#dazai has the MOST control over the plot | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

suzena · 1 year

Text

Complete Dead Apple Explanation

Or: “The Ultimate Guide to Dead Apple”.

Warning: this is a long post! I’m not kidding, I worked on this for three months. There is a TL;DR at the end but it will only briefly cover the most important points.

I see posts about Dead Apple not being understood far too often and so I’m introducing: this explanation! I do want to preface this by saying that I can completely understand that this movie can be confusing. Or, as Fyodor said it:

But, as someone who has seen it many times, I’m here to shed some light on it! Hopefully after this post it’ll all make a bit more sense, and you’ll at least have different questions.

If you haven’t watched the movie yet and are wondering when to watch it, the story officially takes place between season two and three, though you’ll be able to watch season three with no issues if you haven’t watched the movie. Please do note that this post will contain light spoilers for the plot after season two, so don’t read it if you haven’t at least finished catching up to the anime.

I’ll try not to summarize the movie, but instead explain it. That means that this post does not replace the movie, but instead tries to elaborate upon it and tries to place it in the larger plot. Most of the early movie is therefore ignored, but please do not hesitate to ask if you have extra questions, comments, different interpretations or you want me to go into more detail about something. I may not know everything, but I’m always down to talk about this movie!

Alright, with all of that out of the way…

The Dragon Head Conflict

We’ll start at the beginning, which is to say, we’ll start at the prologue, which can be found as a permanent event in Mayoi (and also as a part of the Dead Apple manga). This is not technically needed to understand most of the movie, but it does give some context that will make it a little easier, since this is where it all starts.

The Dragon Head Conflict, sometimes also translated as the Ryuuzu Conflict, is (as the movie states) the largest conflict in the history of Yokohama’s underworld. It took place six years ago, and originally was about five hundred billion yen an ability user left behind after they died, which various organizations were very interested in. It lasted for a total of 88 days, and involved conflict between eight different underworld organizations, including among others the Port Mafia, Gelhart Security Service/GSS (from Fifteen) and Takasekai (also from Fifteen).

Now as you can imagine, the government isn’t super stoked that gangs are shooting each other up all night and leaving corpses everywhere, to the point where the sidewalk is torn up from the bullet holes. To try to combat this, they thought that they could best fight fire with fire, and let a strong ability user from outside Yokohama settle this conflict all at once.

This new ability user, known as the “White Qilin”, unfortunately doesn’t really care about ending the conflict and kills other strong ability users left and right just for the fun of it, contrary to what the government had hoped he would do. Whether they are uninvolved parties or Port Mafia executives, it doesn’t matter to this guy. The White Qilin also ends up taking the money the conflict was originally about, but that doesn’t stop his murder spree. In this way, the White Qilin gains control over the entire conflict pretty fast, making him the main target to eliminate in order to put a stop to the killings.

Dazai approaches this problem similarly as to how he did during the conflict of Stormbringer, with a group of ability users to overpower the lone individual, but gets his plan twisted on him and gets kidnapped instead. Naturally, he predicted this outcome, leaving a hint for Chuuya where he left a transmitter for a tracking device so that Chuuya could come rescue him.

This is then the first scene of the movie, where Dazai and Chuuya confront and defeat the White Qilin using Corruption, and the whole Dragon Head Conflict ends since the White Qilin is finally gone and all the money burned. This battle is so iconic in the underground circles that it gains them the name “Double Black”, or “Soukoku”.

A few small notes on the Dragon Head Conflict before we move on.

As can also be seen in the first scene of the movie, this is where Oda adopts all five of those kids you see during the Dark Age, which was also already stated in the Dark Age itself.

“I heard all about it, Odasaku. You’re raising five kids, huh? And not only that, they’re orphans from the Dragon’s Head Conflict.” ―Dazai, Dark Age

Also, ever wondered why the Port Mafia is the only major criminal organization in Yokohama? There actually used to be five in total but four of them completely perished during the Dragon Head Conflict. Another reason why Dazai & Chuuya ending the conflict is so impressive, since because of that the Port Mafia is the only one to even survive it at all.

Shibusawho?

As you’ve probably guessed by now, the “White Qilin”, also named “the Collector” in Dead Apple itself, are both different names for our main antagonist: Shibusawa Tatsuhiko. The government had good reason to believe Shibusawa would be able to stand against the entire Yokohama underground and come out on top: his ability.

Shibusawa’s ability, Draconia, creates a fog around him, which separates other ability users from their own ability and makes non-ability users disappear as long as the fog persists. When surrounded by this fog, ability users are confronted with this version of their ability that is split from themselves. If an ability user is to die within this fog, their ability will be added to Draconia’s collection room.

There is decent evidence that it takes a while before the fog activates, so the effect isn’t immediate. This can be seen with Chuuya, who makes very short contact with the fog before he lifts up the building that he shoves in the Dragon’s mouth, but it’s seen even more clearly with Atsushi and Kyouka at the start of the movie. They spend a small while running around Yokohama wondering why everyone is gone before they’re finally confronted with their abilities.

To some extent the separated abilities represent the inner conflict in an ability user. This can of course be clearly found in Atsushi and his shaky connection to the tiger, or in Kyouka who has Demon Snow which is the last remnant of her parents but also murdered them in front of her. But the clearest example of this in the movie is actually Kunikida, since there is a visible change between him and his ability.

The notebook of Kunikida’s ability does not read its usual “理想” (ideals), but instead now says “妥協” (compromise). For Kunikida, a person so tied to his ideals, this version of his ability is an “abomination” (his words, not mine), and thus a source of inner conflict, since it represents a side of Kunikida that he carries within him.

“A copy of himself that didn’t follow ideals but made compromises was an abomination to Kunikida.”―Dead Apple (light novel)

If ability users manage to defeat their abilities in a physical fight, and then also accept these parts of themselves for what they represent, they will regain their ability. For example, Atsushi does not immediately regain his ability after defeating the tiger because he does not completely accept that the tiger represents that he has killed a person. For Atsushi, a person who connects his entire reason of living to saving other people, this is nearly irreconcilable. The only reason he probably is able to get over it in the end is that the person he killed was actively torturing and trying to kill him, so Atsushi had to kill to survive.

Shibusawa, then, is dead. Chronologically, his murder is the earliest you see of him. Fyodor has told Shibusawa that Atsushi contains something that “guides the envy of all ability users”, so Shibusawa, who feels like he is missing something, seeks to take this by any means. This doesn’t work out too hot for him, and Atsushi kills him.

Now a fun thing happens. Since Shibusawa is the center of the fog at all times, so to speak, and he’s the keeper of the abilities that die in his fog, his ability is separated from himself and lives on, nearly indistinguishable from his original body. Only one downside to this: he completely loses his memories.

I can only assume the government steps in at this point to take this strong ability user in his vulnerable state, and then have him solve the Dragon Head Conflict not long after. He most likely also survived Chuuya’s Corruption by being an ability, and having ability crystals in his collection to fall back on and recover, as he also does in Dead Apple. However, all of that is just pure speculation.

After the Dragon Head Conflict, Shibusawa spends some years abroad, casually killing thousands of ability users for the same reason as during the Dragon Head Conflict: just playing around and trying to fill that hole of something that is missing inside of him. The Japanese government mostly does a spectacular and spectacularly unethical job of cleaning up after him, since they learned nothing from the Dragon Head Conflict and still think that they can control him to protect Japan should it ever be invaded by foreign ability users.

Eventually, when the timing is right, Shibusawa gets invited back to Japan by Dazai. At the same time he is told by Fyodor (can you see the manipulation happening on both sides?) that Dazai’s ability is the ultimate ability that will finally complete him, and so Shibusawa eagerly comes to Yokohama.

From here on out, as far as Shibusawa is concerned, it’s just a matter of covering the entire city in fog, killing Dazai and then taking his ability. Since Dazai cancels the fog itself with his ability, Shibusawa does need to kill him first, since the fog will work just fine on a corpse. Unfortunately, Shibusawa, however smart he is, is not in control of the plot in this movie. That control is left entirely to the combination of Dazai and Fyodor.

Intermezzo: Singularity Crash Course

Let’s do a lightning quick crash course on singularities before continuing, because you’re going to need that to understand what is happening in the next part. While Stormbringer was released after Dead Apple, I’m still going to be leaning heavily on and paraphrasing the information provided in that novel since it gives a really nice overview.

Abilities are bound to rules, just like everything else. No organisms other than humans, such as plants or monkeys, can possess an ability. Each human can only have a single ability, and when they die the ability disappears with them. Finally, there is a limit to the strength of any such ability.

But what if you wanted to go beyond that limit? What if you wanted to play with the natural laws of this world? What if you wanted to get really silly with it? Well, in that case, you can try your best at creating a singularity.

Singularities are defined as “the interaction of multiple abilities that develops into a higher-level phenomenon different from the original abilities”. This mostly exhibits itself in a massive release of energy, but rarely there are semi-stable versions of them. Singularities aren’t bound to conventional rules, and can be much more powerful for that exact reason.

As for creating singularities, there are two defined ways. The most reliable method is to have two contradicting abilities clash with each other. This leads to fun mental exercises, think “unstoppable force meets immovable object”, or, two ability users who can both see a few seconds into the future fighting to the death (sound familiar?). As a second method, an ability can also contradict itself, essentially causing the same result, but it’s a lot more finicky.

