#you know what never mind this shit

[splinterless]

ABOUT:

😴 sword 🗡️ master 🦚 i will kiss 💋 your boyfriend ❤️‍🔥

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

a couple scribbles i cleaned up. also i think i like drawing him in varying states of distress

[governmentmandatedryujinstan420]

I FORGOT TO THROW OUT AFTER THE EPISODE RELEASED NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[catherine-sketches]

Thinking about Charles Xavier, who is simultaneously aware of everyone but at the same time not because if he was himself to the fullest people find him upsetting and rude and nosy

Thinking about his unshakable sense of morality, right and wrong and justice that he formed at the age of 9 and has kept ever since, with modifications along the years but those core values remain

Thinking about how the overstimulation of a thousand voices in his head drove him to self medicate to the point of nearly addiction

Thinking about how he has difficulty reading people when his power is not in use, ending up saying the worst things without meaning to upset no one

Thinking about how everyone should be “mutant and proud” except Charles over there that is too passing to be a mutant but too weird to be a human and simultaneously his mutation, the way his brain is fucking wired, is too inconvenient for everyone around him mutant and human alike to accept

Charles Xavier they would never make me hate you. You and your autism telepathy

[statementlou]

forgive me if this is too serious for an anon ask.. feel free to ignore it..

but this week shook me in ways i didnt see coming. i wasnt a one direction fan growing up.. tbh im still not, i listen to only a few songs. im same age as louis. so, i found one direction through him.

i have great affection for all of the boys though. and even in my short time in fandom, i've always been surprised and saddened by the bullying liam has gotten.. he just always seemed like a good person with really poor communication skills. to understand his point, you had to give him some space and context.

but this year has been a constant worried watch over liam. it was so plain things were desperate.

stan twitter got to me so bad that i left twitter the day louis' tour ended. so i was very peripherally aware of his recent harassment, but i did worry.

and now the unimaginable has happened, i am just at loss. not just in the sense of how to make sense of this loss, but also the complete lack of empathy for him still? even for other boys' fans.?? after they've seen how all of the boys' are hurting?

and just in the bigger picture.. how is this real? what loving god/higher power/whatver has allowed this to be the state of the world? he was so kind, so generous, just a boy. JUST A BOY. just trying to find a place to fit and feel safe. why was he dealt such cruelty? just while he was pursuing something he loved? something he was gifted with? in life and in death?

im just at loss. heartbreak doesnt even begin to cover it.

for me I've felt it was a constant worried watch over Liam for many years now, but other than that, yeah. It's hard to feel hope or faith in the face of so much senseless cruelty and pointless loss; all I can say is I would hope the millions of people who are shocked and saddened by this take away something lasting both about the fact that there are real people on the other side of the computer screen and cruelty has a real impact, and that addiction can afflict anyone. Nothing can make this other than tragic and regrettable forever; but I would love to see the amazing power of fandom mobilized to support programs for addicts and to fight stereotyping and dismissing of people who use drugs in Liam's name. To see people use this as a realization to really understand that it wasn't strange or exceptional that someone talented and worthwhile could succumb to addiction and ultimately die of it, but rather a plague that our society is allowing to run unchecked because of stigma. IDK, maybe I'm just grasping at straws trying to find something remotely positive that could come out of this situation but what else can you do? It's just so sad.

[cl4ssyjazzy]

I used to always leave a comment on a fic if I saw anything about my interests not being accurately described, but thanks to SVSSS, now whenever I get the urge to correct someone the face of Shen Yuan pops into my head like a ghost of Christmas Past and I avoid being the insufferable "Uuuum.... actually!!" Guy.

[grahamcore]

if you’ve read a metric ton of fanfiction and had your memory of canon retroactively altered you may be entitled to financial compensation

[moongothic]

You know. If Crocodad Real. How would Luffy even react if he found out. Like really, how the fuck would he feel about it.

'Cause like how I went over in this post (briefly at the end), we don't even know how Luffy feels about Crocodile as he is right now, so can you imagine how that bombshell would impact things

Like my running theory is that Luffy still hates Crocodile but maybe not quite as much as pre-Impel Down since he kiiinda owes him etc

And Luffy does not seem to give a shit about blood connections, at least not that much. Like don't get me wrong, Luffy's family are the people who were there for him when he was a child, those are the people he cares about and his bio-parents don't really matter. But also, honestly, I think the reason Luffy doesn't give a shit about who his parents are is because he doesn't know them. Luffy cares about people who he knows and likes, and while he doesn't give a shit about Dragon right now, it's arguably because he simply just doesn't know him. If the two actually get to meet and know each other, like if Luffy takes a liking Dragon, he'll probably accept Dragon as his dad and as his family. But on his own terms. It's up to Luffy to decide

And that's why like. How would Luffy react to finding out he has another dad and that one is fucking Crocodile. Because he already hates the man. It would not be happy news for him I'm sure

The other thing is that normally Luffy does not give a flying fuck about people's sad backstories. He didn't care to hear what happened to Nami and her village for example, because what really mattered was that there was a person he cared about who was deeply hurt and in danger and he wanted to help said person. And that's where I'm so torn. Because on one hand, it would be perfectly on-brand for Luffy to not give a shit of Crocodile had a sob story to tell. But also, I could imagine Luffy being so fucking confused over the news that he'd want to hear the truth of like, who what where how why, in detail. So that, you know, he could make his own decision and figure out if he wants to considder Crocodile is other dad or disown him.

