#boxing wounds

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 257

Now Danny loves space. He loves everything about it, to the point his core quite literally is space. And he’s also a baby ghost, even if he could argue he’s not in human form. But see, being baby has an honestly great consequence once it’s noticed- despite the Observants’ best attempts at hiding it, the assholes. 

Of course he would be far more worried- and even a bit pissed- if his caretaker wasn’t who it was. Look, he’d never met Clockwork’s siblings before, but apparently everyone was really against Clockwork himself adopting. 

But Clockwork as his uncle is fine. Besides, his caretaker is Space! Space itself is holding him, cooing gentle words in the sounds of the very cosmos. And they’re huge, like parts of their body going through portals so they can fit outside Long-Now sized big- and apparently Clockwork can get just as big and they can get even bigger- 

Okay, he needs to take a breath- even if he doesn’t need to breathe- to stop his squealing because holy Realms this is so cool. 

Space is awesome! And he’s getting so much more rest than he did in Amity- and even if Space sort of shrugged at the idea of school at first, they did help him set up online schooling. So there’s that, and it’s just the start! 

He gets to learn so much about space and it’s honestly kind of… nice? To be taken care of? And he can do whatever he needs for his Core and Obsession with only a few interruptions to take care of his living needs. Erm, sort of living needs? 

But even that gets turned into a bit of play or even a lesson too! He’s honestly having such a good time right now! He’s learning so much about spaaace! And dimensions! And interdimensional portals and- oops! No one saw that. 

Ahem- But he’s learning so much about space and getting to explore other dimensions with Cosmos! And sure he no longer looks as human as he once did and all that, but he’s seen so many people who also don’t look human that does it really matter? 

Of course it doesn’t, and he matches his sort-of-dad! Even though the streaks of color in their hair are more of a brown-red like they’re literally bleeding out the cosmos around them instead of it fading to void and space like his own. But still! They match and it’s fun! 

And they’re going to go on another trip from the in-between to one of the dimension realities! He’s going to start a game of tag this time he thinks! But no cheating with portals or bending space! Tag! 

Look, the Justice League? Not paid enough for this. In fact, technically not paid at all due to being volunteers (not that it stopped them from finding money in their accounts) but still. 

There is some sort of figure… being… thing… zooming around the asteroid belt, about the size of Earth itself. Let them repeat themselves. A planet-sized creature (are those hands or paws? Tail or simply its body stretching? Hair or the Abyss-) is currently darting around the asteroid belt like a child running through grass. 

That is, without noticing or caring if something bug-sized might be crushed. And they are very much bug sized, as the governments are concerned about. Like really concerned about. Like talking about trying to nuke the entity if it wanders closer sort of concerned. 

Which they are all very concerned and very much like, against. Because it isn’t seeming to notice the asteroids it’s knocking into their area. It’s like… not a space whale or eel or anything like that but also is something like that. 

And they would also maybe like to see if they can attempt to talk it down first maybe and-

oh. 

Oh. 

That creature is the baby. And mama just arrived, stretching across the entire galaxy, from them to Pluto and beyond, like something took the cosmos and shaped it like clay into some sort of form. Like reality itself has wandered into their galaxy with what they are suddenly realizing must be a very young child. 

Shit, they really have to make sure no one tries to piss either of these things off-

[aquanutart]

"little miss prairie faerie" is a cute name actually... (but I won't use it if she doesn't like it)

[francixoxoxo]

🂱 Dogs’ White Teeth ☠︎︎

𝐁𝐨𝐱𝐞𝐫!𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐒𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐗 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝, 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐬, 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡-- 𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥.

Coryo wasn’t a violent guy. He didn’t know why he fought in the ring.

That’s what he told himself. He wasn’t violent, ‘cause he didn’t deck the first guy who looked at him funny. That was Coriolanus Snow’s logic. He wasn’t violent, ‘cause he felt nothing as he pounded the punching bag until his knuckles bled, he only felt a thirst for cash. Not blood.

But the first time his glove connected with a guy’s stomach? Oh, Coryo was violent. He’d never admit how stupid gratifying it was when he threw a punch to knock the other dickhead’s lights out.

