#laicion

[moskeetees]

Forget shipping wars, I came up with an absolutely deranged ship chart that is unreadable to anyone who isn’t me. I allow constructive criticism, but that doesn’t mean I’ll listen.

[soappox]

dogboy 4 dogboy☝️with tongue

[byjovewhataspend]

Its a great system--

Laios gets to touch and be weird as much as he wants

and Lycion gets all the obsessive positive attention he feels he deserves

(and if catering to a short-lived weirdo gets him a pardon for his 200 century prison sentence then hey, that's nice too!)

[lucky-fy]

For the Laicion nation (aka, me and three other people)

I had this illustration commissioned (a big thank you to @lunehowls) for my werewolf AU Laicion fic (still a WIP).

The general pitch is as follows :

AU in which Laios never got to meet his sister again, putting his life on a whole other path, a more desperate one. A military deserter with barely a coin to his name, Laios hitches a ride on a boat to one of the elven continents, where he learns about magical tattoos that binds one’s soul to a wolf’s, effectively making them artificial werewolves. Illegal magic be damned, this feels like the answer to… everything.

In the process, he learns about the existence of an illegal fighting ring in one of the elven cities, where beastmen gladiators gather. Freshly tattooed and without anywhere else to go to, Laios decides to head there, where he meets Lycion, an elf and artificial werewolf gladiator. If they first bond over a simple shared meal, by spending time together (sharing the same room in the barracks, maybe the same bed? gasp) they find that they have a lot in common, notably a shared distaste for the body they were born in, a dysphoria partially remedied by becoming a werewolf.

They bond :)

NB: I commissioned another piece, go take a look :D

[bellziee]

Laicion doodles, I just need more of themmmm

(also i'm free from college for now, so I gonna draw more)

[fuumiku]

Set the bar higher for yourself. Don’t stop dreaming at becoming a cool monster, strive to become a handsome one.

Here you go my single yearly finished laicion piece lol, looking forward to next year’s, wish me luck

[hairscare]

oughhh dungeon meshi....... dungeon meshi save meee....

template for the last one by @laikabu !!

[fumifooms]

Fun thing about laicion I got to put into words the other day… The first criticism you'll see for laicion is their arguing about werewolves and the correct way to be one. And see, I don't think that makes them incompatible at all. If anything Laios was being rude lol, like I really doubt Lycion would judge Laios for his preferences. Just by spending more time with each other they'd get more comfy and familiar with each other and how important being a monster in their specific way is for them and for how they think. À la Dungeon Meshi "differences can be breached with open-mindedness" theme

But what I want to talk about… Imo, Laios' monsterification mindset isn't necessarily healthy is the thing.

Like, Lycion is sort of recovered from that space of desperately seeking to escape his human self, now he's able to love himself fully. His monster body makes his regular body more tolerable and incentivizes him to take good care of himself, he cares for his body now, he loves himself.

Meanwhile Laios' want to become a monster fully, mind and all, is in good part because he just… Doesn't want to think anymore you know, it's to distance himself from humans and being hurt in any way shape or form. Being a monster is a way to escape feelings and human rejection, to carve his own sense of belonging somewhere through escapism. Laios isn't ashamed of himself, he loves who he is, but he does think that he's unlovable to others and that he can't possibly belong anywhere- and I think that's why challenging him on that very thing, that "being a monster in mind is the best", is not only good to make him & his perspective grow but also the very thing he had to accept at the end of canon by becoming king. Teaching him to be comfortable in that sort of inbetween, valuing your human traits, your human personality your human connections and seeing that that doesn't mean you can't still also indulge in your monster identity and be loved "despite" it.

Lycion did it, where Laios' arc is phrased by many as being a man who wants to be a wild wolf being willing to become a domesticated dog because loving community is more fulfilling than lonely freedom, Lycion has already accepted being a dog already. Lycion in many ways is Laios' arc end goal. They both have people who accept them, but what they still don't quite have is someone who understands them.

Laicion is just a really good mix imo of being similar to him, complementing him AND appropriately challenging him on some of his more prickly tendencies.

