Haven't Paid Theory-grade Attention To The Plot, But How About Just… Talking Him Out Of It? 1) There

>#poison is unfair to the reader because it requires them a knowledge of chemistry And i still find the "oh i can stop my heart on command" bit ridiculous. It doesn't work that way, as control over it is part of autonomic nervous system/too mission-critical for manual control, so to speak. In other words: within BSD universe it's perfectly legit, and this 'legitness' is a tool that can be fired at maximum drama. But i like your version better~

I don’t think that Dazai and Fyodor are really poisoned. Dazai would probably know about a poison that could kill  him in 30 minutes but didn’t seem to know it, it wasn’t said that it was a poison made by a gifted, and there was no chemical name or even street name given. Not to mention the fact that it has an antidote and is an injection, and would take thirty minutes before killing them with seemingly no symptoms until then. Injections normally work really fast, or at least puts people in pain quickly before killing them. Poisons with antidotes are really rare. And the most important part of this theory?

We don’t know how long Dazai has actually been poisoned for.

When the time stopping gifted is killed, Dazai says the signals just stopped. He was continuously receiving signals with time pausing. For all we know, he’s  been poisoned longer than thirty minutes by now, and is still experiencing no symptoms. He and Fyodor have effectively been poisoned for different lengths of time, and Dazai doesn’t seem worse off. I think that they’re not poisoned, and they both know it.

Now what would Nikolai’s plan be with this?

Well, the antidote being the real poison feels like the exact kind of chaotic bullshit he would pull.

the darling Glaze “anti-ai” watermarking system is a grift that stole code/violated GPL license (that the creator admits to). It uses the same exact technology as Stable Diffusion. It’s not going to protect you from LORAs (smaller models that imitate a certain style, character, or concept)

An invisible watermark is never going to work. “De-glazing” training images is as easy as running it through a denoising upscaler. If someone really wanted to make a LORA of your art, Glaze and Nightshade are not going to stop them.

If you really want to protect your art from being used as positive training data, use a proper, obnoxious watermark, with your username/website, with “do not use” plastered everywhere. Then, at the very least, it’ll be used as a negative training image instead (telling the model “don’t imitate this”).

There is never a guarantee your art hasn’t been scraped and used to train a model. Training sets aren’t commonly public. Once you share your art online, you don’t know every person who has seen it, saved it, or drawn inspiration from it. Similarly, you can’t name every influence and inspiration that has affected your art.

I suggest that anti-AI art people get used to the fact that sharing art means letting go of the fear of being copied. Nothing is truly original. Artists have always copied each other, and now programmers copy artists.

Capitalists, meanwhile, are excited that they can pay less for “less labor”. Automation and technology is an excuse to undermine and cheapen human labor—if you work in the entertainment industry, it’s adapt AI, quicken your workflow, or lose your job because you’re less productive. This is not a new phenomenon.

You should be mad at management. You should unionize and demand that your labor is compensated fairly.

carmen as nyarla with boobs: their function is roughly the same, tho in early Personas nyarlathotep targets specific people as part of their game with philemon, who would be… ayin? uh.

does that mean qliphoth deterrence works on personas

manifesting personas as weapons/suits

peccatulums ranking as cannon fodder oppositions in palaces distortion-spaces, does that mean that they can also manifest from thin air?

re: reloads; they don't really match to the 'embodiment of self/desires' so probably not. That said: then Head cracks down hard on them for unpatented/untaxed ammo production

negotiations, but steamlined into MD event setups. and to add to that - REMOVING SMT FROM PERSONA

shadow-possession (P1?/P2/P4) as a full-blown distortion

finally handling jungs "overpowered by their own persona" - with a distortion, naturally

pls elaborate about the sufficent velocity thing

Persona and Project Moon crossover things

because we need more persona project moon crossover stuff hot dang

the well and the sea of souls are like. if they aren't the same thing, they're right next to each other. joker has a fusion accident and ends up with mountain of smiling bodies instead of legion.

give me a plucky teenager who summons One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds as their starter persona.

NETZACH QUEST IN PERSONA 3 IT FITS SO MUCH DAMN (if you're a Sufficient Velocity person you know what i'm talking about)

Post Persona 5 bad ending AU where after getting absolutely wiped from existence, the PT wake up in The City. It's just the logical conclusion to that bad end, where no one is free and only thinks about surviving to the next day. No one hopes, no one dreams, no one believes in anything. The strong crush the weak, the weak gang up on the weaker, and the cycle goes on and on and on. Literally their worst case scenario nightmare.

On that note, Carmen and crew really saw the Fall of Humanity and went "I can fix them!" (they could not)

Considering The Library is made of Light, which is like, concentrated enlightenment and hope, I think Morgana would be drawn to it (and then they all get booked lmao)

Carmen's Palace. Just in general. If she even has one; it's not that her desires aren't distorted, it's that SHE IS THE DISTORTED/ING DESIRE INCARNATE-

Joker manages to capture an Abnormality as a Persona somehow. Shenanigans ensue.

