#laius is just autistic

[linktoo-doodles]

i'll strangle you or i'll kiss you on the mouth

#laius thorden #laios touden #kabru #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #my art #Linktoo art #labru #narrative foil yaoi my weakness.... anyway #the way he grabs that guy and begs him to stay and begs like please LISTEN to me #its so funny how kabru‚ someone who prides himself with understanding people and their motivations #just can't handle having some random guy like laius with a big prophecy on his head remain a mystery to him #the way laius just entirely evades him it drives him crazy. kabru puts motivations and assumptions in his mouth in any attempt to Know him #hes so scared of this man yet simultaneously drawn by being unable to discern his thought process #meanwhile #laius is just autistic

[rowanfalls]

Oh god, this chapter is hurting me.... the adhd/autism feeling of not realizing that you're upsetting and annoying the people around you until they treat you like you're a bad guy for doing it.... aaaaaaa

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi spoilers #delicious in dungeon spoilers #Laius thorden #Laius is so autistic coded and this just.... aaaaaa #shuro #dungeon meshi shuro #laios touden #laios dungeon meshi #laios thorden #Rowan reads dungeon meshi

[llycaons]

labru really is so funny to me. a man spends the entire series alternatively trying to get the attention of another man to stop him from destroying the world, and fantasizing about murdering him bc he finds him so insufferable, and the other guy can't be bothered to even remember his name. there is nothing to support the idea they even like each other as people. and m/m shippers, desperate for some action, are like. yes. two guys expressing emotions in each other's vicinity. true love

#also I don't particularly see kabru as autistic. like maybe? but making that the basis for their dynamic makes no sense #bc just as two autistic people are not the same kabru and laius are extremely different and do not communicate effectively w each other #I don't hate it like I hate shipping him w mithrun but it IS very clownish behavior and I do judge ppl for it #cor.txt

[npcdeath]

im preemptively mad at the people who will watch the dunmesh anime but not read the manga . it hasnt even got a potential airing date and im already seething bc ryoko kuis art is SO GOOD and her love of bodies in all their natural shapes is palpable in everything she draws. same for the creatures she draws everything with so much love like you can tell she thinks everything on earth is beautiful even when its gross or weird and not in an airy romanticising way but in a down to earth practical sense . she doesnt elevate the world on some imaginary pedestal where everything is perfect and beautiful in a way where it clearly isnt in real life ... she looks at the things around her on earth and thinks theyre beautiful exactly as they are to the naked eye . you look at her drawings and you can Tell

#also laius is canonically autistic and there are multiple lgbts just hanging out in the cast but i feel like im ... idk #degrading the work somehow if i try and market it in the Waow Representashun terms that get people to actually read shit on here #bc thats not the point . well its somewhat the point bc laiuses autism shapes so much of his narrative as the main character #but ykwim

[canmom]

Comics mini-Comints: Dungeon Meshi

reread dungeon meshi through to the end. still such a great manga. here are immediate thoughts - if I end up having time and energy I hope I can write something that goes deeper!

ironically i was only a few chapters from the end when I stopped keeping up, but I was struggling to remember all the characters and context, so reading it through in one go was definitely an ideal way to achieve maximum impact there.

ryoko kui does a very elegant job of handling a transition from 'silly antics' to 'big dramatic fantasy' while still keeping the central thematic throughline - eating and being eaten, belonging to an ecosystem, the significance of sacrificing others to achieve your own desires. a lot of setups pay off in a way that feels meticulously planned - and of course the crux of the final showdown revolves around characters attempting to eat each other, of course the big payoff is a huge feast that symbolically unites all the conflicting factions. it is maybe a bit too neat and happy for my taste, but it's undeniably tightly executed - it never loses sight of what it's about. especially compared to something like Frieren, it's an incredibly coherent serialisation, up there with e.g. Fullmetal Alchemist.