Coryo shouldn’t be with you. He doesn’t deserve a girl like you, he could live a hundred times over and never deserve a girl like you. You’re kind, and generous and so, so thoughtful and fucking smart, you’d think you’d be smart enough to stay miles away from him.

But no. Here you are, standing in the dingy basement the fights are held in, among a crowd of shitty and disgusting people— Coryo’s people. Not yours. He’d rip his own teeth out before he let them be your type of people.

Speaking of which, he has one of his guys standing beside you, a looming warning that nobody could touch you. Coryo knew somebody would try. You were wrapped up like a piece of candy in a prison yard, and he was nothing if not protective. You already didn’t belong in the dank room, watching your boyfriend either scramble somebody’s brains or get his brains scrambled— he got some peace of mind knowing you atleast weren’t alone in a crowd of violent assholes.

Coriolanus was a good boxer. A damn good fighter. Of course he knocked the other guy out, short and burly with a mop of stick-straight hair, by the time Coryo was done he was missing a tooth. Coriolanus was baring his own teeth in a sneer, lip curled and nostrils flaring as he spat out a bit of blood onto the ground beside the man.

He stumbled a bit as the referee grabbed him by the forearm tugging him to his feet and raising his glove up to announce his win. Coryo's bare chest was heaving, covered in a sheen of sweat. His nose was surely broken, blood drying under his right nostril, his eyes wide and crazed as he looked 'round for you. A crooked smile split his lips, revealing his maroon mouthpiece as he lifted his brows at you.

Coryo, bloody and battered, was definitely a sight.

Maybe it was wrong to find it so hot, as you cheered with the rest of the crowd for him. But that attraction always, always delved into a distraught concern for your boyfriend by the time he was in the locker room.

Coryo lifts his head as he hears footsteps. His elbows are on his knees, his hand that had been rubbing his shaved head falling down as his lips pulled into a smile. “Hey, baby.” He’d cooed to you while you stepped close, slotting yourself between his spread legs. His hands found a home on your waist as he grinned dopily up at you.

“Hi.” You mumbled, your hands cupping his cheeks. Your brow furrowed, you gently pressed both thumbs along the length of his aquiline nose. Coriolanus curled his lip and grunted at the pain, you sigh. “You broke it again.”

“It’ll heal.” Coryo shrugs, watching you with puppy-dog eyes as your thumb swipes some blood from under his nostril. He rubs your hip affectionately as a thanks. God, he was love drunk. Absolutely whipped for you. He just hated how much he made you worry. Coryo didn’t think himself worth your peace of mind.

“Oh, but it looks like it hurts.” You frown, your thumb dropping down to brush over his busted lip. Your gaze trails over his blackening eye.

Coryo shakes his head a little, pressing a kiss to your thumb pad. “I’ve had worse.” He reaches up, clasping your hand in two of his. He thinks he catches a smile, but it quickly falls when you see the state of his hands. Bloodied and battered, his skin split at each knuckle, your expression melts.

He doesn’t protest as you reach for his bag, rifling through the duffel. When you find what you need, you slip into his lap, your knees straddling his hips. The boyish grin that splits his face is almost hilarious as you reach for one of his hands.

The alcohol wipe is ripped from its packaging with help from your teeth. With a tender, delicate touch, you swipe the pad along Coryo’s knuckles. His fingers flex against the sting, his lips pulling in a grimace. “It’s not that big a deal.” He whispers almost plaintively, pressing the concave ridge of his nose into the slope of your shoulder like jigsaw pieces.

“It’ll make me feel better, how about that?” You huff, letting go of his hand to fully unravel the wipe and clean the blood caking on his skin. His nostrils flare, but he nods. Coriolanus watches as you lean for the bench beside him. His hand on your side tightens to keep your balance for you as you grasp the roll of bandages, coming back upright and wrapping the material around his knuckles.

He lets you go about fixing him up (though he’d argue there wasn’t anything to fix, nothing worth your peace of mind,) with surprising lenience. Only when he grits his teeth against the sting of alcohol on the other hand does he speak. “You didn’t bet on me, did you?”