Speaking of shenanigans, considering the way the mind manifests in The City, I wonder if the PT's guns would do that thing they do in Royal where they automatically reload after a fight. On that note, I feel like that trick would fail against higher level humans since their augments likely let them see past the fakeness

JOKER 👏 AND 👏 AKECHI 👏 GONE 👏ANGELS 👏 ANI 👏MATIC👏 YOU 👏 COWARDS 👏👏👏/lh

add more if you like, i would love to discuss further

TL;DR plans are useless but planning is indespensable (Eisenhower)

i think you're bedazzled by the smoke and mirrors characters are pulling on each other.

Dostoy and deathtouch: now we know dostoy gets part of his host's ability. If you were in his shoes, why wouldn't you fuck around with it for maximum confusion? He is an international terrorist, and so benefits for multiple conflicting reports about what he can do. As for deathtouch thing: he was already using the thing in his introduction, so why not have more 'ammo' on hand? + i suspect it's NOT how Dazai explains it (having ridicious control over Hawthorne's ablity Because Reasons), but because his then-host had roughly that ability. Besides, way back when speculation about dostoy's plot armor churned, there were people going "bailed out by yet-unknown party", so that's always on the table. He planned to die in Meursault, but Nikolai was a suprise - without him, Yokohama Airport Battlefield crew would eventually reach Bram (as set up by Fukuchi as planned by Dostoy), who is already pretty depressed and so would be willing to divulge pulling out Soluz Levni would kill him. How does he know about this? Most likely Fukuchi (of HD) told him way back he was impaled upon it, i.e. keikaku goes brrr. As additional incentive, Bram does mention not wanting to create vampires - so if that's not persuasive feel free to season with psychological torture to taste.

Dostoy pulled Mushitarou out of Seventh Agency's cell. Because Ango set it up, HG had no knowledge of it. As for "why not just shoot [Dazai]"? The only answer that makes sense IMO is "because he's a terrible simp". How did he know Mushi's the one responsible? this is the part where being Old As Fuck + Rats (spies) in every corner + character established as hackerman more or less covers it. Once more, this isn't something that requires some specific goal in mind - you'd kind of want to keep a database of evidence-destroying ability users (both the govt and dostoy), and Seventh Agency has to be keeping it's records of which user is suppressing what, if only for blackmail purposes.

>how can Fyodor expect to be killed by a vampire to become Bram??? How does this make sense if he did not know that Gogol would plan this at all?

he didn't. As Dazai put it: "this is why he was so desperate - if he died by poison it wouldn't work". So! From Dostoy's perspective Meursault was already infested by vampires. Fukuchi was controlling them the entire time. This part of the plan was most likely presented to Fukuchi as "and then you take over Meursault so i can have tea and give orders to the outside so that everything will go smoothly" - to prompt him to go hell naw, guaranteeing Fukuchi will take over Meursault with vampires, to keep an eye on him/make sure to vamp any underlings that might already be planted there. But with Nikolai, this becomes: - step 1: win (naturally) - step 2: grab the antidote (and it is the antidote because if Nikolai wanted him dead he 1) done so already 2) wouldn't have done so by proxy to prove Dostoy is just victim 617) and leave (cold and wet and whiny lel) - step 3: inject the antidote and wait for Bram to assume direct control -> keikaku flows back to the main plot (also: this always synces him to events in Yokohama. No matter what, he will be yeeted to the part where anyone from the agency is talking to Bram, so Soluz Levni should be nearby*). If that doesn't happen during the ride, then simply find another vamp. He had plenty of time to research Dracula. - step 4: ??? - step 5: JACKPOT

alright, enough squeeing.

re: baying for blood: i wanted to spring this vid on BSD fandom, congratulations!

YouTube

Harlan Ellison interview | Science Fiction Writer | Good Afternoon | 1976

Two extracts from a fascinating interview with celebrated and controversial author Harlan Ellison. In these extracts noted journalist Mavis

but also, frame flip: it's well established by this point that the manga's gimmick is that noone relevant dies, ever. Why this bothers you? Why there have to be stakes, beyond mere enablers for character interaction and growth (and fanfics, and getting people to read IS Asagiri's agenda…)? Aren't you curious what side effects of surviving would the characters have, if they survived? Also: outside of full reality rewrite, the global stance on ability users will change for the worse. With reality rewrite you still have everyone remembering what they did do during The NotApocalypse(tm) which at the very least will lead to revealing existence of ability users to the general populace.

re: criticism 3: there has been an entire hivemind of fangirls percolating all the cherry-picked intel other characters were not privy to.

