#she’s just as weird as Laios is but she’s quiet about it

[wow-an-unfunny-joke]

Okay I’m too lazy to check the actual timeline of things but wasn’t Falin like 9 when Laios left???? Am I making that number up???

Anyways Laios and Falin are the same flavor of weird but they do it differently- Laios doesn’t know when to shut up and Falin is generally more quiet, right?

Well when Laios talks about leaving he words it very “oh I abandoned my sister because people were treating her badly” which makes no sense right??? Why would he leave her behind if this is because of how people were treating her??? Well later with the Lion it shows little flashback things of Laios getting beat up- like my man was also being treated poorly which is probably why he left

Anyways my point is Laios didn’t get the same lesson beaten into him but Falin did

[lgbtlunaverse]

I've seen a good number of people ask a question along the limes 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.

[possamble]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[authenticyuri]

Listen I know I know, referring to Laios’s party as found family isn’t breaking new grounds but like. Can I talk about how literally everyone in the main cast has been ostracized or othered throughout their life and how they can form connections with each other despite their differences and how they don’t belong anywhere else but they actively want to stick together?

The Touden twins have never belonged in their family or with their peers. Laios’s fascination with monsters and low people skills are obviously the main traits that lead people to find him and his interests weird and creepy and cause them to have inaccurate and exaggerated views of how he acts in their head. Whenever people don’t outright tell him how weird he is they always pretend to be his friends while secretly hating him and acting passive aggressively towards him. Even when his knowledge and skills are put on full display and are actively useful, people are still on the fence about him as a whole and don’t take any time to understand him, constantly insisting he’s a freak and an idiot.

Falin was never understood by her parents because of her magical abilities and didn’t fit in at all at her academy. Others always saw her as the weird, muddy, quiet, irresponsible girl in their class, and while she never payed much attention to how others perceived her, it still left her completely isolated from others, until she met Marcille.

Chilchuck faces discrimination from other races constantly looking down on him (in more ways than one) and seeing him as literally disposable. He developed trust issues around others and tried to overcompensate by acting dryly and being as profesional as possible, but it does nothing to deter people from seeing him as a child and underestimating him.

Marcille’s huge age gap and irregular aging from others has made her feel completely isolated from everyone around her since her childhood. She is looked down upon by high and mighty elves who don’t see her as an equal due to being a mixed race. Her interests in ancient magic actively creep out her party members and everyone else who can only see it as the illegal and dangerous “dark arts.” She’s never been able to meet anyone else like her and feels isolated due to no one else having to bear and therefore never being able to understand her situation and frustrations.

Senshi was seen as an inconvenience in the original party he was a part of. Out of the main cast, he probably suffered the most traumatic circumstances and hasn’t been able to overcome that lingering dread in the back of his mind for years. He explored the dungeon in complete solitude for many years while never going out of his way to meet new people until he met Laios’s party. He is someone who uses his interests to try and connect with the people around him but people are unable to see that due to just finding him a weird man who lives in the dungeon and is obsessed with cooking.

Izutsumi never being properly raised and given love by anybody and seen as a freak because of her curse to be a beastkin, to the point she convinced herself that getting rid of her curse is the one thing that would finally make her happy. She’s never formed a close genuine connection with anyone and understood the concept of relationships as give and take.

Many or all of the preconceived biases each individual character faced are still present when it comes to how they view each other, and yet, despite it all, they are still sticking around, regardless of how many opportunities they had to leave. It’s how Chilchuck put himself in harms way despite not being strong and how he finally opened himself up to these people. How Senshi always stuck around to provide food for the others and help them along their journey, and come to accept different ways of doing things or understanding the world because of them. How Marcille ate every single meal she was served despite constantly showing hesitation, and she kept going despite how many times it seemed like they would never make it out or accomplish their goal. How Izutsumi learned that sometimes it’s necessary to do things you don’t like for the sake of other people, and she stuck around cause she knew they needed her, despite her not needing them. How Laios did gain a positive outlook on humanity and betrayed his instincts to save and protect the people he cares about. And about how Falin, after years of eating all by herself, was finally able to share a delicious meal with other people.

[ceaselessbasher]

I should probably just avoid fandom discourse altogether but the mischaracterization of Toshiro is really starting to get to me (and this isn't a case of "my poor precious blorbo I'm the only one who understands you" because tbh I don't think he's in the top five of my dunmeshi faves)

The main issue comes from his relationships with Falin and with Laios. "He loves Falin for everything he hates Laios for." No, wrong. Does he maybe romanticize Falin a bit as a manic pixie girl with a refreshingly original personality and interests? Sure, yeah, but the thing is, he doesn't hate Laios for his monster special interest.

One thing Laios and Falin don't have in common is their way of expressing themselves. While Laios is very outspoken and talkative, Falin tends to be more quiet and reserved. Just think about the flashback to magic school when she first met Marcille. If that had been Laios, he would've also been the kid who shows up late covered in dirt from chasing grasshoppers, but he wouldn't have kept to himself like Falin did until Marcille approached her. He would've gone around the room saying, "Hi, I'm Laios, let me tell you about my project and why it's weird."

