#also laios is here because it makes me think of him too :) it should be spoiler free | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fumifooms · 3 months

Text

Quick Falin analysis. Congrats on her going along with her loved ones’ wishes becoming explicitly canon and not subtext btw!

Thinking of it, becoming a chimera and literally being puppeteered around by the will of the dungeon and its lord is such an… Explicit visualization of her demeanor in life of letting others’ wants and whims dictate what she does and where she goes. Shows the most extreme & worst version of it, of where that could lead her down the road. Dunmeshi loves often showing that with everyone, with the winged lion warping even the most selfless well-intentioned desire into something intense and destructive.

If Faligon is her retreating into that comfortable role of just on-pilot mode following what others want, that’d be an interesting angle too. Because we see like with the dragons fight at Thistle’s house that the monsters CAN act rebellious, meanwhile Falin was just so on board with the commands she got ever since she got transformed.

Chimera Falin doesn’t have a strong will? Oof

I do also think that Thistle is something that her nursing reflexes latch onto easily, when it comes to comforting and protecting others. It’s unsure how much of her is dormant as Faligon, or how being bound to the dungeon and the dungeon lord’s will affects her, but it’s undeniable that she acts with care when it comes to Thistle. On one hand, she fights ferociously for him, when protecting him or even just sent out to scout, but you can’t really say she’s being assertive either, not when she doesn’t complain or act when he eats all the berries and she’s hungry. She’s still that silent, sidelined guardian, only now very, very literal.

I never bought the angle that chimera Falin mostly represented her repressed anger at the world personally, like yes now she’s loud and big and imperfect, but again, socially she falls into the same pitfalls, it’s just that now she’s top dog, below just one person, and so she’s allowed to be aggressive with everyone else. If anything, it’s the dragon soul pushing her to want more, making her act out, giving her a taste of how it feels to be powerful, carefree and impossible to oversee, but it couldn’t be called catharsis I think. In general, she seems more passive with a "as long as I have what I love, everything else can go burn for all I care" mentality rather than actively(or repressedly) angry to me. Not that she couldn’t have complex feelings over being lonely and cast out either of course, but personally I never got the sense that she resents the world or society at large. I do feel like the dogs treating her like she was at the bottom of the hierarchy also shaped her a lot

Not only cast out by other kids and classmates, but also treated as someone that can be disrespected and roughened up by the dogs at home. She was really pushed into that go with the flow, make yourself scarce and quiet attitude. She’s never really been allowed to hope for better, or to have a dream of her own, her life path being decided for her by others. Besides with Laios, everything she learned everywhere in group dynamics was that she was at the bottom and should be content with whatever others gave her. Maybe that’s why she was so forgiving of her parents too, because at least, to some degree they did care and didn’t want to cut contact, and she takes what she can get.

Thank you @thatsmimi for the fantranslation of the new leaked content, the opening and ending pictures in this post. Their original post about it is here, and as mentioned it is not the official translation.

#She hesitates on hurting the kobold but not everyone else? Oof #And even with Laios as kids he enforced the hierarchy by wrestling and all tbh #I don’t expect kids to have a good and compassionate grasp on social dynamics but he wasn’t always the kindest #Not a defense of the parents btw. Wtf were they doing #Dungeon meshi #falin touden #analysis #character analysis #so interesting how Falin just doesn’t have presence #Dungeon meshi manga spoilers #spoilers #thistlin #the dragon soul is a positive influence on her <3

469 notes · View notes

dunmeshistash · 18 days

Note

What do you think about Shuro? And more specifically his relationship with Laios, and idk if you talk about ships but what are your thoughts on laishuro

I have this headcannon that Laios has some sort of unrequited crush on Shuro just because it's sorta funny

I ship pretty much everything. Like, as default I think everyone should kiss everyone 👍

If I'm honest I'm not much of a Shuro fan, he's a little boring to me and reactions to the chimera episode made me dislike him a bit lmao.

Ignoring the fandom I like him as a character and I LOVE his fight with Laios. Shuro's relationship to Laios is my favorite part of that character so laishuro pretty much saves him for me.

In universe Shuro is said to be quite the introvert even for people from his country. He's not the standard for someone from the eastern archipelago and it bothered me a bit when people used that to justify how he wasn't honest to Laios. I understand the idea that he comes from somewhere where reading social cues is not only expected but required but he's also someone who avoids confrontation and is quiet/shy in general.

Here's a bit from Maizuru's description from the adventurer's bible

"People tend to describe Shuro as "drab" and "shy" (...)" so specifically HE IS the exact type of person who would cause the biggest misunderstanding with Laios, just compare him to how his retainers or even his father and brothers act.

It took them saying they used ancient magic on Falin/seeing chimera Falin for him to finally snap, everything else he decided to just take it cause he thought it was better to take it than to confront Laios directly.

So besides the cultural differences you have to take into consideration this was pretty much the perfect storm brewing for that confrontation, and it's as much who Shuro is as a person and who Laios is as person that caused it.

I also disagree that the fight was a "they're both in the wrong" situation. Don't get me wrong, Laios was VERY culturally insensitive to Shuro and even more insensitive to his feelings, but there was nothing he could have done differently with the information that was available to him.

Specifically I see this comic being used to justify how Laios was to blame too, making Shuro into the victim

Like that's a major white guy move but he DIDN'T HEAR Shuro's name and Shuro never corrected him. I'd understand it if his reaction was "Your name is too complicated so I'll call you Shuro instead" that would be a major dick move, but Laios did not hear his name because Toshiro mumbled it, and for someone that forgot Kabru's name several times I imagine he made an effort to remember Shuro's.

Laios never met someone from the eastern archipelago before this, nobody ever explained to him he wasn't acting in an appropriate manner and most of all he thought they were friends. He trusted Shuro to set boundaries for him, he always respects boundaries that are set even when he doesn't fully understand them (Recalling the "I forgot about feelings.." when Chilchuck says it feels wrong to eat merman)

Instead of explaining ANYTHING to Laios, Shuro instead held it all in until it exploded all at once, he blamed Laios for not knowing something he couldn't know, and accused him of not being serious about saving his own sister.

Just imagine how this must have felt for Laios, everyone is always underestimating how serious he is, everyone accuses him of being stupid, clueless, and now this guy is telling him he isn't serious about saving the person he loves the most in the world and wants to protect always. To me this wasn't a "they're both in the wrong" situation, Shuro is far more in the wrong than Laios. But that's just how I see it.

That all being said, they understood each other finally and made peace after that fight.

And several times after this we see that Shuro really cares for Laios, and Laios still wants to be his friend. He even offered to save Laios if he fails (and he's sure he's gonna fail). So their relationship is dear to me, especially cause after this they finally have the foundation for a true mutual friendship <3

I think my dislike of Shuro comes from relating to him to be honest, it happens often that I see my own failures on a character and get angry at them for being angry at myself lmao. I also got a little annoyed cause I only saw people defending him, apparently those were made as a response to hate he had gotten? But since I never actually seen the hate it just felt annoying to see Shuro being white knighted.

Anyway I love the two of them together and I'm really happy they finally understood each other better. laishuro might be my favorite Laios ship, one sided crushes are great.

#Sorry I dont like being negative and I hope this wasnt too mean towards Shuro #its hard to be objective about him cause of personal feelings but I tried #Dungeon Meshi #Shuro #Laios Touden #Ask #Longpost #Rant #long post #Oh yeah I've said it before but I live under a rock I rarely know whats happening in fandom #might be part of the reason why only the shuro defenses found their way to me #dunmeshi thoughts

175 notes · View notes

xiki-pupper · 26 days

Text

I can understand how Shuro may be a frustrating character to some folks - in fact that is kinda what he is there for, narratively speaking. But it really gives me ick when people just wanna shit on him for "being awful/the worst/an asshole"

The way I see it, the dude is his own different flavor of Autism- repressed, conditioned, awkward, and forced to participate in high society, not to mention the culture clash - and he sees laios just being his own weirdo self and he hates it --- no, thats not it. I honestly don't think he hates laios; i truly believe he hates that Laios gets to be TRUE to himself, and he (shuro) Doesn't get to be.