re: critisism 4: you got me there, starting from "wdym Fukuchi has a sign for 'there will be a war in twenty(?) years'". ….the thing is, technically each time Fukuchi sees the sign and passes it to the past, the timeline in which he did so ultimately ceases to be, as the main-plot-Fukuchi immediately goes to save the world. In other words, there are three states here: initial timeline, in which Dostoyevsky, through any and all means (lazy answer: raw persuation/whatever he did to Goncharov/YOLO with page and time travel) makes Fukuchi write a mark in the past using Amenogozen. So how does the sword work into this? ch87p23 suggests Fukuchi had the sword throughout the war. To make it easy on planning and to foreshadow possible future revelations, both Sigma and Tokoyami island could have been created by Dostoy using a different page, earlier in time. Why the meatgrinder island? to pull gacha for traumatized war vets + make ability users look like a threat to the public. And he got Fukuchi, with a very OP combo of his own and desperate need for hope and to (possibly) reframe his experiences as necessary to shape him into someone who will do what is needed to prevent even greater evils for all future generations and blah blah blah (there is even an advantage to taking the blame - everyone wants Dostoy dead which while inconvinient would also make fighting Fukumon very hard on morale)

That is the boring version. The deranged version - or rather, yolo with time travel - is that Sigma was written on this page, meaning: he assisted in stealing the page from which he would be written into. Given that page stops working only for parts that paradox themselves out of it's text (i.e. only 40% of the police force listened to Ranpo, instead of being an all-or-nothing affair), it would mean he keeps existing at least until the loop loses the last opportunity to close itself. This is how Dostoy could get to use Sigma before DoA arc itself (the bit with a church in the middle of a desert NOT being set in roughly-now, but in the past, as a bamboozle from Asagiri). Then it's just the matter of spotting a circumstance where Fukuchi would ask something predictable of Sigma. Then all they would need is a brush at the same time Sigma answers his question (if Sigma ends up being suspicious they're just going to detain him cause intel ability good), presumably after some light mentalism (read: a full-blown Production) for Fukuchi to form a coherent design in his head, so to speak. After that point, Dostoy through Sigma should have enough knowledge to make a sufficently educated guess for it to work.

re: poison injection: i still do not get why he didn't just close & flood the corridor soukoku was in, just to be sure/because why not. I guess this is our evidence for Dostoy being sufficently cocksure to play along. Besides, what other moves he had? Dazai is right there.

re: long-term BSD: Fyodor -> Christie -> book endgame? like, does the big picture have to be forseeable to be amusing?

*while he should have the momentum to find it out of sheer element of surprise, THIS is the real #improvise

You know what? Im going to vent about how annoyed I am abt bsd atm and put it in the tags bcuz I also want to debate it. I enjoy bsd but I am struggling to understand what exactly Asagiri is trying to do here esp when this arc is so long that the arc itself has mini arcs in it.

If anyone reads this I would love, LOVE to discuss this because I am yanking my hair in frusteration

I am putting it under a cut so that ppl who dont want to see criticism abt bsd dont have to see it

Am i being an asshole? Yes

Am i going to warn ppl before hand and remind them that they can curate their internet experience by simply not reading something that is going to criticize something they love? And the block button exists for a reason???????Also yes

That being said i dont often go off about things i dont like about media i enjoy because well i understand everything i like has pros and cons

Also i still read bsd bcuz there r other things i DO like about it

Anywayssss

The thing that is bothering me about bsd is that I dont think I can tell what any character is doing EVER. Perhaps thats just my taste and I like having some idea of whats going to happen.

The characters arcs are excellent, their actions make sense for the personalities that they have yes.

The problem i do have w bsd is that the characters are apparently constantly always somehow predicting whats going on

How in the goddamn world do you expect me to believe that Fyodor let Dazai see him kill someone through touch so that Dazai would come up w a plan like Mersault? Fyodor didn’t expect Dazai to catch him at the end of the whole virus thing so like how is that enough time for him to find a way to kill that guard by just touching his hand? Why do that unless you planned the Mersault fake death from the start?

I forget but didn’t the Hunting Dogs get Mushitaro to bring up Dazai’s crimes to get Dazai into Mersault? Was this all to get Dazai away from the agency? Extremely likely but that tells me Fyodor planned to fake his death from the star(again) WHICH IN TURN MEANS HE HAD TO HAVE FKING KNOWN SO MUCH AHEAD OF TIME which only makes sense if he had access to some type of future telling ability because some characters actions WERE random eg: below

If Gogol randomly decided to break Fyodor out of Mersault with his race against death game, how can Fyodor expect to be killed by a vampire to become Bram??? How does this make sense if he did not know that Gogol would plan this at all?

There is the panel of Fyodor fallin through the Mersault room correctly as he says its time to escape so maybe he knew Gogol would that? HOW if Gogol just came up with that plan without any of Fyodor’s input?? Alright then maybe he was acting so Dazai won’t catch on but even then how was he expecting to die so that he can become Bram?? What was his alternate plan?

