Also: Isn't It Super Sus That An Island Just Suddenly Appeared AND Had Enough Strategic Importance To

i don't think it's even about proper deaths, but how contrived it is. By making it contrived, it signals hard it's fake. Remember when Fitzgerald fell off Moby Dick? You could legit write him out of the plot and it would have the same impact as Pushkin being caught/imprisoned.

That characters don't die is a strength of the manga when it plays to these strengths. Because this way, they get to have character development. What does it mean for Fitzgerald to lose everything AND LIVE? Have a less bourgie life, after being so filthy rich? Having to face his wife knowing he Dun Goof'd Bad? That the local government isn't pursuing him for… everything? If this wasn't more-or-less a rehash of an old SKK plan, this means they get to sit down. And talk. About the drowning bit, and the sappy speeches. Way too many gunshots. Suegiku shippers could go brr (harder). also it kind of reinforces Q's existence - if they're like that, why are they being kept alive? With everyone else not dying it flies under the radar.

And yeah the entire thing resolved too cleanly which undercuts the whole 'didn't plan this, just left it to my allies'. Doing so would mean they inevitably fuck up, even if the grand scheme turns out k. If we were into prowrestling i'm sure we would be able to phrase/explain better how it's the pace or whatever.

Also: multiple retcons re wounds during Meursault. i would 100% taken an inexplicable contrivance sheer-dumb-luck surviving a falling elevator if that meant Rehab. Instead we get: magically appearing hand wound - which anime sold so hard (and well) it looked like a split timeline, magically disappearing [long list of injuries] - like even if the leg is fine, what about the major blood loss AND the gunshot wounds AND everything else, assuming they're actually poisoned? all fixed in 20mins, despite the prison being built like a Humanoid Containment Site? even with Ango feeding Chuuya map of the place and all the codes, and security keycard(s), dafuq? Too many things are stacking to be like "as long as you have more than 1hp, you are ready to go!" this isn't "whelp we messed up on moon phase that has no real bearing on reader perception, correction next chapter".

pondering on fitz makes me think - a lot is unstated relying on the readers not being idiots but when it DOES get explained it turns out it's a tossup if it's shittier than rabid theories. i am dead certain BSD is a scheme to get people to read/write, and boyyyy salt and spite are Motivators, but there are limits.

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.

these could be 'tumors' that spawn as byproducts of enkephalin box farming/spawned from careless storage thereof, as fitting bases that self-destruct - and else why would Carmen's anything be in LobCorp branches, but through all the looping in that game, they're never brought to attention in the main one?

…we know, as per Mephistopheles eating live/freshly dead people, that eveyone has a bit of cogito in them. What if people start producing golden boughts from themselves, instead of the usual pipeline? they would then make it easier for others to distort. …now how do you make it a chain/runaway reaction for maximum capacity for casualities…

False Apple has another, much less spicy angle to the 'it's deception on meta-layer'. It's a boss that has a second form distinct from the 1st one, including a namechange. Absolutely noone notices on the 1st go, because we're too genre savvy not to expect something with more teeth than "gimmick: boss with regen", even if the tutorial nature of it would overshadow that the regen doesn't have numbers big enough to have ever threatened the player. The 2nd form also sort of changes the bosses' strategy, such as it is: self-heal starts as passive healing+clash numbers so the player could be lured into doing 1-sideds into a clashed tile and hope they can out-attrition it… but the 2nd form has it's healing on it's attacks, and is simply more aggro with it's attrition aspect - instead of shields to stall it's bleed, to which we just don't have outs, nevermind on release.

do you see how easy it is to snowball with this shit???

that's why we love it, yes?

re: the forbidden fruit: it does come up in the theme tune, to the tune of this topic!

Stole from the tree’s hands A regretter’s friend — the forbidden fruit I bite off the skin Chewing on its tender flesh Quaff down its lukewarm pus

once more, flesh of an apple <=> flesh of a person. …which routes back to Burrowing Heaven and it's fruits. But then… why are the fruits forbidden? Surely we're not suddenly feeling shy about cannibalism? We have District 23 which is fine with it… because the city is fine with it… when flipped, it would make the fruit forbidden because it's made of people. When flipped, that would mean 'to not use people as means to an end, but as ends in an of themselves' aka. Kant's "Formula of Humanity". …a stable distortion as in 'one that paints the world in their own colors, ignoring the others' vs Effloresced EGO, which does not? Kali defending others, Vergilius wanting to raze the city, Dongrang wanting to kill the past?

tbh i think there would be some ground gained by splitting up comparing humans to plants, and to inanimate objects. Plants look inanimate, but are not. Have You Become Strong turns people into toy robots. My Form Empties covers/turns it's host into a statue. In both cases they're objectified, but most plant-like examples presented are mostly just vibing. It's the robots and the murti and the tourbot and the clay dolls that aggressively exist at you. (also, sidenote? in Canto 1 that ex-L corp employee pretended to be one to not die). Inquisitors seem somewhere inbetween, being both meaty and in your face - but also, wikia says the feral ones are turned Kleinhammers (and mechanically it takes a bit for them to 'wake up'), snake ones are (more brainwashed/fanatical) 'greater' Mittelhammers start aggro and then kind of… undulate with their Instinct stacks.

