#manoumba

another week, another chapter! this is the longest one to date..

yesss there are dozens of new manousos x koumba truthers popping up every day.. DOZENS!

also I agree so much with your friend that a lot of Koumba’s behaviour is overcompensation, and dare I say… comphet? he’s only been in 2 episodes but my favorite moments of him are when you can see the real, genuine him just nearly breaking through

I do think Manousos can turn out to be the person he gets to be fully vulnerable with in season 2 - they are, after all, already guaranteed to meet if you’ve seen how Carlos-Manuel Vesga and Samba Schutte interact on social media!

weekly yaoibus continues! with a return to Manousos’ POV…

babes wake up an hour-long interview with Carlos-Manuel Vesga just dropped (the first 15 min did get cut due to technical error but we still got soo much here!) some highlights:

YESSS thanks for the question and I so can’t wait to read more fics with Manny and Koumba!

(also pspspspsps yaoibus chapter 3 is already out, I recommend reading it before this as it clears up a lot about the dynamic)

ok so for Manousos, Koumba is, at least on a surface level, the quintessential good person. he’s polite, he’s kind, he’s generous, he’s funny, he’s good in a way that rings true, whereas the goodness of the Others rings hollow. so Koumba represents that return to normalcy Manny has now dedicated his entire life to.

plus, if he manages to get Koumba on his side with Carol, that alone is a win for Team Individuality!

what draws Koumba to Manousos is something much more personal than this, at least at first. it’s definitely not his “sparkling personality”, that’s for sure. no, for Koumba, it’s guilt that pushes him towards the man, because he still feels guilty about Carol getting ostracized from the group (you can even headcanon that he was told about Carol’s suicide attempt by the Others). so he’ll do anything to prevent the same thing happening to someone else.

you can also imagine that he’s likely not very close to the other old-schoolers, even with their weekly Zooms. so knowing that Manny also has no friends in this situation, he might see the possibility of a friendship there. god knows he’s still a long ways away from having that with Carol..

so even though they’re polar opposites when it comes to the Others, there will always be something drawing them to each other, and thus they’ll always end up trying to change the other. and that’s only just the surface of the dynamic! there’s still so much we can mine here..

but also, in terms of personality dynamics, I think this lil sketch sums it up quite well

do enjoy your weekly fix of these two middle-aged guys 🫡

and as much as I’d like to slow down with the weekly releases, I think this sums up my mental state atm quite well