Alright maybe he simply predicted Gogol to do that which I think is a bit sad for Gogol since I think his whole character arc is about how he doesn’t want to be shackled by anything and I would argue being manipulated by someone is a shackle

Criticism 2: the fact absolutely no one of importance has died in bsd manga except for in the light novels(i am including Odasaku in this) please PLEASE correct me if I missed a death

Im not counting Fukuchi as dead because jury’s still out on that given the whole thing w God!Fukuchi/Amenogozen

Esp as we have Dead Apple where whats his names ability outlived him and i think also in 55 minutes

Because well, how do you expect me to take any of the stakes in this manga seriously if no one of name dies ever, I would not have this issue if death wasnt faked out as many times as it has

Maybe Bram will actually stay dead but I doubt it

The fact Kunikida was killed this chapter just tells me that yet again, death is not a serious consequence in this manga. Esp as the book has not been used yet. Even fking HP Lovecraft is alive ffs.

If Kunikida stays dead I will HAPPILY eat my words and state that Asagiri is a master writer for fooling my reading of bsd that well.( i am obviously not saying only my interpretation of bsd is correct so pls dont come at me)

Criticism 3: why didn’t Dazai literally just kill off Fyodor w Chuuya once they got Sigma to get the info from Fyodor

I understand thats a much more author did that because thats what the writing needed and characters are only as intelligent as the story needs so … fineeeee thats on me

Criticism 4: the whole Amenogozen thing about how the war isn’t real

How can Fyodor fake the sign on the wall unless he knew what sign meant world ending to Fukuchi???

Not sure if this is a criticism but if Chuuya was sent by Mori…how did Fyodor expect him to show up? Unless Fyodor and Mori discussed that earlier together in which case Mori is doing an excellent job at pretending like he’s not inleague with Fyodor

This plan of Fyodor’s to become Bram is just so batshit insane and so reliant on people doing random things at the right time eg: Gogol and the death game, Chuuya not being used to kill Fyodor in any form, Sigma not waking up in time to warn the agency, Dazai not fking shooting Fyodor w a gun

Imagine if Gogol’s poison succeeded then well ig Fyodor would just stay in his body since he injected the poison in his own veins which hey doesn’t that mean there was no risk of Fyodor dying in that game? I am likely wrong but it is kinda funny

Unrelated but wow tumblr does NOT want to make writing this on mobile easy bruh

I think the reason I’m so frusterated with this is that bsd is so unpredictable that for me it feels like its going beyond the suspension of disbelief i have

Its breaking the intelligence scale that they set with Fyodor, Dazai and Ranpo that it feels too much to believe

My other issue is I dont know what the whole long term thing w BSD is, and I am a bit tired of that. That might be my personal taste where I like to know what kind of ending or long term things I hope to see in a series but this is a bit too absured for me which might be the point

If anyone reads this entire nonsensical essay you have my respect

it drags levels down to level 15 and then you have to complete combat nodes to level up. So I was forced to face a level 30 power enhanced boss with two levels 15 characters.

as first i was like: "wtf is this even beatable after all the changes" then tl;dr 6 turns with base sinners+F2P ego, ergo skill issue. rant is going to be of questionable nature, but i'm hoping to make an example out of Bongy on how to problemsolve the shit out of bosses/harder content.

we get an item at the start. You spooked me, so i reloaded once for Eclipse of Scarlet Moths. Coffee and Cranes (which is OP, always.) or whatever is synergistic with your team (event items say rupture/burn/bind/haste) should work too - just keep in mind the pool ego gifts through this dungeon is small and lust-heavy. Ended up picking up the latter and Helterfly's Dream (and its' taking wrath dmg for the rest of the dungeon), for no good reason, lel.

teambuilding: during the event i remember caving in and taking sous-chef gregor (why ppl do not think he's ridiciously good for abno fights is beyond me). But as per tradition, base units+F2P ego. Since we have been yeeted out of the dungeon, checking the moveset is fine. Not sure if the game shows you this after you fail. Chickens are weak to lust+envy, so 3 with lust (Ryoshu, DonQ, Heathcliff) + Hong Lu b/c Entertainment + Faust b/c Emitter. Entertainment proved useless, but base Hong Lu is still really good dps of the feast-and-famine subflavor. Emitter proved only moderately useful. The actual goodstuff, as per usual, were Faust's s2 s3 debuffs. s1 still a joke. Alternatively/additionally: fish for units that have slash/blunt resist/lust or wrath resist+ on EGO. Regardless if you actually go for these on purpose, you want to know this, so if it's down to the wire you'll know who can facetank… …is what should be done for MAXIMUM SWEATING ENGAGE, but with F2P i do that on 2nd try ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ …just decided DonQ gonna be the emergency tank, since Sancho heals.

