#110% pure canon

[see-arcane]

I'm going to lose my mind.

Eggers. Bobby Egg. Buddy.

No. Very much no.

[lyss-butterscotch]

Headcanon timescale, timeline and cycle [Description under cut - Do tell if I miss anything or if you have different HCs] [STILL VERY OPEN FOR CORRECTIONS]

Timeline

Timestamps that are canonically in the game are written red while headcanon timestamps are written in blue

Date format is solenear.cycle (SSSS.CCC)

SOLENEAR IS A MADE UP TIME UNIT

I made solenear 20 years because 20 years is roughly 1040 weeks which is close to 999 weeks/cycles

This is assuming all RW creatures live WAY longer than normal creatures or just scaled for convinience

Again this is all speculations and headcanons

Solenear 1400 - 1500

[1404] Void Fluid revolution happened in roughly 1400 because Moon said her creators' ancestors were the one who started it. [Vanilla_Subterranean_Teal Pearl]

SOS, LTTM, CW, SRS, and NSH's creation time are purely headcanon

Solenear 1500 - 1600

UI and FP's creation time are purely headcanon

[1525] I assumed that as soon as Pebbles was active, they took a few cycles to make sure Pebbles was operational before moving.

[1539] Because of the shrinking population during Pebbles' time [Vanilla_The Exterior_Ashy Green Pearl], i assumed either the Ancients stopped making iterators all together and/or abandoned unfinished iterators at some point.

[1560] I assume triple affirmative was after mass ascension as a headcanon just to make things easier since there's nothing on this (unless i missed something)

[1583] Sig has made slugcat(s) before since Suns learned from him when creating SM [Broadcast_Sending Information_White]

[1591] SM had delivered a pearl to Pebbles once before the ingame SM campaign [Broadcast_Sturdy Creature_Gray]. I assume this is THE golden pearl. So Suns probably started making SM sometime after the bug maze convo

Solenear 1600 - 1700

[1630] Headcanon scug creation takes 5 - 10 solens and SM was suns' 7th experiment [Broadcast_A Name_White] so SM probably finished at around 30 - 40 solens.

[1654] Moon's broadcast at cycle 110 states that Pebbles started using more water 2 cycles ago so probably at cycle 108 [Vanilla_Sky Islands 4_Pearl]

[1654] I assume that Sig started Hunter's creation when Moon resorted to forced broadcast because then he knew Moon is in really bad conditions

[1656] UI leaking Pebbles' rot happened before SM's 2nd campaign because Suns and Sig were talking about it during that 2nd campaign [Broadcast_Humiliated_Grey]

[1658] Moon's collapse and Artificer campaign overlaps because Moon is inaccessable and her waterfront facility is intact during Arti. But Moon is accessible and her waterfront has decayed during Hunter (thanks Res)

[1668] Hunter taking longer for Sig to make because of decaying equipment [Vanilla_Red stomach_Aquamarine Pearl] and only took a cycle before sending Hunter out (Rushing with examinations and missed the faulty rot genes)

[1668] Gourmand and Hunter campaign happened very close to each other because of what Moon said about her 'last visitor'

Solenear 1700 - 1800

Rivulet campaign timestamp is purely headcanon

[1732] Iirc it started snowing when you take the rarefaction cell from Pebbles

Pebbles' collapse timestamp is purely headcanon

Solenear 1800 - 1900

I assume that other iterators would last twice as long as Pebbles if they don't have the rot so they start collapsing/failing naturally during this time

Solenear 1900 - 2000

Saint campaign timestamp is purely head canon

Cycle

One cycle is one normal week that consists of 7 days

Each day the rain increases in duration and intensity to the point it takes up the entire day or becomes strong enough to kill

So creatures CAN live through rain and make it to the next day until the rain becomes too strong to ignore and be forced to hibernate

Rain resets each cycle

Iirc your rain counter lights up when you're halfway in a cycle. I imagine this is when the rain starts to hurt

Tremors happen when the next rain will DEFINITELY kill

[wrathful-banette]

sooo.... I've been getting into slay the princess. here are some headcanons for the voices if they were given free reign to exist in the outside world. also they all live in the same house since I'm a sucker for that trope. also the princesses be there

under the cut because it will be very long. endgame spoilers for stp btw.

Voice Of The Hero:

the one that everyone is at least mostly chill with.

all the other voices have a fair amount of experience with him, considering the routes.

overall a pretty kind and considerate guy ←this is literally just canon what am I going on about

Can very easily miss subtext and sarcasm also.

↑the contrarian exploits this for friendly reasons!

↑↑the cold exploits this for evil reasons

I imagine he would look basically like a smaller the long quiet.

him and the contrarian are thick as thieves, as well as him and the long quiet.

struggles with feelings of loneliness and disconnection from the world around him.

semi-frequent nightmares, ranging from mostly being unpleasant dreams to "waking up in the middle of night terrified." thankfully, the latter option is rather rare for him.

very fond of physical affection.

Voice Of The Contrarian:

he's a crow!

very good at using reverse psychology.

However, this comes at the cost of being very susceptible to reverse psychology himself.

forgets to preen with alarming frequency, with surprisingly little consequence.

extremely loyal to those he cares for, just in weird ways.

Shares the hero's trait of being rather susceptible to loneliness.

he really likes giving the other voices nicknames! it's a show of affection for him.

him and hero kind of have what you'd call a bromance going on.

Voice Of The Hunted:

a sandpiper.

He's grown a lot more comfortable with the others, even though he still retains his prey animal mindset in a lot of ways.

very frequently puttering around making sure "the flock" (the other voices) are doing okay.

↑ especially when it comes to food!! his ass WILL make sure you've eaten

one of the main driving forces reminding the broken to eat drink and preen himself.

very meticulous about preening himself, but somehow even more meticulous with the others (headcanon inspired by someone else idr who sadly)

Can go from just standing on the ground normally to flying like 20 feet in the air in just a couple seconds.

he can and has done this on pure instinct when he's been startled outdoors.

desperately wants to carry people around you should totally let him do that pleasepleasepleaseplease

Very nervous around the beast/den, but has been calming down a bit in that respect.

surprisingly protective over the other voices, the broken and paranoid especially.

Voice Of The Smitten:

flamingo <3

struggles with feelings of inadequacy, feeling like he has to give 110% to the acts of service with the damsel at all times, even when that just isn't feasible for him.

He has a... complex relationship with the stubborn.

He struggles to understand how the hell his relationship with the adversary even functions, but is able to respect it for the most part.

↑This respect was only fostered when they almost got into a physical fight because the smitten questioned if he really loved the adversary.

Smitten's really bad at asking for help, sees it as unbecoming for himself.

For this same reason, he's also terrible at expressing his more genuinely bad feelings.

overpreens when stressed, leading to bald spots which he always gets extremely self-conscious and embarrassed about. nobody knows he gets these except himself.

resents the voice of the cold for the burned grey route, but refuses to give him the time of day about it.

Voice of the Broken:

He's been doing better. the others have been helping the best they can.

surprisingly enough however, one of the biggest catalysts for his improving mental health has been... the nightmare/moment of clarity?

it started off as her not having any fun messing with somebody who was already so beaten down, but the paradigm has long sense shifted from that.

Don't get me wrong, he's still a pushover. but less so now.

^these headcanons courtesy of @kalkori btw (hiii kb :3)

His feathers are a mess most of the time. the hunted is his saving grace in this respect.

actually, him and the hunted have grown rather close, in their own weird way.

Voice of The Stubborn:

he's a shoebill stork!

him and the adversary/eye of the needle are in a relationship together.