Everything There corrosions (lesser Mittelhammers) are somewhere between, starting with some Instinct that gets removed when they take damage (skillsets have no block/dodge). Like sure it gives them buffs, but then since player will read to focus-fire them why not just have them start at 0 Instincts + base stats up + lower trigger on behavior change + more buffs per instinct stack. …actually no that doesn't make for engaging gameplay, how do you keep getting past 'Because Good Game Design, That's Why'?! …so in a way, wouldn't some kind of objective of some party be 'to turn clay of the city into people'? re: Golden Boughs: specifically, even if the objective isn't replacing the current world with some other version, whoever (->Dante) we feed enough Boughs can become a God of the City? If rewriting reality is just what Boughs can be used for, isn't literally every objective that uses them also include destroying whatever they're overwriting? and thus, i'm not quite sure if old Dante getting beheaded (ha) is quite on par of with sinners having one continuous line between their past selves and their current selves. Even if we pull Alchemy of the Self motif on it and all that but… something about this just doesn't gel. The city still has influence over new Dante which flavor-wise makes sense to be less important than friendly interacting with Sinners on roughly equal ground, but also? that's not now we're solving either Gacha Eternity nor The City as a metaphor for South Korea. The goal will not succeed for meta reasons. But the goal was never new Dante's, and thus lessening/abandoning it will fit neatly into the above. …split the Bough's power between the sinners which dilutes the impact?

Stuck in Heaven (ego gift: Late-bloomer's Tattoo) has been grinding my gears for a while now. It has an idea - and a clear one at that - but i can't figure out what it *is*. Wiki has the event transcript. Pls send help

Alright, back to my proper analyses, and... *cracks knuckles* Oh this one's gonna be fun. I want to say that since this one won't need to get into E.G.O analysis, then this post will be a bit shorter than my other full-length analyses...

But. You know how it is with me. For all I know this one might end up ridiculously long anyway. Also, uh, spoilers for Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina ahead.

So, before we can talk about Stuck in Heaven, we need to talk about the other Abnormality it's directly related to - The Burrowing Heaven.

The Burrowing Heaven debuted in Lobotomy Corporation, but later made a return in Library of Ruina as one of the Abnormality Battles. For the sake of completion, I will be taking a look at both of its appearances in the series.

In its original appearance, Burrowing Heaven takes on the form of a tree-like entity, made up of a fleshy material, with branches that seperate into wing-like shapes and many eyes.

Its main mechanics in Lobotomy Corporation is that the Abnormality needs to be on-screen to prevent it from breaching and teleporting away once it does breach. This mechanic is reflected in a lot of flavor text about it, most directly in the description of its E.G.O Gear, which includes the sentence "Just contain it in your sight."

Burrowing Heaven's story further expands on this idea. The Abnormality is repeatedly said to "live inside your eyes/gaze", to feed on the attention and focus others give it by looking at it. However, the moment one looks away for too long, it begins to stretch the stalks of its wings for two reasons - one, to gather corpses as food for the fruit it bears; two, to reach towards the sky and sun, as if to cover it up.

Religious imagery and symbolism is used all over for this Abnormality. From the act of stretching its limbs being compared to praying to an old-forgotten god, to its wings reaching the skies being compared to an angel, to the action of it growing its thorns and burrowing being described as for the purpose of "reaching heaven inside one's vision".

Now, there's a very interesting part of Burrowing Heaven's story in LobCorp that I want to point out. Usually, when those stories are said in first person, it's either through the use of "we" (to reflect the company/employees writing those down as a whole), or with the passage being specified as either some testimony or log or otherwise being quoted.

However... That's not the case here. For Burrowing Heaven, there is a whole section in its story written in first person, with no clear note of it being quoted from something else. Allow me to paste the segment in its entirety.

"That's what a gaze is. Attention. An invisible string that connects us.  Sole focus.  Do not come here, as there is no place for you to rest.  But you see, I could only bear fruit when I stood inside your sight. Is this what you wanted to see?  When your tears dry up at last, tell me your answer."