And it's a feeling I can understand and sympathize and empathize with, as I have been on my own personal journey to try and un-mask and deconstruct and heal myself in a world that has made me feel broken my entire life

People scream "hypocrisy" as shuro sees the same traits between the touden siblings, and is attracted to one whilst hating the other - and yes, I can agree that it's a bit hypocritical, but yall are taking it at face value and not understanding where his feelings are coming from. Shuro doesn't hate laios because he has a special interest, shuro hates that his whole life, he has had to squash himself into a form-fitting box, behave as his family commands, and now he sees laios being free of expectation, just out here being a weirdo, and shuro is possibly feeling that frustrated grief that comes with the late diagnosed autistic situation of "I could have been happy, too, but no, *I* had to be the responsible one"

... at least, that's how I view it. Coz I myself have had those thoughts. And I know, it's NOT a good look for me to be out here admitting that I have felt this way, like for example, maybe I see someone else's struggle with anxiety, whether it's online or in real life, and I have this bitter thought to myself of "yeah, I have anxiety too, but *I* was still forced to be a responsible adult anyway" which makes me momentarily frustrated.

And before anyone jumps my ass about it, NO, I definitely DO NOT think that "if I had to suffer thru it, so should everyone else" that's NOT what I'm saying. But I AM saying that, there is a bitterness, when u see someone who is able to avoid a struggle that you had to endure - that bitterness is NOT thinking that everyone should suffer as I did, but me being bitter that *I had to* at all.

Does that make sense? Coz I really feel like Shuro just gets shit on because people think he's there to interrupt the Yuri and be mean to Laois, and I really feel that he's a whole ass person. And a somewhat melancholic one, at that. He makes me think of how I had to grow up Christian whilst being queer and undiagnosed Audhd my entire life, and I would be very very surprised to hear that a large chunk of dunmeshi fans didn't ALSO grow up this way, feeling broken and stupid and tired, forced to do things the "normal people" way, and then NOT understand how Shuro feels when he sees someone who is in a position to be mostly free of that...

#dummeshi #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi #toshiro nakamoto #danmeshi

172 notes · View notes

prismatoxic · 2 months

Note

cause I need to hear more of your sweet thoughts bout those two freaks, favorite laichil moments that have been stewing in the back of the mind?

oh gosh ummmmm

well now that episode 11 is out i am so very deeply fond of laios's visual pan from kensuke to chilchuck's dawning, rage-filled horror at what's happened

i think the swearing was better in the manga--not because the anime let him say actual words (bc i think that's awesome) but bc in the manga i thought they were still running while chilchuck was doing this. good visual

OF COURSE THE BEST EPISODE 11 CHILAIOS MOMENT... TO ME... is when chilchuck tells laios they're going to have a Talk later

the dub delivery kind of disappointed me (as it always does) BUT IN THE SUB the way laios immediately agrees is so very much, to me, a "yes sir" moment. and if you read my fic you know i'm very into this

i have a lot of little canon moments that i'm super fond of and am very excited to see in the anime... my faves are often when chilchuck is being a hostile little goblin but i'm so fucking excited about what i assume will be episode 13. you know. because

okay i have a lot of thoughts actually (MANGA SPOILERS I'M SERIOUS)

so. chapter 30.

chilchuck goes to get the party's supplies from where they were abandoned in the house they had dinner with falin at, having his own character arc along the way. we have seen him try to convince both leed and senshi that the smartest thing to do will be to lie to laios and marcille so they can return to the surface. trying to continue in this state will kill them, but neither of them will rest if they think they can still find falin. neither senshi nor leed agree with chilchuck's plan, and leed insinuates he's a coward. chilchuck stays firm. even after he's clearly pushed off kilter by leed saying he should just tell the truth, we don't have any concrete reason to think he will.

then they return and senshi is struggling to keep a now-awake laios down. laios is wounded and weak and senshi is a dwarf but laios is so deeply, fervently determined to get falin back that he's very hard to stop.

chilchuck, by contrast, is not strong at all, but somehow his added presence gets laios to sit back down. chilchuck rests a hand on laios's shoulder and even before he says anything, laios is looking at him. he knows something is coming. i think he resents chilchuck for it, too--the implication that there's anything to be said here.

we don't know at this point what chilchuck intends to say. senshi still thinks he wants to lie and intends to stop him, but i think it's clear in this moment that chilchuck has changed his mind.

he kneels--proud, all-too-aware of "how his people are treated for their size" chilchuck kneels between laios's legs. and i'm not pointing this out for horny reasons, for once.

he's bringing himself closer to laios--assuming a position associated with pleading and willingly making himself not the authority in this interaction. he believes, wholeheartedly, in what he wants to do and what needs to be said, but...

he also knows laios is hurting.

laios is... devastated. he's terrified. he's angry. but he's also still laios, and he knows chilchuck, insofar as chilchuck has allowed him to. he also respects chilchuck. so this--a teary-eyed plea to do what goes against everything he feels--gives him pause. chilchuck does not beg, and he does not cry.

...and he never talks about how he feels.

but he does, here: he doesn't want to lose his friends. and he does mean all of them, senshi included. he has three people to think of--three people whose lives he cannot in good conscience allow to be put at risk any more than they already have been. even so, he acknowledges that however laios feels about falin is probably incomparable.

but he tries to give laios hope--he gives him a plan of action. he says we will come back. he tries to impress upon laios that this isn't defeat and it isn't surrender, it's being safe. it's giving themselves an actual fighting chance at getting falin back.

laios doesn't want to... but he also doesn't say that. all the things he's feeling haven't gone away, but he's also aware of just how big this situation is if chilchuck opened himself up this way. chilchuck does not and never has done this. up until the fight with the red dragon, you could be forgiven for assuming chilchuck is just a contracted coworker who's a little fond of the party and nothing more.

senshi and leed, the only people who knew chilchuck's plan to lie to the others, don't openly acknowledge his change of heart... but they back him up. they pitch in to push laios just a little further, to get him to agree.

and it works.

so. um. episode 13 will be good i think

#tox answers #chilaios #dunmeshi spoilers #dunmeshi anime spoilers #ummmmm i got a little into this one #long post

141 notes · View notes

room-surprise · 4 months

Note

i read your Mithrun fics (both the college AU and the post-canon one). I love them so much... They mean so much to me.

Anyway, what do you think about Mithrun's role in post-canon politics? Since Kabru would likely be the one who handle political side, and Mithrun is actually a powerful figure. He's also very smart (they just need to ask him the right question). I feel there're a lot of possibilities here.

Thank you, I'm so happy you enjoyed them!!! They mean a lot to me too, and I'm really excited to get back to writing fiction soon, since I'm getting close to the end of my little research project on the names.

I won't go into my thoughts on this too much, because I DO want to write about it in a big fic...

I think that while Mithrun's presence in the kingdom and his ties to his brother makes him amazing leverage against the elves (and anyone else, really, the Kerensil bank is BIG), his presence in Kabru's life causes some amount of distrust both from other members of the court, and from other nations.

Some people think Mithrun is some kind of bribe, and that his presence as Kabru's lover means the bank "owns" the kingdom.

(Mithrun thinks this is ridiculous and kind of insulting. If they were going to bribe Kabru, do people really think Mithrun is the best the Kerensils can afford to send? A busted up muscle-bound ugly middle-aged elf with the personality and charm of a cactus? Obviously they would send something much better if they were trying to buy his allegiance.)

Other people think Kabru is going to become biased towards the elves because clearly he's an elf sympathizer.

("Should we stage a fight in public every couple of months?" Mithrun asks.) But eventually Mithrun will start to think of the kingdom as his home too, and so he wants to contribute and help, in his own way. I have plans for Mithrun to have his own mission and something he wants to accomplish. But really it's all over when Laios realizes Mithrun is a walking encyclopedia of monster facts. No wonder Kabru likes him so much!!!

(That's not why Kabru likes him, Laios.)