They've since branched out and gotten other hobbies other than beating the shit out of eachother (though they still do that frequently),

like beating the shit out of invasive plants, and picking fights with the more powerful princesses together

^the tower has not known a moment of peace since this began. she will not know a moment of peace again.

he frequently wrestles with the long quiet for fun!

hotblooded in the most literal way possible. actual walking heater.

likes pestering the skeptic.

Voice of the Paranoid:

most of these headcanons are also going to be courtesy of kb they are the number one voice of the paranoid fan to me

He's a Bittern! longass neck having ass

he is straight up sneef snorfin it

Frequently overpreens, leading to multiple bald spots.

the long quiet has put him into a longass cone over this one at least one occasion.

unlike the smitten, he doesn't really care about the bald spots.

buddies with the hunted!

is not happy about the whole "Moment Of Clarity hanging out with the broken" deal. Is only going along with it because he seems so much happier nowadays. (relative to how he was before, anyway.)

Will instinctively start muttering "heart lungs liver nerves" whenever he senses she's near.

By the way, the mantra still works. and now he can do it on other people, same body or not.

Considering using this ability to become a doctor!

extends his neck out really far on instinct whenever he feels threatened. just bittern things <3

Also, him and the smitten are friends, against all odds. nobody knows how their friendship functions with the way they are

Voice of the Cheated:

dont have a solid bird idea for him but a dodo bird could be really fun

i love him he sucks so much

Somehow keeps getting himself injured in ways that he just straight up could Not feasibly predict or prevent. he is NOT taking it in stride.

absolutely despises the opportunist, considers him a slimy, cheating bastard.

Isn't allowed to participate in board game sessions anymore.

not after the incident.

but he is allowed to observe and call people out if they try and cheat.

He's mellowed out a bit since the construct. just a bit.

he hates preening himself, and tends to get fidgety when other people preen him. but he always relents eventually, if only because he very much dislikes how uncomfortable it is to have unpreened feathers.

Voice of the Cold

also someone who's mellowed out a bit. Still, his walls are up.

But it's a lot harder to keep up a facade of disconnection when you have your own body. when you're more than just an observer. he tries regardless. And mostly succeeds. But the long quiet knows the truth.

The spectre and moment of clarity will sneak up behind him and try to jumpscare him with cold hands on his shoulders. it never works.

always ridiculously cold. counteracts this with the power of always layering.

butts heads with the smitten a lot. and the stubborn, actually.

He considers both of them hopeless romantics with nothing better to do except fawn over their partners.

Voice of the Skeptic

He'd probably be some kind of owl?

i'm gonna be honest i ain't got much for him but he does get along well with the paranoid, being able to reign him in from his more... impulsive worries.

Nobody realises that him and the prisoner are in a relationship. they don't plan on telling anyone until they find out.

he enjoys puzzles of any kind! jigsaw, logic, math, crossword, you name it.

good at white lies, but terrible at telling lies with any sort of substance or ill intent behind them.

tends to pace around a lot when deep in thought.

him and stubborn are shitasses to eachother most of the time.

Voice of the Opportunist

definitely a vulture.

he sucks so goddamn much i love him

he's actually turned the two-faced-ness down a bit since the construct. just a bit.

likes hanging out with the smitten, he thinks he's funny. No, no, he's not getting attached. shut it.

him and the witch hang out a lo too, but in a way that involves, well. a lot of biting.

they basically just playfight, but like. fighting dirty playfighting.

...He tends to avoid the thorn. he feels a bit guilty around her.

quiet ass footsteps. he just... appears in places sometimes. refuses to acknowledge this.

he eats bugs. and a lot of other weird things, actually.

both of these are because he's pretty much always hungry. if you leave food out he will have some.

he is much more impulsive than he would have you believe.

aaand that's all of them for now! if you read all of this we are now married /j

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Okay, a good amount of time has passed, and after having seen this post by @weretiger-be-my-horse , I've been turning it over and over in my brain going absolutely feral over this concept. I need to expand upon my thoughts on this idea and all the evidence there is pointing towards it, whether that be actual tangible things, or purely strong vibes I have.

First of all, full disclaimer: I did not like the season 5 finale, and how it wrapped up the DoA arc. To say that I "disliked" it is putting it extremely lightly, in fact -- I absolutely hated it, and I am still, to a degree, in disbelief that I actually even watched those 24 minutes with my own two eyes, and that it somehow wasn't a complete fever dream. While I'm not going to go in long-winded detail into all the ways that I feel like the finale almost completely bastardized all of its featured characters and destroyed any and all buildup we've had going on in this arc for 50 some chapters now, because that's not the main point of this post, I will not make any attempt to hide the fact that the theory-crafting I'm about to pose here is partly influenced and prompted by how much I hated the finale, and how much I desperately hope that it will not end up being manga canon. Therefore, if you enjoyed the finale — and that's fine! — and don't want to read any negativity about it, then I would not recommend reading any further (I mean, you've probably already left by this point, which is fair lol), While obviously it's important that I be as objective and unbiased as possible when explaining my thoughts, some of my negative feelings about the writing will be a part of this analysis, even if this isn't going to be a full-blown rant. Just know that if you proceed.

With that out of the way, let me continue.

So. In the aforementioned post, the theory presented is that the anime may be operating on an alternate timeline, and that this will become evident once we read the upcoming October chapter, wherein things will go completely differently post-chapter 110 than they do in the final episode — probably for the worse, with the s5 finale intending to lull us into a false sense of security and make us assume that everything in the manga arc finale will wrap up as smoothly and consequence-freely(? lol) as it did in the anime one. It also suggests that the Fukuchi we see at the very end that sskk are fighting came from the manga timeline, where he won, and that he used the Book to jump to a timeline where he lost, the anime one, proven by the fact that this Fukuchi is wearing a mask with the same design on it as the mask Fukuchi is wearing on the chapter 110 DoA color spread/title page.

First of all, I want to note the fact that it's not just the mask design that's the same: the entire outfit is roughly more or less the same as well. It's not completely 1-to-1, because the anime can never fully match the intricacies of Harukawa's beautiful outfit designs, and the Fukuchi in this scene has the kimono half-off because of the... super saiyan mode he's in, but most all of the main pieces of clothing are there. Any small inaccuracies could also be attributed to the fact that Harukawa probably didn't have this finalized art ready back when this episode was being made, so the animators wouldn't have had the complete design to work off of. But in general, because it's all so similar, I think we can quite confidently say that the ending episode Fukuchi is meant to be the one from this manga art.

Also, people have pointed this out, but it's worth mentioning that the mask Asagiri wore at Anime Expo in July was referencing this Fukuchi. It's not a crucial detail, but it just proves more that Asagiri is a gigantic fucking troll, and that he clearly wanted to draw attention to this Fukuchi design. It's important. He describes the mask here as made in the motif of an ellipses inside a speech bubble... could that perhaps be referencing meta aspects, like the Book?

Next, I want to talk about the even bigger elephant in the room, which to me is the most damning and undeniable piece of evidence there is of the anime operating on a completely separate timeline from the manga:

This Fucking Hand™️

As we all know, in the anime, Fyodor injures his hand when the password input device blows up, and as we all know, this does not happen in the manga. In the last episode, Dazai claims that the final nail in the coffin of his impromptu plan to kill Fyodor relied on this hand injury: because Fyodor couldn't pilot his escape helicopter himself, he would ask one of his Meursault vampires to do it for him, unaware that Bram and thus this vampire was now on the ADA's side, and said vampire could kill him while his guard was down.

