#it wasnt just the dog

[dandelion-roots]

[ID: a digital comic in two panels featuring bungou stray dogs characters. the first shows atsushi banging open a door and shouting, dazai-san! are you oka- the second shows a shot from the anime where chuuya is holding dazai against a wall by his neck. the text reads, homoerotic atmosphere, and four squares with text point out whats happening. they read, casual hand in pocket, chokehold, knife, and lastly um... followed by two sweat drops pointing at chuuya's knee between dazai's legs. a tiny panel in the corner shows atsushi covering his eyes with his tiger paws and blushing as he says, i'm sorry... end ID]

come here. crack open the canon with me for a minute. consider. what if atsushi hadn't listened to everyone telling him dazai would be fine and left to save him only to witness whatever the fuck was going on in that cellar. consider the bit.

[anna-scribbles]

they should've been at the club(infertility treatment centers)

[liecanthrope]

wait because seriously being an adult therian fucking rips, especially when you start being independent.

dog with a blog? nah. dog with a JOB. i come into work with my tail and my theta delta necklace and the building implodes from my sheer swag. weirdo teenagers love me. also having your own paycheck means you can get whatever gear/treats you want (once bills are paid, of course - bet youve never heard a dog say that!)

living in your own apartment? well the pet limit is 2 but if i include myself im going over the limit. whoops! good thing i love lying to landlords (fuck landlords). living alone (no roomie) is even better bc theres no one to judge you for your animal habits. i can make a huge den in the living room and who is going to stop me?

i even have my own health insurance. bro. imagine being a dog with medicaid. im climbing the walls and howling and barking. i love being a dog filling out government paperwork.

having your own vehicle? THIS DOG CAN DRIVE! if i feel like going to the lake i can just go to the lake! nobody is stopping me! midnight ride with the windows down to howl at the moon? yes please!!

you can literally just go wherever bro. i moved 11 hours from my hometown to the mountains to feel more at home. i lived in the great plains and now i can just go out for a hike in the rockies and howl at the sky.

being an adult therian slaps so fucking hard i cant wait for the youth to grow up and experience the joy of freedom. yes being an adult is incredibly stressful but if youve been stifled living with family, you get a real chance to develop who you truly are. adult therians i love you im rubbing against your neck and mixing our scents. mwah.

[huggywuggysuppy]

Pearl went “I’m gonna go kill Gem” and then followed her around, asked her if she hates her, tried to defend herself and insist they’re cool, got told pretty much “I’ll be happy once we kill each other, so we wont make up till the end of those season,” spent too long in denial until Gem spelled it out, asked if they could make up now in a 1v1, immediately took it back after Gem just stared at her, let her walk away unchallenged, then wallowed in despair until SKIZZ of all people got the kill on Gem.

[frobby]

Yukio doesn't realize rin was lonely because he was key contributor to said loneliness

[loafbud]

here's Borzuette, my take on if Dachsbun evolved!

the more i looked at my initial design, i wanted to redesign it + update the art for it. its looks a bit more like a borzoi dog + its fur now resembles lightly baked, buttered bread that's ultra fluffy on the inside

[lucabyte]

hello

is this how your peopls work. i am obsessed with your comics and the panel layout and the way they react to eachother and sdgafkhgfdhsagfha s i very desperately need to have a grasp on how you see them in their dynamic and interacting and i feel like i don't know as much about how isabeau and loop be interacting but i am so so so so SO curious as to how that goes and how they feel about eachother pre-"i'm a former siffrin" and post-"ok you know who i am"

oh hell yeah a diagram we love a diagram

but yeah i'd say you've gotten my interpretation of the dynamic down pretty solid??

in general i think my instinct with loop-isabeau interactions is a lot tamer/calmer than others ive seen, my reasoning for why being hmm... i think i can note my core 'things im keeping in mind from the text' here

isabeau's line in act 6 remarking that loop seemed 'shy'. for all of loop's bravado @ siffrin (and thus the player's pov), they are still siffrin, so while it can be easy to percieve them as this loud bombastic personality-- there is this textual reminder that them acting this way is probably due in part to being up against siffrin, someone who won't speak unless spoken to (and thus loop takes the initiative, and is also presumably reveling a bit in making them uncomfortable and annoyed, inkeeping with their self-hatred and self-flaggellation) this to me reads as a reminder that they'd probably retreat into their shell hard when presented with other people- the party included. so even if i can see them trying to undermine their relationships with others, i think it's probably more on the insidious 'insulting siffrin to make the party protective of them' side, because that also feeds into 'proving' that the party only cares about one siffrin and that loop can be replaced. meanwhile isabeau has shown that, even with a vicious jealous streak, he can mostly keep a lid on it. he's the most emotionally intelligent of the group, and would probably be able to suss out loop's self-harm-via-getting-people-pissed-off-at-them gambit relatively simply given how obvious it is. also isabeau is not immune to insecurity-- and would probably let loop take some precidence over their relationship with siffrin because 'well i cant compete with the guy who actually went through All Of The Timeloop With Them.' because like... damn how are you supposed to do that. loop understands their pain better than isa ever could, and it would show in their fucked up unspoken understanding of each other (because how is Isa to know thats because theyre the same guy, and not just because the timeloop traumabonded the fuckers baddddly. which it also did.).

