#idk how that would work with plot and stuff

[burningcheese-merchant]

Psst, hear me out: The Beast being fucking yanderes with the ancients.

You Get It™️ I mean... Did you guys see episode 6? Burning Simp Cookie is already a yandere lol. He's been there and he refuses to leave. And Shadow Milk is honestly not that far behind, he feels some type of way towards Pure Vanilla and it would be cute if it wasn't so sad and creepy lol

Really though, I just love hero/villain ships in general (always have, since long before Cookie Run ever existed) and I get a kick out of villains acting stupid over crushes (read: obsessions), and acting stupid in general. There's just something about a villain being in love with the hero to a psychotic, comical degree, and the hero rebuffing them at every turn that's just really amusing to me lol. Like what Joker sort of has with Batman, you know?

Here are my Yandere Beasts in bare-bones terms:

Burning Spice: come on, if you've read my stuff, you know EXACTLY what Yandere Spice is like lol. If not, I'll refer you to this and this, as well as my fics on AO3. If those don't tell you what Yandere Spice is like then idk how else to help you lol

Shadow Milk: if the final boss of theater/drama kids had a crush but was also a malignant narcissist of some sort lol. Absolutely DESPERATE for Vanilla's attention at all times. If he's not actively trying to worm into Vanilla's brain and harass him in his thoughts and dreams, he's in the real world brainstorming better ways to do that lol. He does not grasp why the creepy puppet shows and gaslighting attempts aren't convincing Vanilla to fall in love with him. Will attack and torment and insult Vani in one breath and then praise and love and worship him in another, because he's a histrionic clown freak with whirlwind emotions. But above all else, he literally thinks he owns Vani and is meticulously plotting the horrible and hilarious demise of any and all he perceives as a threat to their union

Eternal Sugar: World's Laziest Stalker™️. Almost exclusively haunts Holly in her dreams (I have to assume that that's what her power will entail, as the Beast of Sloth); however, she's more "effective" in her wooing attempts due to her past experience as the Herald of Happiness. She actually goes out of her way to construct dreams and the like that have things in them that make Holly happy (or what she thinks makes Holly happy; she, as well as the others, has big tunnel vision and is very selfish and self-absorbed, and thus pays more lip service to her own wants than those of who she loves/obsesses over). Thankfully doesn't run into Holly in person often because that's work... but sometimes she DOES work up the nerve to go after her for real, and... well

Mystic Flour: Denial, denial, denial. Not just a river in Egypt the Golden Cheese Kingdom, but she'll say and act like otherwise. No, she does not like Dark Cacao. He robbed her of her volition and the chance to enact her will. He prevented her from freeing the world from pain and suffering. He is a stubborn fool who refuses to understand the truth. He... is very handsome. She does not like how handsome he is. It is distracting. She doesn't like dwelling on her memories of him and their encounters. She doesn't like how she came to harbor a single kernel of respect in her heart after he stood his ground against her; a kernel that she inadvertently nurtured and cultivated slowly but surely, until... no. No, she doesn't like Dark Cacao. She doesn't think about him all day. She doesn't want to try to lure him back to her land so she can trap him in the flour fog with her again. She doesn't miss feeling his dark eyes on her. She doesn't deeply resent his attachment to his people, and seek to transfer that attachment to her instead. No, she... damn it, he's ruined her. He's made her feel things again. He's made her succumb to selfishness and greed, to earthly desire and attachment - desire for HIM, attachment to HIM. All of her hard work and enlightenment gone to waste... She doesn't want to like Dark Cacao, she recognizes the folly in such a thing, but she's stuck - and so stuck is she that not only does she not really see a way out, she doesn't WANT one. She's become too content with her attachment to him too quickly. Now she has to agonize over her own foolishness, and try to keep denying that she doesn't care while also longing for his attention and wanting to do away with all that steals his attention away from her

Silent Salt: probably the least awful of the five, but he's still creepy and that's not a high bar to clear anyway lol. Has a better grasp on "normal" behavior than the others (like... he pays attention to what White Lily likes/wants and tries to adjust accordingly), but he's following her around everywhere and acting extremely violent and territorial over her towards anyone who he catches approaching her. He's legitimately, surprisingly sweet and gentle towards her; he brings her flowers, he listens to her when she asks/tells him something, he's more or less respectful of her personal space (he will try to be as physically close to her as possible, but actually backs off a little if she asks him to, only to try again, and so on and so forth)... but he's still a villain, he's still violent and creepy, he still gets angry when she pays attention to other people for too long and he has brought actual harm to others out of jealousy. He's the best of the worst but that really doesn't mean much of anything, he's still a psycho creep like the others

