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I’m sorry, but my type-a ass cannot be against the Rat Grinders. They’re essentially the kids that couldn’t get the special treatment from teachers and get by on stumbling through tests and happening to get an A without studying. The Rat Grinders feel less like people who cheated the system, and more like the kids who aren’t naturally gifted or lucky, and have to spends hours on end studying, doing extra homework and extra credit, losing their social lives and free time to catch up with the kids who can just breeze through it. Fig never went to a single class or did any homework but gets away with it because the coach, lunch lad, and vice principal are her dads, Kristin and Riz did literally the worst thing their respective class can do, Gorgug actively works to avoid using the main feature of his class whenever possible, Adaine became the Oracle through seemingly happenstance, and Fabian’s rich family bought his way into the extra curricular he’s now the captain of, and all of them skipped half of freshman year! Obviously we, the audience, know that they worked their asses off to get through school each year and to get where the are today. We know they earned every little good thing they have! Fig has worked so hard to become the rockstar she is! Kristin literally brought back a god! Riz in a supergenius detective! Gorgug is an incredible barbarian and artificer! Adaine works so hard to help all of her friends survive a toxic system! Fabian slaved away to earn his achievements himself instead of letting his father’s legacy be his identity! But think of it from an outside perspective, without all the knowledge that only the audience has! These random kids stumbled into three adventures that let them skip grinding for XP, got to miss half a year with no consequence, get special privileges and quests because they are related to or friends with the faculty, never do their assignments or go to class, became popular because of their privileges, and now randomly start spouting micro aggressions towards halflings? If I was one of the Rat Grinders, I’d be pissed off too! I’ve been both the gifted kid, seemingly effortlessly breezing through classes and befriending the entire faculty while secretly going through terrible struggle and stress, and the kid desperately trying to game my way through a system built to harm me while being furious at those who seem to thrive in it, and I can’t help but feel empathy for both. I don’t think the Rat Grinders are evil, cheating monsters who plan to destroy the Bad Kids out of spite. I think they’re just kids in a harmful toxic school system that have a lot of righteous anger at their lot in life, that has sadly been misdirected. Idk if this ramble made sense, sorry for the wall of text!

Edit:Introducing Ivy Embra, the first Rat Grinder to actually be antagonistic to anyone in any way! Also introducing Oisin Hakivar, a super nice guy who’s willing to take advantage of his generational wealth in order to help a fellow student! So the first Rat Grinder to actively be nice to someone too! He likely did something with the ice mephits, but he still seemed genuinely sympathetic and helpful to Adaine!

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ivy is fig if she took after her mom just a little bit more and chose to break relationships rather than making them

kipperlilly takes all of adaine & riz's worst traits and reflects them. the determination to help (/make) the party do well, but by playing by her own rules rather than the system

mary ann is like gorgug if he never reached out with a tin flower on the first day--disinterested in the things she does

oisín takes the rich kid schtick and the advantage of birth like fabian

buddy is kristen pre-growth, without the wherewithal to break from tradition

ruben, famous for his music, looks down on fig where she would extend a hand

twisted reflections of themselves in people who have schemed their way into easy success and are now actively trying to take them down

starting the season with in endless night, trapping an eldritch deity level entity. literal dark night of the soul going into a metaphorical dark night of the soul

what a way to portray high school

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MORE YURI PLS!!!

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unfortunately for shuro the simple fact is that he’s just way too normal for falin….. marcille on the other hand as much as she might deny it is a fellow fucked up freak and thus was always destined to pull the resident Weird Girl™

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Represention of Autistic Frustration in Laios Dungeon Meshi

Like many other autistic people, I related strongly to Laios Touden while reading Dungeon Meshi. This post isn't going to spend time disputing whether he displays autistic traits or not—while I could do that, I want to focus on why specifically his portrayal struck a chord with me in a way the writing of most other autistic-coded characters has not.

Disclaimer: as the above suggests, this post is strongly informed by my own experiences as an autistic person, as well as the experiences of my neurodivergent friends with whom I have spoken about this subject. I want to clarify that in no way am I asserting my personal experience to be some Universal Autistic Experience. This post is about why Laios' character feels distinct and significant to me in regard to autistic representation, and while I'm at it, I do feel that I have interesting things to say about autistic representation in media generally. This also got a bit long, so I'm sticking it under a read more. Spoilers for up to the end of chapter 88 below.