“I did.” You let a faint smile creep across your features. Your thumb brushes along his metacarpal bones. Coryo scoffs, averting his eyes with a shake of his head. “I told you not to.”

“So? You won anyway.”

“It’s the principle.” He insists, his nose brushing your jaw as he cranes his neck forward in frustration. You orbit those bandages ‘round his hand, on and on until you’re satisfied. “What principle?”

Well. On plenty of things, Coriolanus thought. He wasn’t something to waste money on. He wasn’t even something to waste time on, frankly. There wasn’t a point in putting in effort with him. He felt a bit like a vicious mutt; who cares if he’s got a muzzle on him? Or if he can sit, and fetch, and give you paw? He bites. In the end, he will always bite.

“What if I lost?”

(What if he screws up?)

“You’d lose money. It’d be a waste.” Coryo mumbles, presses a faint kiss into the tender skin of your neck. Your pulse is warm under his lips.

(You’d lose time you could be spending with somebody… he doesn’t know, better.)

“It’s not a waste. It’s just trust.” You shrug, and he wonders for a moment if you can crack his head open like a walnut, peer inside and read his mind like a book; one you were simply rereading for lack of new novels.

With his newly dressed hands he rubs his palms over your back. Coriolanus studies every crease of your face with a strange reverence, his brows tense for a brief moment to match the divots twixt your own. “You shouldn’t bet on losing dogs.”

Your shoulders lift, fingers sneaking ‘round his head to run your nails through his cropped blonde hair, “Who says you’re a losing dog?” A laugh sings from your lips. Coriolanus only smoothed his hands down your waist, his own lips pulling taut in a guilty expression.

You’re putting all your money on him, and it’s not literal. You love him, that much is true, and that much is too much. It tightens his chest, it chokes the air from his lungs and the pink from his cheeks. Atlas had a puny burden to carry, since he never had to fear letting you down.

Come on now. He just made a couple hundred bucks off of decking a guy until he looked more beetle than boy— all spasms and twitches and whimpers that make Coriolanus’ head spin with a power trip to put vermillion behind a man’s eyes. They all say violence is gut-churningly horrific, and maybe it is. But it isn’t if you’re winning, if you’re the one with his fist curled. If you’re the one landing on top.

Coriolanus is the kind of guy to get high off the crunch of somebody’s nose under his glove. You creep into the deeper corners of his mind, weaving cobwebs to lay in and inadvertently instilling a disgust, a self-loathing that not even a parent could plant. You don’t mean to, sure.

He wants to be better. He wants to cut his bad leg, he wants to behead the serpent in his belly, so that it’s safe for you to reach your delicate little hand in there. He wants to be deserving of all the goodness you wreath him in.

He’s fully aware you deserve a guy that doesn’t have to carve himself to be good to you. What can he say besides Snows tend to be selfish?

Coryo would slit his skin from his Adam’s apple to his navel to let you crawl inside. But he’s certain. It’s in his nature, it’s his body, not his heart and not his mind, that will reject you like an organ donation, will spit you out. Perhaps you would fit better elsewhere, in another man’s cavity, for his is too large to be comfortable. He felt like a scrambling man trying to sew you in, a rare organ, a piece that he’d fill his own gaps to make fit.

“All roads.” Is all he could whisper, his azure eyes glassy, hoping that his eyes were glassy in the sense of a window pane. That way you could see without forcing him to wrap his tongue ‘round the words, which is getting increasingly difficult. Coriolanus speaks like an Olympic sprinter, he’s sure that he’ll chicken out of it if he takes his time. “All roads lead to Rome, to me being a shithead.”

Your lips pull taut. For a moment, a gut-churning, pain-staking, bile-rising-to-the-throat moment, Coryo thinks he got through to you. Maybe you’ll dump him right there in the locker room. He didn’t think the prospect would put such an anchor in his stomach. Again, he thinks, Snows tend to be selfish.