oldschool MD: taking both event nodes as they are OP as fuck (Marinade!). then usual: ? > minifights > crossed swords > abnos. I thought you keep all sins between combat nodes, but apparently they're halved. No matter, we're farming for emitter/bodysack/sancho spam. Other surprise: it keeps resetting the movegain order. There are no pitstops, so sweaty readjusting it is. (Started with Ryoshu on 1st b/c poise, then went 'duh, need pride'/sloth crew for fast Entertainment to 45, as usual with base Hong Lu. Ignored tremor.) It turned out you get a few level ups to 30, so i just slapped them on dps (Heathcliff -> Hong Lu -> DonQ), so when Headchickens came, these units clashed and the rest did 1-sided. Order ended up like that as in old MD you could level up as a heal of sorts.

actual boss:

heals per chicken so body is not the priority

drains sp per chicken so spawns are more important (hoarded resources -> Emitter if needed)

fragile after breaking a part -> restated that boss hp isn't actually relevant

move that spawns units on-hit -> will use it once units are cleared, and is THE key skill to win clash with - all else can be facetanked

wikia says bucket is breakable-for-realsies AND is the part that spawns, so that's where 1sideds should go

as abno nodes show, spawns themselves are irrelevant as long as they do not attack someone a +% dmg modifier

other than that, best practices apply:

onesided with s1 unless Reasons (Faust kept Bongy (bucket)'s atk down)

AoE EGOs aimed so that other shots go to other units. New lookup is jankier for the aware, but iirc bucket has target weight 2, so will eat 2 shots (outside of the primary target they go front-to-back)

keeping s1 on bottom track for replacing

prognosis for 1coin vs multicoin is ALWAYS a lie

onesided paralyze et al to force later attacks to clash favorably

if you know a sinner is going to Eat Shit due to outspeed reasons you can try forcing a stagger before it happens

to further persuade you into drinking this raw ambrosia of wisdom:

Eyeballing it it looks like <80% to win, but plugging it into a calc says it's 13%! DonQ still proved great, Haste on clash win is real

'if it's irrelevant why do you mention it' you may ask. 'you'll thank me later.' is how i answer.

When I finally beat hard mode chicken I am going to guzzle a pitcher of tea over that fucks corpse. Like I do like the idea of one move being able to summon minions combined with being a minion focused enemy. It's just the funny level systems means that two of the sinners can't roll high enough to actually stop any moves and that's shit.

nikolai and strong wind -> there is a helicopter outside (and well he's outside too) pleased into displeased -> didn't know the world is ending? YOSANO WHO CAN GAME THE GAME? dostoy way too amused, and talking to someone -> sigma, letting him go? which would match with nikolai being pleased sigma didn't die/has real intel, but also: that he's joining ADA? ALSO ALSO ALSO HE HAS ANSWERSSSSSS (wait i forgot. did fukuchi seriously break apart the most OP combo on the board? instead of having the superior other fuku die to exsanguination?)

season 5 ep 11 preview is out ohmygoddd Fukuzawa is aliveee guyss!!! But they haven't shown anything related to soukoku...? WTH?? there's not even a glimpse of either chuuya or Dazai or what is gonna happen to them....well Nikolai is back so ig Sigma is saved...?

BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR SOUKOKU!???!!!!? THEY CAN'T DO THIS, WE'VE BEEN SUFFERING FOR A ENTIRE WEEK, THEY CAN'T JUST NOT SHOW ANYTHING REGARDING SOUKOKU AND LEAVE US ON A CLIFFHANGER TO SUFFER MOREE!!!

omg please atleast just show that Dazai is alive, god please!!

@analytical-machine:

i have this feeling it's about feeding mayoi on schedule. and also dumbing down the plot so ppl won't think about it deeply

@postcardorigami:

i dunno yknow like i want to believe it isn’t malicious but also with how they’ve done everything so far i just can’t help but feel like it is just a little bit coming out of some sort of dislike if not for the series then certainly for the people that are making it—like shrek being a punishment for the prince of egypt folks or something

to the second point i mean like it already has an audience from the manga and from previous anime seasons, so they’re not really taking that big of a risk with making it—what’s riskier is putting it out in a way that is so blatantly different from the source material and with the actual quality of what they ARE doing being so reduced even from previous seasons, and the only justification i can think of for that is if they don’t care or even actively dislike the series

The thing is glorious manga master race would watch the anime, no matter what. We see this in action right now. Therefore, the goal is to lure in the unaware - for which quality isn't actually needed as long as costs are recouped, but also - if someone watches the anime they have no reason to read the manga, b/c there is legit so much to consume. So if they imbibe a 'good enough' anime, it will not rewire their brains (consider: for BSD, classlit counts as extra materials. Can't profit off that - ex. NLH entered public domain relatively recently).