That's why Toshiro is upset/annoyed/envious around Laios ("hate" is the wrong word to describe their relationship methinks). He finds him abrasive and insistent and blind to the hints that maybe he should shut the fuck up for a second please.

[batneko]

for the last couple days I've been thinking about a Dungeon Meshi AU with the girl version of Laios from the magic mirror bonus page. Like, let's say she got married at 16, and ten years and two kids later she's escorting her youngest to magic school and planning to visit with Falin for a couple days before heading home. She finds out Falin and Marcille (I can't decide if everybody should be gender-swapped or only Laios. If Falin is The Boy he'd probably be expected to become village chief despite having creepy ghost magic, but maybe Laios's husband turned out to be a good leader so there's an unspoken "if Falin doesn't come back would that really be so bad?" among the villagers. But if Falin and Marcille are still girls that could lead to some interesting Deconstructing Gender Norms stuff. I just don't know!) have been planning to go to The Island and study a real dungeon, and instantly flips from quiet and demure (masking HARD) to excited and full of energy, and Marcille asks why Laios doesn't just come along. It'll only be a few months, both kids are in boarding schools, won't her husband understand?

The answer to that is no, but Laios has been dreading going back home for exactly the reason that it'll just be her and her husband now, no more kids as a buffer. She'll have nothing to do but take care of the house and be a Good Wife. Her husband isn't a bad person, but he's never understood her and never bothered to try, he just gets frustrated that she can't remember their guests' names, that she only wants to talk about "weird" things, that she cares more about her letters from Falin than she does taking care of her appearance.

Laios lets just enough of this slip that Marcille misunderstands and thinks her husband is a brute, and Falin has always known that being a housewife didn't suit Laios at all, so neither of them argue when Laios decides to abandon her marriage with only a brief letter back home.

On the trip Laios starts to learn magic, but she turns out to take to combat even better. Her encyclopedic (literally, it all comes from encyclopedias) knowledge of monster anatomy means she'll have the best chance out of the three of them at physically fighting things off if they can't find a trustworthy fighter to hire. But overall she's responsible for organizing their supplies and planning the expeditions. Having experience running a household comes in handy!

Of course, the three of them are pretty naive, and they run through Marcille's savings faster than expected, but they're all so interested in the dungeon that they're willing to stick out the tough times. Laios is so happy to finally be able to Be Herself around people that she starts talking about cooking and eating monsters without realizing that's a step too far for most folks. Falin is, of course, completely supportive, but Marcille and Namari shut it down most of the time. (I'm not sure where Shuro is or if he should be gender-swapped as well. Chilchuck wouldn't join the party until they've become successful enough to pay his rates. If he's gender-swapped this is her way of dealing with an empty nest.) However one day Senshi happens to overhear Laois talking about it while they pass each other and they become fast friends. Marcille isn't sure if s/he wants Laios's obsession with monsters-as-food to continue, but can't resist encouraging this because forbidden love affairs are peak romance. But no they're genuinely just friends and the thought never crosses either of their minds.

Marcille has no idea Laios has actually already had a couple of extramaritals with orc men.

(that's all I got so far!)

[tired-fandom-ndn]

I'm on the Laios x Izutsumi train. Izutsumi gets her heat and pulls Laios aside because he's the only one in the party who will dick her down and not be weird about it or try to teach her sex ed or something. He'll just treat her like a beast in heat, and it's her beast half that has the physical need — that's why she picked him. He sees the parts of her she dislikes and doesn't pity her the way the others do, even if it feels kinda nice for Chilchuck and Senshi to "dad" her around sometimes. But a dad is not what she wants to fuck, y'know? She wants another beast to rut with!

Yes exactly!!

Laios doesn't shy away from her animalistic parts the way others do and he doesn't treat her like a kid the way the rest of their party does. Izutsumi knows that even if he's kinda weird about it, he'll at least fuck her rough and hard and not try to lecture her at all first. I could totally see her waking him up in the middle of the night while everyone else is sleeping and tugging him away from camp to some quiet, dark corner, waking him up quickly by shoving her hands down his pants. Maybe it takes him a bit to get with the program, Izutsumi riding him fast and hard and desperately because it's not enough, Laios finally taking control and fucking her against the ground or the cold stone wall, even putting her in a mating press. . . . . . .

Izutsumi feels like a beast when they're together but for once, it's a good feeling, like she's finally at home in her own skin.