“Dead Apple”

The latter part of the movie revolves around exactly the creation of such a singularity, as all planned out by Fyodor, and accurately anticipated by Dazai. Let’s lay out all the layers of this.

Shibusawa is after Dazai’s ability. Meanwhile, Dazai is trying to stop the fog to save Yokohama. As for Fyodor, we’ll get to him in a second.

Dazai “teams up” with Fyodor and betrays Shibusawa to put a stop to the fog. The idea of this is that Fyodor combines two abilities from Shibusawa’s collection, which Dazai can’t do himself without canceling them: the ability to pull abilities in a surrounding area close, and the ability to merge abilities together. When these two are merged, together they create an ability that will absorb Shibusawa’s entire collection, and then Dazai only has to touch this ability to effectively get rid of Shibusawa’s power source.

There is a specific reason why it has to happen like this, and Dazai just touching Shibusawa isn’t quite enough. Let’s mentally walk through the process if Dazai were to touch Shibusawa. The fog disappears for a bit (and Shibusawa with it, most likely), but Shibusawa now knows Dazai’s intentions. Fyodor will take Shibusawa’s side and now Dazai is at a large disadvantage. Ultimately, it doesn’t even solve the problem. We know from the Dragon Head Conflict that just destroying Shibusawa’s body is most likely not enough, and he will be able to resummon the fog (and his body) with time and energy. The problem needs to be cut off at the root, the ability crystals.

Unfortunately, Fyodor didn’t really team up with Dazai, instead choosing to team up with Shibusawa in order to get rid of Dazai. This is then where Shibusawa gets to kill Dazai, and discovers that wait, Dazai’s ability may not be what he’s seeking after all. However, the abilities are already merged, and Dazai’s ability joins them. This combines “the ability to merge” with “the ability to nullify”, which don’t exactly mix well. Does Dazai’s ability become part of the other ability? Does his ability nullify the merging ability before that can happen? It’s already part of it, but at the same time the merging can never happen. It’s contradictory, and thus a singularity is born.

Fyodor, meanwhile, hasn’t quite had his fill of betrayal yet, and decides to remind Shibusawa of what he is by killing him, reminding Shibusawa of his earlier death by Atsushi’s paw. All of this, killing Dazai and using his ability to create a singularity, having that power from the singularity then go into Shibusawa to create the Dragon, all of that was part of Fyodor’s plan. Shibusawa is only able to cover an entire city with fog because of the large amount of ability crystals he has collected, and so with enough power (like from a singularity) he can cover the entire world in this fog. Up until this point, neither Fyodor nor Shibusawa have seen a single ability user survive the fog, and thus it is the perfect method for getting rid of all ability users in the world, which does seem to be Fyodor’s end goal.

However, Chuuya swoops in and defeats the Dragon. Dazai was well prepared and had the antidote to the poison he was killed with hidden in his mouth, so he is alive and well again. That means that Dazai has his ability back and it cancels out the singularity space they both are in. It doesn’t completely get rid of the Dragon however, as some energy still lingers around the tower.

Fyodor is still on the scene, and uses a part of the merging crystal that he saved which was used earlier to create the singularity to merge Shibusawa with the singularity, giving Shibusawa a very anime transformation into his final form.

At this point, as a result of Shibusawa’s transformation, the fog turns red. If this red fog then covers the entire planet as Fyodor is hoping, and you were to watch it from space, it would look just like a poisonous red apple. The name of the movie therefore refers to this plan of using Shibusawa to rid the world of ability users.

This idea of poisonous apples in this movie comes from two different sources. From Fyodor’s side, it is referring to the apple Eve ate in the Bible, the original sin. For Fyodor, there is poetic irony in this: the world will end with the same sin as it began with. The crime is the punishment. On Dazai’s side, it refers to Snow White, who bit the poison apple and died (temporarily). He already talks about this to Oda when he is sixteen, vaguely implying he knew all of this was coming as soon as he met Shibusawa during the Dragon Head Conflict. Since Fyodor was already around at that time and also had a hand in enabling Shibusawa originally, this may indeed be planned out this far in advance, but it’s always hard to tell with these guys.

Then the kids take over the fight for the rest of the movie, and Atsushi, Akutagawa and Kyouka work together to defeat Shibusawa’s final form in the form of a long, epic final fight. Shibusawa is finally defeated and it all ends happily ever after.

The End.

Byakko VS The Dragon

…Or is it? You thought we covered the entire basic layer of the movie, so we’re done now, right? Think again! This is only where things start to become really interesting. Please note that this section will take some ideas that were already pointed out by other people, and build on those.

When looking at lore relevance of characters, Atsushi may not immediately spring to mind as one of the most important ones. Sure, he’s the protagonist of the main manga, but in comparison to the mystery surrounding Dazai or Fyodor he fades a little into the background.

Even in this post, an explanation about a movie that’s basically about Atsushi, I’m able to explain the basics of the movie without mentioning him much at all. And yet, the movie’s core conflict is not between Shibusawa, Dazai and Fyodor, but between Shibusawa and Atsushi.

While there isn’t a lot of information given about Shibusawa’s and Atsushi’s connection, what we do get is very interesting. Shibusawa is consistently referred to as a Dragon during Dead Apple, and while subtitles usually translate everything as “tiger”, Atsushi’s tiger is actually referred to as “Byakko” half of the time.

Now what is the difference between any good ol’ normal tiger and the Byakko, I hear you ask. The Byakko is much more than an ordinary tiger, since it is part of the 四神 (shijin/ shishin), the Four Guardians of the Four Compass Directions, which the Dragon is also a part of. What you essentially need to know from this is that the Byakko belongs to the same group of creatures as the Dragon, and that this solidifies Shibusawa’s status as Atsushi’s foil in this movie.

It also allows us to make a direct comparison between Shibusawa and Atsushi. The thing is, I have been lying to you a little bit. So far, I’ve been calling the Dragon a singularity. The truth is, it may not be. I know, I know, if it’s not a singularity, then what was that whole Dragon thing about?

Fyodor actually specifically tells us that the Dragon isn’t a singularity, but instead it’s “the true form of the chaos born from abilities”. (Note here that the Dead Apple light novel talks about Fyodor as if he is “reciting some Oracle”. Did Fyodor get this information from someone else?) Is this related to why Fyodor wants abilities gone from this world? Is there another layer to abilities and other creatures that BSD hasn’t even touched upon (think Lovecraft)? It’s hard to say at this point. All we can say is that the Dragon gets referred to as something else, and… that the Dragon is similar to the Byakko.

The tiger ability we see that got separated from Atsushi in the movie actually doesn’t follow the rules the other abilities do. It has a clearly defined face, and the red gem is not on its forehead. The gem found on the ability tiger is also red, which is in line with the other extracted abilities we see, but what gets extracted from Atsushi by Shibusawa is this blue cube. The weirdness continues in the flashback we see of Atsushi being tortured by Shibusawa.

We see Atsushi’s ability leave him, but then in a flash of self protection instinct, he partially transforms into the tiger, claws and all, while the blue gem is outside of his body. Earlier in the movie it is shown that if an ability is extracted from an ability user, they no longer have access to the powers of that ability. Then how is Atsushi able to use his tiger abilities here?

Granted, there is a bit of conflicting information within the movie about this, since during the final fight with Shibusawa this blue cube is once again extracted from Atsushi, but now he does lose his tiger powers. Could he resummon the tiger while not in possession of the cube if the situation is dire enough? Is this just a psychological thing because Atsushi is aware of it this time? Who can say. At any rate, this blue cube is connected deeply with Atsushi, but the clues given imply that it may not be the Byakko itself.

“That’s not an ability! That is me!”―Atsushi, reaching out to the blue cube in Dead Apple

To be honest, the movie does very little in explaining anything around Atsushi, instead raising more questions than answers. For that exact reason, the rest of this section will mostly be speculation about one possible angle on Atsushi’s ability that personally makes sense to me, but of course this is only one potential theory.

I do also want to add here that Atsushi personally goes through an arc in this movie from seeing the tiger as something separate to something that is intrinsically part of him. This can also be a reason for this final exclamation of “that’s me!” when he reaches out to the blue cube, but it doesn’t explain everything, which is why we explore an alternate possibility here.

My take on it is that the Byakko and this blue gem that get extracted from Atsushi are not the same thing. With the side note here being that they are probably deeply connected, but not the same regardless.

My reasoning for this is that everything Atsushi-related you see in Dead Apple makes a little more sense when you consider the Byakko and the blue cube as two separate entities. The Byakko’s gem is red, the cube is blue. The Byakko is framed as something separate from Atsushi, while he claims the cube is not an ability but he himself. Atsushi had access to the Byakko while the blue cube was outside of him. Shibusawa even makes a point of mentioning that the orphanage director, who correctly thought Atsushi was the tiger, had the wrong idea about Atsushi’s ability. The Byakko is definitely Atsushi’s ability, but this blue cube is… something else.

And yet, the tiger is also deeply connected to whatever this blue gem is. Currently, one theory that makes sense to me is that the tiger is an ability that can be passed on, just like Demon Snow, that has the specific task of protecting the power of this blue gem. So, a two in one deal. Atsushi also gets referred to as “the one holding the Byakko ability” by Ivan, which would be in line with the Byakko being an ability that can be passed on as needed. Shibusawa makes a similar statement, calling Atsushi “the one clad in the Byakko”. Atsushi also has issues controlling his ability before joining the ADA, just like Kyouka and Tsujimura, who both also inherited their abilities. I would love to further speculate on this, but there is so little information on anything relating to this, so anything further would be completely baseless.