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dunmeshi #kabru #mithrun #kabumisu #dungeon meshi spoilers #spoilers #my stuff

64 notes · View notes

unkat · 2 months

Text

chilaios medical au idea i have been bouncing in my head (will not be written until after my current one is done)

i am thinking of a like firefighter/paramedic story for these guys. where laios is a new shift commander/chief at a small middle of nowhere station and chilchuck is a medic from a big city who keeps getting reassigned because he is trying to recruit for a union and the company is trying to make his job unworkable/find a reason to let him go.

laios was promoted because of his work ethic and ability to teach other people about the ins and outs of emergency medicine, not because he wanted to be in charge. he is too new and disinterested in the company politics to throw him under the bus for other people, and by the time someone explicitly says he needs to fire him, he has gotten attached.

"he's reliable, does good work, and catches things nobody else here would have. i know he cussed out the family trying to get into the rig, but he had already told them no and they should be grateful he saved their daughter instead of filing a complaint! even if i were to discipline, he deserves a verbal warning and not dismissal. You were not there, and i am his direct superior."

(wins the argument and walks away trying not to hyperventilate)

also falin is a surgeon and marcille is a research fellow who abandoned her big-city super-focused projects to come out into the country and work with subpar equipment and an incompetent assistant. im not thinking like full rural hospital here, but closeish to it. could be an academic satellite hospital and she switched from like gene therapy trials to studying exposures/population/histology stuff.

shifting the touden hyperfixation from monsters->medical fascination i think would still get across the same vibes. falin is very nice and pleasant but she treats everyone nicely and pleasantly without actually empathizing with them. shes one of those surgeons who went to shadow a heart transplant in college and cried because it was so beautiful and then got a bunch of scholarships plus student loans for med school.

laios hunts and has a big appreciation for the lives of things he kills and butchering/using everything he can. then it translates to him being fascinated by the human body as an object more than as a being that is different and special from other animals that he is a part of. he is a fantastic emergency responder because of this- people are a pile of flesh that is broken somewhere, and he wants to figure out why. (this is something that I'm like. not sure if it is okay for me to include because it can be squicky/triggering. but i feel like when I'm unsure if I'm going too far that is when i am reaching the line i want to?)

the touden siblings still go hiking and mudding and spend their time off in the woods (marcille wears white shorts and sandels on a hike leaving laios to be very explicit and offering clothes to chilchuck when he offers him to join. chilchuck borrows his shirt and it is way too big, but he keeps it for a while.)

chilchuck is extra divorced. he facetimes with the girls a couple of times a week and gets them on rotating holidays. sometimes ex-mrs. tims invites him over for dinner because she feels sorry for him and her new boyfriend is also there. it's awkward but they both know he's harmless, just annoying and closed off. he smokes but has tried to quit 7-8 times. started when he was an emt and couldn't shake it because it helped him destress. he only knows how to drive well enough to pass his vehicle license renewals and still doesn't know what the buttons in his car do. the ac has been "broken" for a week before a station mechanic pushes the button to turn it back on (they should put a subway around here, stupid cars).

laios respects his experience and history of being at a constantly busy station that saw a variety of crazy shit. chilchuck initially resents him for being so out of touch, but grows to respect his leadership abilities. laios also always follows up on cases at the hospital to figure out the outcome and reflect on best practices.

he is the first person to get chilchuck to actually debrief after a shitty call and chil cries and never wants to talk about it again. but its like a seal in a dam has been breached, and opens up when they are cuddling on the couch. they spend more time off shift with each other. chilchuck crashes on laios' couch and initially feels like he needs excuses to do it until laios says he really likes talking with him and having him there. he tells him about the company's EAP coverage and that he encourages everyone to take advantage of it.

in the end, they hit that threshold of basically living together, and one of them would need to change their station (superior/employee romance) after they go from making out off shift in secret to seriously considering having laios meet his daughters in person. (they already think they're married because laios is always there when they call now)

#unkat rants #i cant stand them #chilaios #dungeon meshi filter #...i updated the tag for folks who saw this directly already #sorry for the confusion

40 notes · View notes

wormlette · 3 months

Text

I do think a LOT about why Chilchuck would join the "save Falin" dungeon dive at all tbh and it makes me feel like eating drywall. Namari is the one who brings up the "I figured you'd be the first one to leave, you never take a job without getting paid" and he's like yeah. I do insist on payment up front. But do you think he was ever going to bring up his motivations on his own? If Namari hadn't? I don't think he would talk about it because I don't think it's really that simple. We find out in the ep that just aired a few things--

1) Chil is paid in advance, and however that works, he's apparently already been contracted for future dungeon dives too ? 2) The adventurer's community is tight-knit and full of gossip, so the things you do will have impact on what kind of work you can do going forward.

There are other things we know about Chil:

1) he's worked for Laios' party for three years. Namari was a member before him (she joined at the same time the husband hunter and some tall man guy joined, iirc) and Shuro was a member after him, but after those two leave, he's the person who's worked with the Toudens for the longest. 2) He's had some really shitty jobs in his past, especially pre-union. He understands very well what kinds of things people will use half-foots for. 3) He is thinking about retiring. He was going to retire before joining Laios' party.

And one thing we learned in the very first episode -- Laios told Marcille and Chilchuck that they should sell their equipment so he could go down on his own to rescue Falin. Chilchuck asks him if he's suicidal and then invites himself along for absolutely everything that goes down after. He's more ride-or-die about eating monsters than anyone other than Senshi. Him breaking his contract is obviously not something Laios would have held against him. Maybe it would have "Changed his clientele" as he says to Marcille about Namari in the latest ep, but also: HE COULD JUST RETIRE.

IDK PERSONALLY I JUST THINK this all adds up to an implication that he is really very fond of the Touden siblings. As Marcille notes when she's making a fanfic of his wife leaving him he's not the type to ever say his feelings out loud so it's not ever really gonna be said in the text of the story and THAT'S WHY I'M HERE. They seem to be a well-renowned party during the events of the story, but when he joined up with them they were just a year out from being bodyguards in a gold-peeling party with a few other no-name adventurers (as far as I know from the extras that have come out so far, the order of main chars joining the party went Laios&Falin->Namari->Chil->Shuro->Marcille.)

Three years AFTER HE WAS ALREADY CONSIDERING RETIRING he is willing to go on a journey that every other character thinks is fucking insane for the chance to rescue Falin, even though he is not an optimistic guy and he probably has a more realistic understanding of how dangerous dungeons are than anybody else in the group. If he started doing dungeon work when he left his home at 14 then he has about 15 years of dungeoneering experience by the time of the story. He would know what he's doing is actually EXTREMELY dangerous in a way resurrection magic doesn't actually eliminate. They are going down into a floor that's so far down the story has expressed "it's really dangerous to go there and most people don't because it will be hard for corpse retrievers and necessary supplies to get to you if you die. if you are eaten you might just be gone beause no one will ever find you."

I think he's harsh on Laios because he really cares about him and Falin. We know he ranks Laios' ability as a party leader as like a 61 or something lmfao but IMHO he is like that stern teacher who is forced by admin to put a 20pt curve on every exam because everybody is fuckin failing. Nobody is doing a good enough job. But he must have faith in the idea that Laios is able to do better if he has the right coaching (kicking and yelling at him). I JUST THINK the Touden party has been the best one he's worked in, or if not the best then his favorite, for him to keep doing it for THIS LONG when he SHOULD absolutely have his pick of contracts, given that "no other half-foots had the expertise necessary to accompany Laios to such a deep floor of the dungeon".

#and that's why i need them to fuck nasty. me and my psychosexual obsession with my dogboy coworker who is leader in name only.#like Laios gets above 50%. better than average. he probs has many groups he’d rate like a 30%.

66 notes · View notes

johannestevans · 24 days

Note

request: some labru?

Doing short requests (<1000w)! Also on Ao3.

Feel free to drop requests in the replies or into my askbox. If you’d like a leave a tip for your own request or someone else’s, my tip jar is here.

“Are you okay?” Laios asks, and Kabru looks down at him, keeping his thighs spread wider apart as he looks down at the other man, takes him in, commits him to memory. Laios is different like this than usual, his lips parted, his eyes wider than usual, his pupils dilated, sweat on his skin.

“Yeah,” Kabru says, and a part of him is frustrated with it, the fact that Laios is watching him back, the fact that Laios is looking at him eagerly, questioningly, when Kabru is trying to study him, trying to think about him.

“Do you you, um, still want to…?”