timeloop stressful as fuck. absolutely has both of them on tenterhooks the whole time. we visibly see how it affects siffrin (despondance & mania & aggression), and we see SAPfrin be very. very very despondant. so it would seem to me that loop is basically in a perpetual state of mania, given how sif's internal monologue begins to resemble their way of speaking (with the tee hees and such) when they are clearly broaching into manic states. one can assume that if you take loop out of the Torment Nexus, while they probably wouldn't faire well, all of the tension and pressure that's holding them up would collapse, likely putting them more depressive again by default? Of note, whenever i write loop's dialogue (which im told i do well? i will be honest i kind of feel like that's far too high praise.) i initially write it as very blunt and pissed off-- and will afterwards go back in and Maybe change wording to be more 'silly', but mostly i just add tildes~, italics, exclamation points and laughter to the pissed off dialogue without changing the actual content of it?

loop likes their friends! They are fucked up in the head about it (badly!!!) but they like their friends! They still care a lot, and can barely even hide it a little bit with their aloofness in game. it feels redundant to even try pointing out where they slip up because its everywhereee. They de-person their Actors because theyre the same lines over and over and over, but you see in SAP alone how any break from the script makes them overwhelmed with emotion, and how devastated they are if that deviation occurs a second time and becomes predictable (dying to the king after triggering the requisites for the true end, forcing you to go through it again). BUT!! You take their friends out of the timeloop and let them be New Unpredictable People again? I genuinely find it hard to believe mx siffrin "i love my friends so much id explode the world about it" nolastname would be able to see that and just go "nope im emotionally disconnected i can keep being a bitch to these guys forever". like no theyre gonna slip into being at least neutral no matter what. even if it's in a quiet depressive state when the mania wears off.

my biggest deviation from frequently observed fandom things here i think: i think loop doesn't actually believe that ISAT!Party are 'replacements'. they rarely if ever word a sentiment like this. this is something the fandom goes for because the horror of being replaced wholesale probably WOULD make it easier to cope if you considered those people to Not Be Your Real Friends. But loops WHOLE act 6 spiel? 'THEY WERE MINE FIRST. I LOVED THEM'? (paraphrased) they obviously desperately want to be with them again, and know they're the same people. The Fighter/Defender discrepancy clue is mostly metatext here-- since Loop never acknowledges the defender title-- just calling ISAT!Isa Fighter-- because they are the same guy. Your Fighter. They even call them Fighter in the "You got memory of X, your Fighter will now..." dialogues! Which are practically system dialogues! So. they see these isabeaus as the same. And while I would not put it past them to come up with the "they are different, my party is Dead" thing to Cope... I do think it is a delusion, plain and simple, and that I think any post-knowing-the-truth party would probably shut down weird rituals ive seen the fandom propose (often in a cute way??? it makes me feel insane?? like the concept of loop 'memorialising' their 'dead' family is not cute its nuts. they are being nuts. its like actively feeding into an extremely maladaptive coping mechanism. sorry this is like a massive sidebar but like. Yes i do think this is something loop might do if left unchecked. but it should not be presented as sane or rational? it outright undermines the themes of the game to treat the concept of 'Loop's party' being 'dead' as 'True'?? There's like several points in the game where Loop and Siffrin express that things that happened in the loops Still Happened even if the party dont recall it-- which is why their actions-- being cruel or doing 'experiments' still hold weight and can be Wrong. That it's tragic that the party will never remember but that their forgetting is NOT a pass to do whatever with no consequnce (experiment, bad touch, etc). It follows that by Nixing all of "loop's party", treating them as seperate, in some way implies loop's memories are Lesser and what they did "doesn't matter as much", which is antithetical on account of being contradictory to however you take the stated theme. PLUS... The game and Paratext are clear that there is One Timeline. SAP is in the same contiguous space as ISAT-- it is effectively just that on the loop between SAP and ISAT that we the audience dont see-- loop ate that star and when the loop restarted there were two of them. for all intents and purposes one can intuit that Loop 0 of isat and SAPfrin's first loop are legitimately identical from sif's POV, as Loop does not reveal themselves until Loop 1. BUT YEAH GIANT SIDEBAR OVER. THIS WHOLE READ OF THE TEXT INFORMS MY THOUGHTS RE: ISALOOP AND RELATED CONCEPTS VERY GREATLY)

jesus christ i wrote a lot in the above um. sorry. i dont know if its intelligable. uh. good luck?