In short, they form a tight-knit coalition of absolutely fucking deranged freakazoids and they should all probably die :)

[mackmp3]

☕how the writers delt with river song

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP THEY DID MY GIRL SO DIRTY there are so many. good river song moments. and there are so manythat make me want to tear a strip off steven moffat like every goddamn episode with her they have to make some obnoxious sex joke or some Honey Im Home type shit & i understand this is like. A Moffat Theme & i dont always hate it but goddddd its so reductive like there is so much!!!! that could be done with her character !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that is overshadowed by haha what if she was sexy like STOPPPPPPPPPPPP.

like silence in the library was a really good character lead in & i like her!!! as a character !!!! even the overly flirtatiousness unfortunately that would work on me but even aside from that. she is a good character let down but the sheer pull-it-out-of-your-ass writing of her backstory. like?? she could regenerate cos she was conceived in the tardis okay thats really cool much weirder stuff has happened when it comes to tardises & making babies but then WE SeE THIS FOR LIKE. ONE OR TWO EPISODES BEFORE THEYRE LIKE WHOOPS THAT DOESNT WORK ACTUALLY COS SHE'S DEAD UHHH SHE BETTER UHMM IDK SAVE TH E DOCTOR OR SOMETHING WHATEVER> COS HER ENTIRE LIFE HAS TO REVOLVE AROUND HIM. HASHTAG MARRIAGE AMIRITE like even the fact that her entire life was shaped around him isnt a Bad Idea it just feels like no one considered the tragic impies (implications) of this, & simultaneously doing amy so dirty in the process as well like??? she loses baby mels & then discovers she was her (never previously mentioned) childhood friend but then she uhhhh dies & turns into this woman you already know and them????? barely eveer mention it again???? holy shit?????????????????????? amy & river is a freaking horror story but one that the writers seem imcapable of dealing with because sOMEONE is too busy making obnoxious jokes about married life

a lot of thsi is specific to the General Vibes of the eleven era stuff as well which was in general so so weird about women & while its not like twelve or any of teh other doctors are expemt from this eleven is a massive dick to people quite a bit & a lot of this falls on river b/c he is seemingly (iirc i havent seen some of this stuff for a while though it Haunts Me) almost careless? with her? like a sort of 'welllllll she's here now so it was all okay in the end :)' sort of attitude ignoring that she went through A Fuckton Of Stuff before she was even a concious human(mostly??) being

even the husbands of river song is tragically guilty of some of that stuff like. she's seen some wild shit & she should have known it was twelve wayyyyyy way way quicker. like i understand why she didnt for plot reasons but she is in fact very intellegent like. she's allowed to show that. unfortunatley sometimes women cant be smart & have their boobs out at that same time I GUESSSSSSSSS

also the nine & river audios from earlier this year? i really like archipelago i listened to that a couple of times & i thought it was really powerful but AGAIN the writers make river So Fucking Obsessed With Romance like. you'd let it go by that point. nine had literally just proved he's the most aro guy in the universe (good for him) and shes stillllllll flirting at him. which. imo she wouldnt do anymore because, shock horror, she does actually like him as a person & values his company and you would think you would be friends wit hthe guy YOU ARE GONG TO MARRY OR WHATEVER. NOT THAT THEIR MARRIAGE WAS PARTICULARLY ROMANTIC EITHERIM GONNA BE SO REAL. obviously sex is important to her & good for her but yikes. it doesnt need to be mentioned so often.

like its the whole 'inherent tragedy of waiting for a time traveller' stuff which i do eat up every time meeting her in silence of the library & knowong that there is so much more there - VERY COMPELLING !! really good character intro augahagaauuaajaaajahhahahahhhh but nooooo her Entire Fucking Goddman Life has to revolve around being manipulated & The Doctor AS WELL AS !! the completely uncalled for ohhhh im a PSYCHOPATH ( <- unfounded & demonstrably untrue lowkey this is saneism right. thats an ableism there yes? ) thing they alllwaysssss have her say like well!! shes not !! theres 'youre talking about commiting a murder'/'no im not, i'm actually commiting a murder' which i like & is funny & she would say that and then theres teh vauge oooohhhhh im so Freaky & I Have A Gun or whatevr like augsugsaihuahahaouoauauoouauoauoauoauuo

also twelve & river had freaky t4t bi4bi aroallo sex after the end of husbands of river song but no actual dw writer is enlightened enough to see that because they have to flatten her into The Doctors Wife & she would have had a far better dynamic with 12 than with 11 (not that i'm biased) i wish they got more time togetherrrrrrrrrrr also you should listen to the bekdel test (diary of river song audio with missy)