Moreover, i've been watching Monster on and off on the side and the anime is slow, visuals obviously old but aged well, just… has slow, low-to-no animation moments that give it a feel of being adapted literally panel-by-panel. Meanwhile, i jumped ship to manga after s1 and the biggest reason was… I was consistently distracted by the 'aha, this animation repeats to pad out the episode', 'this animation brings absolutely nothing to the plot, why is it there?'. Comparing it to respective manga parts makes it even worse, because in retrospect manga at the same time rushes and pads out. Like, you could just have some manga panels that are fundamentally stills with some voiceover and it would work. When you track what gets cut & what gets added - they remove the quiet moments (the sort that let the viewer ponder on the events before you're given next plot beat), and add meaningless animation loops that are the equivalent of jangling keys. If the logic behind them is to add levity to a serious plot - why?

Humor in a serious plot also has it's own pacing (read: to tactically control tension, not just to add whenever convenient), and it's existence in the 'core' plot completely changes the tone, especially when combined with wan! which, acts as a palate-cleanser - but one outside of the flow of the main chain of events, thus not changing the read of them.

so, they didn't have to do ＡＮＹ of this. But they did. Who benefits? hence, option 1: churn for BSD mayoi. All yu-gi-oh animes move(d?) in tandem with card releases with episode quality swinging hard, so we absolutely have a precedent. option 2: noticable dislike for the source === malicious actions. We have a precedent - Firefly TV show. consider who exactly has the decisionmaking power here, what demographic: the kind that would not see spicy takes on mental health (did the anime get to the point where who should be framed as a deuteragonist just straight-up hallucinates? and the 'camera's eye' doesn't give a shit?). And what about unsubtle anti-war messaging? Yosano on the main cast, Fukuchi being a Metal Gear Solid refugee? But at the same time, aren't Hunting Dogs baaaasically military? quick check on wiki says is a rabbit hole, but the intended point stands: you just can't win with these characters. Plus moral ambiguity and noticable grayness implictly make it a harder sell for 'all audiences' (read: squeaky clean)

So, you force everything to be scheduled too fast, too quickly, too soon - using the excuse of (1) to cover for (2). (#1, and the terribad norms of the industry)

aaaand that's how you get away with murder *jazz hands*

the thing about this current season and the egregious errors, issues, etc. within it is that realistically none of this had to happen—i think it’s pretty obvious that not only on top of studio bones’ already apparent and seemingly deep-rooted disdain for the source material and specific crucial characters with immense impact on not only the plot but also on the development of the actual protagonist, the season is also incredibly rushed, and it didn’t need to be

season four came out only a few months ago. it would have been reasonable—and honestly it would have been expected—that bones wait at least another year to work on season 5 and develop the chapters covered here a little more, so that not only could they present a cleaner, better-paced, and more emotionally impactful product, but that they also would give the manga more time to finish this current arc so that if they did choose not to adapt anything afterwards, they could at least close out this part of the story on a halfway acceptable note

it’s not just disrespectful to the fans and asagiri/harukawa (my god, what they’ve done to harukawa’s beautiful art style should be considered a crime), but it’s frankly a poor reflection upon themselves, too, that they’ve pushed this season so quickly after the most recent one, seemingly without care for what it’s reception may be by the people who want to see the story done justice

not even about Fitzgerald later popping back up again for Eyes of God, because EoG was introduced more-or-less just before being used vs Dostoy. But here's the thing: in that spot instead of Fitzgerald we could have introduced another character who is as dead-set on Agency's innocence (instead of him 'betting on the winning side') and the maneuvers wouldn't change. But because of Bungou Special there was a route to reuse a not-dead character. That Odasaku looms over the plot so hard is imo signaling how much impact a death should have. And i can't help but be reminded of an interview with the writer Harlan Ellison, in which he goes on at length how tv made violence palpable for mass consumption and death cheap - exhibit A: this thread.

Re: Incongruent details: the saddest thing is that all it took was some extra moves to get from point A to B, the same way fanfic writers can make characters do anything as long as the setup for them changing in the desired direction is there. Like okay, hand injury isn't there but in the anime shoulder injury looked like a graze, but in the manga it was sold harder. So instead of forcing it with a retcon which due to anime is even more obvious (fr we probably wouldn't even notice), roll with the punches and swipe theories go "actually the gunshot is more disabling"/"a wild Yosano (PM medic would also work but that would require preestablishing) appears!" and route to the same outcome.

Like, it's impossible to control one's heartbeat and i will never forget that one scanlation group did the math on "a chair dropped from the Sky Casino would be like a bomb" and proved Asagiri can't do physics. We're already past point of giving a shit to these inaccuracies - but on top of mentioned the results of retcons go against the themes of the story.