However, there is one more different clue given to us by the movie. Namely, what this comparison to the Dragon means for Atsushi as the one holding the Byakko.

Almost in the same breath as Shibusawa is recounting Fyodor’s words about the Dragon being the chaos of all abilities, the holder of the Byakko also gets its own description about its true form: the one opposing all abilities.

This relates to what the blue cube may really be. What Atsushi does to Shibusawa in his final moments is what I essentially believe to be this blue cube’s true power: it completely unravels an ability. The blue power eats up everything supernatural about Shibusawa until only his natural skull is left.

If you think this sounds familiar, it kind of does! I cannot ignore the similarity to Dazai here, though I do have to point out that Dazai can only cancel out an ability, and this blue cube power seems to… completely erase the ability itself, leaving no trace of it. The similarity to Dazai is further found the moment Dazai dies and his ability leaves his body. At first, his ability is white and vaguely similar to the blue cube before deciding that nope, this is just barely not it.

I have a hard time connecting this to anything larger simply because the series does not give a lot of clues on this subject. How did abilities come to be? How is the Book related to that, since it is not an ability or borne from an ability? And how does Atsushi factor into this?

Shibusawa has been led to Atsushi since he believed Atsushi would grant him something special, something he had been looking for all this time. “That which every ability user desires.”

This is actually a familiar story! This is not the first time Fyodor has led someone to Atsushi with the premise that he would be able to lead them to what they were seeking. The first two seasons of the anime follow that specific idea, of Fitzgerald wanting Atsushi so he can lead him to the Book.

The tiger as the guide to the Book is something emphasized again and again. While in English it gets translated as “guide”, the original manga panel said “道標（タイガービートル）”, or, “guidepost (pronounced: tiger beetle, in English)”. While this is partially just a funny pun, it also once again points to the tiger specifically as a guide.

It did leave me to wonder about the absence of a certain scene in the series. Fyodor has been sending other people to Atsushi for the entire length of the series, but has never interacted with Atsushi himself. For someone who claims to be looking for the Book, and knows that Atsushi is somehow the guide to the Book, isn’t that a bit weird? Is there a reason Fyodor won’t interact with Atsushi himself? Fyodor knew about Atsushi way before he joined the ADA, so it’s not like Dazai is particularly standing in the way here.

Regardless, this factor that makes Atsushi so special may very well be this blue cube. How does the power to completely undo abilities lead to the Book? Who knows. We simply do not know enough about the Book or the origin of abilities to say more about this. Maybe the true power of the blue cube is something else entirely.

What does all of this mean? Where will it all lead? Only the future (Asagiri) can tell.

The Unexplained and Weird

Welcome to the section I’d fondly refer to as “a collection of things I have no explanation for”. There is plenty of that in this movie, but I do want to touch upon them since not being explainable as of currently does not necessarily mean that they aren’t important in the future. Also, not having an explanation for these things is driving me insane and I need to share in my suffering. Let’s go! :)

Let’s get the big thing out of the way first.

Mukurotoride, my friend, my enemy. For those unaware, Mukurotoride is the name of the large black tower that Shibusawa, Dazai and Fyodor were chilling in for most of the movie. The name gets translated as “Skull Fortress”, but the kanji used gives the name more of a “Dead Man’s Castle” feeling, since it refers to a person long since dead more than a skull. My problem with this tower is as follows: it doesn’t make any sense. Whatsoever.

Why is it there? Fifteen establishes it’s there seven years before the current timeline, so a year before Shibusawa dies. I would’ve accepted it if the tower was a weird side effect of Shibusawa dying or something, but the current facts point towards this tower not having anything to do with Shibusawa at all. It’s also very decayed. How long has it been there? Who put it there? Is it relevant that it’s right next to Suribachi? Or in the Yokohama foreign settlement? (Side note: foreign settlements have not been a thing since 1899. What’s up with Yokohama having a foreign settlement?) No one seems to know anything about this tower, not even in the Japanese community. And then in-universe, everyone also seems okay with this wildly out-of-place tower that looks like it’s made out of human bones being there in the middle of the city? It’s giving me Sky Casino vibes.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, we can talk about Fyodor’s ability.

I want to start this part by explaining my personal stance on the current Fyodor theories, since it influences how I talk about what is shown of his ability in Dead Apple. There are a bunch of theories about Fyodor having an insta-kill ability that only works on non-ability users. Personally, I don’t subscribe to this theory, and I have multiple reasons for this.

First, I don’t think we’ve ever seen Fyodor’s ability being used. At the end of Cannibalism a cop dies as soon as he touches Fyodor. In the manga abilities don’t have a special shine effect, but in the anime they do. However, in the anime there was no ability-shine here.

A stronger argument, perhaps, is that this happens right in front of Dazai, and Dazai immediately afterwards says he has no clue what Fyodor’s ability could be. He could be lying, of course, but since this is a common enemy he shares with Fitzgerald, who is the one asking him about Fyodor’s ability, I don’t see any reason for him to do so here. The whole murder reads a little bit like Fyodor just putting on a show for Dazai.

Finally, from a narrative viewpoint, killing with a touch is a little… useless? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s convenient, I guess, when you’re a terrorist who seeks to exterminate part of the global population. But there are many ways to kill a person, and Fyodor has shown time after time that he doesn’t need to rely on an ability to murder people.

The strongest argument for the insta-kill ability in my opinion is Fyodor himself saying “this is my true ability” before killing that kid who was enslaved by Ace. However, this may also be part of something else that is going on with Fyodor, in a way that is perhaps very similar to Atsushi.

Alright. Whether you agree with that or not is up to you. To get back to the movie, there are a few interesting clues provided about Fyodor’s ability.

The first is of course Fyodor’s iconic line when his ability shows up on screen: “Crime and Punishment are close friends.” Everything he says after that point is already referring to Shibusawa again, so this is the only clue he himself is willing to offer up. If we consider that the abilities that get split from their users represent inner conflict, all he is saying here is that he apparently has no inner conflict. Does he know something else about the world? Does he just know who he is? Honestly, I don’t think we’ll get anywhere talking about Fyodor’s mental state.

Then there is the “I am Crime”, spoken by Fyodor holding the skull, and “I am Punishment”, spoken by his ability holding the apple. This one is slightly more straightforward. The ability user being the crime, and the ability the punishment. I’m not 100% sure if this is actually referring to Fyodor himself, or if it’s just about Shibusawa again. The skull (Shibusawa, an ability user) being the crime, and then the apple (covering the world with fog through Shibusawa’s ability, thus punishing ability users) being the punishment makes sense when viewed like this, but it could be that Fyodor is somehow also referring to himself during these lines.

Okay, if Fyodor is apparently not willing to open up, we can gather some more info just from what we can see instead of what we’re told. Most of what this part covers is taken from these excellent posts, but I’ll summarize it here for the sake of completion. Fyodor’s ability looks different compared to most other abilities. Most of the abilities shown in the movie have a blank face without any features, and have their gem on their forehead. The exception to that first part, interestingly enough, is Elise, Mori’s ability. This is most likely because she has physical form as an ability to begin with. Which then raises the question: does Fyodor’s ability also have a physical form outside of the fog? His ability looks identical, so that would imply some sort of clone ability. Next to this, Fyodor’s epithet is “The Conjurer”, which would be in line with him being able to create another copy of himself. (Though I should add here that the Japanese seems to just refer to him as “魔神”, which can be any type of evil spirit. However, if I’m not mistaken, the “Conjurer” should be from the official translation, but let me know if I’m mistaken on that.)

Finally, there is the position of the gem on Fyodor’s ability. Nearly all other abilities have their gem on their forehead, but for some reason Fyodor’s ability has his on his hand. The only other ability that has its gem not on its forehead is… the Byakko. I don’t have an explanation for this one, but the weirdness should be pointed out, since it’s another way in which Fyodor’s ability deviates from the others.

Next to the above, there are two other weird details I want to quickly touch upon.

First, the knives in the apples in the dish in Mukuroride, as well as the apples with a knife in them in general, as they are the theme of this movie. I believe this to be of a more metaphorical touch, so we won’t read too much into it, but it does have physical consequences that tie back to the title as well.

This exact shot is used four times throughout the movie, but with a varying amount of knives stuck in the apples. It starts with one, then two, then three. The room starts with just Dazai, then Shibusawa enters, then Fyodor. With each of them showing up, another knife appears in an apple. This is then a metaphor for these three being the instigators behind the Dead Apple incident. These knives in the apples can also be seen as their calling cards, as they were left both at the bar and at the scene of the crime where that agent was killed who was supposed to meet with Kunikida and Tanizaki.

In a later scene, it cuts again to this frame, but a knife and the skull has disappeared. These both get taken by Fyodor. The knife is used eventually to kill Shibusawa, but Shibusawa also took one of these knives to kill Dazai with. Either way, these knives that have been in these apples are used to murder, once again corroborating the connection between death and apples.

And finally, the relevance of the moon.

There are a few impressive shots of the moon in Dead Apple, where the moon is shown to be enormous, to the point where even the light novel points out how extraordinarily large it is. The novel also points out that the blue cube crystal holds a similarity to the moonlight. Just symbolism to show that it’s connected to Atsushi, or something more? The other side of the page in the main series will also only be written on the night… of the next full moon.

