Thank You For Making Me Actually Sit Down And Work Out The B-timeline Thing - Blog Posts
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!
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