But then your lips are moving again, your hands are bracing the back of his head with intertwined fingers, your perfume filling his nostrils and distracting from the dank stench of the locker room, it’s not too strong, it’s the best thing he’s ever smelled, but he can’t focus, he can’t, words the greatest poet couldn’t conjure after a lifetime of pensive thought are rolling off your tongue, somehow to him, somehow all of this is for him, and it’s all so sickly sweet that he’s dizzy with it.

“You’re doing your best.” Already your visage is blurring like ink in the rain. He believes he’ll chew through his cheek. “You don’t see what I see, Coryo.”

Damnit. A pearly tear slips down Coriolanus’ flushed cheek, the scarce light shooting diamonds from his azure eyes, your hands twisting to hold his face. He looks like a boy in your hands, and if it weren’t for his purpling eye, his lip split, you think he’d pass for a little boy.

He sucks in a breath through his nose as your lips connect, his lip painful whether the kiss was tender or bruising. Coryo was fierce in his love, fierce in everything about you, always, but oh, how grateful is he for how soft your lips move on his. His hands roam to the plane of your back again, a relieved exhale leaving his nostrils against your cheek.

It didn’t seem to matter whether Coriolanus thought you fit into the crevice (gaping hole, ravine, sink hole, call it what you will,) of his heart or not. You found your way in, you’d crawled deep into his heart, his body, his soul, and sewn the door behind you. How silly of him to believe that he had any choice in allowing you in or keeping you out. How foolish to believe that if the hole in his belly was too weeping for a single other soul to fill, that you wouldn’t stretch your arms high above your head and your legs as extended as possible.

How utterly idiotic of Coryo to believe that the hollow in his chest was a tower to selfishly keep you in, and not your rightful home.

[gods-perfect-idiots]

something something blood-soaked hands cradling your face something something

anyway here's the post btw

[adam-stanheights-right-hip-bone]

I think about Eric Bogosian’s line delivery on “he didn’t save you, LESTAT did” all the time. I roll it around in my brain like a marble. Daniel really went from “he only hit me the one time, officer” to world’s #1 Loustater. Real of him tbh

[mirensiart]

Gonna be honest. In your comic Ravio felt the Wolfie pain too...

I dunno why, but I can imagine him immediately wondering what the fuck was that. And then it happened again and boy howdy was he mad.

YEAH

it's why he wanted to sell legend's stuff as a form of revenge cause he's so annoyed over the pain lmao it's also why he makes the comment about legend being careful since they're connected, but he doesn't know it's another hero's fault lol

He also felt twilight's heartache (which I suppose he could confuse it with legend's usual heartache over Marin, so nothing too weird there)

Legend's usual joint pain is normal to him, so he wouldn't really react to that

But then he woke up that morning with scalp pain thanks to wild's intense bed head and the multiple failures to untangle it lmao and that's when he went "OK NO, I'M SELLING HIS STUFF NOW" lol

[corrodedbisexual]

"For your modesty, dude"

[bacchuschucklefuck]

actually one more thing kristen was so clutch this ep with that mass cure wound while not a single one of the rat grinders has gotten a heal from their own team that's so dire . like you know essays can be written abt that right

[hiorintruther]

I think hiorin is absolutely winning right now with the Egoist Bible. First of all, you can make a solid argument that Rin fits Hiori’s ideal type, the thing that makes Hiori happy, AND Hiori’s fetish. (Note: while his fetish uses a woman as reference, his ideal type is gender neutral and he said he received chocolate from a guy on Valentine’s Day while specifying that he rejected a girl in the year above him, so any ‘straight Hiori’ arguments mean nothing to me).

Hiori’s ideal type is “someone who can leave me alone”, which fits Rin absolutely perfectly. Rin wouldn’t be clingy, needy, overbearing or smothering. That’s exactly what Hiori wants in a partner. Of course they would still be intimate, it’s not like Hiori would want to be alone 100% of the time, but he wants someone who knows to take a step back and let him have his space when he wants it.

Likewise, the thing that makes Hiori happiest is “being left alone”. Once again, Rin would not be constantly hovering around Hiori, needing Hiori’s attention or getting upset when Hiori doesn’t smother him with love.