[mobblespsycho100]

🍳 give me your opinions o great sash

I think people should be nice to Laios more but I also think that they're not wrong for being mean to him because he says stuff sometimes that just sounds Awful out of context like the whole thing where he was like "I hate to say it guys but if Falin didn't get eaten by the dragon we wouldn't be here rn eating monsters so I'm kinda happy" LIKE. when he said that I agreed with him maybe because we share a freak bond (autism) but also like It's not the greatest wording, I know, but like, he's not wrong 😭😭 he still cares about Falin a lot obviously thats his little sister ... he loves her sm. He's just WEIRD (i say this with love in my heart)

like , I think the reason why he hates his dad so much is because he sees himself in him at a subconscious level, and also he hates being compared to him because he thinks that his dad is like him if he was worse and an adult. He thinks his dad should have it all figured out, why was he so mean to Falin? Why was he so quiet all the time, so closed off, did he even care at all about us? (he did)

And that's why I think that Laios honestly is like... hes got a whole lot of baggage. Leaving Falin in the village a year(?) before she went to the Mage Academy as a way to like escape the awful environment of his home life and in a way show "solidarity" with Falin. Hes like "IMMA PACK IT UP!!! BECAUSE THEYRE KICKING YOU OUT!!!" and he doesn't realize how that would've affected Falin who actually wanted to spend more time with him before she went. That's why when he realizes it like... in hindsight/afterwards, and he never wants to leave her side again because he feels really guilty about it.

And I think... thats really beautiful man. The touden siblings have such a strong bond and it crushes me that they've both faced alienation and like dealt with it in different ways because it's really realistic to the autism sibling experience I think. Like. Laios' self-centred nature and like his lack of awareness regarding how his actions might affect others... his like self-loathing/blaming himself tendencies...

like

He's self aware. He knows what he did. And he thinks that he's inferior to his sister in a way, which fuels his desire to protect her and save her and always be there for her when she needs him (he wants to be needed. he wants her to always be his little sister who looks up to him. the little sister who is so much more talented but still cries and loses at dog naming wrestles. the little sister who stands behind him so he can protect her protect her be there for her be better in this one way just in this little tiny thing. hooray for codependency ... )

But I think he forgets a lot that he's a person. He remembers that hes human (because he hates being human and wants to be a monster because of well again the alienation reasons . lol) but he forgets that he's a /person/ who people Care about. He can acknowledge others' strengths and weaknesses, he admires when they do as well, he's aware of his limitations. And he hyperfixates on them (low self-esteem moment). He beats himself up over them. And he grows over the course of this story... he learns that he is loved. He learns that he is a person deserving and worthy of love despite being different. He's worthy of life, of eating, the privilege of the living. Of sharing that meal. Living with others, amongst them, and not from the outside looking in.

And I think. Thats beautiful

[fizzledtaste]

KINK CONTENT DON'T LIKE DON'T READ

As promised, here I'm with my dungeon meshi headcanons part2 now its time for Senshi and Marcille

Senshi

Ok, on one hand, I think he would be very chill about generally, he sees it as just a normal bodily function and if you need to do it, you should just do it. I can even see him giving a litttle lecture on how holding it in is bad for your health and there's nothing to be ashamed of. If someone did it on accident after a meal or something, he will just smile and assure them it's fine and maybe that it's even a "compliment to the chef".

But on the other hand he canonically cares about table manners, so I would say he would get quite frustrated to see someone doing it on purpose just to be annoying, gross or funny and would also give a lecture on how that's not good and can also make you sick (the person receiving the lecture is prob Izutsumi). I would say he doesn't think excusing yourself is always necessary, but at least making an effort to muffle the sound is, especially in a dungeon.

He applies the same rules to himself, except that I do think he'll always excuse himself (its like, "other people don't have to do it but I can always be a good role model!"), but generally, if he has to burp, he'll just do it, unless he's in a formal situation or needs to be quiet. I can picture he putting a fist over his mouth and then casually excusing himself, not too worried about it.

He doesn't have any skill related to it, like doing it on command or burping words because he doesn't see the point, he finds it weird, actually, that some people would see it as a party trick or something when it's just, again, a bodily function. He would also never participate in a burping contest, unless idk he was really bored and really trying to bond with the people around him and it would still take a good amount of convincing.

Now, I don't think he would burp very often, for a variety of reasons 1) I don't know if that's true for the dungeon meshi universe, but for what I know dwarfs generally have stronger stomachs 2) He knows how to pace himself when eating and wouldn't be swallowing a lot of air 3) He has a very good understanding of which foods work for him and which ones don't.

I think his burps are a little bit below average for a dwarf (which translates as a little above average) and that they aren't very loud, but they're very deep and can be quite long. He'll make an effort to muffle them, but it's always going to be at least a little audible.

Marcille

From the main four she's definitely the one that's more grossed out by it. Mostly she'll just roll her eyes, groan and maybe mumble some insult, but if she's in a particularly bad mood she may actually snap and scold whoever did it for being loud (normally Laios) or not excusing themselves (normally Chilchuck).

Of course because of that she doesn't know how to burp on command or anything like that and would never participate in a burping contest, she thinks only someone incredibly vulgar would do any of those things

All that being said, the universe must really hate her because her burps are loud. Very loud. Explosions of sound. So loud she can't even properly muffle them. And she tries her hardest to, trying to hold it as much as she can (which just makes it worse in the long run) and if she has to, keep her mouth shut and covered by her hand (also always excuses herself, multiple times even), but it's not enough. She hates it, she gets actually angry at herself for this, but there isn't much she can do. The others don't even taunt her about it anymore (unless she's being particularly insistent with her scolding), because she gets actually sad and so ashamed its painful to be reminded of it.

I have more so once again if this gets likes I'll post them