The Point of It All

I hear a lot of “Dead Apple doesn’t matter to the plot, just watch it for the Soukoku scenes and move on”. And while I do agree that it’s not mandatory viewing to understand the storyline that corresponds with season three onwards, I do think there is more to Dead Apple than most people give it credit for.

I always like to ask myself after reading a book or watching a movie: “Okay, so what was the point of that? What was I meant to take away from this?”

For example, in essence Stormbringer is a case study on singularities. Likewise, BEAST is a study into the limits of the Book, and all other side stories similarly have a message, however big or small.

So what does Dead Apple establish? Why bother?

I hope by now you agree that Dead Apple seems to be the introduction to explaining more as to what is so special about Atsushi. This seems to go deeper into chapter 28/29 of the manga, or season 2 episode 8 of the anime, where Atsushi also has some weird things going on with the tiger. What this exactly is, or where this seems to be going is unclear for now, but the Dead Apple definitely emphasizes Atsushi’s importance as well as the concept that there can be something more than just abilities.

In-universe, there are also reasons for this conflict to happen.

Most likely both Dazai and Fyodor knew the end result long before the conflict ever started. It’s their reunion in a way, so I suppose they are both seeing how the other’s condition is at the moment. They may even have gathered some intel somehow? It’s almost like collecting metadata, they won’t have a direct conversation about important things, but they try to collect information just by seeing how the other acts, to see if the other lies within prediction.

Aside from that, on Dazai’s side, except for foiling Fyodor’s plan and keeping Yokohama safe, the Shin Soukoku dynamic also gets strengthened, something Dazai is actively working on. On Fyodor’s side, next to giving the whole “eliminating all ability users” a good honest shot, he also gets to collect a lot of intel on the opposing side. For example, Fyodor in Dead Apple gets to see Corruption up close, which may potentially be relevant.

Finally, from a storytelling perspective, it sets up a lot for the third season, especially in character interactions and relationships, e.g. Atsushi & Akutagawa, Dazai & Chuuya, Kyouka, Fukuzawa & Mori. It should be noted that some characters literally have been intentionally regressed to make the ending make more impact. Whether that was a good decision or not is not why I’m here. You should just know that it’s intentional. You could chalk it up to Atsushi losing his ability impacting him and his behavior a lot, if you wanted to justify it somehow. The Order of the Clock Tower also gets its first anime appearance, showing Agatha Christie on screen, who will most likely play a more important role later on. Likewise, Dead Apple is the introduction to Fyodor as a villain, where you get to see him for more than just a few flashes.

Trivia and Fun Details

I suppose this section is skippable. But who doesn’t love trivia? This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything included in this movie, but rather an overview of what I personally caught, understood and thought relevant to include.

The “Dragon Head” in the Dragon Head Conflict refers to a Qilin, which are said to have similar heads to dragons. Since the conflict centered around the White Qilin, this is where that name comes from.

At some point Akutagawa and Kyouka use a mafia code to refer to a passageway. The code “0505” refers back to Atsushi’s birthday.

The symbol ᛟ found on the outfits of the Mukurotoride squad refers to inheritage, since Shibusawa inherited his own ability. More information about that here.

Dazai at some point meows at Fyodor. This is a very sassy way of telling Fyodor that he will personally eradicate all of Fyodor’s rats in Yokohama, including Fyodor himself. (The light novel calls it a “tedious” meow. Lmao.)

The music from Dead Apple seems to be recycled in season three of the anime. I’m guessing to save on budget?

Atsushi’s door that he eventually opens to unlock his hidden memories has its own music motif that shows up every time he thinks about Shibusawa, the fog or his memories associated with killing him. Try to pay attention to this, it’s really cool.

The motif of the door is also a tune that sounds a lot like the track named Dead Apple, further showing Atsushi’s relevance in his movie.

The lyrics of the soundtrack tell their own story. When the Dead Apple plot first takes off and Dazai is at bar Lupin, a song called My Prince plays telling of Snow White who is sleeping and waiting for her prince. However, it seems to be a spin on the classic, where indeed Snow White chose to knowingly bite the apple knowing it was poisoned, in much the same way as Dazai knew he was going to be poisoned in Dead Apple. Le Cheval Noir tells of how bored the singer is, and how nothing is special to them anymore. This plays during the scene where Dazai talks to Shibusawa, showing Shibusawa’s apathy towards everything. Mein Prinz, the song that plays as Dazai gets backstabbed, is nearly exactly the same song as My Prince, but now more dramatic and in German. This is a clue that Dazai saw this coming from before the Dead Apple conflict even started, and it’s now up to Chuuya again to save him. Overall, Dazai is leaning into the Snow White aesthetic hard in Dead Apple.

And finally, a list of everything the light novel insists refers to the theme of poisonous red apples: the red apples with the knives in them, apple suicide, the merged abilities producing a red sphere, the singularity that results from that in all its forms and the planet covered in red fog. If it’s red and spherical, you can just assume it should represent a deathly apple.

TD;DR

Recapped extremely briefly:

The Dragon Head Conflict introduces Shibusawa as a villain who was kept by the government but went off the rails. Shibusawa’s ability is a fog that splits ability users from their abilities. If ability users die, Shibusawa obtains their ability. Shibusawa died and inherited his own ability, also causing him to lose his memory. Therefore he wants to obtain Dazai's ability in order to gain what he feels he lacks. Dazai betrays Shibusawa together with Fyodor by combining abilities. However, Shibusawa kills Dazai first, adding Dazai's ability to the merged abilities creating a singularity. Fyodor kills Shibusawa, causing him to regain his memory of being previously killed by Atsushi. A dragon is created and defeated, and Fyodor's plan is revealed to be the covering of the entire planet in Shibusawa's fog, killing all ability users. This plan is foiled, but Atsushi is shown to have potentially another power next to his ability (the tiger). This power is possibly the ability to completely unravel abilities, and may be what makes Atsushi the guide to the Book. Mukurotoride is completely left unexplained in the movie, but there are clues given about Fyodor's ability that point away from an insta-kill ability, and more towards a clone type ability.

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd dead apple #dead apple #bsd analysis #bungou stray dogs analysis #posted this also on reddit but. i forgor to post it on here. whoopsie.#glad i got this all written out though #like a weight lifted from my shoulders #this is actually longer than the reddit version so rejoice! you're getting the premium version #here's to hoping it shows up in the tags! 🙏🏻#suzenanalysis

559 notes · View notes

aarcanechaoss · 2 months

Text

Theory time with Higuchi!

For anyone who wants a good read and some info on Ichiyo (Natsu) Higuchi this Reddit Post was really interesting

I first want to say I have zero evidence or reasoning behind most of this shit specifically the two abilities I’m pulling out of my ass (I do still love my Flowers at Dusk theory don’t get me wrong and a lot of the Growing Pains / Child’s Play theories are beautiful). Again these are for entertainment only I have no bets on these being real LOL

1. Draining / Absorbing

2. Her word is law

Now before I get into these (1,2) I want to bring up an interesting point seen in the Reddit Post I shared.

Specifically the Mori does not punish Higuchi part- and remembering the episodes in particular he really doesn’t. At most he is disappointed in her failure and asks if “she is suited for this job.”

Now this also made me realise (again the Reddit Post mentioned this too I found after reading further) the Command Unit is in direct line to Mori just after Executives.

Meaning she is high ranked overall in the Mafia not just amongst the Black Lizard.

She is Akutagawa’s equal - role wise in the mafia.

Why?

We know she is an ability user (not what the ability is) so is she simply well connected to Mori or is she a Secret Weapon? Or both.

Somehow she had to make it to Commander level even with the lack of respect she receives (until rescuing Akutagawa but even then they still don’t treat her like a leader).

I propose an option that also has no standing or reasoning.

She’s related to the previous boss.

Someone who didn’t have a choice to have anything but a mafioso lifestyle.

A granddaughter or a great niece etc. but let’s go with grandchild for this post- a favoured one at that- which I will get to.

Yes, this would technically mean she’s been in the mafia the longest compared to many characters (Dazai, Chuuya, Akutagawa etc).

I hear your “Wouldn’t Hirotsu know then?” It’s entirely possible if she is a favoured grandchild the Boss would have only wanted certain people to know about her when she was so young plus it’s not like every grandparent shares a last name with their grandchild (he could be her mother’s father).

It’s also possible if he knew the boss had a grandkid she would have been known as Natsu not Ichiyo at the time (since that is the authors real name).

And we all know I head-cannon that our girl is naturally brunette / raven haired so of course I'm adding in more plot with the name thing. Could be just for fun, maybe it was ordered, maybe it's so the people who did know about Natsu wouldn't point her out (Mori just hiding the nepotism).

In any case if this was how Mori knew her- after digging and of course killing him it’s entirely plausible that he’d 1. Look at it as an opportunity to fuck over the guy even when he’s dead 2. She’s a valuable asset because of it.

By that I mean her family name would hold power eg. she goes by Natsu (boss last name) when Mori needs something that only her family could get him.

Or she’s incredibly powerful and he’d be an idiot to not keep her. Perhaps she hates her power and he keeps that in check- she does what he says and then she doesn’t need to use it / she doesn’t have control - because less control over that means more control over her.

It’s not like she’d be his heir or anything (though that would be a funny fic idea- people trying to fight for the next in line and Mori is just like no I have a replacement it's Higuchi).

Anyway onto my not at all reasonable Ability theories.

1. Draining / Absorbing

This one was originally a "takes abilities" theory- which has absolutely no merit being a theory at all unless for whatever reason Asagiri decides that she and Dazai have been secretly related the whole time.