The thing that stands out most to me in regard to Laios' characterisation is the open anger he displays when someone points out his inability to read other people. This comes up prominently in his interactions with "Shuro" (Toshiro Nakamoto):

The frustration pictured above (Laios continuing to physically tussle with Toshiro, using crude language toward him) becomes even more notable when you remember that this is Laios, who, outside of these interactions, is not easily fazed and often exists as a lighthearted contrast to the rest of the cast. Then we get to Laios' nightmare.

In Falin's words: "Nightmares love emotional wounds. Wounds you hold in your heart. Things that give you stress, or things that were traumatic for you. They aggravate memories like that and cause the dreamer to have terrible dreams." (chapter 42, page 10.) (damn. i'm properly citing for this post and everything.)

Thus, Laios' nightmare establishes an important fact: even if he is unable to recognise social blunders while he's making them, he's at least subconsciously aware that other people operate on a different wavelength to him, and that he's an outsider in many of his social circles (both past and present). His dream-father's disparaging words stress the impact this has had upon his ability to live up to the expectations set out for him, and we also get a panel of kids who smirk at him (presumably former bullies to some degree). Toshiro's appearance only hammers home how much Laios is still both humiliated and angered by his misunderstanding of their relationship.

I've thought a lot about anger as concomitant to the autistic experience. When autistic representation portrays ostracization, it's generally from an angle of the autistic character being upset at how conforming to neurotypical norms doesn't come easily to them; as a result, they express a desire to 'get better' at meeting neurotypical standards, a desire to become more 'normal' (whether the writing implies this is a good thing or not). In contrast, not once does Laios go, "I need to perform better in my social interactions, and try to care less about monsters, because that's what other people find weird." His frustration is directed outward rather than inward, and as a result, it's the people around him who are framed as nonsensical.

The Winged Lion starts delineating Laios' anger, and Laios' reaction is to think to himself, "It can sense all my thoughts, huh?" (chapter 88, page 16.) This is the scene that really resonated with me. I'm not saying I have never felt the desire to conform to neurotypical norms that is borne from insecurity, but primarily, I know that I don't want to work toward becoming 'normal'—I don't want to change myself for people who follow rules I find nonsensical. It's the difference between, "Oh god, why can't I get it," and, "WHY CAN'T YOU GET IT?" (phrasing here courtesy of my friend Miles @dogwoodbite). And for me personally, Dungeon Meshi is the first time I've seen this frustration and the resultant voluntary isolation from other people portrayed in media so candidly. Laios' anger is not downplayed or written to be easily palatable, either.

The culmination of Laios' frustrations in this scene wherein we learn that Laios has fantasised about "a pack of monsters attacking a village" drives home just how alienated he really feels. I need not go into his wish to become a monster himself, redolent of how many autistic people identify/have identified with non-humans to some degree as a result of a percieved disconnect from society (when I was younger, I wanted to be a robot. I still kind of do.)

Obviously, wishing death upon other people is a weighty thing, but the unfiltered nature of this page is what deeply resonated with me. The Winged Lion is laying Laios' deepest and most transgressive desires bare, and they are desires that are a product of lifelong ostracization by others (whether intentional or unintentional). This is the brand of anger I'm familiar with, and that my neurodivergent friends express being familiar with, but that I haven't seen portrayed in writing so explicitly before—in fact, it surprised me because most well-meaning autistic representation I've experienced veers toward infantilisation in trying make the autistic character's struggles easy for neurotypicals to sympathise with.

Let's also not neglect the symbolism inherent to Laios' daydream. "A pack of monsters attacking a village". Functionally, monsters are Laios' special interest—he percieves everything first and foremost through his passion for monsters. His daydream of monsters attacking—killing—humans, is fundamentally a daydream of the world he understands (monsters) overthrowing the world that is so illogical to him, that has repeatedly shunned him (other people). I joked to my friends that it's an autistic power fantasy, and it actually sort of is. And in it, his identity is aligned with that of the monsters, while his anger manifests in a palpable dissociation from the rest of humanity. This is one manga page. It's brief. It's also very, very raw to me. I think about it often.