[kennysdeadbody]

Can we please have more of the HMC AU? Please? (if you don’t mind of course)

Love your arts btw <3

abSOLUTLY TYSM !

have a lil screencap redraw and a lil ike and stan as markl and calcifer

[little-pondhead]

DP x DC Prompt

…

There are no more heroes.

Well, okay. Rewind a bit.

Danny has been doing the hero thing for a while now. He’s had a big reveal; everyone has accepted him (including his parents), the GIW disbanded, the Anti-Ecto acts repealed, and generally, everything is going great. Some of the A-Listers are even training as junior ghost hunters to help give him a break from his rogues! (Being Ghost King makes things hectic sometimes, and he just needs the extra help. Sue him!)

The point is, literally nothing is wrong with Danny Phantom’s afterlife.

And then Valerie Gray, the Red Huntress, disappears in front of his eyes.

Danny is baffled! She’s just…gone! Valerie just popped out of existence, like she was never there. But no matter how hard he searches in the Ghost Zone, he can’t find her soul anywhere. His core isn't broken in grief. So she’s not dead. Which is good. So then, where is she?

Some of the others come forward with ideas on how to find her. A few ghosts volunteer to go out into the mortal realm, an area Danny had declared off-limits, to see if she was out there. Danny approves it. He rounds up some of the friendlier (i.e., discreet) ghosts and Amity Parkers and demolishes the outside travel ban.

So everyone spreads out, looking for their dear frenemy and teammate. But it becomes apparent very quickly that something is wrong with the rest of the world.

There are no more heroes.

Every single living superhero on the face of the Earth has just…vanished. Villains are running amok; the countries are in chaos! Some aliens are invading Earth, mythical deities are trying to take over, and society is crumbling to the ground. Everything is on the brink of collapse.

Well, Danny was still there. And so were his people. They were pretty spread out, so could they just…take up the mantles? He also knew where to find the souls of dead heroes in the Zone; surely they wouldn't mind coming out of retirement for a little bit, especially if they couldn't die again. Oh! And that skeleton army leftover from Pariah Dark's reign might be useful in repelling those invading forces.

Honestly, there were more than enough hands to go around! And with the heroes gone, Danny didn't mind letting everyone out for a little break, as long as they followed his rules. They wouldn't stop the search for the other heroes, but hopefully, when they found them, the heroes wouldn't mind Danny's intervention too much. :)

In other words:

Someone fucks up, and all of Earth's living heroes are either wished out of existence or are whisked away to some far-off realm where Danny hasn't checked yet. In the attempt to figure out what's going on, Danny lets the dead run amok over the Earth as they search for clues. The skeleton army repels the invading armies, the souls of dead heroes deal with the world leaders, and his rogues and other Amity Parkers set up shop in place of famous heroes, trying to get the cities under control again.

Basically, they just do their best to keep everything from imploding until the Justice League and others are back.

(And why is it that Danny hasn't disappeared? Well, whatever caused everyone to go poof! only affected living heroes. Anyone heroes that were dead in the first place, or even just half-dead, stayed behind.)

[tetzoro]

good morning & happy friday friendz (ㅅ´ ˘ `) we have made it to the end of the week !! i hope you all have a wonderful day and an amazing start to your weekend !! friendly lil reminders : ෆ drink water ! unclench your jaws ! blow a kiss to the sky ! be gentle with yourself ! ෆ

[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.

[fruityumbrella]

wait i changed my mind marineford au cancelled bc who the fuck is gonna fight katakuri then

[lord-squiggletits]

I need to reread the comics again to have specific arguments/evidence for this, but like

I feel a bit like I could've been sympathetic to the way other Cybertronian colonies view Cybertron, if it weren't for the fact that at least several of them (as in, ones that get notable dialogue/screen time) are so low-key self-righteous?