kui's art style deserves all kinds of praise - it feels effortlessly simple, but it clearly communicates all sorts of different shapes and body types and it's really fun to see her play around with remixing the different visual elements when she switches the races around. in general Laius's autistic monster loving ways clearly reflect kui's own deeply felt appreciation for all the ways people and animals live (accentuated further by all the extra sketches the scanlators tuck in). in a way you could kinda call it like Parts Unknown the fantasy manga.

the stakes of the final conflict are interesting - there is much to be said about the framing of 'desire' and its fulfilment, of this occult idea of 'the infinite'. lots you could put in relation to other manga, and also buddhism. (in particular I really want to develop a comparison to Made In Abyss, there are so many parallels, it just might be too spicy for tumblr lmao).

one thing I really like about it is how much its fantasy dungeon-exploring setting owes to D&D and other TTRPGs, rather than videogames. monster ecology has been a fascination of that game since the early days of Dragon magazine, and Kui sharply zeroes in on some of the intrinsic conflicts baked in to that fantasy milieu, notably the lifespan thing, while smartly avoiding the traps of 'evil races'. there's some really fun nods to the weirder monster manual entries. and in a story with so many characters and factions, it does a genuinely incredible job of furnishing everyone with understandable, reasonable motivations, conflicts drawn from their context just like the monsters are explained by their ecology.

and one thing that I particularly appreciate is like... how much it is able to simultaneously understand and sympathise with a character and also show us how and why they'd rub others the wrong way. it's impossible not to like our main group, they're all such charming dorks and the manga leads you along with all the crazy rpg party shit they do, but at the same time you definitely find yourself thinking 'guy's got a point' in the kabru chapters lmao. I'm projecting hard bc i don't really know a thing about ryōko kui but laius def feels like the sort of depiction of having an autism that you can only do if you've lived it.

but yeah, it's a fuzzy ending where it all turns out well. but what's the deeper thrust of it all? there's a funny moment where marcille is like 'maybe in the end our journey is about learning to accept death' and the grouchy old gnome guy completely laughs this off as naive, because death doesn't mean anything. and indeed their big plan pays off, and falin does indeed come back just fine. but still, through all of this it asks you to bite the bullet that being a living creature means eating to survive, at the cost of other creatures, with the other side being that one day you too will be eaten. in contrast to this honest way of being is the beguiling fantasy of infinity, where all your desires are immediately fulfilled - this is shown as a dangerous path of corruption that produces madness and manipulability. having limits and rubbing up against the wishes of others, or 'doing things you don't want to do' as izutsumi's arc puts it, becomes necessary for having some kind of definition as a subject. the thing that makes the demon concrete as an entity is a desire, or appetite, that can't immediately be fulfilled.

of course we can connect this to the idea of narrative conflict. a standard advice for putting together a plot is to ask what each character wants and why they can't get it. wanting something implies movement. and indeed over the course of this story, we see that while having too many desires fulfilled too readily leads to incoherence and callousness, equally a character who is left catatonic as their desires have been eaten by the demon must be reawakened to activity by finding a new desire.

it's kinda Buddhist innit. neither the opulence of the palace nor asceticism. desires are what tie you to the world. but mixed with ecology: what a creature does to find the energy to live is what defines its lifestyle, its form.

this is probably where I'd start talking about entropy gradients and shit if i wasn't typing this on a phone at 1:30am lmao.

but yeah - it's a powerful move to go from 'D&D monster recipe show sendup' to 'living with the inherently violent nature of being an organism fated to live in a finite sum game' and yet Dungeon Meshi makes it feel natural and convincing, while remaining tremendously charming and funny throughout. ryōko kui is definitely some kind of genius, and I can't wait to see what her next act is gonna be. it's all definitely making me appreciate the act of eating a lot more.

next story on my plate is probably The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, which sounds like it will present a very gnarly thematic contrast.