Like, both feel like things Luffy would do

So really, would the real deciding factor might be just... the circumstances where Luffy finds out???

God knows, I can not imagine Crocodile himself telling Luffy anything ever. The kid already hates him, he knows it, so he'd probably think it'd be for the best if Luffy never found out

So how else could Luffy find out then?

As far as we know, the only other person who could confirm it would be Dragon himself, and considdering how he probably feels about his ex (see: Alabasta Coup Attempt), I can't imagine him wanting to talk about Crocodile to Luffy in lenght or in a positive light. Like I can't imagine Dragon wanting to tell Luffy at all is the point, not unless he wanted to like apologize to Luffy because it is arguably his fault Luffy and Crocodile fought in Alabasta to near-death to begin with. (Sidenote since we don't know how the break-up happened to begin with, it's totally possible Crocodile could've asked Dragon to never let their kid find out what happened to his "mom")

And now, this is where I'm gonna go completely off the rails, but. As I was wondering if there was any other way Luffy could find out...

S-Croc is made with Crocodile's DNA.

(And actually before I even go into S-Croc, super quick sidenote: If Kuma can extract memories out of people and allow other people to literally see them... Like I can't tell if Kuma's memories got absorbed by Bonney when she looked into them or if Kuma's Memory Bubble is still on Egghead, but if viewing the memories isn't the same as having them inserted into a vessel permanently... Like if Kuma isn't turbo-dead, could there be a scenario where we have Kuma (or S-Bear) yeet out Croc's memories and have Luffy just look into them? Because god knows Crocodile might just refuse to speak about it and that could be the only way to get The Whole Truth if Dragon doesn't want to talk about it either?) (Of course, Crocodile would understand just How Persistent Luffy is so if Luffy just kept on annoying him about it, Crocodile could maybe give up eventually because he knows he can't get Luffy to piss off until he spills the beans)

So currently the Strawhat's plan is for them to go and escort the Vegapunks to Elbaf (if nothing goes funny after the flashback is over, which remains to be seen)

2. There is the mystery of what sex S-Croc is going to be, because there is a possibility that if Crocodile is trans then his Seraphim could be pre-T (though this entirely depends on whether or not Ivankov's HRT changes even the DNA of person. Since it's MAGIC HRT I would prefer it to, not gonna lie, and I would not appreciate any "you may look different but your DNA will tell the truth!" rhetoric in the story but I may be asking too much from Oda)

3. And there's also the mystery of what Devil Fruit ability S-Croc might have, since all the Seraphim have been given Fruit powers, and we know Vegapunk can't replicate Crocodile's Sand Logia.

All things considdered, I think the actual, most likely known ability S-Croc might end up with would be like, Mr 3's wax powers (hilariously), mainly because I could imagine it being flexible enough to work in Crocodile's fighting style, so it'd be the easiest for S-Croc to adapt to (like if you can make anything from wax, then why not sharp blades to fling at people) (Also we know Vegapunk would have access to this power since Mr 3 was in Impel Down, when they also got Daz' powers)

But also I had joked before how it'd be funny if S-Croc was a Crocodile Zoan for no reason. Like it'd be fitting since Crocodile was already the Only Logia of the OG Shichibukai, so making his Seraphim the Only Zoan would be funny as hell (if it's even possible, which we can't say if it will/won't be). Additionally, making him a Crocodile Zoan would be hysterically on-the-nose.

(Sidenote: If there was a crocodile Zoan Fruit, what sub-category do you think it'd fall into? Like would it be Ryu Ryu like all the dinosaur-themed Zoans are, or maybe even a different model of Uo Uo (same as Kaidou)? Since "wani" could be considdered a different type of serpent-dragon, and if Vegapunk was researching how to recreate Kaidou's fruit, it's plausible he might've accidentally recreated some other related-fruit in the process or afterwards?? (Also since Kaidou's Uo Uo is a specific model (Seiryu) it would make sense if there was another Uo Uo model Fruit, and this could be an excelent opportunity to use it))

The thing about Zoans though is that, as it's been brought up once or twice before, Zoan fruits can kind of have a "mind of their own" and influence the user in unexpected ways.