Ignoring how utterly stupid and contrived this plan is when you stop and think about it for more than two seconds, the fact of the matter is that something that initially seemed like nothing more than an odd but inconsequential anime original addition ended up snowballing into being the entire reason one of the big bads was brought down. If Fyodor hadn't hurt his hand, he wouldn't have needed another pilot, and so the traitor vampire wouldn't have had an opportunity to get near him and kill him without him expecting it even though said vampire was presumably with him as they were leaving Meursault, and was probably already a traitor by then, so there was plenty opportunity for him to still die. not to mention by Chuuya's hands at literally any time he wanted to, because Chuuya was coherent the whole time. Also there's absolutely no way Dazai could have known exactly what Ranpo would do, no matter how smart he is and how much he trusts him. idk it's fucking dumb, just roll with it. Therefore, putting aside all other variables for now, we can conclude that, on the most basic level, this signifies that no hand wound = no death.

And let me tell you, this hand wound bothers me. It really, really does. Because they focus on it a LOT — they go out of their way to draw attention to it MULTIPLE TIMES, from the moment it first happens to the end of the season. Fyodor even talks about it to himself, about Dazai being able to cause him tangible, visible, bodily harm, (something that, again, as far as we've seen, has never happened in the manga). Hell, even after Fyodor's death, they're still drawing attention to it, because his right arm is all of him that survives, and Dazai picks it up and gives it to Nikolai to do his hilarious sad little gay fondling of it played completely straight even though there's nothing straight going on here at all! It's like it's a big red flashing sign at all times going "you see this injured hand? This is important. Are you picking up that it's important? Are you taking note of it?" Why is that? Obviously, it serves to give us the lore crumbs about Fyodor and "that man", but that's hardly the main, much more glaring reason, as I've already mentioned.

Fyodor doesn't hurt his hand in the manga. Fyodor won't die here in the manga. I am so dead serious by this point about this, and it's not just simply the fact that this was absolutely not at all the time for him to die, or the fact that his hand is the reason for his death in the anime in and of itself, but how much EMPHASIS they place on this, and on the hand in general. What would be the point of adding something like this, if it's not meant to alert us to the fact that it has a major impact on how the story plays out? We all know Bones: they struggle to get right and include everything that's already there in the source material; they would never go out of their way to add something this noteworthy if there wasn't a very good reason for it, if it wasn't absolutely necessary. I've seen a few people bring up the fact that Fyodor gets shot in the shoulder by Sigma and that that could lead to the same outcome in the manga, but I disagree: although he has blood on his shoulder in the manga, it seems like the bullet just grazed the top of it, because his arm and hand appears completely functional afterwards (not hanging limp by his side or anything). But that doesn't even matter, because this isn't even about the semantics/logistics of how the hand wound caused Fyodor's death because again, it's a stupid outcome, or what could serve as a substitute in the manga — thematically, this is a textbook example of the butterfly effect. Countless parallel universes exist within this series, ones where even the most minute differences lead to a majorly different outcome: this just happens to be one of them. There's no reason to think it isn't, and there's no reason to not think that the anime wants us to clue into the fact that things only went as smoothly as they did on the Meursault side because of this wound; in other words, that things will go very differently in the manga thanks to the absence of said wound. They wouldn't have added it in the first place and put such clearly deliberate emphasis on it otherwise.

Things are going to happen very differently in the manga, at least when it comes to the Meursault crew (but then, if you assume that, you then naturally assume it all will be very different). This is the only conclusion one can come to with the presentation of this anime-only wound, combined with the fact that parallel universes are a very real thing in BSD.

I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent, so bear with me. I play a lot of visual novels, and although such concepts aren't really as original now as they were a while ago, some of my favorite and some of the very best VNs out there are the ones that break the fourth wall and make the visual novel branching route format directly intertwined with the story: you know, the ones where the characters go "if only I had done things differently, maybe everything would have turned out better...!" in a wink wink nudge nudge moment, and the ones where the characters are aware of the different timelines, even, or even have the ability to gain information from their selves in said alternate timelines to influence events in their current one (I'm intentionally not naming the games I'm thinking of for the sake of spoilers, but if you know, you know lmao). It gets very meta in this regard, and this is how I started viewing BSD through the lens of ever since I first learned about Beast: like a visual novel with many branching routes, and only a few routes that feel entirely "right".

When I first read Dazai's Entrance Exam, I was struck by how unnerving the ending sequence in the abandoned hospital felt. Obviously, Kunikida's internal struggle over Sasaki's actions and motives is him still desperately clinging to his ideal world that does not exist, but the specific type of phrases he uses — "who is wrong?" "[who is] the cause of all this?" "there has to be an ideal world" "there has to be something, I'm sure of it" "There must have been something we could have done!" — and the framing of the scene in general, is eerily reminiscent of a bad ending in a visual novel, to me. There's a haunting, looming, bleak sense that a different outcome could have been achieved, if different decisions had been made, or if things outside of anyone's control had been different... and we know that this is true, because in Beast alone, Kunikida never goes through the Azure Messenger incident, because Dazai doesn't have his entrance exam. Hell, you could even consider the anime's version of the Azure Messenger arc an alternate timeline in of itself, if you really wanted to, long before we even arrive at season 5.

When it comes to Beast, this timeline has almost the opposite feeling of what I described above, that I've also encountered in visual novels: the idea of a "good route" or "good ending" that still doesn't feel quite earned, or as perfect as one would expect. Beast is presented as the "ideal" timeline purely for one sole reason: Oda is alive. It is the only timeline where he's alive, and keeping Oda alive is the ultimate goal Dazai wants to achieve, the only reason this timeline exists; therefore, disregarding all else, Beast should be the best timeline, because Oda's death is the greatest devastation in the series to date. We all want him to live, so why wouldn't the timeline where he does be the best one? And yet... of course, it isn't. Dazai is alone, and steeped in darkness and loneliness without Oda, and dies by the end of the story for Oda's continued living. Atsushi has Kyouka still, but he's suffering and more traumatized, and unable to heal while stuck in the mafia, and neither can Kyouka. Akutagawa is living a much better life in the ADA... but without his sister, and without what he has from his bond with Atsushi in canon, that isn't replicated in Beast. And Oda... Oda is alive, and he has his children and his novel, but there is a feeling that he is aimless, that something in his life is missing. He has everything he ever wanted, but all that means nothing without what he truly needs: Dazai, and his time with Dazai and Ango at the bar. In this way, things going well and us getting what we want — in this case, Oda living — goes against how it's supposed to be, the natural order, which is why it feels so hollow. In the specific visual novel I'm thinking of here as a comparison (again, shoutout if you know), there's an alternate ending that involves you inputting information you gain at the end of the game very early on in the game, wherein the protagonist now has memories of the future and is able to bypass and prevent all of the events that take place normally. This means that people who die or are hurt somehow in general are saved from that fate, and nothing bad ever occurs; everything wraps up neatly and nicely... but again, there's an undeniable, unsettling feeling of emptiness, of a victory that rings hollow, because what's the point if everything is simply handed to you easily, where's the sense of accomplishment, without any struggles to achieve said victories, or any growth along the way? How can it feel earned if one doesn't have to, in Dazai's words, "scream within the storm of uncertainty, and run with flowing blood"?

You can probably already see where I'm going with this.

