#and Falin going in to rescue him ... but what if Marcille came with her? and Toshiro? and they met Senshi?

[tofixtheshadows]

hi!! so there are a lot of improbabilities that make this hypothetical unlikely but: if kabru had met toshiro first & recruited him (toshiro being so passive + not with a clear goal would have helped there & kabru is ptsd-driven but very noble in his goals which can be explained) AND they got all the way down to the bottom (idk if i believe in them...but hypothetically!) would the winged lion find either of them to be a good target for next dungeon lord? one over the other? im thinking kabru has the intensity and complexity of desire necessary but i can't imagine what it would look like if he became lord of the dungeon. do you have any thoughts?

Good morning. This is a very fun thought experiment!

(side note: I got a second anon this morning with a very similar request? not sure if related. I'm gonna let this answer speak for both of them)

Toshiro sure would have had a different time of it if Kabru had gotten to him first, huh? On the one hand, Toshiro seems to like Kabru; I think it's sweet that Kabru seems to gravitate towards hanging out with him when he isn't with the rest of the main cast. So they probably would've been good in a party together.

On the other hand, Toshiro never would have met Falin and fallen in love with her. Even if she didn't reciprocate in the end, I don't think he regrets anything that happened. Even his difficult friendship with Laios was ultimately positive (for both of them!).

They definitely would not have made it to the deeper floors, I think Senshi is crucial to achieving that ... but this is a hypothetical.

I'm puzzling over the question of Toshiro, because he is a secondary character and there's only so much we know about his motivations. His big one in canon is to save Falin, even if it means all he can do is put her to rest. Without that, without her, what sort of desires does he have?

Toshiro originally came to the Island because of a demand from his father: for one of his three sons to find "something interesting" enough on their travels to bring back home that would convince their capricious bastard father to make them his heir over the others. So they're all off on their separate training journeys with their respective retainers with the added caveat that they can't return without something to impress their father. It's implied that after falling in love with Falin, Toshiro had wanted to bring back home a wife.

Since he's said to inherit the family after he returns home without her anyway, I've been assuming that the "thing" Toshiro ended up bringing to Toshitsugu Nakamoto was the story of the dungeon, the demon, and his friend Laios, king of a risen country and Devourer of All Things Horrible.

Anyway, the things we know about Toshiro's home life are kind of fucked. It's amazing he turned out to be so nice. He's always been a shy, sensitive person, and he was sickly as a child; Maizuru cared for him despite her spymaster duties and ended up filling a motherly role for him, even though Toshiro's mother is still alive. Historically, it wasn't uncommon for noble children to be raised more closely by their governesses/household retainers than their parents, so perhaps something similar was happening here (disclaimer that I don't know much about feudal Japan specifically).

We know that Maizuru loves Toshiro and dotes on him, but she's also very strict and frankly terrifying; she used the same Hag summon that she was monitoring Izutsumi with on Toshiro as a child just to keep him from wandering off. We also know that when he found out that Maizuru was having an affair with his father, it put a distance between them. Whether this is because he felt betrayed on his mother's behalf or because he dislikes his father that much, or something else, is unclear.

Toshiro was childhood friends with Hien, but as they got older, she had to take his place as one of his retainers, which seems to have severed that closeness. Canonically, he isn't close to his two younger brothers either. Toshitsugu literally bought Inutade and Izustumi (the latter as a drunken "gift" for Maizuru!). We see that Toshiro is uncomfortable with this, but doesn't know how to approach the issue. He lets Izutsumi go the second she's out of sight for five minutes, which implies to me that he really wanted the excuse to do so. Inutade is harder, because she loves being with the Nakamoto family and hero-worships Toshiro's father.

...all this to say, Toshiro has complicated relationships with his family and household. There's love there, but also a lot of coldness enforced by the upper-class need for propriety. Toshiro falls in line and acts as the proper stoic samurai, but he chafes at this; he envies Laios's gift for feeling and expressing things openly and readily. I think that's what the Winged Lion would prey on, given the chance.

I don't think he would be prime dungeon lord material, but if it came to that, I could see the Lion tempting Toshiro with a kinder vision of his life, one where he and his little brothers weren't pitted against one another, where his family was warmer, where there weren't barriers of class between him and his retainers, where he was allowed to be more himself.

Now ... Kabru.

Kabru is interesting because, since his ultimate goal is to seal the dungeon and eradicate monsters, I imagine that meeting a demon would be like a guy who's given a genie and wants to wish for no more genies. And if said genie is trying to take over the world via wishes, the genie is a bit screwed. I really think that Kabru is the character who would stump the demon(s) the most, despite his complex desires, because they are antithetical to the demon. Laios also had complex desires, but the Winged Lion lured him and set him up as the hero of a fake prophecy because a lot of Laios's desires revolved around monsters, so his wants aligned perfectly with the demon's methods. Oh you want monsters? That's great, they're the things I use to solve most of my problems anyway.