im also on team 'orrery book and sif's thoughts about it belie a real deep-seated brainworm' re: their response to a Cautionary Tale About How You Will Inevitably Kill Your Double seemingly being "Nah, we'd be besties."... like. i do think it is. funny. and not particularly Unbased. Given how they are. For siffrin and loop to specifically be compelled by how they are the same guy. And i think that there's a lot to be mined from 'Both of them are convinced that the party knowing who loop is would fuck up everything badly, so they're going to great lengths to conseal this' played in tandem with '... they are like. very much explicitly doing things together that are directly related to a feeling of shared ownership over siffrin's body and form & the fact they are The Same Guy'. like it is a hysterical setup to me and i think is only added to when you have to put Isabeau in the middle of this polycule also. With the few exceptions of times ive drawn stuff specifically hinging on characters Knowing Who Loop Is (which is like. all bonnie-centric stuff so far? i think?), i take a lot of care to try and make their exchanges Vague as if they are worried about being overheard or saying something that's too much of a smoking gun. But also it's really god damn funny to think about how concerning some of those things could sound the vaguer you make them. Remember that above all i live and die by The Bit. (... as do they.) ie basically because im powered by The Bit thats why i focus more on the sloop side because its like. actively Funnier and more drama filled. or at least presents oppertunities for such. i feel like on isabeaus side here its kinda frequently like

yknow ? (oh god my formatting is broken now) . i DO very much think it can become like. niceys. of course. i think they can just be normal fucking throuple eventually (though if i'm going that goddamn far into the future u may as well partycule the fuckers 2 me. by the time theyve solved whatever the fuck you call pre-reveal isiloops i think odile has gotten involved at the very least. but this is why i mostly keep myself to the realm of 'the mostly immediate post-game conflict' stuff since i think all these characters leave off the end of the game with such solid springboards for arcs set up (clearly intentionally) that the infinite realm of possibilities opens up too wide for me to be comfortable with.) anyway i keep thinking about the tragicomedy of isabeau finally finding an "in" to nurture a friendly bond with loop by comisserating and steeling themselves for changing again even though it feels like a betrayal of their previous actions/beliefs and how fucking funny the idea of 'loop reveal but theyre like 2 weeks into using she/they' is. just like you get all the way through the horrors of 'oh jesus christ the timeloop was even worse than we thought it was' but now '.. d. do you still . what pronouns do you want?' is tacked onto the end. Sorry did you hear something . must've been the wind. anyway . this ask is a fucking mess i hope its readable like at all . can you tell ive been brainscramblied for six weeks

TL;DR:

yeaghj you got it. its not like im doing anything revolutionary im just trying to stick as close as i can do what i percieve the characterisation is in canon & thus generally dont tie down any of my fanwork to specific post-canon-plot-concepts. its all just nebulous extrapolation set 'pretty close to the end of the game because i think these characters are going to grow and change extremely rapidly once the game is over given how they're all intentionally poised for character arcs when the game ends'. but also you should put isabeau in the worst social bind of all time with two of the most mentally unwell BPD OCD havers youve ever seen and let him try to figure out the balance of 'be gentle' and 'treat them like the almost-30-year-old adult they literally are' while he also balances his own set of entire life changes it'll be fine he'll be fine (someone should probably check on him)

[lbhslefttiddie]

immediately she regretted asking

[ihopeicanchangethislater05]

wilson's ties in every episode: 

Season 2 Episode 15: Clueless i have a confession to make, wilson in a tie is not the hottest thing ive ever seen. ITS ACTUALLY WILSON IN A UNTIED TIE AROUND HIS NECK

1/2

2/2

[robotgutzz]

Hello world. Today i come bearing a gift : nearly full resolution picture of the founders. Ripped from steam, this bad boy has all sorts of cool little details for anyone psychotic enough to find them - which I am.

To include: drumroll, if you will,: Feldspar smiling. Its a detail that gets covered up by the harsh shadows in game. Also, they have some very cool scars. I love this picture of the founders - it makes me crazy and helps me understand the characters on a much more individual level, and i hope this helps you all, too! Be it for reference, or just pure indulgence.