Interesting, isn't it?

However, we're not done yet. There is still the context of its appearance in Library of Ruina, so let's look at that, shall we?

In Library of Ruina, Burrowing Heaven's Abno Battle is placed on the Floor of Religion, aka Hokma's Floor, alongside Price of Silence, Blue Star, and WhiteNight.

Narratively, this Library Floor explores the faith and dedication that Carmen's group put into her and Ayin, especially from Hokma's perspective, who unconditionally put his trust into Ayin back when he was known as Benjamin. Thus, all of the Abnormalities fought on this symbolically represent Carmen's unwavering dedication to gathering like-minded people to make her dream come true, and the devotion those who followed felt towards her and her goals.

When it comes to the Burrowing Heaven, there is some more info we can gather from its Abno Battle in this game, starting off with its new appearance:

As you can see, the previously tree-like form has been replaced with one that very clearly represent a human's central nervous system, brain and spinal cord included. The bloody wings and eyes still remain though.

...Now. Those who have played Lobotomy Corporation might recognize what Burrowing Heaven is meant to represent in this form. And for those who haven't, allow me to show you something.

This is what became of Carmen after her death:

A disembodied central nervous system, with its nerves spread out in an almost wing-like fashion.

While most of the flavor text here repeats what we know about the Abno from LobCorp, there are a few unique pieces of text I want to shine a spotlight on right here.

"The desire for the unreachable will only grow bigger. And to pursue it… is to tread a path riddled with thorns."

"Basking in everyone’s gaze and attention… It will finally come to fruition and spread its wings."

"The one who spread their wings sacrificed everything they had, and yet…"

"Just close your eyes. That’s right, you’re doing good…"

"If we ever open our eyes again, will we get to see the fruit of our labor in that gaze?"

...In case you were wondering why I was being so scant on the interpretation part of this analysis, this is why. This connection is what changes Burrowing Heaven from a nebulous concept to a direct parallel.

Burrowing Heaven, at its core, is a reflection of Carmen. More specifically, Carmen's dream, and the way she and her followers acted to reach her goals. How, to pursue it, they had to single-mindedly focus on that goal, to make many sacrifices for the sake of reaching what seemed unreachable.

It could also represent how Carmen's seeming demise and the following tragedies happened because nobody paid attention to the warning signs, nobody focused on Carmen when she was at her lowest. And yet, those very tragedies are what led to even more attention being put on making progress towards that goal, towards Carmen's wings spreading out and reaching ever closer towards the heaven she so desired.

The gaze being put on her may have put her deep underground, in the vat where her nervous system became a source of Cogito... but it also eventually led to the breathtaking sight that was the Light. And now that there is no more gaze left on her, her wings can spread everywhere, blocking out the sun with her own Light.

When you think about it, isn't that how Distortions take place under Carmen's influence? Just close your eyes and ignore the world around you. Let your desires guide you. Just like Carmen is encouraging you to do, patiently. That's right, you're doing good, following what she says.

...Okay that's all fine and good, but what the fuck does all this mean for Stuck in Heaven? Let's get to that.

From just a cursory look at its physical description, Stuck in Heaven appears to be the next step of progression in this Heaven line of Abnormalities. From the tree-like form of the LobCorp Burrowing Heaven, to the brainstem in Library of Ruina, to Stuck in Heaven taking the form of growths directly growing over a person.

Interestingly enough, the Mirror Dungeon event describes Stuck in Heaven as having "the appearance" of a branch, yet being human. Curious.

This is also where a difference is established between Stuck in Heaven and Burrowing Heaven, with the event text directly referencing the Abnormality that Stuck in Heaven is related to.

"Heaven sometimes burrows; other times, it makes a home in the heart. Once taken root, that heaven will only be visible through the eyes of others."

Immediately, this tells us one major thing - Stuck in Heaven does not burrow like Burrowing Heaven, it does not need to feed on the attention people give through vision. Rather, the thing it aims to take root in is the heart.

The text you get from taking the [Close your eyes.] option explains why Stuck in Heaven does that. When it takes root in one's heart, closing one's eyes is not enough to get it out of one's gaze, as the sight it sought out is that coming from the heart itself.

I believe this is also why actually trying to [Return the gaze.] with one's eyes does nothing. With Burrowing Heaven, which actively sought out one's eye vision, one can find many references to it being alive and actively watching its observer back. However, trying to do so with Stuck in Heaven results in it ignoring the observer. The heaven Stuck in Heaven is looking for is not in the eyes, but past them. "Behind me", as the text puts it.