Not disagreeing. Commiserating. It's not that we're having a Boring Invincible Hero on our hands, it's that he gets to expouse absurdism and how everything is unpredictable and random happenstance. Dazai Eating Shit and recovering while Dostoy runs out of fallbacks because he never had any: works better. The canon wants to be this, but Dazai was waaaaaay to much zest to sell how he didn't do shit b/c he couldn't do shit. Behavior flip of Dostoy can be read both as 'this is how he's actually like' and 'absolutely tired and fed up with this shit'. That Dazai lacks anything similar makes things worse. ....at this rate we will, in fact, disassemble how this storytelling fails.

Like, imagine we're doing play-by-play from the anime, but instead of heli crash undoubtedly caused by Dostoy trying and failing to wrest the controls not matter how doomed, while we watch it happen from the outside directly after 'you need to control everything' bit... we're watching it happen from inside of the helicopter, POV'd as a One Desperate Vampirized Guard vs Global Terrorist, Demon of the North. Sure, the steel pike (while we're at it: why.) kind of throws a wrench in the framing, but. The result would look less like Dazai mindgaming Dostoy into anime outcome instead of waiting for the poison to off him something something controlling every variable; i did mention 'if they're even poisoned' but as characters, they should know. It would look more like the unpredictable action of an ally (Ranpo->Bram or just the guard themselves having to sit there and listen to this shitshow). Bonus points for both favoring relevancy of non-ability users and 'desperate people are the strongest' bit... because it ain't happening.

Side note on main(?): you mentioning the plan implies Nikolai would expect it to work; him not thinking that creates a cool foil as 200% improvisation guy - but that's limited by options at your disposal. Maybe it's just extra wriggle room in case two anime geniuses do something too ridiculous to predict. Maybe he even it's a fallback in case the ability is resurrection.

Or just 'why not' (also: the contrivance of him being in the right place at a right time implies he was told what would happen after his death): Dostoy's captured, Nikolai is considered dead, there is some time to grab the guy that produces fun reactions. ....in fact, Sigma would cover how Nikolai knows about everything in Meursault. yes yes Overcoat is OP but this does bolster the setup.

Oh wow…so the BSD anime ending wasn’t an anime-only original after all, because it looks like the manga just followed suit.

What a shame. The manga ending is just as terrible as the anime’s and we’re right back in the same place we were a couple months ago. I really can’t hide my negativity about this because this storytelling decision makes everything feel like a letdown anticlimax.

The cope has run out. Really I’m just super upset that Fyodor is still going to die in the most contrived and embarrassing way possible while Sigma lays dead on the floor and Dazai makes his obligatory “actually there was no danger or emotional stakes all along and I pulled this plan out of my ass” speech. Yet again, Dazai acts as a convenient narrative crutch for whenever Asagiri needs to get out of a corner and culminates an anticipated confrontation in the most typical way imaginable.

BSD really is full of so many twists and surprises! Every time I think the plot is going to culminate in something meaningful, I am let down by a barrage of contrived nonsense! Asagiri is truly a genius of storytelling! Who cares about emotions and relationships between characters when you can just say SIKE! And reveal that it was an elaborate ruse all along, ruining the tension and making the buildup to that moment effectively meaningless!

Hey, at least the manga has better art though. The story might’ve sucked, but at least all of the characters looked good while sucking.

Heathcliff ID Sin Analysis

Woo, first post, and its about Heathcliff. Alright straight to the point. Its as the title says, this is a Sin Analysis on all of Heathcliff’s IDs. This was made awhile ago before R Corp. Meursault was revealed. And yes, that does somewhat have something to do with R Corp. Heath. Anyway, this was made using @lu-is-not-ok‘s guide to Sin Analysis….mainly because its much more in-depth than what I could have done on my own. This doesn’t include any E.G.O. because my brain can only do so much. But here it is, my official Heathcliff ID Sin Analysis and how R Corp. Heath has the weirdest Sin affinities when looking at the ID in this light.

LCB Sinner Heathcliff

Envy - Heathcliff’s whole thing is Revenge. His bat has Revenge written on it, clearly showing that getting revenge is his thing. This sin showcases that he wants to get revenge on someone, something or multiple people/things. Due to him being a backstreets kid, he most likely wants revenge on the rich, though its also possible, he wants revenge on whatever got him into his position as a Sinner. This is unlikely to be Catherine due to his last sin affinity.

Wrath - Wrath is about as obvious as Envy. Heathcliff was born in the backstreets and grew up there. His Wrath is his want to defy the rich and prove that even those born in the backstreets can be as good as them, similar to Rodion.

Lust - Lust once again, is obvious. In all honesty, base Heathcliff has pretty basic and obvious sin affinities. The reason that Heathcliff has a Lust sin affinity is due to his want to be with Catherine again.