And as all we Crocodad Truthers know.

Crocodiles are protective of their babies.

ALSO: The Seraphim do have enough personal will-power that they may (slightly) disobey orders they've been given. Case-and-point, S-Snake undoing the Petrification on the Strawhats after Luffy asked her to, since S-Snake is fond of Luffy just like Hancock is

Sidenote, it was kind of made a point how Vegapunk considdered his artificial replica of Kaidou's dragon fruit a compete failure simply because instead of a blue dragon, the user would turn into a pink one instead. So if Vegapunk tried to make a Seraphim of Crocodile, knowing full-well he couldn't even give the Seraphim the same ability as the OG, and then the Seraphim turns out the wrong sex for no reason?? I could see him being confused as hell and considder S-Croc "a failed Seraphim"

So really, all we'd really need to happen would be for the Strawhats to somehow encounter the remaining three Seraphim while escorting the Vegapunks to Elbaf. Mind you, IDK how that could even happen since as far as we know they've been deployed the Emptee Bluffs

And then just have S-Croc either disobey orders to hunt Luffy or even even have him be protective of Luffy (following that Zoan Instinct, one even he can't explain, it's just Instinct). Have Sanji be like "hey why the fuck is this one a girl, isn't it supposed to be Crocodile", followed by Vegapunk explaining this Seraphim was a failure for reasons even he can't understand

Then have Jinbei remember the conversation Crocodile and Ivankov had at Impel Down (suspicious considdering Ivankov's abilities and this "failed Seraphim"), and maybe if Crocodile had any involvement with the Revolutionaries and Robin was suspicious of him she could even bring that up

Along with any other minor details that may be bothering the crew about the whole deal

And so if the Strawhats and Vegapunk just put all their braincells together and rubbed them real hard, they could maybe come to a hypothesis as to why S-Croc is a "failure" and protective of Luffy, and maybe even a potential explanation as to why The Real Crocodile was protective of Luffy in Marineford for no fucking reason

And maybe, just maybe, Vegapunk could confirm that suspicion with a DNA test. All he needs to do is check Luffy's and compare it to Crocodile's.

Not sure Luffy would want to do the DNA test, like knowing Luffy he might prefer to just ask Crocodile in person if they ever ran to each other again

But boy, if he somehow did agree to a DNA test, and there was a match... oh boy

But again. This entire scenario is BEYOND off-the-rails. Technically plausible! But honestly if Luffy is ever gonna find out (assuming Crocodad Real) then it's gonna be from Dragon

I just wanted to get the theoretical scenario out of my system okay, I had to get the brainworms out of my brain

[imminent-danger-came]

The 1x00 AHiB -> 4x06 glowup

[dead-core]

craving validation from exactly the wrong person. slay

[crows-of-buckets]

Just remembered there's not gonna be any guides when Veilguard drops... My actions are actually gonna have consequences this is terrifying

[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.

[crystalchimera]

Originally posted July 29 on Twitter/X.

A sketch that got out of hand

Also!!! Here's some never before seen stuff about this since I remembered. This sketch was actually planned to be a full body pic but I didn't like how it was going so I just quickly slapped some colors on the upper body cause that was the only part of I liked LOL

There's also this sketch which is on the same canvas. You could say this was the original sketch before I redraw it

I actually forgot this doodle existed until I decided to poke around in the layers LOL

[frankiebirds]

REID AND SEAVER GOING TO GET INDIAN FOOD TOGETHER AT THE END OF 6X24,,,,hear me out

[legallybrunettedotcom]

i try to avoid going into the comment section of any social media post ever, but sometimes i love torturing myself and you encounter lots of stupid takes from people who think they're smart but you also encounter people who truly seem like today is their first day on earth. literally shaking and crying typing out a comment on a recipe post "can i use this similar ingredient instead of the one you used? i have allergies." no you can't i'm sorry you're just gonna have to choke. and also "can i make this very specific meal but change literally everything about it? can i turn water into wine would that be okay?" "where did you buy this very plain very basic white tshirt pleaseeeee i need to know or i'm gonna perish." do you hear yourself? do you have free will?