Now... all of that might not have much meaning without further context. After all, what's all this looking with one's eyes and looking with one's heart stuff about?

And this. Is where we get to The Little Prince.

Yeah, remember how Demian seems to be representing the titular Little Prince himself, through him directly quoting the kid?

Yeah, that's not the only thing Limbus Company borrows from that book. In fact, from what I've gathered, The Little Prince might just be one of, if not the most important books when it comes to the themes Limbus Company is setting itself up to explore.

And the main theme that Limbus Company borrows from that book is the theme of seeing with the eyes vs seeing with the heart. It is all over this narrative. The constant focus on perception and what everyone is percieving through their senses. The equal focus on the heart, of how subjective reality is when looking at the reflections of one's heart, yet how one has to follow the heart to reach the unreachable. I mean, for fuck's sake, the word Limbus can refer to both a part of the eye and a part of the heart!

Most importantly, I think it's also the key to understanding Stuck in Heaven a bit better. In The Little Prince, a clear divide is established between the Little Prince, who uses his imagination to understand his reality, and "the grown-ups", who focus solely on the physical world.

Stuck in Heaven's E.G.O Gift is named Late-Bloomer's Tattoo. A late-bloomer is someone who takes a long time to develop one's skills or grow up. For Stuck in Heaven to be able to leave its mark (or Tattoo) on someone, to take root in their heart, one has to not be a grown-up yet, to still be able to see the world with one's heart rather than one's eyes.

So... What does it all mean?

I'll be honest, I don't fucking know! I don't even know if Stuck in Heaven even still has connections to Carmen the way Burrowing Heaven does!

What I can say however, is that Stuck in Heaven is likely extremely interconnected with the main plot and themes of Limbus Company, the same way Burrowing Heaven was for Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina.

Does it represent the goals of Limbus Company itself? Faust? The Golden Boughs? The fucking Mark of Cain?

The reality of it all is... we just aren't far enough along in the story yet to be sure. The way it connects to one of the bigger themes of Limbus Company, alongside it being directly related to the Abnormality that was so directly paralleling the end-game reveals about Carmen in LobCorp, means that we likely just don't have enough of the puzzle pieces yet to see the full picture of what Stuck in Heaven truly represents.

I'm sure as we head closer towards Limbus Company's endgame, the true meaning of Stuck in Heaven will become much, much clearer to us. But, until then, all we can do is wait and see what comes next. It's definitely a subject I'll want to revisit later on, once we get a better grasp on the overarching plot and will be able to start properly connecting the pieces.

Sorry that I couldn't give a more definite answer as to what Stuck in Heaven's exact meaning is, but from all the analysis I've done I genuinely think this is the best answer I can give. That it's a direct parallel to something within the main plot of Limbus Company that we have yet to learn, similarly to how Burrowing Heaven is a direct parallel to Carmen and the path taken to reach her goals.

no hiding The Good Stuff in the tags ;<

*clutching head* rodya and meursault would have such a good dynamic actually

I wonder if rodya would initially see meursault's indifference as like. a simpler version of her own feigned carefreeness and as a deliberate attempt to place himself as an outsider... only to realise that No, he really Is just Like That. and then she gets annoyed because it turns out that people who don't care about anything don't seem to be any fun.

(ofc he does actually care about a lot of things, just not necessarily his grander place in the world lol)

idk. nihilism vs absurdism. fun duo 👍 rodya would find meursault's genuine comfort with being a speck of dust in the universe baffling, while he would probably find her desire to assert her own importance pointless, but they could probably bond over little things like their shared desire to live in the present and appreciation of/indulgence in earthly joys. and meursault would probably listen if rodya wants to rant about anything without asking any uncomfortable questions. I think they could appreciate each other's presence.

re: anime: well, Asagiri has been on board so everything that was added does provide extra data points.

re: Nikolai: ha, out respective brainrots got in the way. the focus on Nikolai w/ hand imo kind of signals the author gets a free setup to rewrite him into basically anything.

upside: dialogue (and the way the main panel is... "shot", hiding the mask) implies that now he has no reason for murderclown routine. alternatively: he's completely written out of the plot, either in Alcott-esque fashion (as pure satellite character), or permamently, as an used up plot device. Either way we forget.

downside: orrrr because it's not as upfront as Odasaku pulling Dazais bandages off, he can just double down on the mask. alternatively: the monkey paw curls and the genuine side is not to your taste.(or what happens is a synthesis of his face and mask, so to speak.)