This finale feels weird. Really, really weird. It feels too cheap, too simple, too unsatisfying. So much so, in fact, that for almost the entire runtime, as I was bombarded with resolution upon resolution one after another, I kept thinking "There's no way this can be real. Where's the catch? When is the "gotcha!" moment gonna happen? The "it was all a dream" reveal?". And this isn't just because I hated the writing, and that it really did feel like a fever dream watching fanfic levels of bad (actually, that's an insult to fanfic writers, tbh; they could do better) — no, it genuinely feels so incredibly fake. Even upon rewatching it and already knowing what happens, my brain still naturally keeps expecting some kinda of "sike, you THOUGHT!" moment to suddenly appear. It just.... feels "too good to be true". Dazai and Chuuya come out unscathed, and it's revealed that they were never in any real danger to begin with. Fyodor, one of our biggest threats, is dealt with supposedly for good (I say "supposedly" only because of the Jesus line, but if anything imo, I think that's just a hint that this won't be the canon ending in the manga, so in a sense he's going to "come back to life"), and Nikolai seems somewhat at peace with his death. The other biggest threat, Fukuchi, is also dealt with, and he and Fukuzawa get their final moment together of closure. Yes, Sigma is left in Meursault don't even get me started on how angry this alone makes me, and Fukuzawa loses Fukuchi, but overall, everything is portrayed in a positive light, and any negatives or losses are quickly glossed over. Everything is tied up nicely, neatly, and smoothly. ...And that is exactly what makes it feel so wrong, and hard to trust in.

I'm not sure if this will make sense, but to me, the finale is so incredibly poorly written that it almost feels.... intentional. It's so bad to the point of feeling self-aware in how bad it is, how unrealistically happy and convenient an ending it is. It had to end this neatly in order to rush to wrap up this arc for the season finale and not leave the last episode on a cliffhanger — which imo is chiefly the main reason it turned out this way, and, if this whole theory is true, Asagiri just used it to his advantage — and I'm not saying this was probably an effect Bones had in mind intentionally, I'm sure they just threw shit at the wall and went with whatever stuck, maaaaybe with some suggestions/approval from Asagiri, but the result is that you have a conclusion that contradicts so much of what was set up before and goes against so many character arcs, making some characters so out of character and even regressing in their development Dazai. I'm talking about Dazai abandoning Sigma, because he would never; hashtag #NOTMYDAZAI. Also Nikolai, Nikolai for most of that is so ooc I can't even begin to describe it oh my god. Everyone is OOC to a degree though lmao, and opens so many plot holes, to the point that it's impossible not to watch all that and get the feeling that it is subtly saying to you "did you really think it could be this easy? It feels wrong, doesn't it? It doesn't feel satisfying. It feels unearned." I find it incredibly interesting and suspicious in particular that they confirmed multiple theories people had about soukoku in Meursault: that Chuuya slowed the elevator's fall so that Dazai wouldn't die from it, that Chuuya slowed down the bullet so that it only penetrated Dazai's skin and not his skull, and that the both of them used Fyodor's camera angle to their advantage because they knew he wouldn't be able to see certain things from his view. I'm not saying that Asagiri trawled BSD twitter and tumblr after those chapters dropped for the most popular theories before the final episode was made lmao, there was no time for that (imagine though lol—), but I do think it's highly likely that he already had in mind exactly what theories would be made about these parts (I mean, the evidence for the gun scene was all there), and that Dazai rattling them off in his long monologue to Fyodor at the end is essentially him speaking to the audience and going "yeah, that's what you would predict, right? Those are the clichés, after all", much like him suggesting earlier that he can maybe bring Chuuya back to himself with a few moving words and the power of friendship, and Fyodor using the split personalities trope to fool Sigma. We expect these tropes to be true. Of course we'd fall for them, as Fyodor tells Sigma, especially if the evidence is right there. But Asagiri himself has explicitly said that he likes doing the opposite of what people expect. And so just because people predicted correctly with the three things I mentioned in this timeline... doesn't mean they'll be true in the manga's. Things happened how we wanted and expected it to, and everything turned out happily. So we can relax now, right? Everything will work out just as easily in the manga, right? Or... is the reason most of this finale feels so fake and unsettling and unsatisfying because it's meant to lull us into a false sense of security before all our heroes lose in the manga? Because deep down, we don't want an ending that's this simple, because we'd rather have a conclusion where our characters have struggled more and grown more and come out the better for it, and we know it?

After rewatching the episode a lot, and watching some other videos, and doing a lot of thinking, I am pretty confident in suspecting that the only part of this finale that is actually from manga canon, aside from Aya jumping off the building of course, is Fyodor and Nikolai's exchange after Fyodor leaves Meursault — specifically, them talking about Fyodor leaving Sigma behind, and their "new game" and Nikolai being excited at the prospect of it. This little conversation actually feels in character for them, and it's easy to tell this when contrasting it with everything that happens immediately after, wherein Fyodor is fatally stabbed, and Nikolai, completely at odds with what he was just talking about, just... stands there and watches Fyodor die while Dazai monologues lmao. I'm not sure if the helicopter is still a factor, but I would bet good money on Fyolai getting out of Meursault being manga canon, and that Dazai and Chuuya getting out as well and killing Fyodor + everything with FukuFuku, is part of the anime original ending, in order to wrap up everything positively. It makes much more sense if you think about, in reality (aka in the manga), Dazai and Chuuya still being left behind in Meursault (where they can eventually try to get Sigma), because none of it was an act and things did not go according to plan, and Fukuchi having an entirely different goal that doesn't feel so stupid and contradictory to his character, and Fukuzawa possibly dying — everyone seemingly loses, with Aya still being the last hope, perhaps by awakening her ability like we all speculated.

There's a youtuber I watch who covers BSD in-depth, despite being an anime-only (she reads the respective manga content after each season, though). Going into this finale, she knew about the fact that the anime had overtaken the manga, though she didn't know where the cutoff point was; despite that, however, she made predictions about what was from the manga so far and what was anime original, and it was almost entirely spot-on, based mostly on what she basically described as "anime original dialogue." She talked about how you can always tell when dialogue is veering into the realm of anime-original, because the sentences are very short, choppy, and slightly out of character, but generic enough to not be TOO out of character, and so that anyone can easily write said lines, even if they're not extremely familiar with the character like the original author would be. And when I heard this explanation, everything clicked — because so much of this finale has dialogue like that. The Fyolai scenes just feel peppered with it, around the lines I mentioned earlier, the Dazai dialogue does too, and ESPECIALLY shit at the end like Fukuchi and Fukuzawa exchanging the cliche death lines to end all death lines: "Are you there? I'm a little tired." "Rest up." That just isn't Bungou Stray Dogs. That isn't Asagiri. BSD is cheesy at times, yes, but it isn't like this; it's smarter. The dialogue is smarter, the explanations/plot twists are smarter, Asagiri is smarter, and the aforementioned youtuber I watched agreed. She's a pretty casual fan of the series, so if even she could pick up on these things, I think it speaks volumes.

I mentioned this briefly earlier, but this theory makes sense if you consider that this situation probably came about because of Bones wanting two seasons back-to-back when they did, and this arc being as long as it is. Season 3 aired in 2019, and I imagine Bones would have wanted season 4 in 2020, and might have then been willing to wait a bit longer for season 5 in order for more of this arc's manga chapters to come out — but then covid happened. Because of that, season 4 was delayed to 2023, creating the longest gap we've had between seasons, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if the delay made them want season 5 right together with it, after getting so far "behind", so to speak. S4 was announced in November of 2021, and roughly around that time, Asagiri was finishing up writing the plot of the DoA arc. If Bones came to him sometime in late 2021 and said they wanted two seasons now (so basically, one giant two cour season), Asagiri would know that not only of course would this arc not be finished publishing in the manga for a very long time yet, but that roughly 20ish episodes would not be enough to cover it all to the end, with this arc being longer than any arc the anime has adapted to date. Because of all this, and the arc manga chapters being nowhere near fully drawn to completion, he'd have to make a decision about what to do, and what to give Bones. Without ending season 5 on a massive cliffhanger that wouldn't be resolved for years until an eventual season 6, the only other option would be to rush towards an anime-original ending for the DoA arc.... and for Asagiri to take advantage of that, and integrate it into BSD's lore. Thereby creating a truly unique cross-media experience that utilizes the different mediums to create multiple timelines, that could make both the anime and manga interact with each other and become part of a bigger picture (not that you'd need to see both to get the full experience, mind you, just that it'd provide a little bonus if you did).... and would without a doubt be Asagiri's biggest surprise yet.

