#also the lovehateboner partially rooted in laios being a chaos variable in any social script kabru could possibly attempt to break the ice

[blinkpen]

i made a semi-facetious joke about kabru dungeon meshi but then it turned into a long ramble oops

kabru is so weirded out by laios' inscrutable vibes and lack of interest in other people (including kabru which he totally doesn't take personally or anything) that he immediately descends into paranoia and assumes malevolence

what i'm saying is laios is autistic rep, this we know, but kabru is also autistic rep, for equally traumatized autistic people who think their hard-learned mastery of people pleasing, social scripts and masking translates into unilateral skill at reading people of all types and assuming they are right on the money about it every time (**despite obvious cases of this not being true) and now call themselves Dark Empaths and have that one person who didn't wrong them but also didn't notice them or immediately become their friend and so said Empath is waiting desperately for another, actually valid reason to call them out and claim this weirdo was evil all along and be 'dealt with' and feel reassuring closure over not being able to connect with what is now clearly proven to be just an obvious error of a human, whatever that even means,

and tragically not grappling with the irony of this being the exact fate they've merely defensively trained their way out of facing at the hands of others

i say this as someone who likes kabru and think he and laios should kiss btw i just wanted to see how many people read all that and Flinched, happy tuesday

**something something:

Worthy Contrast i think, between A) kabru assuming average joe adventurers laios and falin are sinister people hiding something... after seeing their honest generosity be pretty blatantly taken advantage of, without them ever catching on or at least never causing a fuss, and kabru assuming laios could only ever be corrupted by the forces of the dungeon because laios doesn't care enough about people or what people think, which must mean he doesn't value human life enough to not do evil things one day

B) kabru having misguided trust for the town's literal crime lord, who he knows is a crime lord, entirely bc of how friendly the guy is and how clean and orderly he runs things (because it's functionally pragmatic to not be as evil as possible about it) and oohh they're so well acquainted! kabru knows he's a ultimately a good dude who'd do the right thing and care about the community whose seedy underbelly he oversees, and look at him, he even looks like santa claus...! after all the cordial interactions they've had, surely "leave money on the table to prevent a calamity that could leave hundreds dead" is a favor he won't mind kabru asking of him at all!

kabru said he wanted to see a mask fall,

he got exactly that

#fandom warbling #dungeon meshi warbling #fandom posts will not be rebloggable bc i don't gamble #dude that face jumspcared me the first time i read the manga LOL #panels including spoilers for a minor character we see for like 1 chapter turning heel ig? #i hc kabru as jealous of laios' more 'honest' weirdness while kabru is running on Hypervigilant Social 4D Chess Mode at all times #also the lovehateboner partially rooted in laios being a chaos variable in any social script kabru could possibly attempt to break the ice #unlike most people he has to formulate interactions with laios From Scratch just for a conversation to -functionally continue- #in a way he's forced to be himself enough to confront what he even wants from these conversations to figure out what to even say #even if what he ends up saying is more people pleasing bullshit for a dude who you don't actually need to try that hard to befriend #haha he makes you feel vulnerable in a really abstract way every time you simply try to Communicate with him doesn't he kabru #i'm rambling again hi #i like kabru and i don't think the anime is doing him justice but maybe that'll get better