To conclude, I love Laios Dungeon Meshi. This portrayal of open frustration in an autistic character meant a lot to me, and I hope I've sufficiently outlined why. Also, feel free to recommend media with autistic representation in the notes if you've read this far—I would really like to see if there is more of this nature. Thank you for reading. I'm very tired and should probably sleep now.

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The thing that really gets to me about the bees being planned from the beginning isn't even that we were right in spite of the haters.

It's the fact that all the little things we noticed in the years have always been legit.

The concept arts with the colors in common (you know the ones)

Yang and Adam's semblances being the same yet drastically different, and them in general made to be foils.

All the Beauty and the Beast references.

"Black the Beast descends from shadows, yellow Beauty burns gold"

"I'll destroy everything you love... Starting with her" being actually about romantic love.

The whole jealous ex trope.

"WHAT DOES SHE EVEN SEE IN YOU"

All the times Blake talked about her team during volume's 4-5 and her tone always being different when it was Yang.

All the pining of those volume and Yang's heartbreak.

Their eyes being the colors of each other's souls.

The comics actually meaning the implication that they're the reincarnation of the Faunus Princess and her Human Lover.

All the comics in general showing so many interactions and how close they were since Beacon!

We weren't reading too much into it, it wasn't wishful thinking; it has always been real.

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[sketch comm] vencha gains

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it genuinely makes me sad that “happy wife, happy life” is a phrase that means “I make my wife happy because if I don’t she’ll be annoying and fuck up my day” when it should mean “I keep my wife happy because seeing her smile genuinely makes my heart light up with mirth, I love hearing her joyful laugh, I love making her happy”

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snack time

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my favorite nightwing eras

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sketch of the lesbians of all time

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Love this movie!

HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES dir. rob zombie

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Madoka and Sayaka would die for their girlfriends and Homura and Kyoko would kill for their girlfriends

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Eternity

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Because I am god damned shipping trash and you can't stop me, I started looking up things. When I saw this:

I had a hot moment of: BWAHAHAHAHAH! Then I was like: I wonder what the other names mean. The rabbit hole.

I found a twimbler by jikooksubunit that basically summed up to : Katsuki Yuuri means ‘student of a victor who benefits from courage’ and I think that is beautiful. And I was like: Fuck yeah.

Then I went further down, because fuck you, you can't stop me.

Yuri Plisetsky means (first name) farmer [unless he's Jewish, in which case it means Light of God] (last name) Influencer/Freedom Lover/Charisma. Which, I mean, humble origins, willing to suffer for what he wants, and damned if he's not an influencer with his own style and everyone wants a piece of him (for good or ill). Also a fucking demonic angel. So... yes.

And as you know, shipping trash don't do half. So I looked up Otabek Altin. We all know Altin means gold. What dose his first name mean, google? Fucking help me! So it did. It's actually an Uzbek name. It can be translated as "The Father of all Dukes" or “The Greatest Duke”. In middleage it was also a title for all the heirs coming from a certain lineage of Taimur. MY MIND FUCKING BLOWN.

Fucking ICE KING Winner-Winnerson

his Queen/King consort SIMPAI TAUGHT ME HOW TO KICK YOUR ASS

there feral ice child some times called princess to the determent of everyone with the sheer chutzpah to try it HO, I'M GONNA AND MAKE YOU PAY THE BILL RESPECT MY ETHEREAL, DAINTY, TOUGH AS NAILS ASS, YOU BASIC BITCH

and his BFF/prince charming : LITERALLY A FUCKING ROYAL BLOOD LINE MADE OF GAWD DAMNED GOLD, A.K.A. original 'Daddy of them All' (it's in the fucking name!), called a hero of his home country (rescue Yurio, on your modern day steed, daddy?). [Calmly exert your 'dad energy' in that 'you have awoken the beast' way that the wild cat some times needs?] Ether way, mah dudes. Ether way.

No wonder his ass can afford to ship that bike where ever he wants. Yurio is gonna get so damned spoiled. I love this fucking fandom.

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RIP Yuri On Ice

THEY WERE BORN TO MAKE HISTORY NOT BORN TO BE HISTORY WHAT THE FUCK MAPPA

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Worth it 🪨 🍴