...I feel like at this point I'm starting to ramble, and my evidence become more and more incoherent and less substantial lmao, so I should probably end this post. 💀 Thank you if you've read this far, and hopefully it made some semblance of sense, despite not being structured very well; I know I promised at the start to try to be as objective as possible and curb my negative feelings, but I'm not sure how well I succeeded in that regard. If it weren't for the Fukuchi thing and the Fyodor hand thing, I probably wouldn't take how wrong and strange and bad the finale feels to me as serious evidence about it being an alternate timeline, especially since I seem to be one of the only people who actually hates all of it.... but combined with everything else, I am just so convinced of this theory being true. It started off as pure copium, but as more time has gone on, I fully, 100% believe in my bones (ha) that there is no way that finale is the same Bungou Stray Dogs I know and love, for so many reasons. It just isn't. It can't be. I know BSD better than this, I know Asagiri better than this, and I know that it's absolutely in the realm of possibility for him to cook up this whole scheme to completely blindside us with in the upcoming chapters, because that's exactly the kind of shit Mr. "Please Be Surprised!" himself would pull. If I end up being completely wrong, I guess I'm wrong, and you can laugh at me all you want then.... but I just know that ages ago people were teasing the idea of the anime operating on a different timeline from the manga, and I truly do think that only now are we finally seeing that idea come to fruition, as a setup for Asagiri going full-bore insanity with the Book in the upcoming arc(s). if I and the OP of that theory end up right, this will be the wildest time in the BSD fandom's history.

Like. I cannot even emphasize how hard they are trolling us at this point. Something is going on. Something is being cooked over there, the likes of which we've never seen before... and I don't think any of us are ready for it.

Oh yeah, and one last thing of note: both Fyodor and Nikolai here have their right arms hidden from view. Is that alluding to anything? I'm not sure. I also think that since chapter 110 was so short, next chapter will likely be 110.5 instead of 111, and if that's the case, this title spread could still technically be associated with the next chapter... wherein we might see this Fukuchi, who ends up wreaking havoc, right before he jumps to the timeline in the anime, as we see him at the end of the s5 finale.

I guess we'll find out on Tuesday.

[puppypeter]

I kind of want to hear more about like Jamie trying to manage having a chronic illness while also being like a professional athlete. (although we are giving our issues with things to people I have a strong feeling Roy is prone to like tension headaches. )

You lot are feeding me well tonight :)))))

Listen - IBS Jamie is purely for my own joy tbh there is nothing in canon even if I did make a list of some things that could apply >>>> you can find it here

It's a bullshit diagnosis anyway, cause even doctors don't know what is wrong and say it to dismiss you. So I can see him having all these issues and when he does all the tests there is nothing wrong with him and they say it's all in his head and he has to learn to live with it and manage it (there are some studies that bring on the hypothesis that there might be a link to physical, emotional or sexual abuse in childhood and with trauma in general which fits the bill with him, but I am too dumb to actually understand them but oh hey this is fiction we can do what we want!)

From my experience, exercise can be both a very good and a very bad thing. Usually fine during, but when you push too much you might feel unwell and we know he 100% over-does it. I can see him struggling with accepting he needs to put limits in place, he has to allow his body to rest and has to have regular meals etc He would be very frustrated with it. Personally it's actually fucked up my confidence massively as my therapist put it "have you ever thought that your lack of confidence also comes from not being able to ever trust your own body?" funny lady isn't she my own Doc

I think Roy having his own chronic issues (that man hurts just look at him lol but I can see headaches for sure) is actually very understanding once Jamie manages to open up about it which takes a long time >> bootroom breakdown is so spot on for being in the middle of a flare when you are still expected to operate at 110% but you're exhausted, lack of sleep is making it worse, you're bloated as fuck and your tummy hurts and you can't bother with anything (hair, personal care etc) and you just want to curl up and cry >>> Roy helping him put things in place to help like making a meal plan with the doctors of low fodmap items and ensuring the canteen is aware, always having cozy clothing around that is loose around the waist and a heat pad ready to go in the office, well stocked cabinet of ibs friendly tea (he's a tea guy anyway!), he suggest a meditation/yoga session for the afternoons and he makes jamie keep a food/symptoms diary (which then he ends up keeping cause jamie is not organised at all and roy is sorting out 90% of hid meals anyway!!). He also makes him see Dr Sharon because stress can make it worse!

Oh and Roy does gift him this too:

[galaxyseclipse]

alright, gonna try to be slightly more organized than last time about my thoughts/theories/observations about Side Order also this might be a shorter post than last time because there isn't a whole ton of trailer, it'll mostly be about the artwork tbh

so I'm just gonna start this by saying I really dislike the "it's all New 3's dream" theory, it feels like a cop-out. I'm not saying it is 110% untrue, just that I don't like it and hope it isn't

how do I explain the transition from the train to Inkopolis Square? New 3's on the train to Inkopolis Square(which is fully unlocked after beating Side Order; the option just takes you to SO until then) and falls asleep, one matrix-y transition later and we're in Eight's pov inside of whatever simulation they got dragged into. it's purely to transition the player from New 3 to Eight, and the events are completely unrelated

or I'm utterly, wholly wrong! who knows!

---------

another thing I noticed on my millionth trailer rewatch was this

it's just to the right of the tower in the shot where everything materializes. it looks like a filling cabinet? it's in the last trailer we got too, I checked, but not the first teaser(granted, a lot of stuff wasn't)

I dunno, probably not anything super important, but it's not there in the Square in 2, so I thought I'd point it out

edit: look at reblogs, it's probably actually a set of lockers

---------

I've seen a shockingly small number of people bring up this guy

so far(maybe there's more talk of them on twitter or something idk)

they're clearly pretty prominent, they're next to Acht, Pearldrone, and Eight, so they have to be important, right?

my first guess is that they're something a la CQ Cumber or ORCA, just the one who explains the rules of each level and splats you if you fail. but it feels redundant to have both them and Acht, who already knows a good amount about this place, explaining stuff to you

I dunno I also see twist villain potential from them, just because we haven't seen them before now. like, "hahaha! It was I who fucked up this place, and now that you've helped me hack the mainframe, I can take full control!" or something idk lol

I'm not even gonna try to guess what kind of sea critter they are lmao

---------

now onto the real stars of the show

these fuckers

hopefully y'all already know that I am a firm believer that the one in the center is Agent 4, seeing as they're the only one of the group with ears and tentacles, and those two features bear resemblance to "canon" Agent 4. the rest don't have those, so that one is clearly important, right? am I being delusional? probably

setting that aside, what are these things in the first place? they're most likely related to the fish guys in some way, both being covered in black goo with glowing red eyes

I personally think that they're either mobile versions of the copy machine from the lobby, or some weird, goopy creation of the simulation used to replace enemy Octolings in gameplay(which is a fun twist, haven't had enemy Inklings before) otherwise I have no idea lol. they're enemy units and that's all I've got

---------

there's also this thing

featuring a lot of Acht's head

kinda looks like the Octowhirl to me, but like, less octoweapon-y and more coral-ish, with the same red eyes as the fish; probably a boss of some stripe, or tougher enemy

---------

something else that's probably inconsequential I noticed in the artwork

the different colored color chips have different text on them, probably stating what kind each one is?

notably, the blue one(the one used in the trailer) doesn't have the same text on it, that moved to the red one

---------

I think that's it for now; I have picked apart the artwork as much as I can/want

I'll bet if we get a direct before the 22nd, we'll get one more small trailer or maybe just a repeat of this one. though judging by the trailers Nintendo's been releasing lately, that feels oddly unlikely to me

but idk I'm just a weirdo who likes staring at fictional cephalopods

[true-blue-sonic]

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening!!