“Shut up,” Kabru orders him, and Laios groans as Kabru pushes himself up on his knees and grinds the tip of his prick against the bulge of Laios’ cock in his underwear, feels it hot underneath him. “Yeah,” he says. “I want you to— to use me.”

“Use you?” Laios repeats, and he tilts his head slightly as he looks up at Kabru’s face, questioning. “I don’t…”

“I want you to fuck me,” Kabru says firmly, resting his hands on the naked flesh of Laios’ pecs – they’ve not died in the dungeon in a while, and he’s put on a little weight, has more flesh to his chest and belly than he had. Kabru’s gained back a little of the weight he’d had before, too, is no longer just muscle over bone. “I want you to… to use me, you know. Like a— Laios.”

“Kabru,” says Laios seriously, and fuck, but he’s so eager sometimes, so agonisingly earnest as he meets Kabru’s gaze, as he does as Kabru says.

“Do you touch yourself?”

“Of course,” Laios says immediately, and Kabru looks down at him flatly, his lips pressed together.

“Your dick, Laios,” Kabru says. “Do you touch it? Get yourself off?”

“Oh,” says Laios, and his cheeks tinge slightly pink. “Um. Y— Are you going to ask me what to?”

Kabru narrows his eyes, taking that in for a second, and he wants to ask, wants to interrogate that as deeply as he can, but he just makes a mental note to come back to it later.

“I want you to use me, like you’re trying to get yourself off,” says Kabru experimentally, studying Laios’ face as he says it, looking for eagerness in his expression, but what he sees is a guardedness, an uncertainty, as Laios bites one of his lips. “Touch me to satisfy yourself,” he says, because he wants to know. Wants to know how Laios will touch him this first time, without Kabru’s hands guiding him, without Kabru telling him what to do, without him thinking about what Kabru wants. “Fuck me. Use me.”

“I don’t…” Laios starts to protest, and Kabru settles one hand flat on his chest, leaning in closer, brushing their lips together. Laios likes kissing, Kabru’s already discovered, and he eagerly leans up for more until Kabru holds him fast, doesn’t let Laios kiss him more. “Kabru—”

“Fuck me,” Kabru orders him, as crisply as he can. “I want you to. I want you to focus on your own pleasure.”

“I don’t do that,” Laios says uncertainly.

“I want you to,” Kabru murmurs, his voice as soft and solicitous as he can make it, and Laios sits up and pushes Kabru back. They’d stripped naked already, Laios so that Kabru could look at him, focus on him, and Laios had undressed Kabru whilst he’d been distracted, eased off his armour. “Laios—”

Kabru lets out a noise of surprise as Laios wrestles him over his lap and shoves Kabru’s thighs apart, and then dives in mouth first – and really, why should Kabru be surprised? Kabru lets out a sharp whine as Laios closes the top of his mouth around his cock at the same time as his tongue shoves into Kabru’s wet cunt, swipes around the open centre of it before he dips lower and tongues at Kabru’s ass instead. Kabru’s thighs are spread wide over Laios’ shoulders, Laios gripping at his knees.

“Which hole?” Laios asks, and Kabru opens his mouth, closes it.

“I’m not supposed to be the one choosing,” Kabru says, and Laios hums, then returns to tonguing at him, and Kabru can’t help the moan that escapes him as he considers this, Laios’ natural instinct of course being to dive in tongue first, to taste, to eat him out, as much as his instinct with anything he likes, loves, anything he’s fascinated with, anything he studies, is to consume it, devour it.

Kabru’s cock is twitching at the thought of it, his back arching as he spreads back over Laios’ chest, feeling the plumpness of his healthier belly underneath him, the heat of his body.

Laios sucks Kabru’s cock into his mouth, and Kabru groans, digging his fingers into Laios’ thighs to try to steady himself as Laios keeps on sucking at him, goes between tonguing at him, suckling at the side of his lips before he pulls back and stands to his feet. Kabru lets out a noise at the indignity of it as Laios keeps his arm banded around Kabru’s belly and holds him the right way up, not upside down this time, and shoves down his underwear.

As they fall down to Laios’ ankles, Kabru stares down between his own legs and now between Laios’ too, feels the heat of Laios’ long, fat cock standing up straight, prodding against Kabru’s own little prick. Kabru’s cunt is open and slick, all but dripping down against Laios’ cock, and he whimpers as Laios readies his cock and holds Kabru up straight, prodding his slick cockhead not up against Kabru’s pussy, open and wet, but up against the tighter furl of his arse.

“Laios,” he says in a warning tone. “Laios, don’t you fucking dare—”

“You told me I was supposed to choose,” Laios says in that blunt and simple tone he uses sometimes and then drops Kabru down, and Kabru howls as Laios’ cock sinks into his cunt after all, sinks in all at once and spreads him roughly wide, his thighs quivering, his whole body writhing and struggling helplessly in Laios’ grip as Laios lowers him down and fucks him as deeply as he can.

He’s breathing heavily as Laios says seriously, “I’m going to fuck you now,” with his hands going to Kabru’s hips, and Kabru is gloriously helpless as Laios begins to fuck him mercilessly from behind.

#musings #laios touden #labru #kabru of utaya #dungeon meshi #fanfic

35 notes · View notes

xxmethlordxx · 1 month

Note

Hello! I read that your request are open and I wanted to give it a try! If my promp isn't of your interest just ignore!

Can I request a fluff/comfort LaiosXReader (Any gender is fine) Fanfic/Headcannon/Oneshot/Anything

Of Laios comforting the reader during a fireworks show because they're scared of the loud noises?

Thanks you so much!

(Edit I was trying so hard to check spelling mistakes that I didn’t type anything else but lmk what you guys think and give me feedback please :3)

Booming sensation

laios x gender natural reader

Warning: none

When you aren’t working and being in the dungeon, you like being outside the dungeon to get fresh air and do other things. At the end of July would start the summer festivals your village would have. You dreaded it. You liked the summer sun, the treats they would have outside, everyone laughing and dancing to the music that filled the ears with happy children and adults. But you never joined in the activities they held, knowing after a while, they would start to set off fireworks. The loud sounds, flashing lights, were just too overwhelming for you and anytime you were invited out you sadly refused, not telling them of your fear out of embarrassment. This year was no different. The smell of food, the sound of music and villagers laughing, the atmosphere was perfect, but you knew you couldn’t go out, so you didn’t do anything to get ready. You planned on lying down until you heard a knock at the door. You opened the door to see your lover laios. You’ve been together for about a couple of months and he’s been a dream. He has his quirks, but sitting through hours of monster info dumping was worth it to get all the love and affection you could ask for. Smiling when seeing your boyfriend, you greeted him with a hug. “Laios, what are you doing here” you smiled up at him. “Well, I was wondering what you were doing today.” you looked at him for a minute before responding. “W-well I was just going to stay home and probably go to bed early”. You felt bad, but you knew what he was going to ask. “Oh well, I was wondering if you wanted to see the fireworks that were about to go off” Laios smiled at you but soon frowned. “But if you're going to bed early I can ask someone else” looking at laios frown broke your heart, and it felt like looking at a sad puppy, so you sighed “I guess I could try and come out for a bit….” Laios practically lit up and smiled at you grabbing your hands and blushing. “R-REALLY- I mean you don’t have too if you're tired” laios looked down again trying to find your eyes. Maybe it might be different with laios. Maybe if you focus on him the entire time, the fireworks won’t affect you so much. “Yeah, I’m fine, plus it could be like a little date,” you say, blushing. Laios also blushes at your words but smiles and says he will wait for you by the lake. Laios walks off and you sigh, getting dressed.