Hiori’s fetish is “fractured girl fetish”, which everyone is still a bit confused by but it seems to be referring to seeing injuries that are bandaged up (he specifically references the actress Todo Erika in SPEC, where she wears her arm in a sling and cast). It’s a bit fucked up (not to kink-shame) but then again Hiori is a self-described ultra-sadist so I’m honestly not surprised at all. Now then, out of everyone in Blue Lock, who have we seen get injured multiple times and need to be tended to? Rin. Not only that, but Rin’s predisposition to violence and getting hurt is a part of his truest nature. He was scolded and considered weird for it in his childhood and would become nervous if his parents were about to tell him off for his destructive tendencies. So imagine Hiori, someone who categorically does not mind that Rin is this way, wants to help bandage him up and tend to his injuries, and never once scolds him. We know from the U-20 match that Hiori’s first instinct is to ask Rin if he’s alright and help him, but now there’s the added layer that Hiori would enjoy seeing this side of Rin, not being weirded out or put off by it. I think for Rin that would be a massive relief. Hiori wouldn’t be actively trying to hurt Rin or encourage him to get injured all the time, but he would accept Rin for the way he is and never be disappointed if Rin turned up bloodied and battered, in need of bandaging up.

We also got other info which I think can be used for hiorin too. Hiori is now a confirmed Dead By Daylight player, and since that’s a multiplayer horror game I think he would enjoy playing it with Rin (who as far as we can tell only plays horror games). Specifically, Hiori likes to play the killer, so Rin would get the thrill of fighting for his life even if it destroys him while Hiori gets an outlet for his own sadistic mindset.

In the character rankings, Rin and Hiori were ranked 1st and 2nd respectively for who would most likely have psychic powers. Hiori also ranked first for ‘best listener’ meanwhile Rin ranked first for ‘worst listener’. Rin might be hard to get along with but Hiori is the immovable object to Rin’s unstoppable force.

Then of course there’s the stuff we already knew from the Twitter QnAs. Hiori and Rin both love ochazuke. They both game. Hiori’s favourite season is the rainy season which nicely compliments Rin’s connection to water.

Honestly we have so much fuel to work with. Hiorin doesn’t get a lot of canon material at all in the main manga so it’s nice that the extra info provides so much fuel. I doubt any of it is intentional but we have a really nice basis to work with regardless.

[ego-osbourne]

I love the way you draw old men so cunty

Thank you :3 Have a slightly cunty Caspian who got a little bloody in the process of me drawing this

An attempt on his life? That’s a normal Loredas for him.

[patriamrealm]

What would Liam and Sabi look like when they do gain their aspects?

Ye! Lian gets his while helping Akari quell Lord Kleavor and Sabi get's hers a few months after the end of the red sky.

[puppetmaster13u]

have a very early wip of a tea party :>

This is @phoenixcatch7 's Possessed Doll Au

[barbelzoa]

Rozen Maiden oc? In this day and age?

[birdmitosis]

💔 for the chapter 3 princesses?

💔 An angsty headcanon

Like Tower before Her, Apotheosis cannot really emotionally connect to individual people, but while Tower would be unhappy and lonely if She never had people around Her at all, Apotheosis has trouble with that. Individuals are just so small, even if they wanted to get near Her. The Protagonist would be the only one who could ease that for Her; without him, Apotheosis really is a supremely lonely god.

Den can still hear the cabin and the basement -- Her cage, Her pit -- talks to Her. It's why She's starving, malnourished. It tells Her that She deserves it after what She did.

Eye of the Needle, if Adversary progresses to that point, is far less capable of being able to readjust to a more normal life. She has gotten to a point where She constantly feels unsatisfied by never having the fight She was denied. She might not be forever doomed to that, but She may fall into the trap of eternally searching for it.

Fury's rage is stoked by a severe self-loathing. She hates what She has become and hates the Protagonist for turning Her into it. Without the Protagonist around, that rage is still there, but Her self-loathing eats at Her more. She is less than what She was, She thinks, and She can never get it back. She was denied that. She takes this to mean She can never be better, so She embraces being worse even though She doesn't want to. (As a less angsty headcanon, this makes me think She might get along with Witch/Thorn/that version of Wild.)