Like, idk... there's a lot of criticism of Cybertronians because they're so "warlike" and how their obsession with violence and vengeance is just dragging the whole galaxy down with them, but uh. The Autobot-Decepticon war was basically a product of societal ills bubbling over for like 6 million years beforehand and then finally boiling over into a 4 million year war that lasted as long as it did because the people involved had immense social/psychological trauma from being "raised" in an oppressive society.

So when the colonists come in being all 'omg you people are so violent and uncivilized why don't you just like, stop fighting' it kind of pissed me off a little bit as a reader/person like. Idk the colonists really came into this society of people full of massive amounts of trauma where even before the war society was super oppressive and no one has any experience of living "normal" lives unaffected by violence and bigotry. And the colonists were like "ummm wow why don't you guys just??? stop fighting???." Like idk it wasn't EVERY SINGLE MOMENT, in fact I think that when it was played for laughs it's quite a funny "fridge horror" type element. It was just annoying because like.... IDK???? It's just really annoying to watch a bunch of people who lived relatively sheltered lives on their own planets come to a different planet full of traumatized people and be like "omg why are you people so fucked up" IDK BRO MAYBE BECAUSE THEIR SOCIETY WAS OPPRESSIVE AND THEY LIVED THROUGH A LIFELONG WAR???

It also doesn't help that the colonies were literally founded based on imperialism and conquest so like, it's fucking rich to hear colonists scolding Cybertronians for their violence ruining the whole galaxy while literally sitting on planets that their Primes colonized from others. The hypocrisy of this is briefly mentioned in Unicron (literally the FINAL STORY OF THE SERIES) but like, that's basically the only time Cybertronian characters are given a reprieve of sympathy from other characters in universe and it's so tiresome.

I've talked to other people who didn't like the colonists and thought they basically (narratively speaking) existed just to shit on the existing characters, and it's actually really easy for me to sympathize with/outright agree with that assessment of the story considering how much of exRID/OP seems to be preoccupied with "Cybertron/the Primes/Optimus sucks" with very few reprieves for anything positive happening and even fewer chances for characters to get to explain themselves and experience a little bit of justice? Like, as the audience, it's just very frustrating to see the characters you spent hundreds of issues keeping up with get shit on by a bunch of "literally-who"s and then not really get a chance to ever defend themselves, either by literally defending themselves in conversation or having some sort of narrative thing happening that vindicates them at least symbolically

[spacespore]

HI TUMBLRR it’s me

[icewindandboringhorror]

Hrmm... Revising my game and I feel like there's still sooo much writing left to do, for something that probably won't even amount to much, so.. I do want to narrow my focus more (especially given my health problems seeming to get worse/less energy the past few years), but I'm not sure how would be best to...

I currently have 5 characters as the Main ones with full planned questlines and such, with each character having 6 quests you can do for them. But I haven't really started the writing for the 5th main character. So then I was thinking, if I were going to write 6 full quests worth of content anyway... is it better to allocate that time on just doing a Complete 6 Quests for ONE single character, OR would it be better to do something like.. choose THREE side characters and do 2 quests for each of them? So that people have a wider variety to interact with and sort of sample around (of course with the idea that, once the first version of the game is released, IF people actually care about it enough to make it worth the effort, I would then add additional content to complete those 3 characters stories as well)

-

SO... If you were playing an interactive fiction sort of game centered around talking to & doing quests for a cast of characters (like there's no larger plot, more it's just about interacting with people, every character kind of has a self contained story, the focus is just learning about them and the world and exploring the area) --- Which would you rather have?

(and of course it would be stated up front which characters have only partial questlines, so people don't expect them to have full quests like the others and then get disappointed, or etc. etc.)

Basically, is it better to just focus in specifically on having one fully complete questline? Or for there to be a few stories that are not complete yet, but have more initial options available?

[thats-my-passion-right-there]

I finally saw the mean girls musical (the movie one) I have so many fucking thoughts oh my god

[le-agent-egg]

This is not me hating but is it ok if I ask how come you think THH is badly written?