Now, walking out, your nerves start to get to you. What if they went off randomly right now, you didn’t see laios, so you would be screwed. But finally seeing the tall man looking out towards the lake, he turned to see you. “(Y/N) OVER HERE”. Laios waves at you, and you jog at him and smile. “You look really nice..” said Laios said “thank you, you look quite handsome too~” you said giggling, making laios blush. He soon turned towards the lake. “They should be starting sometime soon” he smiled, still looking out. You gripped the ends of your shirt nervously waiting to hear the big booms and kapows. “Laios when do they go-“ BOOM, suddenly a loud boom happens, and you automatically get down to cover your ears and scrunch your face. This isn’t fine. I don’t feel fine. You feel tears coming into your eyes and your chest feels tight. You soon feel a hand on your back and laios right next to you, obviously worried. “Are you okay? What happened (y/n)?” Laios paused when he saw your tears, and soon you felt two arms carrying you, still covering your ears and shielding your face. Before you knew it, you were back at your house, the fireworks still going off loud booms one after the other. They would go quiet before another went off. Laios went to your bedroom and put you under the covers and lay next to you holding your shaking body. “Shhh it’s okay I’m here…” laios hushed, slowly caressing your back. “Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t like fireworks”. Laios looked down knowing you wouldn’t look up at him.

Silence was all that he heard from you. “You didn’t have to come with me. I could have stayed here with you and held you like this. You finally looked up with red eyes. “You looked so sad when I said no at first and…I didn’t want you to be mad at me” these words broke laios, he would never want you to be somewhere you were uncomfortable or put you in any situation like that. “(Y/n) I would have never gone out if I knew, I’m sorry I didn’t know” he lifted your chin with his hand to look at you with sorry eyes. “I didn’t tell you that wasn’t your fault”. Again, silence between the two of you felt so long, but it felt better having laios hold you like that with the fireworks going off. “Laios…can you stay the night and hold me like this…”. Laios looked down and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll stay as long as you need”. He hugged you tightly, and you nuzzled into his chest slowly. The sound of fireworks soon faded out, and you could only hear your breathing and Laios' heartbeat.

#dungeon meshi #laois dungeon meshi #deliciousindungeon #laois touden #laios x reader #laios touden x reader #deliciousindungeonxreader #delicious dungeon

52 notes · View notes

blubbledia · 8 months

Text

I read - Dungeon Meshi - 2014/2023

"To eat is to be alive."

I saw it was completed and thought, "hey I read like half of that a couple years ago and really liked it!" So I promptly didn't read it. Instead I waited until I saw too many spoiler images on my dashboard! Which didn't really hinder me, so I started at the beginning and devoured the whole thing in two sittings. Very apt for the material. Also that I got around halfway through before starting over and making my way all to the bottom. No sister death for me though. The rest of my thoughts below the line.

So many elements of this manga weave together to create the best atmosphere. Like good ingredients making a good meal. OK, I'll stop with the food comparisons.

I think the most stand out piece for me is the story's pacing. I just appreciate a goal that, initially, should be a quick adventure, twisting and turning into something more complicated, while staying relatively short. Every goal, Defeat dragon and revive Falin, defeat Falin, defeat Mad Mage, become dungeon lord, defeat demon, and finally resurrect Falin? Fit. On some occasions, writers would use these extended and adjusted goals to artificially increase length. Here it not only feels natural, but even the inciting incident is justified by the twists. They only encountered the red dragon right at the beginning because the Mad Mage was sending it to look for the king.

Characters are absolutely stunning. From design, to motivation, to their growth. Every one has realistic growth. Laios never becomes a perfect leader. Sure he becomes king, but even in the epilogue he's still a goof. He is absolutely not good with people, honestly I don't think any of the main crew really are. But they are good with the people in their party (mostly). It even touches on how a new member fits in, and the realities of your adventuring buddies kind of just being work friends. Izutsumi is baby and I love her. Falin is adorable and I want to hug her.

The art is so fun and good and excellent at setting tone. The amount of times all things in a box will be shaded with one method, even the same density, but still clearly delineated between fore and background is amazing. Ryoko Kui also did designs of the characters as various races, which works so well for identifying the key features of a design. I wouldn't know what to say about page layouts, it's just not something that registers to my brain. I will spare another sentence to commend character design. How they look just makes my brain happy. I think it's the noses.

I could not in good conscience release my thoughts on this work into the aether without touching on the titular aspect of the work.

Food

The most interesting part to the food, is that the monsters all mimic real creatures. Nightmares are the ones that come to mind; aside from a fantasy element, they are mollusks. It makes it easy to connect to the reader and show food that they would also find appetizing. I'm a vegan but don't know the morality of eating monsters. Like, do the walking mushrooms count? I don't know enough to say. More importantly, food as a thing. To live is to need to eat. Of the base level of needs to survive eating is the one we have the most leeway over. You can choose what to eat and prepare. It can be done as an act of love toward others. There is a time where Laios brings up that at times when the worries and anxieties of what needed to be done were getting to him; that food grounded him, allowed him to calm down.

I should get some friends together for a meal.

#dungeon meshi #first time #manga #september 2023 #delicious in dungeon

25 notes · View notes

fumifooms · 3 months

Note

Hello! Anon Asker again here. Recently got through the latest volume on Kindle with the Dungeon Master arc.

(Spoilers ahead for others...?) Now that we got most of the characters' backstories, I feel the earlier black magic ritual they did for Falin makes a lot more sense.

Marcille is desperate to keep the people she loves alive given her sense of loss and persisting dread about outliving everyone she knows.

Laios (apart from loving his sister) has lingering guilt from having left Falin behind before, exacerbated by her sacrifice and the way she always puts him first.

Then there's Senshi and Chilchuck who have on more than one occasion shown a distaste for magic.

Yet Senshi didn't fight it much and stood by them, because he himself is not a stranger to loss, especially when it comes to loved ones who have sacrificed for others so that one might survive.

But Chilchuck I'm not so sure. He was the most vocal in how against black/ancient magic he was, but also didn't really stop it. Maybe we can attribute it to his own abandonment issues by his wife, or just that he could imagine what it might be like if it was one of his daughters (as we saw in a small chapter art where he had a nightmare of his daughters dead). But I wanted to hear your take on this if in case you do.

Sorry for taking so long to get back to this ask! It’s a layered topic so I procrastinated on polishing my answer.

I think this is super interesting! Especially because we’re coming at this from totally different angles, since reading the manga I never thought that using dark magic didn’t make sense considering the situation or was weird. You’re coming at this at an angle of what personal reasons would make a character do this, while I looked at it in an angle of what social reasons would make a character let it happen. Post gonna be a lil long so I put it under cut! Tldr with your angle though, I think you’ve pretty much got it spot on and I don’t have much to add, I think your take it’s very interesting, and true.

So, why not do dark magic?

Throughout the whole manga, very early on too, we see our characters testing their society’s perception on morality in ways that we see that the moral wall was pretty baseless in the first place, mainly the disgust towards eating monsters for instance. Or sometimes, the morality of characters is lacking to our standards, having a perception we’d see as twisted, like in the kobold extra. Like Marcille talks about in the barometz/direwolves chapter, eating something "filthy" will make you filthy too and that’s why Marcille was innately so opposed to eating monsters. We also see it with the orcs’ chapter for example, Kui tackles a lot of difficult themes with nuance like racism, both the orcs and the elves have their perspective and their big faults in their part in their conflict, but in the end who’s right and who’s wrong isn’t spelled out for the readers. The point is that morality in the manga isn’t set in stone, it’s something that as the reader you draw the line on yourself, and we see that our characters aren’t infallible moral compasses either. The use of magic, too, is left up in the air on how good and moral it is to use, "unnatural" vs efficent vs cheap cop-out vs harmless or harmful.

So for me, when Marcille explained dark magic, how it works and why it’s forbidden, ‘yeah there’s probably a hidden catch in there’ I thought but I was super on board with it. To me, not using dark magic because it’s different and less known would be like not wanting to eat monsters for the same reason: more born out of fear and ignorance than reasonable and rational.

So we’re coming at this from different angles like I said, while you focused on character motivations for being fine with such an unholy act of magic I thought of it in an ambiguous morality and consequences way. So instead of "why should/would they do it?" to me it’s "why not?". And to me it’s a bit like "Well, no one should steal! But if the person really needs to for food, well I could let it go" for the characters’ thought process, though of course the instinctive revulsion and the stakes are much higher. They have all worked really hard to get there, and if there’s a chance it’ll go well then they would try it. Senshi and Chilchuck are much more reticent than the others like you said, but they’re able in the end to either rationalize doing it enough, or just prefer to listen to the directives and see how it goes by taking a more passive role. Not unlike how peer pressure can get you to participate in something you don’t want to do. But to me it’s a lot about growing accustomed to the unknown, hearing about it from Marcille who researches dark magic instead of the half-foot anecdotes about "dark elves" and "dark magic" used to nefarious ends. Which, presumably dark elves don’t even exist, we don’t know exactly what the half-foot definition of dark elves is, it’s a misconception and it’s a boogeyman, which is part of my point.

