touden siblings carry themselves that would, despite their shared traits, make a person gravitate to one more than the other.
But i feel like we've overseen one very central thing here.
People don't like Falin
Like... the average person in dungeon meshi doesn't like Falin. She was deeply ostrasized by her home village, in magic school she had zero friends before Marcille and the others generally saw her as strange and a bit offputting.
Characters like Namari and Chilchuck like her well enough but not necessarily more than any other member of their party, including Laios. Neither Kabru nor his party think much of her. The canaries don't give a fuck about her. Toshiro's retainers don't see her as anything else than the weird foreign girl their boss has a crush on.
The reason we think everyone loves Falin is because, despite all the indifferent side characters, the 2 most important and central characters of the story are Laios and Marcille. Who are NOT representative of the average attitudes to Falin! But necromancy georg number 1 and 2 are our main eyes into the story and they love Falin so much that it colours our perspective of the whole world.
The only side character who qualifies as liking Falin and not Laios is Toshiro (at least at first, as he ends the story on much better terms with Laios) and that says a lot about his character, with him drifting to the quiet Falin precisely because of her oddness but being both uncomfortable with and deeply jealous of Laios' much more open expression of that oddness. Because he's a repressed guy from a culture where etiquette is incredibly important.
But like I said, that's a specific aspect of him, not to the world at large.
Because there's also people that click more with laios than with Falin.
Kabru, for one, who is initially distrustful of laios but clearly also deeply fascinated by him and drawn to him.
Minor spoilers, and you don't have to read too deeply into this, because I don't think Kabru particularly dislikes Falin or anything. But it's interesting that when he talks about his distrust of the toudens in ch.32 he's talking about them both. But his big friendship declaration in chapter 76 is aimed squarely at Laios, he doesn't say "you and your sister" he says "you"
And Senshi!! He instantly clicks with Laios, well before he does so with anyone else in the party– who he also becomes friends with, it just takes a bit longer– specifically because they bond over their shared special interest in monsters!! Senshi is kind towards Falin and cares for her wellbeing, but he also... doesn't know her. The reason he is even here, helping to save her, is because he and Laios bonded over monsters and he wants to help his new friends out!
Of course, the theme of neurodivergent isolation is very present in Laios' story. I'm not denying that. He does turn people off, without meaning to and unable to fully understand why! But so does Falin. And just like there are people who like her despite of or even because of those traits, there are people who do the same with him.
In conclusion: "Average person loves Falin and hates Laios" factoid actually statistical error. Average person is neutral on both Falin and Laios. Georcille, Laiorg and Geoshiro, who live in the dungeon and think over 10,000 Falin-loving thoughts a day, are statistical outliers adn should not have been counted.
15K notes
·
View notes
to you, it's a shitty sentence. to some random bitch 500 miles away, it's a fire line that'll haunt them for the next 17 years.
you don't know how impactful your writing is because it's been in your brain for far too long now. you've stared at it for hours and repeated "this sucks" over and over again to the point that you killed your capacity to feel anything about your work.
but trust me, once you get your shit out there, someone's gonna go over that paragraph you hate and go "jesus fucking christ" and put the book down to have an existential crisis.
47K notes
·
View notes
I think it would be really funny if every time Dick and Jason joined missions they kind of failed upwards, even if they goofed off, or dredged up extremely personal shit, it helped with their secret identities or got them to think outside the box. There's always a disagreement on methods, someone gets kicked through a door but it's the right door and they stumble on all the evidence and the bad guys. Something that got set on fire was actually a secret message that only appeared upon heating, or they found evidence of the crime while trying to delete embarrassing CCTV footage.
7K notes
·
View notes