so i'm a ceramics student and this week is wet clay deadline so my brain has been nothing but pottery all week. which got me thinking about which dunmeshi characters would be into pottery. here, walk with me now.

ok so my number one candidate is marcille. given her lifespan i like to think she'd try plenty of new hobbies and i think she'd enjoy pottery when she got to make pretty things like vases. falin would definitely do it with marcille but her creations wouldn't be as graceful (she's a pinch pot kinda girl. it keeps the clay out of the feathers). i think marcille would try to get all of her friends to try it at some point because "it's a way for us to make memories while you're all still around..." would they like it? maybe. laios doesn't seem like the most delicate of people, so he'd probably be with falin in making more wonky (but fun) pinch pot cups and whatnot. chilchuck must have a delicate touch given his stature and his trap disarming skills, so i think he'd be surprisingly good at pottery. he'd be inclined to make functional vessels; pots, plates, bowls. marcille would tell him to spice it up and make something nice but he'd shrug her off. senshi's a big, strong guy, but he's not unable to be delicate. i think his strength could be a great asset in making larger vessels. i don't think he'd become passionate about pottery but he'd enjoy doing it for a little bit. izutsumi has claws which automatically makes it near impossible for her to throw on a potters wheel without it being a nightmare, so she's also chilling with laios and falin in pinch pot land. she'd hate it though. there's too much waiting involved with the entire process and she'd get impatient. plus, i think she'd lose interest after realizing the clay won't just magically do what she wants it to. i think she'd enjoy watching the potters wheel spin though, so she'd probably just watch marcille and chilchuck work. i had to google when potters wheels were invented to make sure this would be feasible in dunmeshi lore. did you know they can be traced back to the ancient Sumerians? very cool. what was i saying? anyways wet clay deadline is tomorrow night and im finally going to be free from the potters wheel

kabru going thru the labors of hercules (and dying more than any other named character) specifically because he wanted to listen to laios infodump ab his special interest is making me crazy like what do you MEAN..........

After finishing Dungeon Meshi, I had a lot of thoughts. Most of them were thoughts I'd seen echoed by other people, but there's one thing I don't think I've seen anyone else say:

Everyone hates Laios.

Obviously Kabru makes hating Laios his whole personality for a while, and the western elves think he'd be a dreadful dungeon master Lord of the Dungeon, and half of his party gets annoyed by his enthusiasm for monster cuisine. But I'm not talking about that.

Let's start with how almost literally everyone thinks he'd be the worst possible Lord of the Dungeon.

(cut this down)

This isn't just Kabru being in his "hating Laios is my entire personality" phase; everyone assumes that Laios's desires being fulfilled by the dungeon would be bad for humanity.

To be clear, they're wrong. Sure, Laios is susceptible to the Winged Lion's temptation, but so is everyone. At least Laios's stint as ersatz dungeon lord didn't have a body count! (Unless you count the Winged Lion's clones.)

But that doesn't matter, does it? People hated him before he reveals his obsession with monsters, and they have no shortage of reasons. Laios keeps talking about monsters and asking unwanted questions, he can't hold a normal conversation, he can't read the room or understand social cues, he doesn't fit in anywhere.

Laios does his best to act normal (most obviously when he pretends not to notice the Golden Country spirit because no one else sees it), but it's not good enough. People can still tell that he's different. They hate him when he acts weird and they hate him when he acts normal. Don't take it from me; take it from Chilchuck.

The left panel is the whole reason this post exists. It states in plain English that Laios would still be ostracized even if he only said "reasonable" things. People's distaste and distrust of him isn't rooted in how he acts or what he says, but in who he is.

...

Pretty much anyone who knows what they're talking about accepts that Laios is autistic. Probably also Falin, maybe also other party members, but Laios is definitely the poster boy for Dunmeshi autism. And the reasons people hate him are pretty closely aligned with his autism. That's usually subtext, but Shuro says the quiet part out loud.

Shuro doesn't know about the monster-eating or think Laios is gonna destroy humanity. He just can't stand Laios's eccentricities. And he's far from alone.