5, 12 & 21 - Espio & Silver for the Ask Game

Good evening <3

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

For them both, that's One Way Dream by Jay Cosmic and DESERT STAR (not the one from Frontiers haha). Pure Espilver vibes there every time I listen to it :>

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

I think you need not ask XD I like Espilver because I think their personalities go together very well: both Espio and Silver have a burning passion for justice, and are very powerful, capable characters who complete their missions with success. But where Silver is the more hotheaded and rude one, Espio is the calmer counterbalance who tends to think things through more. A true red oni, blue oni situation, I think! In that regard, I also like how Silver is still presented as Espio's equal: in Rivals 2 I would even go as far as to say he's the leader that Espio defers to. Silver does well with having a more level-headed partner, which Espio can provide for him, I reason. And in turn, Silver seems to deeply respect Espio (which, considering the Chaotix's status as butt-monkeys, I figure he might not always get and especially not always from his colleagues haha). So I think they go together really nicely in that way!

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

I'll put the both of them together here for consistency's sake ^-^ I like writing them as very affectionate with each other: neither Silver or Espio are physically (or verbally) affectionate characters, but I like the idea that they're willing to show that a bit more around each other (plus, physical touch is one of my own love languages, haha). What I don't like... Hmm, this is a silly one, but I don't like it when Silver is shown as taller than Espio. He's 100 centimeters and Espio is 110, and when looking at the in-game models you can easily see Espio's a bit taller XD So when writing I always keep in mind Silver is just a bit tinier!

[huggingtentacles]

“Dumb questions are encouraged”

Alright Bet.

How do I like. Start!????

How much vigour is recommended? Whats the bare minimum if I’m intentionally playing a glass cannon?

Will people get mad at me if I use Madness (inescapable frenzy n all that. I genuinely just love the whole maddeningly gazing into each other’s eyes routine, The one-shot potential is secondary. but I know that doesn’t matter and even if it did it’s not like I can Communicate that.)

How do I communicate that I’m literally just a silly little guy still figuring things out and to please be patient with me because I’m just trying to have fun

And finally. How do I get over The Fear.

Took me a while to reply because this might be a very important post to a lot of people.

How to start Elden Ring Invasions:

Building your character

Start by making a good build. In all honesty, any build that has 60 vigor (at levels higher than 110) will be at least capable of something no matter how the rest of your stats are spread. If you're a glass canon, always sacrifice your health last. Stamina, mind and unnecessary damage stats can go.

A good build consists of 2 components:

Damage Attributes and Utility Attributes.

Damage Attributes are: Dexterity, Strength, Faith, Intelligence and Arcane

Utility Attributes are: Vigor, Endurance and Mind

A good build has one damage stat if you're going for a pure build, or two damage stats if you're going for a hybrid. 60 vigor is almost obligatory on most builds that are at level 125 and higher. Then you have just enough endurance to carry your armour without fat rolling. The rest is damage stats. If you cast spells you also level some mind.

If you ever need advice with your build, ask away in my DMs!

Will people get mad at me if I invade?

Most won't. Some will. The truth is that as an invader, you are the opposing force in someone's playthrough. You're engaging in competitive multiplayer where you fight another player. And some people just can't take a loss. Your madness build might certainly not please everyone, but let me tell you something: it doesn't matter! Play what is fun for you. Most people are normal about video game encounters, so don't worry about upsetting someone.

How to be silly

Generally, fromsoft players have a sense of humour. They appreciate a funny username and silly fashion. They also understand the importance of improvement.

I remember learning how to play sniper back in Team Fortress 2. To not upset anyone, I just named myself as "I'm practicing sniper" And everyone just understood that I'm aware that I'm not doing well. "Trying my best" is a good name for the character you're going to be invading on. But maybe some jokes are more to your liking. Cosplay builds are all over this game, and they're very memorable encounters!

Do gestures (from a safe distance!) have a silly name, and do your best.

How do I get over The Fear?

Fear of underperforming and dying embarrassingly?

Nobody is judging your performance as an invader.

Fear of upsetting someone?

Dying in Elden Ring is inconsequential, the worst that can happen is a minor loss of runes that are easily found. Don't worry about it. Despite what Redditors will have you believe, most people enjoy getting invaded.

Fear of not being good?

Everyone is bad when they start, it takes a bit of time before you get the hang of it.

Fear in general?

Sleep well, eat well, have a shower, hydrate, have a clean and neat gaming space. It noticeably reduces all negative emotions while gaming, and very noticeably improves your gaming skills. Your physical form affects you more than you think!

If you ever have any questions, feel free to ask!

[kukisana]

Lucemond - birthday calculation [note]

Heads-Up! This is a very, very rough calculation of Aemond’s and Luke’s birthdays, based on information in Fire & Blood. This is a pure fan-theory, NOT something Canon! Do NOT take if for a fact, please! It’s a personal note I need for my Fics, because my brain won’t let me rest. Maybe this is old news for some, but well. It’s just a personal note, so who cares.

The starting point of the calculation is the death of King Visery I. He died “on the third day of the third moon in 129 A.C.” - March 3rd 129.

• Aemond: He was born in 110 A.C. and when his father died, he was “ninteen years old”. Which means his birthday must be in January or February. Since F&B does not state his birth to be “in the early days of the year”, nor that he had his nameday right before the King’s death, it is save to assume he was born mid January to mid February (Jan. 15th - Feb. 10th). For funny reasons, I personally think February would be nice; the second month of the year, for the second born son.

• Lucerys: It is stated that he was born “late in the year 115 A.C.”. Jace was born “in the last days of 114 A.C.”, so it is save to assume Luke was born in November, perhaps early December.

• Zodiac: I do not think these exist in the world of ASOIAF, but it’s fun, so I will include it here. If Aemond was born during my calculated time, he would either be a Capricornus or an Aquarius, tho I think Aquarius is more likely, but that’s just my personal idea. Fun Fact: Aquarius is an Air-Type element, hehe. Luke could either be a Scorpio (Water; Driftmark, hello?) or Sagittarius (Fire; it needs “air” to keep burning and I... Will just leave I guess).