Even in the absence of prior knowledge of demons, I think Kabru's back would be up as soon as the Winged Lion tried speaking to him. Kabru's insight is almost preternatural, and he's well-versed in persuasive speaking thanks to his own silver tongue. He would mistrust the Lion immediately, especially considering its monster-like form.

Giving the demons bestial appearances is an artistic choice on Kui's part, so I don't think there's any indication that the Winged Lion & co can't look human, but the Lion might have been constrained both by Thistle's seals on it and the need to maintain the lie that it's just the innocent guardian deity of the Golden Country. If it could, I think it would try to look less monstrous, with Kabru.

Still, the point of the demons, I see, is that anyone can be tempted, anyone can be manipulated, because we are all full of buried desires that can be unearthed, and wanting things and having to defend them make you susceptible to manipulation.

Consider what Mithrun told Kabru: they keep the knowledge of demons secret because knowing the truth would not stop people from trying to have their wishes granted. After all, Mithrun was a Canary, but he fell for its temptation anyway. I've seen people characterize this as a sort of rock bottom decision, and maybe that's true, but I also pin it on his toxic inferiority/superiority complex. That's exactly the kind of thing that makes you think you're built different.

Would Marcille have stopped before unsealing the Winged Lion if Mithrun(/Kabru) had actually gotten to sit down with her for five minutes and explain why becoming dungeon lord would be a very bad idea? Maybe. Or maybe her desperation, and her own pride, would have made her decide that she knew better, that she'd be careful, that she'd go in with a plan and definitely get what she wanted with no dire consequences.

I think Kabru could be desperate enough to make a similar decision, even if his desires were antithetical to the demon. And the demons have an advantage over the aforementioned genie simile: their ability to eat desires.

If the Winged Lion were smart, it wouldn't let Kabru seal it away like Thistle. Given the opportunity, its best chance for dealing with Kabru would have been to immediately eat his desire to stop another Utaya.

I'm gonna plug this wonderful and tragic little one-shot someone wrote recently about the dungeon lord Kabru hypothetical: This place is not a place of honor.

#oh my god someone fucking shoot me with a tranq dart PLEASE #Dungeon Meshi spoilers #dungeonposting #musings with Dea #I hope someone writes a hypothetical party comp switch AU fic one day #like Laios's own AU of getting eaten in Falin's stead #and Falin going in to rescue him ... but what if Marcille came with her? and Toshiro? and they met Senshi? #or an idea I've mentioned before: Laios and Kabru would be an excellent tank/DPS combo #Kabru's party is really cohesive and good at fighting! they just don't have monster knowledge #if Laios were there to point Kabru's blades in the right direction he'd be absolutely lethal #anyway. hope this scratched that itch a bit! #sorry I didn't include more visual aids here I'm struggling today #Dea answers #Dea's anonymous friends

[xenodile]

"Shuro loves Falin for the same reasons he hates Laios" Completely and utterly wrong, could not be further off base.

I get the impression a lot of people watching Dungeon Meshi as it airs, or are a bit removed from its original manga run, have forgotten that Laios and Falin being monster freaks wasn't actually apparent until the events of the story. The only person that knew Falin loved monsters as much as Laios was Marcille because they were best friends at school.

Once Laios and Falin were in an adventuring party together, they both had public facing personas because they had both learned through their separate upbringings that being super interested in monsters and dungeons wasn't normal. Laios is the blunt but well meaning, outspoken and opinionated guy we all know, but Falin was way more withdrawn and soft-spoken, non-confrontational, easy to get along with. Everyone that interacted with Falin would say she's a sweet, gentle girl that everyone likes. Because she was, frankly, kind of a doormat.

The whole thing with Toshiro's infatuation with Falin is he doesn't actually know her. She is outwardly very polite and reserved, and that appeals to Toshiro because it meshes with his cultural sensibilities and how he was taught people are supposed to behave. Then he sees her marveling at a caterpillar in a private moment and decides on the spot that she's the ideal woman and proposes without actually talking to or getting to know her.

And his lack of understanding of Falin as a person is brought to the forefront in every action he takes after she gets eaten. He leaves the party and makes no attempt to contact the two people that Falin loves the most. Whether it's a matter of him just not knowing how much Falin cares about her brother and Marcille, or actively avoiding Laios to rescue Falin himself, he's demonstrating that he doesn't actually know what's important to her or understand how she feels.