We don't see a lot of Laios's childhood, outside his interactions with Falin...but the subtext isn't great. You don't need to be a seasoned dungeoneer to recognize that someone is "different"; any kid can do it. And from the sparse glimpses we've seen of the Thorden parents—Laios's nightmare, the little indications that he shaves to avoid looking like his father, etc—they don't seem to have accepted their son's differences, either.

I doubt anyone in the Dungeon Meshi world knows the word "autism". If you tried to explain it to the Thorden party, their reactions would probably range from "Are you sure that's a thing?" to "Come on, everyone thinks like that sometimes, right?" But you don't need words to recognize difference, or to loathe it, or to make different people's lives hell. To make them want to escape their lives, by whatever means are necessary.

Is it any wonder Laios identifies with monsters, when so many people already treat him like one?

rating the dungeon meshis based on if they could survive at a line cook job:

Laios: Passion for cooking that would slowly get whittled away over time by the working conditions, most of his coworkers would think he's an asshole and he'd grow to feel agitated and isolated from all of them hating him, quits in 1-2 years to work at a pet store 4/10.

Marcille: Would do much better as a server, gets mad at closers for not cleaning up enough but also is a shitty closer. She'd eventually develop a smoking habit that she'd replace with vaping. First on the chopping block when business start to slow down 3/10.

Chilchuck: Hardass no-nonsense sensibility makes him more valuable than some managers at times but very vocal about how he hates his job but he's so good at doing prep work they don't want to fire him for his attitude until he starts trying to unionize the kitchen 7/10.

Senshi: Proper chef, brings his own set of knives into work and management always schedules new hires to train with him because he's nice. Would feel really bad about serving anything frozen or defrosted and tries to push prepping everything in-house, if he were to quit the owner would be running after him to beg him to stay. Does not know what a beard net is. 9/10.

Falin: Would do amazing as a server but doesn't want to be one. Oddly cheery even during lunch rush and quick to remember orders with complex alterations. Gets really decadent shift meals and comes in a little late sometimes. Picks up people's shifts when they're sick or need the time off, secretly only working there for the free/discounted food. Quits as soon as she has a better opportunity but stays friends with everyone else there making them realize that the place they work at kind of fucking sucks. 7/10.

if you're still taking these, for the character bingo: what about kabru or laios or marcille? whomever you feel you wanna talk about a bit :]

i actually have more than average to say about these characters so im gonna go from most to least wordy opinions. As a preface: DunMeshi writes characters so well there are no characters I can truly say I dislike, or that aren't that deep, some of these Takes will be more around fandom interpretation. The "why do they look like that" "why are they here at all" are impossible to tick given how every character is justified canonically down to their looks!

Marcille

Easily the one I like the least of the main cast. She reminds me of the girls who'd bully me as a child, thus the "afraid" pick. While I understand her deal/role I personally like neither her character design nor her personality.

Laius

Hilarious character I unfortunately relate to a whole lot as a person. He's fun to laugh at but his writing never feels mean! Excellent subversion of the white boy knight guy fantasy trope by making him fucking nuts. He makes me laugh always but his writing can tug at the heartstrings when needed. Very endearing Guy. You know he'd do numbers on this website. I can't wait for what situations he gets thrown into next because he's so weird you know it'll be good. He gets the wasted potential ticked only because his potential is endless

Kabru (bingo!)

Kabru is my favorite character of the series and I loathe how fandom treats him. Despite being a funny, charming character with clear cut motivations and a full backstory people seemingly only care about him as part of shipping, which I already dislike as A Thing in the first place but here the bachelors are "guy he canonically hates who casually accidentally brings up deeply traumatic topics to the point where he fantasizes about stabbing him" and "dude thrice his age who not only couldn't give less of a fuck about him but is also racist". Hell yeah (with killing intent)

As a character I like him for the same reasons I like Laios which is being a freak and making me laugh, but where Laios doesn't, Kabru hits a sweet trope spot I enjoy of "extremely intelligent manipulator with good morals ready to do anything to get to his goals". Just like Laios he's perfect for being put into Situations. Also this is my biais but had he been a real guy...I would consider him quite handsome! I don't like that he has blue eyes but there's lore to justify it and the comic that presents that lore gave us this pannel so I cannot be mad about it