I hope you’re happy now, dear brain. Let me get some rest now... OTL

[coolpixdump]

do you edit your photos at all?

nope! i shoot on a nikon coolpix 3200 set to -1.7 exposure compensation. sometimes i go up to -1.3 at night, but rarely above that. i underexpose because the nikon is like many digital cameras in that its automatic settings are too bright, but underexposing makes the colors pop. since sometime in 2020 i have been experimenting with setting the white balance to the 'incandescent' preset - this emphasizes the blues and cooler tones in the scene.

i'm glad you asked this, actually, because it gives me an opportunity to talk about why i chose this specific camera.

i come from a background of shooting film - at the time of this writing i have a bag with 216 rolls left to process, shot between 2014ish to 2021. i was attracted to 35mm and 110 film because i was sick of computers and wanted something with that elusive x-quality, a warmth/intimacy that i saw was lacking in the images from my digital camera. i shot a cornucopia of film throughout high school, on a million different point and shoots. (the highlight of my life at that point was when i bought 5 olympus xa's for a dollar each at an estate sale - the deceased was a camera collector & there was a canon room, a nikon room, an olympus room...)

but i look at photography as a diary, and the detail with which i document things was adding up to an overstuffed carpetbag of film to develop. around 2018 i began to wonder if i could exploit the very thing about digital images that i was trying to avoid, the cold, clinical look. i began looking at product photography (the canned food isle in your grocery store is pure unadulterated inspiration if you pay attention to the label designs), kitchen disease and a whooooole lot of the new topographics photographers.

at the same time i was sifting through the local thrift stores searching for the perfect digital camera. i first found a sony dsc-s750 at a pawn shop in 2018, and liked the images it gave back a lot. (different looking results than the coolpix, and 7 megapixels, but equally compelling - i would totally shoot one again) but i wanted something i could run on rechargable aa batteries, and that was a tad less - for lack of a better term - modern. eventually a quick 'test' flash shot of the glass countertop revealed to me my new best friend and constant companion, the nikon coolpix 3200, which i took home for $6. folks, this is from that magical era of ccd digicams when they got everything right. i didn't have a computer for a couple years but i would take my coolpix and a littany of 1 gb sd cards to the local library and dump the .jpgs directly to tumblr/flickr. if you set the exposure compensation to -1.7, you won't need to do any editing. this camera manages to be digital and still cater to the part of me that doesn't want to deal with computers by giving natural looking, soulful colors right out of the gate.

a word of warning to anyone looking to follow in my footsteps: there was a later model coolpix that looks like the 3200 but is 4 megapixels. the noise reduction nikon used in this camera makes the jpgs look wayyyy too soft. if you're looking to get one of these cameras the 3200 is where it's at. it's served me well - i've ran through four of them so far. (it's a very tough camera, but it was also released in march of 2004 and sometimes they develop trouble extending the lens after being sat on, moshed into or otherwise mistreated.) also, be sure to set the quality of the jpgs to the highest setting in the menu and the (gorgeous, borderline 16mm-like) video setting to 640x480.

happy shooting! thanks for your message ~.~

[surrexi]

trying to find father brown peeps on tumblr and i am seeing people complaining about sullivan being "made hetero" in series ten and my siblings in christ y'all need to rewatch episode five you can't tell me sullivan's reactions to flambeau and mrs devine weren't pure disaster bisexual panic!

also remember fam you can still write fanfic where he's bisexual or gay or ace or anything no matter what they do in canon (i have only watched the first six eps so idk what happens in the last four, but even if he and isobel have a full-on romance that doesn't even actually mean he couldn't be *canonically* bisexual, let alone affect one's ability to headcanon him that way). in my heart of hearts, lady felicia ran away with flambeau at the end of series nine and canon can never take that away from me, lmao. i have no intention of letting anything in the canon dissuade me from the position that inspector sullivan is 110% a disaster bi.

[see-arcane]

I agree with the the third person chosen. And I've been bored of the retellings that are epistolary for no reason (and most are like "Here is Mina's REAL journal, finally we can read the story from HER perspective and how she wants a different man than Jonathan".) or first person purely to say that the original authors completely lied about everything. Third person limited (or omniscient) is such an opportunity to play with a first-person-limited source material in order to explore outside their thoughts and writing.

110% this ^^^

The kind of stories that break their own back trying to contort canon into a pretzel knot of 'no wait the characters were all randomly lying to their diaries for no reason and they REALLY did/thought THIS FOR REAL HONEST!!1!' are so nauseating, especially when inflicted in first person

Third person is a far vaster playground with way more toys to play with (even if I choose to play mainly with the toys and implications that canon left laying around in the sand)

[blorbologist]

do you think canon Percy is neurodivergent / on the spectrum? I personally hc him as such but what is your opinion on this subject? what are things that stand out to you?

Hi anon!

I do as well! Full disclaimer: I am autistic, my brother is autistic and has ADHD, and our father is probably on the spectrum as well but in vehement denial. However, I got Very Good at masking, to the point I rarely unmask and spend all my energy dealing with Social Bullshit, while my brother is... idk, super charismatic in social settings, somehow, but a nightmare with Tasks and Sensory Hell. So I usually project autism onto characters given my lived experience, but can 100% see how he has ADHD vibes as well! I think neurodivergent rep is very important, and it's great that we can see ourselves in these characters <3

I will repeat this a lot, but Percy has also undergone a fuckton of trauma. A lot of his traits that remind me of myself could be due to PTSD. His panic attacks, for instance, are things I'd slot more with PTSD, personally. You can read his character different ways (I read him as having both), and that's good on you. However, I am autistic and I like projecting My Me onto the blorbo so that's what you get.

A couple of things stand out to me:

The whole Feywild thing reminds me of a special interest. Less so in the campaign, but given how they play it up in TLOVM I really suspect it's the case. Clockmaking also seems like the sort of very specific, detailed work that'd make my brain go brrr if it was my thing, so? Is that anything?

A lot of how he is described (by himself or by Tal) pre-Briarwoods could align with a little introvert noble with no social skills and a whole fuckton of arrogance, but it also aligns nicely with an autistic kid.

Just. how many times Cass has to imply 'percy I can't handle Whitestone alone' before he gets the memo. is insane. it's either 'his autistic ass isn't getting what she's trying to say' or 'percy stop being a dick and help your sister out you KNOW what she's asking'. either way works for me! But I'd like to hope he's not intentionally shoving responsibility on his little sister and use that as an excuse.

We don't know if he had issues being touched prior to being tortured ("We didn't touch in my family"), and the trauma of what Ripley did to him could 110% account for that! But I like to slot it away into my 'on the spectrum' vibes box.

Layers. Layers. Layers! Again, another potential covariate with the fact he's a poncy noble, and has a vested interest in hiding his scars, but I am Particular about what touches my skin at a given time. I like long sleeves and pants and gloves because then it's always the same sensory things on me and not changing.

Just how slow he is to court Vex. Because maybe he's reading the social cues wrong, and he has to be Obvious about his interest too, and becomes a fancy bird giving gifts because that's the best way he can think of supporting her and expressing interest while figuring out whatever the fuck this Attraction thing is.

Perhaps just a Tal thing (I see it with Ashton too, or I did when going over the Laudna n Ashton convo with a fine toothed comb the other day), but how much he fidgets when talking. Constantly moving.

His entire friendship with Keyleth is very autism vibes. Could purely be coming form her, or shared, who knows! (I am a huge supporter of autistic Keyleth, here n there I'll sneak in a line about her stimming <3)

Might just be a Me thing, but how he turns to Vex when he's feeling big emotions and doesn't trust himself to handle them. What the fuck are these, I think this impulse to lash out at Scanlan is probably bad, dear please keep me from doing anything stupid.

Also it's very funny for me to do the 'me and the bad bitch I pulled being autistic' meme with him and Vex ngkntrjnhrt

[fe-smashorpass]

Sorry that I’m late to the ask thing but if you could make any character that isn't recruitable available to be recruited with full supports plot relevance and endings which would you pick?

As much as I’m a Petrine simp first and foremost Phila, Raimi, or Pheros, are much more realistically implementable (I would know from experience.), but also if this is pure wish fulfillment 110% Petrine.

Ok so I thought of this wild idea awhile ago and I thought it was cool.

Recruitable Edain in gen 2 but instead of being a cleric she’s a bow knight.

Thought it was weird that Edain doesn’t join the gen 2 kids in their adventure but then I realized due to inheritance mechanics it would be a bit tough to implement. Cause her stuff would be taken automatically, unlike Finn where you can just not pair him up and he keeps his stuff.

So to evade that issue why not make Edain a bow knight? I mean, canonically Edain use to be a bow knight before becoming a cleric and I think it would be cool if she went back to her roots for gen 2.