#manga #dungeon meshi #comics comints

[autism-rizz-tournament]

Falin Touden (Dungeon Meshi) - Autism Rizz Tournament Preliminaries

If you vote yes you must firmly believe in this character's autism AND in the rizz their autism gets them. If you don't want the character in the tournament just vote no

Propaganda:

Falin is a young mage with strange tendencies who is also very popular among both her adventuring co-workers and fans. The magic user and warrior in her party are both in love with her (magic user implicitly, warrior explicitly). She has widespread charm and appeal not despite but because of her unique interest in dungeons, her habits like collecting insects, and her unusual enthusiasm of eating monsters. While her brother Laius is also commonly hc'd as autistic too, Falin is by far the more popular and well-liked character.

#falin touden #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #character tournament #poll #tumblr polls #tournament poll #tumblr tournament

[chucktaylorupset]

9 People to Get to Know Better (Tag Game)

tagged by @immortaljailor thanks for tossing me a free one, badumtss

3 ships you like:

Kabru x Laius Touden (Dungeon Meshi) Autistic narrative foils who fuck. One is a blond bombshell of a knight and the other is a short king (well, not literally, but). I love ships where one is like, internally tearing apart their mental furniture about their dick getting them into this situation, and the other one is like hee hoo i love you!

Keeley Jones x Roy Kent x Jamie Tartt (Ted Lasso) Everyone here is hot and prone to hilarious stupidity. Roy is almost definitely internally screeching about willingly sticking his dick in Jamie.

Louis de Pointe du Lac x Daniel Molloy (Interview With the Vampire (TV)) Listen. Listen I know the entire point of this show is that Louis does not get better with every old man he hooks up with. I know that. But hear me out: third try's the charm

First ship ever:

This memory could not be retrieved. If you go in my blog archive, Cassian Andor x Bodhi Rook (Rogue One) is there pretty early tho

Last song you heard:

all eyes on me - bo burnham transposed to his original voice the way this hits different than the original haunts me

Favorite childhood book:

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson I don't know which volume, we owned a lot when I was growing up, but my dad would read them to me and my sister, and he would do voices. It made reading the hamster huey and the gooey kablooey comic very meta. The irony is I was very much a Susie growing up, and now I am nearly ideologically identical to Calvin. I did like the jokes, but also I just really liked Hobbes because he was a tiger.

Currently reading:

TCGF book 1 recommended by @sidecharactersdomatter, just want to be able to hang out in the same fandom/narrative spaces Babel by R.F. Kuang, given to me by a friend

Currently consuming:

Dungeon meshi anime, the magnus protocol kinda? I'm behind on both. I have a bunch of series I have ADHD wandered away from like the Bear s2, despite it being very good. I have entered the workforce and the things I do has decreased to focus on facillitating that. It is very sad.

Currently craving:

More Labru. More blonde bombshell knight bottoming. I know the labru fandom has mercifully universally agreed that the tall one gets to be the bottom this time, but I need more! (i have more, i just lack the mood and the willpower to write. i should probably post the concepts as bullet fics)

we're going to my extended family's soon for a belated lunar new year and i wanna eat my ba ngoais curry and the family egg rolls. let's GOOO

my mood's been in a gully lately but i wanna get back to the part where i'm ENERGIZED and DOING THINGS and it's not SO FUCKING COLD OUTSIDE

Tagging:

@sidecharactersdomatter, @fratgrl, @unbenchthekench @captainjonnitkessler @liesmyth @belovedblabber @professorsparklepants @twyrrinren @dabidagoose and anyone else who wants to join in!

#my post #tag game #focusing on this improved my mood. wow!!

[transmasclaius]

My personal identity is so intertwined with Laius Touden that people interpreting him in ways different than me feels like a personal attack. Like I have seen people draw him cis multiple times today and each time it was just viscerally wrong. The power of autism I fear. Like I genuinely cannot put into words how deeply this character is fused into my being. He's not just my favourite character, at this point he is me. I am him. And if you interpret him wrong then you're just wrong and it feels bad.