Don’t worry about it! Personally for me, I really dislike how many of the characters were treated, especially with the first character (how Leon and Sayaka weren’t given proper time to develop, how Makoto in my opinion does seem a bit flat in terms of personality, how the writers killed Leon and Sayaka off first because they were sick of drawing them). The second chapter also irks me with how they treated Toko’s DID and Chihiro’s gender, though I will admit a lot of stuff in game with Mondo and Taka’s relationship was actually pretty well written and honestly really cute. And I think Sakura’s death was honestly (in my opinion) one of the best parts of the game, though this could just be because I love Sakura.

This is just a personal gripe but I feel like post chapter two the game gets almost slow, especially with killing Taka off before he got any development and Celeste’s really weird motive. Plus I wish the fifth trial was just a little more interesting, and that some of the survivors like Hina, Hiro, Byakuya and Toko got a little more time to shine in game. I’m happy they got expanded on in other media, I just wish THH (especially the latter half) wasn’t so Kyoko and Makoto centric.

By no means am I saying THH is completely terrible! Believe me, I love it and I love the characters, I just really wish everyone got expended upon in game more. That’s just my opinion, and obviously I’m missing out on a lot of both good and bad things in this post. (I’m very sleep deprived rn haha) Just to summarize I think it’s writing could have been really improved if everyone got just a bit more screen time!

(I do yap a little more in the tags, mostly just about 1-1 and 1-2)

[raycyel]

Could I interest you all in a crack UT/DR AU that my brain has been cooking up for like 2 years now where the dark worlds are occurring in the underground, Grillby takes Kris' place, and which exists exclusively because I am quietly obsessed with Grillby and needed a way to provide a "logical and realistic" way for Grillby/Swatch to happen?

[deoidesign]

Can you make a tutorial on how you world build and make ocs? I can't seem to make any people in my brain, but then when I try to come up with environments jobs, beliefs and little details to slowly come up with someone, I think: well I don't really know how people have influenced the world- it's a weird loop

To be honest, I don't think I can! Writing is an extremely personal process. The way I write is directly related to how I process things, what I find important in stories, years of my own analysis of my and other's writing, etc... The way you write will be unique to you, as well. But I can explain how I personally think of it.

The short answer:

Write. Write anything and everything, it's a tool to explore your ideas. Analyze your own writing, and write more. Then, as you discover which ideas you want to develop, write more to explore them more. You won't know what you want otherwise!

The long answer:

I think this kind of loop is common. It's easy to feel like everything needs to be done "at once," because our job as writers is to make elements logically fit with each other for our readers. But as you've discovered, developing multiple elements simultaneously isn't really possible, or at least is extremely difficult.

Personally, when I think of writing, I break it into three major elements; characters, world, and plot. As much as possible every scene explores one or more of these, and as much as possible these three things tie back into what I personally consider most important: theme.

Everything I do is in service of the themes I want to present. Without them my events feel aimless. It can take a while to discover them, but they're the core of my work. You will have to discover what you feel is the core of yours. Analyzing other media helps with this too.

Concepts in your brain exist in a state of infinite potential. But when you start writing you have to start making choices, which removes potential as you move forward... But you have to move forward anyways. If there's ideas you want to explore later, you can always explore them later.

What this ends up meaning, to answer your question, is that I don't think of my characters as "people in my brain" or my worlds as something people have influenced... Not at their core, at least. They are tools that I use to represent specific ideas. Obviously they're also my blorbos, but mostly they're serving a specific narrative purpose.

So above all else... Write. Write, and discover what you're writing about, and then start over and write with that in mind. Keep doing this. But you have to write!

[oveliagirlhaditright]

I'm kind of sad that we didn't get the Buffy the Vampire Slayer leprechaun episode that the writers almost accidentally wrote. (Like, I guess Joss Whedon one time joked about wanting a leprechaun episode and the writers legit thought he was serious about it. And they were working on it, researching leprechaun myths and everything, and then he had to tell them that he'd been kidding.)

The closest thing we get to leprechaun in the Buffyverse is probably in the tie-in book (that's actually a "choose your own adventure book") "Colony." Where there seems to be something similar to a leprechaun, that Buffy keeps calling a leprechaun/comparing to a leprechaun. But it's not a leprechaun, because I guess leprechauns don't exist in the Buffyverse (part of me wonders if that was an inside joke about that aforementioned thing, but I have no idea. Probably not?) At least according to this tie-in novel.

[berrymeter]

sometimes i think maybe i'd like to actually write & post my writing on here but then i remember the worldbuilding i was working on needs to be entirely reworked in some parts & it's like. what's the point until i've worked all that out