In the Reddit Post OP theorises that she could paralyse her opponents using her novella Takekurabe (Comparing Heights) with the English titles Growing Up and Child’s Play as the forefront. Though I’ve seen the use of the title Growing Pains instead of Up as well.

Using OP's word's, I don't think Higuchi will have a name-based ability (eg. Beast Beneath the Moonlight or Thou Shalt Not Die) and so for this crack theory I'm also using Growing Pains / Childs Play.

I suggest that she can drain or absorb abilities instead- leaving her opponents with a dull aching because a part of them is practically gone should she drain an ability to its dredges. She could probably kill someone if she wasn’t careful and took too much.

Think Rogue from X-Men.

That would make her a formidable enemy to have and an even better secret weapon.

It would also make her just another tool like Dazai was- instead of halting an ability she practically takes it away (which is plausible if we really dug into it, but this is more she takes the power or energy involved in using the ability).

Where did this idea even come from you ask?

Honestly no clue but I was trying really hard to figure out what possible ability she could have, and I have landed on it must be powerful and this would absolutely be an ability that she would hide until necessary. It would also be a play on the novella titles instead of simply going Child's play= dolls= voodoo doll ability for example (mostly because that's kind of Q's ability) but more a play on how for some people transitioning into adulthood is draining and not as fun as when the world was too big for us.

2. Her word is Law

Okay this is also a stretch just so we are clear BUT I think it's more plausible than draining / absorbing. I don't really know which title I'd give this one because I'm leaning again to a more a non-name-based ability (eg. No Longer Human or Plum Blossom in the Snow) so for the fun of it lets call this Flowers at Dusk (Yamizakura- yes, the one I usually use in Fics).

When I say her word is law I don't mean legally speaking- think Jessica / Paul Atreides or the Reverend Mother from Dune and how they use 'the voice'.

This ability came to mind since Ichiyo Higuchi is an important figure in Japan, though it wasn't like she would be able to sway politics or anything of the like. Her works are important, the words in the stories are significant. Key word, words.

This would be a valuable power worth keeping hidden and close to the chest, she would make her way up the ranks fast with such an ability and more than likely she'd be a great asset in regard to interrogations.

Mori would absolutely keep this ability a secret and keep her close because of it. Let's play into the idea that she hates or is afraid of her ability, a power that takes away others free will or control would be hard to deal with depending on your mental fortitude or upbringing.

If she said jump you would jump, if she said kill you would kill.

She'd be the perfect secret weapon with an ability like this especially if no one else knew and she got kidnapped- whoops they didn't put on ability suppressors ...oh hey where did she go?

I feel like this is a plausible option- only because we know nothing but that she is an ability user. It would make sense for her to be closer to Mori- he'd ensure she would never use the ability on him and considering people underestimate her already it would be an uppercut of a power to have and no one (but Dazai or those who are deaf I suppose) would be able to get away from it.

We'd really have to get into the meat of this ability and flesh out weaknesses par her voice box and No Longer Human. Is it the vibrations in her voice? Does she need a key word? Can she only use it on a certain number of people at a time? Could she pinpoint who isn't going to be affected if it were with a large group.

For example- The Black Lizard get cornered, and she needs to use her ability would her yelling STOP, MOVE BACK or FREEZE (any key words really) affect Gin, Hirotsu, Tachihara or Akutagawa?

Can you tell I like this idea for an ability lol.

Well, I think this post has been long enough. Let me know your thoughts as well, which one do you like better? Do you have any theories for what Higuchi's ability could be? Which book title do you think Asagiri will choose when we get to finally see what her ability is?

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd theory #bungou stray dogs theory #ichiyo higuchi #ichiyo higuchi theory

93 notes · View notes

freyadragonlord · 9 months

Text

So now that anime watchers are caught up with the MADNESS, I decided to share the list i made back in august after chapter 109 came out, to try and hang onto sanity...

(spoilers if you are not up to date with either the Bungou Stray Dogs manga or the anime)

REASONS WHY I BELIEVE DAZAI IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT:

He still has plots that are unresolved, mostly his relationship with Akutagawa.

If/when he were to die, I honestly dont think it would be by losing to Dostoyevsky, it doesn't seem like the right ending for him. Similarly, i don't think Chuuya is the one destined to kill him; ever since meeting each other, Chuuya has only ever given him reasons to stay alive.

I don't think he would die away from the Detective Agency, after being apart from them for so long. They are important to him and for him, and i think he has still a role to play in Atsushi's story as well.

He apparently "died" without thinking of Oda? Suss as fuck.

Dazai never planned for Sigma to join him or to even be at the prison, he couldn't have predicted that. And apparently he never planned for Chuuya to be there either, while Dostoyevsky had previously made plans to have Chuuya brought there to help him. SO, what was Dazai's original plan for escaping and killing Fyodor? Just the time stopping ability user?? It seems unrealistic to me that he and Ango went so far into plotting this from the beginning, and Dazai didnt have other plans in case of unforseen emergencies. Dazai doesnt have a fighting ability, so reasonably there has to be another plan or ally to help him escape and kill Fyodor.

They most likely need Dazai to turn back the vampires, we have no idea if Bram can turn them back into humans himself even if he gets control over them back.

The missing bullet hole on the wall behind Dazai's head (this was very evident in the manga, but it can be seen in the anime too if you look carefully), plus the fact that he could still talk after being shot in the head from 0 cm away (this was cut from the anime, but in the manga he wispers "finally" before gently closing his eyes), seem to indicate he was not really shot in the head.

If he IS dead, Chuuya can turn him into a vampire and reanimate him - this trick has a precedent in one of the light novels, so we know for certain that Dazai can be reanimated by an ability if he is dead, as long as it happens very quickly after he dies.

If Dazai was really dying, I think his last words to Chuuya would have been more genuine and serious.

Dazai still has to prove that his bond with Chuuya isn't as shallow as Fyodor taunted him for. Cmon guys.... Are we letting Dostoyevsky get away with that one?? I don't think so. Dazai's biggest advantage over him has always been the power of friendship!

#none of these is strong enough by itself for me to be 100% sure but like #i am mostly confident dazai is okay #this is not his time #FUKUZAWA ON THE OTHER HAND #but that's another story #bungou stray dogs #bungou stray dogs spoilers #bsd #bsd spoilers #bsd season 5 #dazai #dazai osamu #dazai is alive #bungo stray dogs

166 notes · View notes

chuuya-kisser · 1 month

Text

thoughts on bsd 114.5

(this is all over the place sry and yes i took most of this from what i reblogged and edited it here)

spoilers below

WHAT THE FUCK???? TRIPLE SINGULARITY?????? HAS THAT EVER EVEN HAPPENED BEFORE??????

THIS CHAPTER FUCKING KILLED ME AND SENT ME TO THE GRAVE

ALSO IF THE THING IN THE ANIME WAS THS TRIPLE SINGULARITY THEN WONT THAT MEAN THAT BONES ALREADY KNEW ABT THE PLOT DEVELOPMENT WHEN THEY WERE MAKING THE ANIME????? THAT MEANS THAT ASAGIRI HAD THIS PLANNED OUT?????? FOR GOD KNOW HOW LONG????? THEYRE IN CAHOOTS

AYA NEEDS TO BE PROTECTED IM LITERALLY CRYING FOR HER SHE CONNECTED SM WITH BRAM IN SUCH A SHORT TIME AND NOW SHE LOST HIM TOO. IN FRONT OF HER. REMEMBER THAT THE SAME DAY SHE ALSO SAW JOUNO BEING MURDERED/VAMPIFIED. AND BRAMS LAST CONSCIOUS THOUGHT WAS TO PROTECT AYA. GOODBYE IM DYING.

yeah skk always looks pretty but IMAGINE DAZAIS STRESS LEVEL. its probably skyrocketing atp bc he's aware that almost the whole agency is at the airport. where bram is. which means where fyodor now is. which means the whole agency is at risk rn and DAZAI KNOWS THIS. like he already mentioned to sigma, he's doing all this for the agency right? SO IMAGINE DAZAIS SHEER STRESS AND WORRY KNOWING THAT SOME OF THE ONLY PPL WHO ACCEPTED HIM COULD VERY POSSIBLY BE- GOD FORBID- KILLED. pls stop give them a fucking goddamn BREAK ASAGIRI. also is there any way dazai's not being in fukuzawas recollection of the agency related to this or is that just a coincidence

this mfing smugass asshole. fuck fyodor. and his ability. and him in general. how dare he even TOUCH bram. how dare he take over his body. HOW DARE HE.

i said this before and ill say it again. FYODOR FOR THE LOVE OF YOUR EVER LOVING GOD STAY. DEAD. also i agree that dazai is the only one who can kill fyodor bc dazais ability is so far universal. anything that is an ability will be nullified by dazai. so fyodors ability should also get nullified by dazais. but dazai is technically on the other side of the world and fyodor rn. How exactly would he get there????

but my question is how would it affect fyodor? like, his body swapping ability gets canceled out. what does it do?????? send him back to his original body thats dead?? kill him on the spot? thats the real question here

i dont think fyodor will want to become the singularity bc imo his style of working is from the shadows. i dont think he would want to switch his own physical body to something so... blatant? he would probably prefer it as his pawn

WHATS THIS BITCH EVEN TRYING TO DO????? WHAT DOES HE WANT TO FUCKING ACHIEVE oh. my. god. if he can control all vamps thats gonna be HORRIFYING. but in the anime end, isnt akutagawa back to normal? hes not a vamp anymore. sooooo im just theorising and grasping on straws but could fyodor's taking over bram's body possibly reset everyone bram had converted to a vampire? thus why akutagawa was back to normal in the anime

also i was thinking abt fyodors ability so theres NO WAY that dazai killing fyodor with his ability could possibly.....yk what im talking about. make dazai. yk. i dont even want to say this.

so basically endnote: that was quite a lot and this chapter left me in Shambles.