But that’s just a silly idea I thought up a while ago.

[dandywonderous]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Tagged by @kiaxet

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

210, but about 110 of those have been copied over from my old FFN account (almost all of the One Piece fics, basically).

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

709,457

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently I'm mostly only writing for Rise of the TMNT, but I have written a lot for One Piece and Free!, as well as Twisted Wonderland, Persona 5, Fire Emblem 3 Houses, FFXV, KnB, and others.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. I May Be Invisible, But I Still Look Good (ROTTMNT) 2. Tight Fit (FFXV) 3. Tapping Out (ROTTMNT) 4. Lab Accident (ROTTMNT) 5. Things Overheard (Hiding Under the Bed of the King of Athens) (Hades)

5. Do you respond to comments?

No |'D I don't know why but it just gives me anxiety so I don't. I do appreciate the comments, I'm just bad at responding. I'm sorry!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably this old fic where Sanji just dies in the end, but I think I have fics that are angstier in the middle even if they end better. For something that's not just the character dying, probably Herbal Tea (ROTTMNT), or maybe Failures and Heroes (You and Me) (ROTTMNT)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of my fics have happy endings so this is hard! Probably a tie between Tight Fit and IMBI, since those have their central characters going through pure hell but getting all kinds of love in the end (including romantic love in Prompto's case).

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Once. This is the hazard of writing AkeShu (P5) lmao.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOY I sure do. I write all kinds of smut, including a few gross kinks most people put in their hard nos. If you're poking around in my full fic list proceed with caution. Lately since I've been writing so much ROTTMNT I haven't been writing smut, though, since I'm more into the canon for the fluff and family feels. The last smut fic I wrote was The Appearance of Impropriety (FE3H), which is a Dimitri/Edelgard/Hubert threesome. And before that, it was a TWST AzuJami fic that, well, took advantage of Azul's octopus anatomy, if you get what I'm sayin'.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven't really written fandom crossovers since I was a teenager and tbh I don't remember much about them, I think they were more crackfics than anything serious. I have written several AUs that use other fandoms, though. Probably the weirdest one I've actually written is a Free! RinRei Dragon Age AU, where Rin is a templar and Rei is a mage (the forbidden love of it all). I also have waaaay too many ideas in my head for an ROTTMNT FFX AU where Mikey is a summoner.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I remember back in my FFN days I would occasionally search up my fics and find them c/ped to random clickbait sites, probably as a bot scrapping operation. But to my knowledge I've never actually had anyone take one of my fics and claim it as theirs. Even that bot reposting still had my username attached lol

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yep! The fabulous @e-turn has translated several of my ROTTMNT fics into Russian! I've had other requests before, too, but I'm not sure how far those went. If anyone does want to translate my works, feel free! Just be sure you're crediting me, and if it's going on AO3 be sure to link the original!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have done some co-writing and some fic round robin events but none of them ever got to the point where they actually got published, because someone would flake out or we would just lose steam. I might be up for it, if it were a project we were both really invested in, but I'd probably have to be friends with the co-writer first.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

MMM this is hard... probably RinRei from Free! I've never felt quite as intensely about a ship as I did that one.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hold On To Me (KnB); I love it but I am so far out of KnB fandom at this point haha.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Character voice, I think; it's what I usually get compliments on and what I feel the best writing. In a way, fanfiction (and fandom RP) has really helped me think about characterization. Something I was certainly guilty of in my younger days (and that a lot of amateur writers are guilty of) was having my characters act as vehicles for plot, doing or saying whatever I needed them to in the moment to move the plot where it needed to go. This meant none of my characters had any kind of consistent characterization and all of them were samey. We joke about "he wouldn't fucking say that," but in a funny way this kind of thinking really got me to think about characterization and character agency. Before I would say, "we need to get from point A to point B, so let's do that." After trying to get into the groove of writing already strongly characterized characters, and please an audience with certain expectations, I found myself thinking really hard about what would motivate a character from point A to point B, and if the circumstances I'd set up weren't enough to cause that, I'd need to tweak them, or better yet, explore what I think the character WOULD actually do in that scenario (which may be more fun anyway). This is a skill I think fanfiction is great for helping new writers develop.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I wish I had stronger word choice at times, and had stronger imagery. I'll read lines in other people's work that just blow me away haha. I could never write so poetically, I think.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

If you are good at a language, or have someone fluent helping you out, then go for it. There's no reason any work needs to be written in only one language. I'm not a purist on this. That said I also think writing "he said in Spanish" or something like that is fine. If it serves your purposes better for your fic to all be in one language, or you aren't confident enough to write in a different language, then you can just make it clear to your audience that a different language is being spoken now. Especially because I come from a lot of anime fandoms, I'm used to there being a sort of unspoken understanding that the characters are not speaking English and what we're getting is just the English approximation/localization of what they're saying. So this doesn't bother me. And of course, throwing in random Japanese exclamations in an otherwise English language fic always comes off a bit campy. I do think it's fine for things like terms of address and nicknames, though. I've never really gotten the hubbub over not having honorifics like "-san" or "-chan" in fics because the same people who usually hate that are also fine with "Señor" or "Mademoiselle" in writing and, like, what's the difference? Idk if any of what I said answers the question. My thoughts are that it's variable, ig.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Technically it was for the book Alas, Babylon, and it was a class assignment in 9th grade English.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Ah this is hard... IMBI is my longest fic and I'm really proud of how it turned out, but I think I'll always have a soft spot for I Keep on Hopin' (We'll Eat Cake by the Ocean) (TWST) - warning that this fic is NSFW and has explicit smut.

Idk who to tag. @aria-faye @unpredictable-probabilities @daboyau ? Anyone else who wants to do it feel free!

[queenlua]

FE game: 28, 31, 37

28. Because this fandom doesn’t see enough discourse [citation needed], post a spicy hot take here🔥🔥

with the caveat of, "i haven't kept up with fandom discourse in a while so i have no idea what opinions count as spicy," here's a couple off the top of my head

* during peak tellius years, i always kinda though ike gave off asexual vibes in canon. this take was bound to please absolutely no one in the great ike shipping wars so i mostly kept it quiet lmao

* in a plight that is probably common to most fic writers who glom very hard to a specific character: most fic out there about Claude does not work for me. folks either write him as a Pure Cinnamon Roll Who Can Do No Wrong And Only Has The Goodest Intenions, or (far less commonly) they write him as this strategic genius mastermind made of 110% cunning. neither is correct! i'll fully grant my claude is probably an insane headcanon claude at this point with only a loose relation to canon, but that's because canon was inconsistent with the boy, and the version in my head is the best way to reconcile those inconsistencies. qed

31. Some moments of Fire Emblem you keep thinking of?

* that bit in Three Houses where Claude asks if he can borrow Jeralt's diary... and then the conversation loops until you say "yes" because of course he's the kind of little shit who would just wear you down instead of taking "no" for an answer. a+ character moment

* another good claude moment: asking him "do you hope [rhea's] dead?" post-timeskip causes your support to go up lol

* finally, that IMPOSSIBLE-to-get but INCREDIBLY horny conversation between Tibarn/Nailah during the big battle in FE10. in my head rent-free, as the kids say

37. What’s a weird theory or headcanon you have?

i guess the "ike is ace" one mentioned up above, or... hm. come to think of it, most of my headcanons are more like "this would be a cool plot for a postgame fic" rather than, like, lore or backstory tidbits, which i think makes them not properly headcanons. but in that realm of thought, i'll mention that i think the "peace" of the united bird tribes post-FE10 is incredibly fragile, breaks apart within a year, Reyson ends up holding it against Tibarn and it all does absolutely dreadful things for their relationship