#i'm actually a little curious if they write his scar in given it kinda works for the wolfkiller plot

[pynkhues]

Yes! I think too the difference in make-up between 1.07 and 2.03 comes down a lot to the blush. 1.07 clearly drew a lot from Marie Antoinette, and in paintings there tends to be a rosiness to the apples of her cheeks, which I imagine was part of the inspiration, and I do think suits Jacob's face shape a lot more. Like you said, it really emphaises the delicateness of his softer features, whereas Sam's got such extreme features in his face between his bone structure and big mouth and big eyes (which are so aggressively blue even without the contacts), so that kind of higher blush placement down the cheekbone I think both emphasises them, but also kind of softens them a bit? It looks like a softer shade of pink too.

I loved reading this -- I don't know a ton about makeup (I want to learn more), and thinking about how the placement and color of blush could make such a difference is so fascinating. And you're totally right, the apple of the cheek vs. the cheekbone being emphasized really alters the look.

Louis having such delicate features and Lestat having such extreme features (and both being gorgeous, obviously) really suits those characters. Sam's features are so interesting to me because he's such a mixture of hard and soft, like the jawline and then the big blue lamb eyes, and that Harlequin look really emphasizes his mix of, I guess you could say, masculine and feminine beauty.

And I agree with the other anon, I love his scar and that makes total sense that it would be very appealing to an artists. I really think someone on the show loves it -- maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like they film him on that side more often than the other.

(x)

Yeah! Face-shape has a lot to do with how make-up looks on, and so taking a period-typical look and applying it is going to suit people differently. There's a pretty good write-up on blush and face-shape here if you're interested, and given I'd describe Jacob as having a heart-shaped face and Sam as having a square one, I'd say it lines up pretty well with what I was saying yesterday. Totally agree about your assessment of them looks-wise too. :-)

[leonawriter]

I'm curious, where does the headcanon come from that Dazai is the book?

Well, I don’t think I’m the first to come up with the idea that he’s the Book, though all the ones I’d seen before were all along the lines of “for the angst factor, let’s make them literally just fucking die.” Which. Obviously wasn’t my scene, so I kinda went “how about we do this my way.”

Which... wound up having me go “okay let’s take the only one who makes any sense here - Dazai. Let’s take him because his Ability, “No Longer Human,” lines up nicely with what Fitzgerald has said about the Book, that it “cannot be burnt by fire nor destroyed by any special ability.” Since Dazai is the world’s strongest nullifier, with as Randou/Rimbaud says, “no compare,” this fits. We haven’t seen him burn yet, but let’s not, to be honest. 

That said... ‘unable to be destroyed’ does suit Dazai quite well even in broader terms. Ways and means of death that Dazai has survived include; drowning, shooting (standing in the middle of gunfire counts), hanging (hanging scars are canon to the Mayoi app game’s Gakuen AU, so), mushrooms (in theory - and the luck of ‘accidentally’ choosing the wrong ones), and... who knows what else.  He has an entire book on the subject. He’s tried a lot. None of it has worked.

From there, there’s also the fact that Fitzgerald, as well as others, appear to believe that Atsushi is the way to find the Book, which is ‘clearly’ in Yokohama right now. The first thing Atsushi really does in Yokohama is find Dazai, and he’s attached himself to Dazai ever since. And Dazai has been in Yokohama for as long as we’ve known about him, at least since he was fourteen.

Speaking of age, he was somehow able to find the Book when he was much younger in the BEAST AU, although we never see it, nor do we know where, exactly, it is (according to all I know, at least).

Things that are somewhat more circumstantial are-

Almost all of the side-stories involve Dazai in some way, despite Atsushi being the story’s main major protagonist. This makes sense if Atsushi is the protagonist but the Book continues even when the protagonist is absent. Even the Untold Story of the Founding of the Detective Agency has him on the front cover, I believe.

And... overall, the entire tone of the story shifts alongside Dazai’s own mindset. Prior to fourteen years ago, there is very little that is good that happens; there is a war going on, after all, and we see many characters referring to how much suffering takes place in it. Even the founding of the Agency is brought with the sense of people having suffered, or being in pain in some way (I’m primarily thinking of Ranpo, here). Things begin to (ironically) improve when Mori forces Dazai to become witness to his ascension to Mafia Boss; Mori, for all his faults, is still a better Boss than the old one.

The 15 book/arc is a relatively light one - which makes sense, given it’s when Dazai himself is having a good time. Dark Era is when he.. really isn’t. And everything after that is full of light. Dazai’s own philosophy of “trying to do good regardless of even if it’s what I’m best suited for” shines through everyone.

From there, there’s still a few bits and pieces I put in: one is the idea I took from someone else that’s basically that Dazai literally can’t die; in In The Moonlight he’s close to it, because as seen, the Book itself is in tatters so much that a strong wind would blow it apart. But once he’s allowed to heal (and by doing so, so will the paper Book), he’ll actually go back to normal.

Another is that the “Book” is actually in two pieces; one is the personification, Dazai, and the other is the physical manifestation, the paper book that can be written into, and can create things. Dazai in my AU/hc has ink writing appear on his skin, and when he goes far enough, his eyes can go fully ink-black, which is all things that have already happened, and that are determined events. The physical manifestation is something he can affect, or anyone else can, but which is still connected to him. The paper can affect reality and the future, which Dazai can only do if writing on the paper, or via his own individual actions.

tl;dr: someone came up with the idea that a person is the Book itself, or a personification of it, and to me at least the only one who truly makes sense is Dazai.

All that said, I can’t take it fully seriously as angst, because in my version where Dazai knows and is aware, and Chuuya finds out, I’ve spent way too long in pun battles with my friends, often with things like, Chuuya going “I can read you like an open book” and “you’re spineless” and “who even writes this third-rate crap” “don’t look at me, I’m just the poor paper it gets written on.”

EDIT: since I've seen people suggest this is an actual theory, I'm restating here that it is not. It's an AU. I do, however, like to make AUs st least semi-believable. I first saw this in a fanfic.