Then when he meets Laios's party on the lower floors and they go over what happened, it's made even more blatant that Toshiro's affection is shallow and half-baked. He came into the dungeon a week too late and neglected his health the whole way down, so he was in no state to actually try and save Falin when he got there. When Laios talks about eating monsters, something Falin was thrilled about, Toshiro is disgusted. He threatens to kill Laios and turn Marcille in, which would never fly with Falin. His anger at the use of black magic is entirely based in his selfish idea of Falin being tainted and blaming Laios and Marcille for "ruining" his attempt to rescue her, as Kabru points out that Toshiro would have done the exact same thing in their shoes and that he's being a hypocrite. To say nothing of how he'd rather kill Falin after she's been transformed and "put her to rest" rather than put any effort into saving her, because that would require further involvement from Laios and Marcille and methods that Toshiro doesn't approve of.

And there's the fight he has with Laios, and Toshiro's subsequent confession that he had hoped to just take Falin home with him. He at no point gives consideration to what Falin feels or what she might want, only what he has decided about her based on the most surface level observation. Just like how his problem with Laios arises from his refusal to just talk to him about his boundaries, he has no actual connection with the woman he claims to love because he just wouldn't actually talk to her.

Like it's not a coincidence that every time his attraction to Falin is brought up, another character goes "yeah he's being weird about it".

#Dungeon Meshi #Toshiro isn't a bad person. He has communication issues and makes very bad decisions based on his own refusal to communicate.

[psiroller]

chilaios, laundry

Laios should have been on laundry duty; instead, he watched over Chilchuck’s shoulder as his needle punched between cords of tightly woven green wool. Chilchuck couldn’t help but feel like a bug being burnt up under a magnifying glass whenever Laios watched him do anything. It wasn’t exactly paranoia; Laios’ motivations were always weirder than outright malice, but his curiosity had been focused to a searing point, and Chilchuck was starting to sweat under it.

“What? You got something to tell me?”

“Hm?” Laios blinked dumbly. “No. I was just watching you work.” Somewhere along the process of folding Falin’s sleeping gown, holding it half an arm’s length out in front of him, he’d frozen in place. He put it down in his lap, finally, with a sheepish glance away. “It’s… kinda hypnotic,” he admitted.

“You know I hate that,” Chilchuck hissed, the tips of his ears hot. “I’m not a bard, I don’t need an audience.”

“Yeah, I know. But you’re diligent about patching that thing up, I was just...” Met with a long, terse silence, Laios shrugged. “Never mind.”

Laios returned to the Sisyphean task of rolling his sister’s laundry up with his own, the way they’d always done it before they were separated, as tightly as possible to save on valuable inventory space. Chilchuck continued mending the loose hem in his neck warmer. The gold thread glimmered in the low spellight, wound around his fingers in rings that gradually loosened as he pulled the needle through.  Laios kept watching out of the corner of his eye, and Chilchuck felt every glance like one of Marcille’s magic missiles whizzing past his head.

Chilchuck heaved a weary sigh and rolled his shoulders, trying to stretch his back out. “It’s uh. My girls. They… made me this thing,” he ground out, waving his knitted neck warmer like a white flag. “Before that whole thing with—y’know, they—"

“Left you,” Laios said, automatically. Helpfully, ideally.

“Before my wife—y’know what. Forget it! Forget it. Hah, yup. Last time I listen to an orc!” Then Chilchuck was muttering half-foot curses to himself; he stitched at a machine’s pace. Laios considered running to get Falin to salvage this wreck of a conversation, but he’d done alright while she was slowly dying in the dragon’s stomach and unable to rescue him from his own mouth.

“It must mean a lot to you,” Laios said. Chilchuck scratched at the fur on the back of his neck. “It’s—nice. I think they did a good job.”

Chilchuck snorted. “Yeah, me too,” he said, more softly. “As far as sentimental keepsakes go, it’s lightweight, so I can take it with me on the job. I just have to take care of it, but, y’know. It’s worth the effort.”

“So… they all made it together?”

“Yeah. Flertom came up with the design, Mayjack helped her with the pattern and cutting the cloth, and Puckpatti did the stitching.” He chuckled. “Which is why it keeps coming loose. She was still learning back then.”

Laios couldn’t see Chilchuck smiling, but he heard it. Falin would have been so proud.

“Does that thread you’re using come from home, too?”

“Oh, nah. This, uh… it’s Marcille’s hair?” He chuckled awkwardly. “It’s got defensive magic in it. She gave it to me a few floors ago to patch my vest, and I’m pretty sure that’s what kept that big frog from swallowing me all the way. Been using it for everything ever since.” Chilchuck’s grin turned wry and dark. “Though, knowing what kind of magic she does now, I might end up regretting that.”

Laios made a grim noise of assent, but couldn’t commiserate, having so recently profited from the dark arts. Chilchuck was content to let the conversation drop while his blood pressure was falling, though, and Laios could finally return to laundry duty. Of course, the roll had come undone for the fiftieth time. As Laios gathered up his shirts to try again, something caught his eye, made him pick up a tunic and fold it out—and there, an inch below the collar, was a ring of threaded gold.

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #chilaios #well met jane. have some implied marchil for dessert. #sfw