This extra is interesting to consider in the context of laicion too… Izutsumi finding Lycion's explanations bad while he was able to teach Laios about the demon aside, here Lycion is the one to tentatively wonder how it'd be like to "completely give up on his humanity", not because Izutsumi promoted him to but just because the talk stuck with him and he got curious about it. In the end it's not what he wants, but still he thinks about what it'd be like. It's compelling and interesting to him in a way— he gets the allure, wonders about the possibility, considers it.

A way I like to illustrate this whole laicion dynamic is a modern AU I brainstormed with @lucky-fydraws that I call furcon AU haha~ In it Lycion is fursuiter that makes really cool realistic fursuits except they're fantasy, so while his mascot suit is a realistic wolf it has inaccurate imagined ears and he has long hair etc etc, meanwhile Laios is a newer furry who's looking to buy his first fursuit of a beautiful silver wolf but he has HIGH standards. What do you mean you don't perfectly recreate the species' teeth!! Dogs don't have that many mollars!! Laios attempts to commission Lycion but it ends up falling through after Laios harps on everything and insults Lycion's tastes to boot. They made fast friends on a separate forum unbeknownst to them though, and as internet friends they made plans to meet up at the next furcon! You can imagine the oncoming shenanigans haha. Despite their beef, Lycion as the veteran furry prevents Laios who REFUSES to take off any piece of his fursuit for breaks or to drink because it ~breaks immersion~ from getting a heat stroke. Stuff happens blahblah but in the end... Laios realizes his restrictions are preventing him from feeling better in his own skin and hobby and from making connections… And even decides that fantasy fursuits aren't so bad, and indulges his old "chimeras are better only if they're of just two creatures" inaccurate fantasy with getting a fursuit of a rhino-eagle-wolf-chimera <3

Exploring Laios' flaws is my favorite thing though, this whole thing made me think about the laicion AUs where Laios became an illegal beastkin fighter instead of a caravan worker pre-canon, like Lucky-fy's Gladiator AU and just. God Laios becoming a beastman gladiator really IS like the perfect, next-best-to-WL scenario where his flaws get confronted like… Werewolf fighter Laios getting cheered on for being a monster man, for being powerful and beating someone up, like his childhood fantasy of gobbling up people who bother him, or villages getting decimated for rejecting him and Falin. Just that mix of Laios finding like he maybe found that twisted sense of "belonging" he's always craved since he was a kid, where others value the same thing he does, like this isn't just exploitative work but the thing he wants to do the most if he had to choose, his worst sides getting enabled and encouraged and Laios preferring to see himself as thriving rather than lonely and overworked & injured and struggling to find agency in his life….. Angry Laios my beloved repressed Laios my love……… Enters Lycion his senior co-gladiator. Can werewolf romance fix this? The better question is, is there anything werewolf romance can't fix? Hm thinking of it this is kind of the spiritual opposite to my Epic Laios AU…

Guys who have dysmorphia and want to be cool wolf men…… Furries together… Laidback guy who values bluntness and is good at social cues and loves hypotheticals and is good at explaining stuff to him… Patient guy who loves the shenanigans and whimsy…..

Laios ships usually do have acceptance and unconditional love and belonging as themes because well, Laios' worries and wants center a lot around that, and laicion is just kinda different flavors of it in the end, because it's about being fully accepted by a fully human forces him to recognize that he can be loved, yes even by a human, this way to be that often feels alien to him, but with Lycion it just has this shift of an added "I found someone like me" effect. Both still have just as much of a "I've found my people who'll support me no matter what" sentiment 😌

At the risk of repeating myself… Men who are resigned to not being loved back in different ways!! Men who have stopped hoping and just take the scraps of love they are lent!!!! Men who are very chill and stable and definitely not starved for it indeed!!!!!!! It's all about performing your humanity, all about how much you are willing to debase yourself for love. Can you like me dirty and animal too or only human and pristine. Can I be myself with you. Can I be vulnerable and shed my clothes. Can I love you like a dog and be met with affection and not repulsion?