Burned Grey remembers trying so hard to accept the Protagonist destroying what few small desires She had: to leave the cabin with him, and to not die. She tried to accept his decision, even with tears in Her eyes, but now She accepts Her desires fully even if they hurt both Her and him. She would, I think, be the vessel most upset about never being allowed Her wish in the end if not for the full understanding that seems to come with reuniting with the Shifting Mound.

Drowned Grey cannot emote and cannot quite access Her own emotions in Her death. Unlike the Burned Grey, where the dry heat that consumes the entire Construct is an expression of Her desire to burn it all down and destroy it all -- which She fully feels and is aware of -- the constant rain in the Drowned Grey's route is Her sorrow fully externalized. She can't cry and She can't even quite feel like She wants to cry anymore, but the Construct itself weeps. She thinks that drowning the Protagonist is making him feel how She choked on Her own blood... It isn't, but She does want him to feel and understand Her: the emotions She can no longer access, She needs him to be fully faced with Her sorrow at being betrayed, at not being trusted, at not being understood.

Moment of Clarity is as broken down as the Protagonist and any of his voices. They are not the only ones who have done all of this over and over and over and over and over again, after all. And they have all exhausted every other option before finally freeing Her solely because they can no longer avoid it. They can no longer do anything else. The tender moment She shares with the Protagonist is almost despite Herself... He is finally, finally letting Her out and it almost looks like he made the choice to do so. She can almost pretend he made the choice to do so. But he tried so hard to put it off until choices just didn't exist for either of them anymore, didn't he?

Thorn still has so much Witch in Her. This isn't the headcanon; it's obvious if you choose literally any of the options other than finally freeing Her. My headcanon is that She would, of course, sometimes continue to backslide into being more like Witch in negative situations. And She would hate it. There'd be a lot of uncertainty in Her still if She could actually be better, if She wasn't still the worst.

Networked Wild, if She could actually escape like that -- even with the Protagonist and the voices -- would still always feel incomplete and too afraid to ever risk looking at and facing what She'd done, what they had done, and what it might mean for all of them. They would probably always be doomed to fall apart at some point.

Wounded Wild feels incomplete, even if She will always feel grateful for the kindness, empathy, and companionship She receives "despite" being incomplete. Maybe She can work past that eventually, but it will take her a long time, and also a long time to really feel okay facing who and what She had been and done. (Again, a slightly less angsty headcanon, but I think this means Wounded Wild-from-Beast would get along well with Thorn.)

Wraith wants so, so badly to be able to heal Her relationship with the Protagonist and to forgive him and the voices. She wants it so badly She can't let herself realize it. The one moment She allows herself to is when, if they toss themselves and Her into the abyss, She asks "WHY DO YOU HATE ME?" Her laughter that follows is at Herself for Her folly.

SPECIAL CASES:

Arms Race/No Way Out doesn't know how to be anything other than a weapon, doesn't know how to do anything other than hurt the Protagonist. Doesn't know how to want anything else. She is joy in Her purpose, but She is nothing outside of it. She likes him, yes, but She doesn't know what to do with it. She is -- ironically, given the name of the alternate Chapter IV -- empty, maybe even more so than the Deconstructed Damsel.

Mutually Assured Destruction/Empty Cup panics because She does not know how to be anything other than what She is. If She steps out into the unknown -- if She changes -- what is She? Is She nothing if She is not the one who hurts the Protagonist? All She can do when Her armor and sharp edges crumple and strip away is to put Her heart in his hand and trust that he will be able to lead Her to what comes next.

Stranger doesn't have a Chapter III at all, but so They aren't left out entirely: what happened shook Them all up really badly at first. It wasn't just Harsh, Neutral, and Soft all pleading with the Protagonist at the end of their chapter, but Emo and even Monster as well.

[sherl-grey]

SHUT UP WHY DID THEY DO THIS

[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.