N Corp. Kleinhammer Heathcliff

Envy - N Corp. Heathcliff’s version of Envy can be seen in two ways. First is the same as Base Heathcliff. He wants to get revenge on the rich for being a backstreets kid. The other is a sort of distorted want for revenge against those with prosthetics. This would fall in line with N Corps. Ideals, but this also falls in line with another N Corp. ID, N Corp. Faust. NFaust also has envy as one of her sins. N Corp. Faust seemingly has no reason to want revenge on anything, but she could want a form of retribution against those with prosthetics, making N Corp. Heathcliff have the same reasoning behind his Envy sin affinity.

Gloom - N Corp. Heathcliff’s Gloom sin affinity represents his past. This version of Heathcliff seems to be much more sad and depressed than most of Heathcliff’s IDs. This is due to both the events that led to his separation with Catherine and his current situation, that being his brainwashing at N Corps. hands. He actively fights against the brainwashing but is slowly failing, as seen through multiple of his voice lines and dialogue.

Lust - Lust for N Corp. Heathcliff would actually be the same as Base Heathcliff. It represents his want and desire to return to Catherine. He directly calls out to them on his Death and even mentions in his Extra Conditions dialogue, that if he keeps this up he will be able to go back one day, almost certainly meaning his want to be with Catherine again.

Shi Association South Section 5 Heathcliff

Lust - Shi Heathcliff is interesting as he shares all the same sin affinities as Base Heathcliff but reversed. Lust for Shi Heathcliff seems to represent his Lust for combat and death, similar to Ryoshu. He doesn’t seem to have any desire to be with Catherine again, if this version of him ever met or was with them in the first place.

Wrath - Shi Heathcliff’s version of Wrath could represent that he doesn’t really like how the Shi operate. He prefers getting personal with his kills and gets bored with the typical fast kills. He would rather do his own thing than actually be an assassin.

Envy - Shi Heathcliff still has a bit of his Revenge attributes in him. He mentions how he will make another Shi member pay for having slept through their alarm. This shows that this aspect of him still exists but to a much lesser degree than his other IDs. Its likely that Shi Heathcliff is still a backstreets kid but it isnt made clear if he wants the same revenge on the rich as his Base ID does.

R Corp. 4th Pack Rabbit Heathcliff

Wrath - Wrath is interesting for R Corp. Heathcliff, as it almost seems to be the opposite of him. He doesn’t care about doing anything other than fight, which is exactly what he exists for as a R Corp. soldier. He likes what he does so its interesting that he has a sin that represents defiance.

Gluttony - Gluttony in context of R Corp. Heathcliff is similar to Lust for Shi Heathcliff. They both want more combat, they want to fight and kill more enemies. R Corp. Heathcliff is a soldier, his existence is combat, even more so due to him most likely being one of R Corps. Clone soldiers.

Envy - Envy is also interesting for R Corp. Heathcliff. Due to him most likely being a clone, he shouldn’t have any reason to want revenge or retribution for anything done to him. He almost certainly doesn’t want to be with Catherine and definitely doesn’t even know who they are. He has everything he wants or cares about. 

Its interesting that R Corp. Heathcliff has two sin affinities that seem to go against his existence. Maybe this is an example of our version of a sinner bleeding into a mirror worlds version, meaning that R Corp. Heathcliff’s version of Wrath and Envy are actually Base Heathcliff’s.

Addendum: 7/11/23 - Since originally writing this, R Corp. Meursault has been revealed, and through his trailer, a pseudo-confirmation that the R Corp. IDs are indeed clones…….which brings in so many other questions when it comes to them, but does make what i said about RHeathcliff, his sin affinities and him being a clone a bit more concrete……it makes it more confusing that he has these affinities since hes a clone and doesnt/shouldnt care about things the other Heath IDs do.

Lobotomy E.G.O::Sunshower Heathcliff

Envy - Envy for Sunshower Heathcliff represents his disdain for Technology. As a member of the Technology Liberation Alliance, he wishes to “liberate” all technology and return to a time before it. But he doesn’t seem to truly care about this.

Gloom - Gloom is easy to understand for Sunshower Heathcliff. All of his friends have died in some way. He doesn’t have anyone and is alone. He roamed the backstreets before joining the TLA and currently does. Its also possible that parts of his sadness are brought about by his E.G.O equipment, as he mentions having cold and dark feelings rush into him when he first put on the E.G.O equipment.

Sloth - Sloth is also easy. Sunshower Heathcliff mentions sleep and sleeping a lot. He is constantly thinking about falling asleep or finding some dark alleyway to stay in, away from everything and everyone else. He doesn’t truly care about anything other than sleeping, after the death of his friends.

We need to sing about mental health.

take a sad song and make it better

(trigger warnings: depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide, anorexia, chronic pain, drug abuse, gender norms, anything and everything mental health related. Don’t read this unless you’re willing to be offended.)

Keep reading