#bungou stray dogs #dazai osamu #bsd dazai #bsd #fyodor dostoevsky #bram stoker #bsd akutagawa #bsd 114.5 #bsd manga spoilers #bsd ch 114.5 #bsd spoilers #bsd theories

47 notes · View notes

fyodcrs · 6 months

Text

BSD 111.5: A Complaint (again)

All right. So.

I have criticized the S5 finale extensively, and now that the manga is following the same storyline almost exactly, I feel I want to air my grievances one last time, because it's just so bad. At least in my humble yet correct opinion (to quote Fyodor from the BSD dub). And it only gets worse the more I think about it.

The writing here is...not good. I’m talking about the big “Chuuya was never a vampire to begin with” reveal, the retconned hand injury and what absolute contrived nonsense that is - and most of all, I’m talking about Dazai’s speech about why he “won” the "game," and how it makes no actual sense because what he says happened is not what actually happened.

All of this is stuff I've talked about in other posts (I'll be repeating myself a lot here), but I really want to focus on Dazai's speech and why I just. Don't like it.

"You don't trust anything you can't control," Dazai tells Fyodor.

This is supposed to be the reason Dazai "wins": because he trusts people, and Fyodor does not. He relies on others he considers friends; Fyodor just uses others that he considers pawns.

And this is fine in theory. Indeed, it's been heavily foreshadowed. Personally, I think "Dazai wins because he has friends, Fyodor loses because he doesn't" is a super boring way to go with both Fyodor's character and with the conflict between him and Dazai, but whatever, we all knew something like this would be the reason for the ADA's victory over the DOA. Theoretically, it makes sense.

Except, it doesn't actually work the way they did it. It doesn't work because Fyodor's plan apparently hinges on the vampires, and Fyodor does not actually have control over the vampires.

In fact, Fyodor does not have direct control over any aspect of the Decay of Angels plot.

Fukuchi does.

First of all, the Decay of Angels plot doesn't begin until after Fyodor is already in prison. Fyodor is not the one who writes on the Page, and Fyodor is not the one in possession of the Page. Fyodor is also not the one who is in possession of Bram. All of this falls to Fukuchi.

Now, there is one interesting scene where Fyodor tells Dazai that he "added a line to the page":

But - unless I have my timeline mixed up - since the Page was not stolen and used until after Fyodor was sent to prison, this only suggests he told Fukuchi what to write. There is still no point where he actually had possession of the Page himself.

Fyodor is the one who set up the entire plot and arranged for all the pieces to be in place, but once it actually starts to unfold, he is no longer in a position to directly manipulate his pawns, because he's locked up underground thousands of miles away.

Of course, this does not mean he has been removed from play entirely; he is still communicating with the outside, and he is still able to manipulate the course of events to some extent, as we see when he (somehow; it's never explained) killed the pilots so Fukuchi could get his hands on the One Order:

But how is this any different from what Dazai is doing? Dazai lets himself be captured and locked away, too, to keep an eye on Fyodor and read his moves as things unfold on the outside. He is also in communication with his allies, and he is also able to do some string-pulling, as we see when he stops Fyodor's assassination attempt on Fitzgerald and the neutralization of the Eyes of God:

Basically, both Fyodor and Dazai have the same level of control over what is happening.

Dazai being superior to Fyodor because he "simply had faith" in Ranpo (and the rest of the ADA) implies that Fyodor did not have faith in Fukuchi. But that implies that Fyodor had some means of direct control over Fukuchi throughout the unfolding of the DOA plan and therefore did not have to leave anything solely in Fukuchi's hands. Or it implies that Fyodor had a plan independent of Fukuchi. Except he didn't. On both accounts. At least not that we know of.

In fact, in the anime (which I assume will be repeated in the manga in later chapters), Fukuchi says that Fyodor didn't have any direct control. Fukuchi tells Fukuzawa that he had Fyodor sent to prison for the purpose of preventing him from interfering in Fukuchi's actual plan. And Fyodor agreed to this. He got himself arrested on purpose. The reason he does this is suggested to be that the prison is essentially the safest hideout in the world. Except Fukuchi tells us that this action also severely hindered - though not outright neutralized - Fyodor's ability to influence events.

And I'm not trying to downplay Fyodor as the spider at the center of a complex web of manipulation, not at all. I'm simply pointing out that: a) Dazai is exactly the same, and is countering Fyodor move-for-move, and b) the plan still heavily relies on Fukuchi's independent actions.

As I mentioned, the DOA plot doesn't begin until after Fyodor is arrested and sent to Meursault. Fyodor was using vampires planted as guards as his means of communication (which doesn't even make sense itself, because when exactly would this have happened? When does Fyodor communicate with these vamps? Why did Dazai not notice this?), but Fyodor himself is not controlling those guards, Fukuchi is. Because Fukuchi is the one in control of Bram, and the vampires can only be controlled through Bram. It is certainly conceivable that Fyodor might have had these guards planted before his arrest, but the vampires are only usable as pawns as long as Fukuchi has control of Bram, or at least as long as Bram isn't in control of himself.

Using Chuuya as a pawn also requires Fukuchi to be in control of Bram. Therefore, Fyodor's entire escape plan relies on Fukuchi.

Fyodor literally cannot do anything with the vampires without Fukuchi. And if his entire plan rested on the vampires, that means his entire plan rested on Fukuchi.

In other words, Fyodor's entire plan rests on him having faith in Fukuchi.

It doesn't matter that Fyodor and Fukuchi are not "friends"; it doesn't matter that Fyodor thinks of Fukuchi as a "pawn" instead of an "ally" (although I should note we've been given no evidence of this, because we have never actually seen them interact and we don't know their relationship; we're just meant to assume this). The point is that Fyodor structured this plan of his to be centered around the actions of someone else. This is no different from Dazai. In fact, this is how the both of them usually operate. They just tend to have different ways of going about manipulating their "pawns"/"allies."

Then there's the "hand full of uncertainties" line:

How, exactly, was Dazai's hand "full of uncertainties" in a way that Fyodor's wasn't? How exactly did Fyodor have "the world in the palm of his hand" in a way that Dazai didn't? How exactly was Fyodor in more control of what was happening than Dazai was? As I've already pointed out, what we've been shown suggests they both had equal measures of influence on the outside, and therefore equal levels of manipulative power and equal amounts of uncertainties.

In fact, if we are to believe that Fyodor was surprised by Nikolai and Sigma, that was a whole hell of a lot of uncertainties being thrown at him. And just like Dazai, he just ran with it.

And the reality is that Dazai actually had a whole hell of a lot less uncertainties than Fyodor did, and a whole hell of a lot more control, because Chuuya was never a vampire to begin with. The moment Chuuya arrived, Dazai had the upper hand. It's not like he was ever in any actual danger from the point Chuuya showed up. He was in full control of the situation from that point on.

And you can say that's the whole point, Dazai was in control because he had an ally, but the point I'm making is that the only control Fyodor thought he had over the situation was also because of an ally that he believed he had. If he believed he was controlling Chuuya, he also had to believe that Fukuchi still had Bram and was still on his side. He was operating on faith in pretty much the exact same way Dazai was.

You can also argue that Chuuya showing up was proof for Fyodor that Fukuchi was still in control of Bram (even though he wasn't by that point) and that things were going according to plan. But I'd counter-argue that if at any point before Fyodor managed to escape Bram had had his will restored, Fyodor would have been fucked (had Chuuya actually been a vampire). The very act of using Chuuya as a pawn was a huge act of faith on Fyodor's part.

It's important to stress here that Fukuchi was not under Fyodor's "control" at any point, at least not so far as we've been shown. He is not brainwashed like Nathaniel. He is also not a throwaway piece. He is vital to the plan. And he has his own motivations. We aren't quite there yet in the manga, but we know from the anime what Fukuchi actually wanted, and we also know from the anime that Fyodor approached Fukuchi and propositioned him. They made a deal. Of course, Fyodor always had his own plan, but he knew what Fukuchi's real motivations were. Even so, he trusted that Fukuchi would carry out the plan as he instructed, at least so far as we've been shown.

The argument can be made that Fyodor doesn’t actually have any trust in Fukuchi, he simply trusts that he knows exactly how Fukuchi will act and that everything will go as he predicted. But how is that any different from Dazai? Ranpo negotiating with Bram and Bram ordering the vampires to attack Fyodor might not have been something Dazai and Ranpo set up beforehand, but it is certainly something Dazai planned for, because he purposefully set Fyodor up to be in a vulnerable position, anticipating that exact scenario. Again, they are both operating in the same exact way: not directly controlling their allies, but assuming that their allies will act as they expect. The only difference is that Fyodor’s “allies” did not meet his expectations and Dazai’s did.

I get that the point of this is supposed to be that Fyodor is undone by his cruel manipulation of others and his ruthless attempts to impose his own order upon the world. And that's fine. It's good, even!