Where does Chilchuck’s distaste of magic come from? Elves. But by then Marcille, by being an elf herself and being trustworthy and friendly thus far, has started to chip away at these preconceived notions. Maybe what he heard wasn’t foolproof, after all. Under pressure and stakes like they were, people with even an usually very rigid morality may bend a little, steal, etc. To me, even if Chilchuck brought it up later, still very uneasy with it, it didn’t mean that him doing it was unrealistic or weird. People do things half-heartedly or unsure on if it’s the right thing to do sometimes, especially under pressure. Their will wavered while Laios and Marcille’s didn’t, and ultimately that’s what decided what they would do. What’s the other option? Marcille and Laios weren’t going to back down, so what, fight them so they don’t do it? Otherwise they’ll do it anyways with or without you, and then is there even a point to putting up a fight about it or even leaving? You can see the raationalization being done in real time, if you reverse engineer it.

Ironically enough I think this scene set after they do it depicts it perfectky: Chil lays out why he doesn’t like the thought of it, she responds on why dark magic being bad is up for debate, and he goes to argue but ultimately chooses not to and goes along with the group.

But yes it’s an interesting topic! Marcille researches positive uses for ancient magic so of course she’d be ready to use it to revive Falin, Laios has normalized reviving and magic a lot and overly relies on it, and Senshi doesn’t want to do it, but it’s because of his ideal- because of his instinctive recoil at anything that is magical or "unnatural"… Except for the golems. Because of how he sees himself as part of a larger ecosystem and cycle of life that humans shouldn’t have control over, that should know how to sustainably live with nature without getting greedy or cocky… Except for when he idealized Anne the kelpie as his best friend that even though is a monster would never hurt him. He tends to pull away from others socially needlessly, not letting himself grow too close to people or a community, too. Point is, Senshi has his pitfalls and isn’t as inflexible as we might think, and not everything he does is rational or even consistent with his own beliefs under his normal circumstances, though I do think he’s the one who was/should be the most opposed to the reviving character wise.

And I said that Chilchuck’s reason for not liking dark magic is rooted in superstitions and elves and history- and that’s certainly true but it isn’t the full story either. While Senshi’s preoccupied about morals and his world view, Chilchuck is SCARED of it, he thinks of the CONSEQUENCES, not the act itself (though it also def doesn’t charm him either). And not just the direct consequences of what a dark magic resurrection means either, it comes up a lot that Chilchuck is worried for others and for himself, about careers or the law and generally the future, and tends to micromanage them or be on their case because of it. Made a lil compilation below, notice the trend, he’s very focused on what others will do if they learn that they did dark magic, he’s focused on hiding that they did, not grappling with the morality of it as much. He’s very worried about the legality of it. He sees it as a crime but not something that shatters his worldview y’know. And even after Marcille did it and uncovered that she researched dark magic, he still trusts her and her judgement, is only wary of her a but for a bit before going right back to being thick as thieves together.

I was gonna talk about racism as a plot point and through arcs in the series here but I think I made my point without it, so that’ll be a topic for another day. But yeah… Spoilers for the last volume stop here and skip to the last paragraph if you still haven’t read ut all (bless your Kindle reader soul, good luck waiting for the next chapters). Is the winged lion bad? He’s harmful, certainly, but he’s not evil, and at its base it’s an entity without a sense of morality. Dunmeshi tackles morality in a really interesting, typical of seinens way, and unity is another big theme, as much as racism is a narrative tool and plot point the lesson is that putting efforts into befriending people you don’t understand is good. And with some, like the winged lion, that’s not gonna pay off, but everyone deserves to be understood regardless. Narratively that’s why Laios is the character he is, and why we get to learn about Kabru, the orcs, the canaries, Thistle, even the demon, and see it under new lights. Kui is big on critical race theory and sociopolitical issues used in/for storytelling, and it shows. During canon Chilchuck is growing closer to an elf coworker and tentatively giving her his trust, which pays off, and that is enough to make him reconsider wether dark magic is that bad, and think of how much risk he’s willing to get into for the party. Whew got sidetracked by the narrative genius of Dunmeshi and Kui but, the point is that in the story, characters changing their mind on issues and having their viewpoints challenged is very much common and important.

Sooo yeah! As I said I do enjoy your perspective as well, I’d never thought of it that way so it was interesting. Hopefully this is an insightful post and not just a load of nothing that wasn’t relevant to your question haha. But yeah, while reading I truly approached it from a "why not" angle, instead of a "why yes". They don’t like the method but they do want Falin to live, which makes it easier to dirty their hands for. Wash your hands of it and don’t think about it too much afterwards. (Top 10 reasons why it’ll backfire! none of them will surprise you 🌟)

#Ask #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #meta #analysis #i don’t think i’ll tag specific characters for this one #🫶 Ty for the ask srry for not being normal #Spoilers #dungeon meshi manga spoilers

16 notes · View notes

animephantom · 4 months

Text

Delicious in Dungeon, Episode 5: Snacks/Sorbet

We're back again, albeit a couple of days late. Shouting from the rooftops again, DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE MANGA OR WATCHED THE EPISODE IN ORDER TO AVOID SPOILERS. REPEAT, THIS IS A SPOILER WARNING.

With that out of the way, I'll start by saying I have high hopes for this week's episode. While I had complaints about the previous one, I feel like the plot's been set up to a point where things are about to start moving for real. To be fair, assuming this is a 12 episode season, we're almost halfway done, so I'd really hope to see SOME movement here.

@collectoroflovelythings has advised me that this should be a 24 episode season, and that's so goddamn nice. More episodes means a much gentler pace than your usual faire, and it gives us time to appreciate the world more!

With the intro and hopefully enough content to hide spoilers from casual eyes, let's get into this week's episode, Snacks/Sorbet.

I really like that we start off seeing a different party eating at a tavern. It gives us contrast between the main characters and the rest of the world. Doing things the way they do is absolutely not the norm, and seeing the way other parties function is really cool.

Can I get into the character design for a sec? Because how cool are these guys? Like, Kabru's armor is actually practical? And I really like how he and his crew are just people. Perhaps a bit overconfident, but I think we'll see that corrected when they meet Senshi and co.

This guy's also a prankster, and I'm always a sucker for that archetype. He's hella cute, isn't he? And I love that the caster in the party has little time for his bullshit.

So we join them on their trip into The Dungeon. And unlike Senshi's crew, they're practically rolling in gear, cash, but sometimes more money really means more problems.

Speaking of money problems, holy shit the monster design in this show is so fun! Gold Coin Scarab Beetles? I figured the treasure would be cursed or something, but no, we've got a swarm of insects capable of taking out well equipped parties!

Seriously, look at these guys. There's beauty in simplicity, and it's very clear what's supposed to be happening with these guys. Like mimics, they lie in wait for unsuspecting adventurers to touch them before revealing their true selves and the threat they pose.

Of course Marcille is terrified of them. At least she blasts a stun spell instead of a fireball or something. If I used these guys in one of my D&D games, they'd be getting nuked so fast, but I still think they're so cool.

Something I've noticed is that this show tends to eschew typical supernatural stuff like curses or possession, instead opting to create a space in the Dungeon's ecosystem for new ideas like this. I love how this translates to the Adventurers having their own niche in that ecosystem too. It's as though the Dungeon wants adventurers to come in!

Also, the show didn't have to show us that the insects are sexually dimorphic, but I fucking love that it does. Straight up, it's detail like this that keeps me coming back.

I wonder how you'd eat them? Are we gonna make Bugsnax?

We are!

This episode's first recipe is a variety of snacks and what looks like a jelly.

Sometimes, when delving the Dungeon, you're a little hungry, but not so hungry you need a meal. That's when you have a snack instead! A little pick me up to make the trip a bit nicer. Personally I love the necklace Dango. I'd one hundred percent eat these guys.