[the-holy-ghosted]

*putting on a moustache and sunglasses*

So like what’s the deal with ghosted what’s that about

now see the deal with Ghosted is that it's not what happens within the events of the film that captivates me so much, though don't get me wrong i love this film to bits, but rather, it's the idea of what happens after the whole thing that makes me FUCKING NUTS

because the whole thing is relatively cut and dry in the sense that we don't have to guess about what happened before and we don't have to guess about how everybody is feeling in the present. we know (MOST) important characters backgrounds and what they're doing at Falkhill and slowly revealing Paul's context was pretty interesting if not a little abrupt at the end there but its the very last scene of this film down to the very frame that flips the whole hour and a half you just watched over on its head and prevents me from getting a good night's sleep because i can't stop thinking about it

ELABORATING WITH A LOT OF SPOILERS UNDER THIS

explaining the plot of this movie is hard without sounding like im writing a pretentious review and not just talking out of my ass on tumblr but for my followers who haven't watched this movie and dont care enough to: Ghosted (2011) is set in a british prison in which Jack (John Lynch) is a long time prisoner who's wife just dumped him apparently on the anniversary of their sons death (tough break) and is being advised by his friend and cellmate Ahmed (Art Malik) (who does NOT get HALF as much screen-time or plot relevance as he DESERVES,) to find something to put his mind to and be proud of outside of his failures Paul (Martin Compston) is a prisoner who was just transferred out of a Young Offenders prison AS FAR AS WE'RE TOLD... though its noticeable from the beginning that hes not a very good liar and his story is suspicious at best Clay (Craig Parkinson) is kindof The Guy of their prison wing whos dealing drugs to other prisoners and assumes the position of authority over everybody else, though compared to other inmates with bigger cliques, his foundations are shaky. the description of this film on letterboxd calls him "the wing beast" and i have never cried laughing so hard reading something in my life

Clay and Jack both hone in on Paul immediately for different reasons. Jack, after his pep talk with Ahmed, sees Paul as a source of "a little self belief, something to be proud of", but Clay scoops him under his wing for being relatively young and impressionable. This puts Jack and Clay at odds with each other. after some plot, Paul gets into very big trouble with Clay and after An Incident is promptly plopped into Jacks hands, who had requested Paul move into his cell earlier but didn't have a good enough excuse for it. Well You've Got A Bloody Good Reason Now ect ect

Jack and Paul buddy up immediately and its noticable that Paul is sort of filling in the empty space where a son would be for Jack, however we discover that Paul has been lying about his past to everybody, including Jack. he lied about his family and he lied about having only just been transferred from Y.O. and hadn't been telling the whole truth about his sentence. what the truth ends up being, in a nutshell, is that Paul is accidentally responsible for the death of Jack's son, having been the one who started the house fire he died in (we were never even told that Jack's son died in a house fire before this, we are only told this in Paul's flashback at the end of the movie and are supposed to act, like, surprised?? whatever). consequentially, Jack flips his lid and prompts my personal favorite scene in this film in which he beats the living shit out of Paul with his bare hands and immediately regrets it the second the adrenaline wears off, hitting an alarm button within the cell that alerts the guards.

the guards whisk him away and he is put in solitary confinement, which we find out was actually the first sequence of the film where hes shown with an absurdly long beard, and considering every other fucking scene he's in is of him shaving his face, i assume this is to show just how long he's been kept in solitary confinement, which quite honestly was kindof exciting to realize at the end of the film.

and then. the end scene.

after solitary, Jack is put in cuffs and brought to see Paul who looked Extremely Dead after Jack had him, but hes not dead! just almost dead. Jack is sat next to him and tries to apologize but starts to cry, reaching out a hand to hold Paul's but retracting it regretfully. Paul, having looked unconscious not five seconds before, moves his hand to place it over Jack's...

and then the movie ends. and i am left writhing on my floor in anguish BUT NOT BEFORE I EXPLAIN TO YOU THAT THIS

THIS is what the deal is with Ghosted

the pathetic gestures of "im sorry" and "its okay" are what kill me. sorry is nowhere near enough to justify anything that EITHER of them did, NOR should they be forgiven. AND YET.

and what gets my gears going is the thought of what everything looks like AFTER this scene. after they've bonded so close and after Jack already thought that Paul stopped lying to him, thinking that he could protect Paul from Clay now... after they started to fill the spaces for people they were missing in their lives... and after they've RUINED each others lives. They Have Ruined Each Others Lives and yet Paul probably would have had to DELIBERATELY ASK for them to bring Jack to see him because he just BEAT Paul within an INCH of his life and would NOT !! have brought Jack to see him upon Jack's own request!! Paul would have wanted to see him too!! after all this what does their relationship look like now... the image of father and son has been all but shattered in each other's eyes, one can assume, but are they still close... does the guilt and responsibility drift them apart or does it pull them inseparably together? Ahmed tells Jack that "there is no such thing as coincidence, only fate" but what does their fate look like... does it end here or does it mean that they're together indefinitely? the end of this film swings the door wide open and i think about it. way too often. unacceptably often, even.

all in all theres no reason that this should be my favorite film but it is. if nothing else it's made me look into the other actors involved and branch out with a to-watch list as long as my arm that will only get longer once i branch out from there. is it the perfect movie? no this film is mediocre at best. have i made a number of my friends sit down and watch it and listen to me yell incoherently about it? of course i have.