The problem is...that's not what happened. Fyodor lost because he relied on something that was outside of his direct control: the vampires. Fyodor lost because he put too much control in the hands of Fukuchi.

And this in itself is a problem, because Fyodor should not have so heavily relied on Fukuchi. All of this would work for me just fine if everything didn't revolve around the goddamn vampires. You cannot have Fyodor's entire fucking plan hinge on the vampires, over which only Bram and the person who has possession of Bram have any control, and then try and tell me that Fyodor lost because he didn't have faith in people. Why would he use the vampires at all if he had no faith in Fukuchi?? Why would he get into a helicopter with the vampires piloting if he had no faith Fukuchi was still his ally and Bram was still under Fukuchi's control?? Why would he have agreed to go to prison in the first place if he had no trust in Fukuchi????? It doesn't make any sense.

And don’t try to tell me, “Well, Fyodor’s just arrogant.” That is the laziest fucking excuse you could possibly give to justify why Fyodor’s IQ points have been cut in half this arc. And, for the thousandth time I ask—how is this any different from Dazai, who also just assumed everything would go his way? Why is it "faith" when it's Dazai but it's arrogance when it's Fyodor?

Personally, I think BSD made a massive narrative mistake in putting Fyodor and Dazai in Meursault in the first place. It's over-complicated things.

Also, one thing that really bothers me about all this is that it's supposed to be a big character moment for Dazai, but...I don't see how this is any different from how he usually operates. Hell, this ruse Dazai and Chuuya set up is even something that SKK did before when they were a team in the Mafia. We've seen Dazai do this shit a thousand times. What's supposed to be the big deal here? The fact that he made a friendship speech this time?

It's just fallen really flat to me, and that's a bummer because I think Dazai is one of the most well-written and interesting characters I've ever come across, and I want to see great character development for him.

I've complained endlessly about Chuuya being in a Halloween costume the entire time so I'll just say here that it's really fucking dumb that Fyodor just. Didn't notice. That he was fooled by fake fangs and contact lenses. Dazai would have noticed, if their roles were reversed. Ranpo would have noticed. It really is just a case of Fyodor being made stupid out of nowhere so Dazai could win.

The retconned hand injury is also incredibly dumb, because first of all, in the manga it didn't exist until the last two chapters when it needed to exist. And second of all, the hand is clearly shown to be usable after the incident that is supposed to have injured it so severely that Fyodor needs the vampires - who, again, are not under his direct control - to pilot the helicopter so he can escape, and this is true for both the manga and the anime. It conveniently only becomes a problem when Dazai needs it to. Because plot, I guess. Because the universe is chaos unless Dazai is pulling another deus ex machina.

I really hate being so critical and so negative, especially about BSD, because it's been my favorite series for years now. But ever since the S5 finale I've been finding more and more things about this arc and it's conclusion (?) that make no sense to me. And considering that Fyodor and Dazai are my favorite characters and a large part of the reason I'm invested in this story, to see them both so poorly handled has left a very bad taste in my mouth.

In conclusion:

#bsd spoilers #Bungou Stray Dogs #y'all can disagree with me that's okay SDFGHGH #maybe I'm just missing the point idk #I swear though this'll be the last time I complain #I just wanted to talk about Dazai's speech and why I viscerally HATE IT

68 notes · View notes

cocktailjjrs · 9 months

Text

He LIVED Bitches!!!!

Long post ahead

First thing first... I love this starting pallet (i'm definitely overthinking)

Not complete white not complete black with prominent shadows, because every major character in the show is grey and one half of each partnership likes to lurk in shadows...This just highlights that things won't always be merry and colourful, but they won't completely be helpless...

Now to the episode itself...

We knew Aya was going to jump... Glad she was oh so delicately caught by Aku... I didn't think it was possible to clear everything in one episode, but expect the unexpected i guess...

And the main part of Dazai being alive and kicking...No but really, this is such a relief...

I kinda had the whole thing in the back of my mind that they can't kill Dazai, he is necessary for the plot armour to plot armour and all that shit...

But there was equal chances of Asagiri taking notes from Isayama or Gege and just decide, fuck it... let's keep him dead....If not the confirmed dead thing, then the dead till stated otherwise route that Hori took.

But i'm soooo glad Asagiri didn't do that!!!

Also, glad to know he is still as cocky as ever

AND AND AND

I screamed!!!! My fam started looking at me for two whole minutes like i've just gone crazy!!!

Because we got the prettiest boy speaking!!!

The look on Fyodor's face when he realised he was played by the one he had completely under his control (or he thought he had)... I think he realised the 'shallow bond' comment haunted him in this moment

I will deep dive into what exactly happened in those seconds in a later post, but i just wanna say

This is soooo damn funny!!!! Like you have this big bad mafia boss who has been MIA for the whole part of world destruction and his precious city being in the centre of it all (lets face it mori loves Yokohama more than he loves the whole world, he would gladly let the world burn if it means keeping that damn trouble-magnet city safe!) - BUT BUT BUT, then when things start to look up you only get a mention of the said boss and that too with a goofy fact such as he glued in vampire fangs to one of his executives! Don't tell me it's not an embarrassing dad thing to do, because it is!!!

I just know he, Hirotsu and Koyo has a hell of a time getting teenage soukoku to adulthood alive!!!

I mean -

WHAT DO YOU MEAN SIR YOU USED TO DO THIS ALL THE TIME???

No one's doing it like them!!!

Plus i just know Manga coming out is going to be even more gay than the anime, there will be more explanations and more fruity moments!!!

On a sad note...

Fyodor actually seems to be dead ( even if i don't believe it)

It hurt so bad to see Gogol man going - i wanted him dead, no i didnt, but maybe i did. His voice alone mad me sad...

But you know what i'm not sad about???

Getting rid of Fukuchi!!!

I'm not going to pretend that i felt even an ounce of sympathy for him, his whole 'i did this so you can bring peace' or 'some sacrifices are necessary for greater good' thing seemed forced to me. Like a desperate attempt at ending his character arc on a forgiving note, positive note...

But like i said, most characters in this show are grey... But there was none of Fukuchi's shade, and i didn't like it, even if in the end he wanted peace.

i do feel sad for Fukuzawa though,

He will have to live with that curse...

Plus i don't think Fukuchi is completely gone...

Decay of angel's may be over, but the mess they have left behind is not, there is still the other side of the page and whatever the fuck went down in those two hours...

But i'm glad that atleast Aku and Atsushi are on same side this time...

and this looks so much like:

So yeah, it's just another start!!!

Plus, You remember Soukoku came to fame after final battle of Dragon Head conflict?

The Finale of Decay of Angels will the foundation of Shinsoukoku's journey...

The two of them against all the threats to come...

We sure are in for a treat!!!

91 notes · View notes

cousticks · 8 months

Note

hi bestie, I'm going to need your thoughts about BEAST. it doesn't matter how long. 🙏I find that LN very interesting plus my blorbo Odasaku is there TT

if you're up to the challenge of sharing most, if not all your unhinged thoughts about BEAST, I would greatly appreciate it.

If not, that's okay too. No pressure fr ❤️

This ask makes me stare at my computer screen in horror for the can of worms you've opened, my friend. I'm better now, but there was a point in time a couple years ago I carried my physical copy of the Beast LN with me everywhere in my school bag & called it my Bible. Needless to say its quite important to me. I wasn't sure how to approach this at first, but as I've been going I kind of ended up breaking it down by character. I will also say that I've read the LN and seen the movie, but I haven't read the entire manga yet, so if there's anything manga specific you were hoping I'd mention that I don't I apologize! This is comically long I am so sorry.

I will admit I kind of suck because, though Beast is primarily about the interactions between Atsushi and Akutagawa, I don't have much to say about either of them. But Beast is so so so refreshing to me to see some of the characters that I thought deserved better in canon receiving their time in the light. The interactions between Aku and Oda are everything to me, especially when Akutagawa has to babysit the kids, and through it he has to learn when to be gentle and when to be harsh. Its so so so important because you get to see that he can do both. The same Akutagawa who's first appearance in the main timeline is blowing up a police station without any care for civilian casualties is capable of gently playing with children, WITH his ability. It opens up a depth to his character that, at least at the time of Beast's official English translation coming out (I had it on Preorder lol), we didn't really get to see in the main timeline. It told me that there was so much more to see from him, more that Asagiri wanted to say about him, and not only made me really attached to his Beast version but made me enthusiastic to see what was to come from the main timeline for him.

Its kind of similar with Atsushi in Beast, if the opposite way. I was always a little disappointed with the anime's adaption of Atsushi, as he always felt a bit watered down to be a one-size-fits-all protagonist, when he has more character and snark in the manga that makes him so much more interesting. I don't love it for him because yanno that shit traumatizing, but I do for me enjoy having seen what happens when you put him in the mafia instead. Do you ever think about how he would have been like, 12, when he was recruited into the mafia? That's like 6 years earlier than in canon. This is assuming that Beast Dazai goes and picks him up at the same point in time that he acquires Akutawaga in the main timeline. (Aku was acquired when he was 14). So by the time of Beast's main plot, that gives Atsushi 6 years in the mafia to become the White Reaper, and what a name that is. To be associated with the death he's so afraid of. Ohh, he's interesting. I wish I had more to say about him. Honestly, beast aku and atsu are more my boyfriend @pmreaper's wheelhouse, and I highly recommend taking a look at his thoughts. Between the Orphanage and the Mafia, Beast Atsushi hasn't really seen much honest kindness, aside from Kyoka. And christ, the collar. I'll talk more about the collar later, but that does something to me. He goes from the orphanage causing him pain and problems about being the tiger when he doesn't even know, to a much more restrictive controlling pain when he does know. He's taught that being what he is just leads to being in pain and he has no control over it and it makes me miserable for him. Despite spending so much time fighting on the Mafia's behalf, on Dazai's behalf, this boy has no idea how to fight for himself.