So at this point i'm kind of afraid to ask: what result would you consider return to (better) form? keeping in mind that whatever research Asagiri did it pales in comparison to yours

re: re: scheduled Dostoy pivot: nonsense trust speech -> adapts strats and THIS being the rough CnP pivot (as opposed to Sigma :|)

can we form a coup against asagiri and make you the writer instead? genuinely... I am not taking the Fyodor immortal information well.. please help............................ ( ´，_ゝ` )

Oh, I would absolutely not do BSD well either. I just wish Asagiri had stuck to his roots more. He was a great comedy writer, and the beginning of the story was great for it. It's the action and Death Note stuff he can't seem to get mastery of. But for the immortal part: I'm not entirely sold that Fyodor's immortal, yet. It seems like yet another twists that will twist to reveal oh, shocker, he faked his memories to confuse Sigma/the ADA... or something. Could very well be immortal, but not 100% guaranteed.

BSD 112: War and Peace

Now that the manga has finally caught up to the anime, I shall say that I am still pretty convinced Fyodor will pull a Jesus and be fine.

That said, I hella loved this chapter. The themes, man. Essentially Fukuchi is inviting Fukuzawa to become God, though I would NOT be surprised to see a certain new character show up considering this entire chapter is basically Fukuchi and Fukuzawa trading paraphrased quotes from A Certain Novel.

It's a battle of free will vs peace, and how we walk that line as individuals and societies... war is futile and hell, and pointless because what even is a state anyways besides some arbitrary idea we've all agreed to for... reasons, and yet if you remove the ability for war and conflict as a whole, you don't really have humanity but instead mind-controlled slaves.

War is not a polite recreation, but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to realize this and not make a game of it... as it stands now it's the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous.”

Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own freewill is in the historical sense not free at all but is bound up with the whole course of history and preordained from all eternity... Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the achievement of historical, universally human goals.

It's true that people are born where they are born, and caught up in the stories that are grander than they are. Everyone likes to imagine what they know and what they experience and what they want and believe is True, but is it? Or is it merely a product of how they've grown? Is it a product of the centuries and millennia of people before us who create wars and conflicts and use us in them?

Yes, humans are used as unconscious instruments. But is that all they are? All they should be? Fukuchi seems to think yes. If they're currently used as instruments of war, then why not use them. as instruments of peace?

Fukuzawa, however, thinks otherwise.

It's an existential question humanity has been wrestling over since human beings have existed, and it won't be answered anytime soon because there is no neat answer. It's the paradox of human nature and human existence.

He had learned that, as there is no situation in the world in which a man can be happy and perfectly free, so there is no situation in which he can be perfectly unhappy and unfree.

Dictatorships are known, obviously, for suppressing free will and free expression.

Now, in War and Peace, Tolstoy's answer is love. And God, who is Love. But love first and foremost since Tolstoy himself wasn't super religious when writing it (later on he was though).

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.

Yet, if you remove the ability to choose love or violence, then:

A man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived of life. 

And it's pretty clear what lesson Fukuchi has to learn:

Life is everything. Life is God. Everything shifts and moves, and this movement is God. And while there is life, there is delight in the self-awareness of the divinity. To love life is to love God. The hardest and most blissful thing is to love this life in one's suffering, in the guiltlessness of suffering.

Life sucks. War is hell. It makes life feel like it's not worth living. But without free will, you are not alive at all.

For if we allow that human life is always guided by reason, we destroy the premise that life is possible at all.

Anyways, even if Leo Tolstoy does not appear as an actual character with the supreme ability of "War and Peace," well, he sure is influencing this arc a lot.

here various Big Important Authors occasionally take end-of-mandatory-education exams (the language/literary analysis part), including those whose works are in the curriculum AND on the exam.

Needless to say, they do not pass with full marks.

Or simply fail.

i learned that in 1963 a 16 year old sent a 4 question survey to 150 well-known authors (75 of which replied) in order to prove to his English tutor that writers don't intentionally add symbolic content to their books (x)

@raytyger thank you! real insight into cardgames = gained!

ahaha assumed magic, too has "increase" != "becomes". But it turns out it doesn't have truly wild rulings on lingering statchanges xD

"aforementioned fanart doesn't exist and so cannot harm you" fanart:

who lives who dies who tells your story

The Tick: letters get carved on it, visible from earth LOCAL 58 TV: implied to be an alien colony? A Creature? I Wanna Be The Guy: moon dropping on you is one of it's 'lol u ded' moments

List Of Media Where Something Fucked Up Happens To The Moon

despicable me (moon theft)

miraculous ladybug (moon split in half)

hermitcraft (moon big)

feel free to add

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