An interesting thing Senshi brings up is that Dungeon monsters are always tastier than surface monsters. I wonder why that is? Is it the environment? And they taste better from deeper in the Dungeon too.

It's also really nice to see Laios bonding with Keisuke, his sword, who warned him to the danger the Treasure Insects presented. It's just cute to see the two of them begin to form a symbiotic relationship. Not a new plot point, but always one I like.

Leave it to Senshi, who cares not one whit about fortune, to neglect mentioning that the inedible 'bugs' were real treasure. No further commentary, I love this man and deeply wish to play him in a D&D game.

Remember how I said the show doesn't go for the supernatural? I wasn't quite right, because it's here we're introduced to ghosts. The party tries to leave, and in the process of fleeing Laios drops his sandwich, getting his ass frozen by these grabby assholes.

It's also nice to get some characterization of other people who've been in the party. We haven't seen much of Laios's sister, Falin, but it's so cool to see her resolve problems without violence, opting for the kindest possible option to handle a ghostly encounter of her own.

I hope that when she's rescued she retains this gentle demeanor. To me it makes the show feel that little bit kinder, which is one of the reasons I wanted to even watch it. I was looking for something comfortable and kind, which is exactly what I'm mostly getting from it, fantasy racism aside.

This is so fucking cool. The party's being chased by ghosts, and it looks like there's no way to fend them off, but the ever resourceful Senshi has an idea: let's make holy water out of what we have on hand! As a DM, I fucking LOVE when my players have wild ideas like these. "No cleric around to bless, so let's try using a bunch of different items that folks consider holy, like salt, but I'm gonna use sugar instead because I don't have salt, booze, candles and fire to keep that evil the hell away from ya."

This man is so iconic, I really love him. I really wanna play him in a game. It's obvious he's making it up as he's going along, but I would 100% allow this to work. It's so clever, so ingenious, I'd be insane to say "Despite your cleverness, the mixture appears to have no effect."

Seriously, just look at this fucking man! This guy has been playing D&D for a very long time and he's just having fun with the character at this point. He built something weird, and he knows it.

And when the party joins in on the insanity, it's all the better.

This also happens to be the second recipe of the episode!

Exorcism Sorbet, made by combining the ingredients for our Intercultural Holy Water in a jar and swinging that jar through ghosts until the mixture combines into a soft, delicious frozen treat!

I'd have preferred a screencap from the anime, but alas Netflix is dumb and prevented me from taking one.

I think it's really funny how hesitant Marcille and Chilchuk are to eat this, even after all this time eating 'questionable' foods made by Senshi and Laios. I mean, you'd think they trust their party members by now! But that's also just a part of the episode formula. Senshi and Laios make food from thing they fought, Chilchuk and Marcille ask if it's even edible, Laios takes the first bite and proclaims its deliciousness, and everyone else eats, marveling at how good it is.

This isn't a complaint, by the way! I actually really like this part every time.

It's also always funny to me when Laios says something weird that catches the party off guard, like "We're kinda lucky my sister got eaten by a dragon, or we'd never be having this sorbet!" Like, dude. Even Senshi's like "Some things are better kept to yourself." Way to stick your foot in your mouth, my guy!

This week's episode was so fun. I enjoyed every part of it, and can't wait to see the party from the beginning of the episode again! I want to see how normal adventurers feel about our odd duck cohort. 9/10, would watch again with no hesitation.

With that, we close out until next time. Tune in again next week for more reviews of Delicious in Dungeon, but only partway through because I write these live.

#delicious in dungeon #anime #anime review #anime art #senshi dungeon meshi #laios dungeon meshi

11 notes · View notes

chzdavmpr · 3 months

Text

Delicious in Dungeon Reading Diary Vol 3

Spoilers, obviously

So they confirm that dog guy on the B team IS a kobold, and not a different species.

You can tell the author has actually played DnD, cause a debate on what does and does not count as cannibalism is very authentic.

Since they are focusing on the kraken having eaten too many mid-size monsters, I wonder if it's an invasive species, or just grew too big for the ecosystem to support it. It seems to be the later, since they don't seems surprised to see it there.

1x1 lego brick

Oooh Marcille backstory.

I wrote in my notes that it's interesting that they have Falin be seen as a worse student then Marcille, cause in the present the opposite is true. But then they show that not only does falin have much better practical knowledge, it's shown at the end that Marcille likely exaggerated how good she was in school, so that clears that up.

What ISN'T cleared up is how it makes no sense that Falin and Marcille were in school at the same time. Marcille is WAY older then Falin, this much was confirmed in the mimic chapter. There is a slight chance they explain this, but for now it seems like a plothole, albeit on that doesn't really matter.

Oh crap, SHE'S here, from the first chapter.

I was wondering how death worked in this setting ever since they mentioned resurrection magic, to the point where I considered typing up a bit about it, asking questions like "do people just live forever if they can consistently get rezed? Does it not work on death of old age?" So it's neat to get an explanation that it's a dungeon thing, plus it helps explain things like ghosts and zombies.

This is wrong. He's practically naked without his helmet. Also how I won't be able to help but notice whenever his eyebrows should be visible under his helmet.

Hmm. So mana doesn't come back passively, or at least not in the dungeon. In a way that almost makes it another nutrient that needs to be balanced in their food.

Excuse me? Propose? That should be very interesting when next we meet him.

Makes me wonder why he of all people chose to leave Laios' party. Like surely saving her would be easier with the others.

Well this is just adorable. Especially how Chilchuck's doesn't line up so it's patchwork.

Overall another good volume. I would say it gave me less to chew on then volume 2, but we're talking individual volumes of manga here so and difference in quality is very small. (Plus most of my thinking and theorizing last volume was because of one chapter). I have already checked out the next volume from my library and saw it has the red dragon on the cover, so that is very exciting. I can't wait to see where it goes from here.

#chz reads #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi #manga #reading diary

11 notes · View notes

roydeezed · 1 year

Text

Dungeon Meshi Thoughts 05

I think this will be the last of these Dungeon Meshi posts before I catch up because I’m finding it very hard to put down. Judging by the names of the next few chapters I’m on the edge of the fight with Thistle The Mad Sorcerer so I thought I’d stop off here and leave my thoughts before continuing. So this post is going to cover chapters 51-67. My spoiler filled thoughts down below past the “Keep reading”.

Last we left off, our intrepid heroes had just learnt of Senshi’s backstory and helped him overcome a great trauma in his life, the belief that he might have eaten his comrades in order to survive. Now, having been changed into different races because of the changeling mushrooms, the group talks about the differences in the ages of the races, which in hindsight after learning of Marcille’s desire, makes me realize how important this conversation was. It also makes me wonder how old Marcille really is. The story at multiple times obfuscated attempts at learning about her age. Has she somehow already learnt the way to increase her own lifespan as her worries about people dying on her due to age seem a little too real to be just worries for the future. And her traveling around picking up random bits of knowledge while also landing on forbidden magic screams someone who’s lived so long all they can do now is gather knowledge. Marcille’s backstory, for being supposedly so old, is still so vague.

Getting back to the story, the main draw of the cooking in a fantasy setting has been the fact that they get to try all these sorts of wild creatures that would never exist in our world. But leveling that up and creating a whole new method of cooking, through changing things with the changeling mushrooms is such a great evolution of the lore of this world and classic fantasy staples.

We also learn quite a bit about Laois and Falin’s backstory over the course of these chapters. The key motivation of Laios leaving his hometown was that he was sick of the people there, namely his parents with how much he didn’t want to look like his dad. His main regret was leaving Falin, which is why he’s trying so hard to get her back. His motivation, of wanting a world of harmony speaks to more of a desire of adventurers, to see a world that they haven’t seen before through Laios’s kindhearted view.

It’s a much vaguer wish, with an emphasis on discovery than someone like Marcilles wish, which, while grand, is very concrete. Maybe that’s why the Lion chose him, as such a vague wish is easy to manipulate. One other thing that stood out to me was that both Laios and Falin were engaged before it fell through. In between the cracks of what we know they have a whole set of lives and personalities. I want to know what Laios in love looks like so bad. The little scene of little Falin eating alone is so precious and heartbreaking. I just want the best for these siblings.