[beesorcery]

welcome to my new ongoing graphic design project post because the old post was getting a little bit long! i am recreating this t shirt design:

with the 8 ball songs instead of the city names! here is the most recent iteration, updated through 3/15 (orlando):

[kaurwreck]

have yall ever noticed in osamu dazai's entrance exam that ranpo cuts to the heart of dazai within moments of meeting him, weighs him against the feather in his gaze, decides it neither too heavy nor light, and then says, simply, unfeignedly, deliberately, "Oh, that's nice. Anyway, welcome to the Agency."

and dazai, despite smoothing himself shapeless under ranpo's scrutiny, is rattled, slipping aside his noh mask to self-soothe by asking kunikida about ranpo's skill. because the radio static crackling along his spine can't be the sensation that he's been caught, or ranpo would have renounced or redressed or recoiled from the snake in his home— so it must be no longer human, buzzing and frustrating such and such skill ranpo set on him, and this placidity is a facade to save face. ranpo couldn't have seen what dazai didn't deign to show him, however much the thought briefly excites dazai.

except then kunikida explains that ranpo's skill is to deduce the truth of a case just by looking at it, and dazai is momentarily stunned, the static roaring in his drums as muscle memory swallows piqued yearning and spits bitter incredulity. even if there were a skill that could crack him apart to out the pluck meat that might reassure him he's made of flesh beneath the chitin, there is no exception to his nullification.

even as the blackened grief encroaches like ennui around dazai's edges, ranpo is calling them, promising them the answer they asked for, and no more than that much. he asks dazai for his glasses (the glasses precious to him, typically on his person, but in that moment, somewhere else), and dazai is coaxed by his curiosity and ranpo's beckon.

and because dazai is still a pitiable creature prone to wanting, he leans towards the taunting lure and takes it between his fingers while holding his breath to brace against the certain-to-be-crushing disappointment.

and instead, substantiation brokering little argument. ranpo can deduce the truth by looking at it. and as dazai's own discernment reverse engineers ranpo's conclusion, he finds no fault in it.

dazai's rhapsody enlivens him in the car with Kunikida, the well of him overflowing with the salvific implications that moments prior he was pinned, writhing in place, by someone sincerely seeing him, who was satiated by enough substance to then look away, who wasn't the least surprised to see wriggling, living flesh in the shape of him.

dazai's so beside himself that when kunikida remarks that he's never seen dazai marvel over someone else's skills like that before, dazai scarcely lies to him when he says lots of things take him by surprise, like when he tried to pick up a clam with his chopsticks, and it was still alive, startling him.

kunikida, who also notices more than he's given any credit for, dismisses dazai's third perspective, depersonalized, dehumanized, and disassociated clam metaphor, and says: "You seemed taken aback that someone had the ability to see and know all."

to which dazai responds with the same seamless and subtly mean spirited deflection he tends towards whenever he's suddenly feeling vulnerable.

but yes, he is taken aback. it's worldview shattering, not unlike when chuuya incited him, or oda shrugged at him, or when kunikida would, later, see a lock without any key (a climax without any hope) and create one himself.

ranpo saw him, saw who he'd been, and said, with prejudice: "Anyway, welcome to the Agency."

because I didn't until a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't stopped thinking about it.

[arkiwii]

cw-ex-8 is giving me rabbies and it's not even the challenge mode

[dandelion-roots]

[ID: a digital drawing of chuuya and dazai from bungou stray dogs. in the main image, dazai is sitting on a metal counter in a nurse's office, his arms behind him to support him and knees spread so that chuuya can clean his wounds. he has bandages and scars on his arms and bare torso and is wearing white pants and white shoes. with a bored expression he says, hurry up. chuuya, who's opening a green bottle and is standing in front of the counter, shouts, wait a fucking minute, asshole, i'm not your damn nurse! in a smaller follow-up panel dazai shouts, you shot me! and chuuya is looking away while sweating and shouting back, you were being a shit. end ID]

the price of engaging in homoeroticism via shooting you 'old friend' THREE FUCKING TIMES more than necessary is, um... *checks notes* having to patch him up five minutes later whilst staring at his bare chest and then having to set his leg, thus literally putting him back on his feet to do his dramatic victory reveal??? this can't be right who wrote this

[skeletalheartattack]

sure man

[a-chaotic-dumbass]

when a character is themed after a wolf and their family is likened to a pack and their children r referenced as young and little wolves and cubs and and AND