What do you mean you read about his childhood and didn't link it to the pressure and ultimately the disappointment of being the eldest daughter and undiagnosed autistic where you coped up until the start of puberty because your younger siblings had higher needs so they needed the most support but then everything just crumbled. And then people started realising something was wrong with you and you failed and kept failing but you were supposed to just keep going until it was too much. And at the same time you realised you were trans and it felt like failing more because you disappoint the title of eldest daughter.

What do you mean you just read dungeon meshi and your only take away was wow Laius is a funny guy.

#dungeonmeshi #uber autism #laius is being autistic again #deliciousindungeon #dungeon meshi

[gotinterest]

Kabru works because he's literally just as autistic as Laius and Falyn, it's just that his special interest is people so he knows how to make friends. He's literally drawn with the exact same wide eyed info dumping expression as Laius whenever he talks about people.

#dungeon meshi lb...2!

[spicebiter]

Been rereading Dungeon Meshi and idk what didn't hit the first time but every chapter I spend like five minutes just staring at a random panel of Laius. His autistic swagger has captured me mind, body, and soul

#would listen to him talk about monsters for ages tbh #his face.... i must kiss him yknow #ugh hes so cute #dungeon meshi #spiced

[thedarklordsnicklefritz]

Yknow. I had been wondering what Kabru's deal was, cause he didn't make sense to me

I wasn't sure if it was an issue with the translation I'm reading, my memory, if I had missed something about how dungeons work in this setting or some combination

Cause obviously he has trauma from his hometown getting overtaken by the dungeon and wants to close the dungeon down to prevent that from happening again.

(Side note: that's how I know I'm an American cause my instinct was like, hey if people want to risk their lives in an extremely dangerous place for wealth and/or glory you should just let them. Obviously the spilling out into the neighboring village is a problem but it did get commented that it didn't make sense and it seems like there was more to what happened there)

But he starts off chasing after Laius' party cause he thought they stole treasure from them (Not realizing most of it was treasure bugs, and ones that tpk-ed them at that. But even then, like sure that is maybe a dick move but it seems like it would be pretty normal to have your body looted if you die in a dungeon? Sounds like an occupational hazard. But maybe I'm just american) then kills the corpse hunter guys cause theyre only in it for the money. And hates Laius because he....gave away his money to injured party members? Because he wanted to expose him somehow?? And now he's fully on team Laius for Dungeon President because he's the only guy who's autistic and monsterfucker enough to actually pull it off, and flip-flopping on whether to side with the elves or not.

Like he seems like he's just here to cause problems on purpose and fuck around

(Even though he's kinda getting framed as the mastermind rival guy with lots of focus on his internal monologue)

I almost made a post about it a few chapters back cause I was confused.

But now I'm on ch 61 with the flashback to the Elf that took him in and okay yeah that actually explains everything. That was the missing piece in this puzzle.

Sometimes you continue reading the story and information is revealed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#dungeon meshi spoilers

[muffinrag]

literally every single piece of fan content i've seen about laius: he's autistic. that man is so fucking autistic

me, reading dungeon meshi: damn he's just like me fr

#senshi's like here's my tragic backstory that mightve involved cannibalism and laius is like well let's eat the griffin then! #girl i literally would have suggested the exact same thing. help #god help my dumb autistic ass. #soliloquy

[wolftattoo]

i dont know if im autistic and to me trying to define stuff like that has little use im just a weird dog yknow. but i think laius dungeon meshi is autistic and i relate to his like of monsters heavily. so neat to see a guy who is heavily interested in something in the same way as i am AND also that he finds/has people who appreciate his interest.

#also i never know if im spelling their names right #cause im reading on mangadex and like. chilchuck is translated as chilchalk so idk

[nyaruhodou]

its interesting that kabru seems to think falin and laius are like, secretly scummy people who only care about themselves as opposed to just. autistic

[npcdeath]

ive been waiting for laiuses first ever figure bc hes like number one most autistic perfect male protag for real but theres tears in my eyes rn how can they do him so dirty like this when everyone else looks just fine......... im sorry laius im not paying 190 aud for that face

[the-east-art]

Laius is just the autistic protag of all time