Sharing food as a form of love, for both of the siblings, shows how much they both care about the party. Two small moments that followed this revelation that I loved were Marcille crying because she realized how much Falin loved her and Izutsumi acting literally like a cat as she comforted Marcille.

Izutsumi should be the blueprint for all catgirls going forward, the authour really hit a homerun when they made her.

The group also comes to the conclusion that they can eat her to fix her, calling upon the help of all their allies so far. With where I’m at now, with the characters as divided as they are and the Lion manipulating Laios, I can only say this was an overly hopeful dream.

We then go over to what I now consider to be the manga’s secondary protagonist, Kabru. Who once again, I dearly love. I love all of the characters but Kabru is just great in so many ways. And we see his determination in not letting a repeat of Utaya, his hometown, happen again. We see how the dungeon has corrupted others and in an effort to drive out campers and get Thistle to come to them, the canaries incite desire in people by flashing money. Originally they seemed outright evil, but I should’ve known better as it’s never that straightforward with Dungeon Meshi. The Canaries are either royals or criminals who’ve meddled with dark magic, signified by clipped ears. This makes me wonder if Marcille has any relation with the Canaries because is she somehow authorized to learn forbidden magic? The Canaries seem like a lifetime membership though.

Misurn and Kabru manage to get one over on Thistle and just as Misurn is about to end Thistle, Kabru realizes that he needs answers. A bad faith take of this situation, upon learning of the demons and the dungeon mechanics, as well as Kabru’s later desire to stop Laios, would be to say this was just extending the story through a plot convenience. And it really very easily could have been. But this goes back to the systemic issue of the older races, dwarves and elves, not trusting the younger races. Seeing them as naive and impulsive. Kabru forcing this information out is one of the reasons I love him so much.

While I think some naivety is needed, Kabru looks forward to a world like the one Laios and Marcille look forward to but in a much more realistic sense. He understands the first thing that needs to happen, even before a magical resetting of the race’s ages, is that they need to trust each other. And that’s something we see happen on a smaller scale with our party.

Next, we learn Chilchuck’s backstory. He turns out to be a father and a husband, and through Marcilles incredibly empathetic prediction, we learn most of how the separation with his wife went. After Senshi, Chilchuck comes in as the second most known about party member, though we still don’t know why or how he got into adventuring. While filling out the role of the rogue in the party, he is also the most wholesome, having raised his daughters and loved his wife.

Next we learn about Marcille’s backstory. And even though we learn quite a lot about her, by the simple virtue of being an elf, there’s still a whole lot more we don’t know about her. This also drives home Marcille’s desire to eliminate the differences between races. With Chilchuck and Senshi, them belonging to a younger race and being younger respectively, we’re able to learn their backstories quite fast. Marcille, being an elf, has that much more of a distance between her and her companions as she has so much more ground to cover on formative memories and motivations. Also on a personal note, finding out that Marcille got into dungeon crawling because she’s basically that world’s equivalent of a flatliner is the dorkiest, stupidest, and funniest thing about her. She’s such a loser(affectionate), I love her so much. Her being into a dorky prince like person as her one true love comes second to that. But going back to it, Marcille is so intrinsically tied to the siblings that it’s just as much her story as it is theirs.

The next little bit has a few fun moments I want to mention. One is that the Dullhan looks like such a cool monster that I hope we see it again. Another is that I love how the story of the succubui helps Izutsumi come to terms with her animal nature so organically. It’s such a brilliant use of monsters to help realize the protagonists character arcs, you know I’m writing this down for future TTRPG use. Also Chilchuck’s wife is blonde, that’s so wholesome, he’s such a good husband. Them losing to the succubi because of Marcille’s lame taste is also so on brand. Though I would’ve thought Marcille would’ve seen Falin with how much they seem to care for her. I thought the story was alluding to a romantic relationship between the two of them but I guess I’m wrong as it sets it up that Laios sees Marcille as his type. Also Izutsumi is god tier ace rep.

We then meet the lion, who looks adorable by the way, and we learn that it wants to help Laios become the new lord of the dungeon and that Thistle is keeping it trapped. From what we learn later, it looks like Thistle was able to keep the dungeon safe for so long because he locked up the lion, preventing it from feeding on his desire more. The lion also probably manipulated the people of the kingdom to make them aid Laios in such a specific way. As we later learn from Kabru's perspective, Demons are beings from a dimension of infinite energy that grow strong by feeding on people's desires.

Here's where I think Dungeon Meshi delivers another masterstroke of storytelling. All throughout so far, we've been very clearly watching the world through our characters' eyes, learning what they want to learn about, being curious about what they want to be curious about, and more specifically learning about the characters themselves from little moments of dialogue to big chunks of backstory. And this has gotten us invested in the characters without much thought to the world. But now the world is developed in such a major way through the Canaries and The Demons and especially our characters' relationships with these two, specifically the Demons, that we can't help but care about the world as well. The main crux of the demon's powers being gained through desire lets the story function through the wants and needs of our main characters, making us, the audience, at the very least, understand, if not root for their desires. Desires that could very well destroy their world. It puts us at odds with the story as much as our characters are. It's genius.

Going back to the story once again, we follow Kabru as they tail Laios along his journey and we once again see that Kabru makes a quick and impulsive decision to follow Laios so he can speak with him one more time. Kabru is always quick to come to conclusions; we saw as much from his first interaction with Laios, where he chooses not to blame him for his party's death and gets a read on him instantly. It's one of his greatest strengths, but also could become one of his greatest weaknesses. Thankfully, up until now, it's worked out, but going forward, it could very well backfire as Kabru doesn't second guess himself enough to fully consider his assumptions.

Finally, on to the last stretch of events before I put it down to write this, our heroes come across Thistles cabin and partially free the winged lion after eating some phoenix.

The birth of the lion from the book as well as the whole sequence with Misurn and the goat are incredibly horrific.

As a horror fan, my love for this manga increased tenfold with the recent developments. The lion also looks like a biblical angel after it’s birth.

The imagery is absolutely breathtaking here.

Also I really like Misurn as both a character and a plot device. He’s so single minded about revenge but he also has a lot of personality even if that comes from having his desires taken away.

I also love how Kabru as a human matches wits with these supposed mature races. He meets them equally and I couldn’t be prouder of my boy.

Our heroes also attempt to kill some rabbits for Falin and things go horribly wrong with Marcille being the only one left to fend for herself in one of the funniest moments in the series where she has a ghoulish dance troupe with dead rabbits and her fellow party members.

Speaking of the rabbits, if anyones watched Re:Zero they reminded me a lot of the snow rabbits but like a 100% more messed up.

But here we get another moment that makes me wonder what Marcille has actually gone through.

She talks about how it would make her feel if everyone died like she has some experience.

I’m still mad that the story skipped over her age. Is she like a thousand years old or something? What’s your deal girl? How’d you get so adorkable? But really. Marscille’s actions make me feel like she’s not that old but hints to her backstory suggest she is. It’s so weird. Going into this next part, Kabru is still my favourite but with how much of a loser she is Marcille is a really close second. And the fact that she’s such a capable wizard makes it a hundred times funnier. We love emotionally unstable dorks here.

Also, I absolutely love the crying faces in Dungeon Meshi, they pack so much gentle emotion into them.

Anyways, they feed Falin and take her out before getting ready to fight Thistle. That’s where I stopped reading and right after posting this I am going to go back, I’ve been away from this for way too many days. With Kabru also converging on this point I don’t think this fight will turn out like a typical fight. There are way too many factors involved to accurately predict anything. Though it would be wild if Laios becomes the lord of the dungeon. Knowing how subversive and nuanced this story gets I wouldn’t put it past it. Our heroes have suffered so much, I just want a win for them at this point. With being on what I feel like is the precipice of a major plot point, I can’t really speculate much or analyze much as it all feels like it leads to the immediate next part. Like all the build up has been for a very specific set of circumstances that I probably won’t be able to predict. See ya next time when I've caught up! Unless something happens where I need to stop and gather thoughts.

#dunmeshi #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #manga recap #manga discussion

22 notes · View notes