#so that's why mithrun is reading it from a script

[dahliapetals]

[malewifesband]

all this thinkin on carnality and body language man i really need to get into that laios reading for real soon i am so obsessed with laios' rejection from men yet both kabru and the winged lion present themselves so sensually to him to earn his trust. i feel like a good part of Laios' forbidden desires is an attraction to men

like i think (though laios does not recognize this as attraction) part of why laios get so attached to toshiro is bc he found him interesting, and then picked him up at a bar, and toshiro did not react aggressively to this. he is fucking desperate for male validation, specifically in a way where he wants to be desired. laios failed at every point until then to be accepted by a man, explicitly. his father rejects him (thru inaction more than an active rejection), he makes no friends in his boys school, and is beaten by his peers in the military. the gold strippers took advantage of his naivete. laios says toshiro is the only one on the island who would call him a friend

kabrus motives are far more sincere than the winged lions, but they both still seem to clock that desire laios has for male companionship, his attraction to men, and use that to get his trust. laios doesnt seem to know hes being seduced in either case, but it works in both. he does trust kabru, and befriends him once kabru is sincere about his feelings. he does consume the winged lions flesh

there is a certain power then in laios turning the winged lions seduction on its head--he turns from prey to predator as he eats the demons desire. and he still does so on the terms of his own desire, not just flipping the script. he doesnt take the domineering posture that the demon takes when consuming thistle and mithrun, he lays across its lap.

its gruesome still, but theres something so markedly different about it. the way he holds its head as he bites, how the weight of his body isnt fully on the demon--he isnt really pinning it down as he eats its desires. he views his act here as ultimately one of service to the demons nature (your existence was meant to be freer than this). its an act of compassion the demon denied he was capable of

[windupaidoneus]

dunmeshi character opinions on kabru below . putting it under a read more so ppl don't get jumped w spoilers if they haven't blacklisted the spoiler tag also it's a wall of text

& also after some thinking in the shower i think a lot of people like to focus on kabru's lying to laios & thoughts of killing him to paint him as a mansplain manipulate malewife but like. no? he does have scripts he does "wear different faces" to get his way but he's also not secretly scheming to do bad things or whatever. like he has good intentions. he's a very kind & caring person who's learnt he can't just rely on others being altruistic because a lot of the time people will go for the easier option rather than the one that will have the best outcome because they fail to prioritise the little people, those who will suffer most from these decisions. the first time we see him being fully genuine & earnest in a high stake situation his emotions & thought process get completely shoved aside by someone he thought he could trust. this was likely not the first time it happened. considering his lived experience laios appeared as a genuine threat! even moreso after learning about the demon from mithrun! i fully believe part of him (which he did not himself acknowledge until he blurted it out without thinking in yet another high stake situation, one in which he felt powerless faced with history & a severely traumatic part of his life happening all over again) genuinely wanted to befriend laios, perhaps to make him appreciate humanity more (though he didn't know laios' reasoning for caring about humanity so little i believe he's clever enough to work out it didn't come from nowhere), but at the same time while it's mostly shown in a comedic light it makes complete sense why he'd fear the worst from laios. also it's shown in a comedic light but it's not like... mocking, yknow. it's still something pretty serious, it doesn't feel minimised by the comedic aspect of the panels imo. idk. i think him changing his demeanor depending on who he's around has blinded a lot of people to the fact he is, at heart, an incredibly kind person. and i don't like that