I think that's a major difference between beast Atsu and Aku honestly. Akutagawa will fight for himself. He'll fight his way out of a bad situation. Beast Atsushi won't. That self pity of feeling he deserves it. Christ. Them. Their soft moments interacting together before everything goes to shit in Beast are everything to me. They're just kids from bad situations they understand each other. Their interactions in Beast stab me through the heart.

I don't have much to say about Gin but I want to mention her anyway. Mostly because I think she's the most mentally stable of the mafia members close to Dazai in Beast that we see (Chuuya, Atsu, Kyoka, Gin). She'd have a Keurig on her desk and make the best coffee on the floor. She's such a stark difference from her main timeline counterpart, too. Gin the mafia assassin and Gin the mafia secretary are so different, visually. But... this is a Gin that isn't fighting to survive in the same way. I think so much about how she was taken so that Dazai had some kind of control over Akutagawa without having him in the mafia. I think about how she decided Akutagawa wasn't ready to have her in his life again. About how she was ready to be killed for the Mafia. We barely see any of Gin in the main timeline, but we see so much of her here. Her loyalty to the mafia, her own feelings of betrayal, there's so much to her that we just haven't seen from the main timeline at all. I adore her. I want to see more of her. I like to think that after the events of Beast played out she stole a mafia helicopter and she and Kyoka flew off to Cancun on a girls trip to recover from All That Shit.

I generally ignore the Beast version of Chuuya the way he's presented in canon if I'm honest. And I quite actively ignore whatever the movie ending with the chains is because the fuck is that. Chuuya's presence in Beast canon is something that i acknowledge and then throw away. I have a very specific mental timeline of how Beast progresses in my head as far as where it diverges from the main timeline. In my heart, Atsushi is dragged into the mafia shortly before Dragon's Head Rush, possibly when the conflict is originally starting up in Yokohama, or some time during it. Somewhere in the 88 days before the final face-off against Shibusawa. (I have a lot of opinions on the nitty-gritty details of that timeline both in Beast and Main timeline but that's a not-right-now problem.) This is the event that, in the main timeline, Dazai ascends to executive. I believe that in the Beast timeline, during the DHR conflict is where he stages his coup to become the PM's boss. Which is... kind of a wild thing to do at 16, I guess, but this is a Dazai that has memories of the main timeline as well as of this world, so is he really mentally 16 at that point with the combined life experience? Anyway. Why do I mention this timeline when I'm talking about Chuuya? Because Dazai needed help staging that coup. Chuuya's help. He was well liked in the mafia even then (we can see Chuuya's own reputation was pretty damn good at this point as its not long after Stormbringer). I believe they had a more amicable relationship in the Beast timeline than in main timeline, and that this was calculated to make Chuuya's loyalty lie more with Dazai than the mafia at large so that the coup would work. But after Dazai is boss? Nothing. Cold and all-business once Dazai is in place to start playing with the entire city like his own personal barbie dolls to get everything in place to allow Oda to write his book. Whatever. Which leads to Chuuya's loyalty-hatred complex a bit but I have... a lot of opinions on that entire interaction between them that I don't really know how to articulate. But it fucking sucks.

As far as within the Mafia hierarchy, I think that very few people ever report to Dazai himself. Only Gin, Atsu, Chuuya, and maybe someone really trustworthy like Hirotsu. Chuuya is the boss's right hand in this, he's the second in command, above what a normal executive position would be. Dazai is busy making plans on his insanity corkboard trying to ensure this world stays perfect for Oda. He's busy scheming on what to do to make the mafia more powerful to ensure its reach can accomplish what he needs it to. He's busy doing all the meta-number-crunching to minmax his power so he can treat the world like a plaything. I think he leaves a lot of the normal day-to-day running the mafia to Chuuya, who acts more like the boss in the level of Mori in the main timeline, since the Mafia itself in Beast is like 3x the power it was in canon. Someone has to be keeping an eye on the city itself. I think the executives more of report to him than they would Dazai. It just becomes this really weird hierarchy of designated people leading what they need to so Dazai can focus on what he wants. Obviously none of this is supported in Beast canon at all its just what I believe in my whole heart. I also think that there may have been a point in time they tested something similar to the collar Atsushi is given with Chuuya to see if there was a way to shut down Corruption without Dazai needing to be involved. It failed and Chuuya was hospitalized for a week after and 100% made it Dazai's problem. Which, tangentially, do you ever think about the Beast aftermath? How if something comes up where Beast Chuuya has to use Corruption, there's no longer a way to stop it? Because I sure do.

This brings me down to more thoughts about Beast Dazai himself, who is such a wild character to me. He's everything normal timeline Dazai doesn't want to be. Oda wouldn't want this. Oda wouldn't want a world where so many people are miserable that don't have to be just for his sake. Its depressing, but main timeline Odasaku had chosen his time to die and was quite ready to do so. And main timeline Dazai? He just had to accept that. And grow beyond it. And learn how to create connections with others. But Beast Dazai? He swings the opposite. He doesn't try to recover, he's obsessive, he tears everyone else down into his misery with him to try to create a world that Oda can survive and write his novels in without ever thinking about the fact that Oda would never want that, would never ask for that, but he's on such a pedestal in Dazai's mind that its never considered. Its selfish. He thinks he's doing something for someone else but its so, so very selfish and frankly ridiculous. He chose to never really make any connections with anyone else. Oda of that universe doesn't even know who he is, other than the boss of the mafia that ruins people's lives. There's no connection. Beast Dazai is so untethered and doesn't see anything in that world as anything more than means to an end and I'm so, so obsessed with him. He's tragic. He's trying so hard to do something correctly and doesn't even understand what he's doing wrong because he's so caught up in saving the one person he's so fixated on. He's crafted an empire out of the mafia and couldn't care less about it. He's put himself into the shoes of a god and sacrificed every mortal comfort because of it. I have so much I could say about him but my brain is going to short circuit if I think about him for much longer. I'll probably talk more about him again when I finally reread Beast. I hate him more than I can explain. He's the most interesting man alive. He's no man at all. I'm in hell

Odasaku. Oda. He's still alive. He has even more orphans. Akutagawa is one of his orphans. He thinks he's the most normal guy but he's so, so weird. He trusts Akutagawa with his kids. He'll fight Akutagwa in the middle of the Agency as a training exercise. He probably has the most bland coffee order you can imagine. Anyone know that textpost about the guy that got the black coffee with the blueberry flavoring? The ordinary man with something deeply wrong with him? That's beast Oda. He wants to be a writer, he succeeds, he has a mafia boss obsessed with him and doesn't even know until said dude goes off and dies. I have NO idea what the fuck he was doing in the movie. I generally ignore the movie honestly. He's just some guy. This world was made for him and all he wants is to be ordinary. This world was made for him and he chooses to be mundane. This is a man that knows mortality well. That knows the best parts of life are the small ones. He wants to help people and he succeeds. He sees other people who had a past of violence, like he did growing as an assassin, and he helps them get out of it, he prevents it from happening, he offers care in a way those unused to receiving it can accept. He isn't perfect. He's just a guy. It makes him perfect. I want to kick a wall.

The agency in Beast and how they all rally together is so interesting as well. We don't really get to see them all in action together that often honestly and its a delight. I wish I had more to say about all of them. They're such a cohesive unit of strays and I love them.

I certainly have so much more I could say about Beast but this is already like, the length of an average one-shot fanfiction on AO3 just of my incoherent rambling. If there's anything you want me to talk more on please send another ask because this was a fucking blast to dig up a lot of my old thoughts. I have several unedited one-shot beast fics tucked into storage that maybe one day I'll share because they're all based off of my headcanons and personal beliefs on the timeline.

My boyfriend and I also have an ongoing project called Beastswap where we explore what happens to the characters if they start randomly popping between the two timelines in the post-Beast fallout after everything has settled a little and once I get my writing spark back there will definitely be some of that floating around as well.

#im so sorry this is so long and incomprehensible but gathering thoughts on beast is Difficult #i have so many of them #asks? answered. hotel? trivago.#beast.#beast ensemble #bungo stray timeline #(kind of)#🏢#< beastswap tag

9 notes · View notes

larathia · 9 months

Text

So that's it for the BSD anime fans for a while. Probably a few years, really. At least.

Final thoughts, therefore, on the anime:

Fukuchi, you ....idiot. You 'made Fyodor stay in prison' because 'what could he do from Europe'? REALLY? You ACTUALLY thought you had ANY control over Fyodor's ability to affect your little plot? DUDE. I'll admit, I laughed out loud when he said that. That was just...the dumbest damn thing he could've said.

The manga had better not make this final episode take more than one chapter. YA HEAR ME, ASAGIRI? Y'GOT NO MORE DAMN EXCUSES FOR THIS CHAPTER POINT-FIVE BS. You've got a whole season's worth of anime to create, minus somebody deciding on another light novel adaptation for three or four episodes of it. Chopchop.

No. I don't think Fyodor is dead. Yeah, that was probably actually his actual arm. An arm does not a corpse make, nor has having two arms ever affected his ability to SERIOUSLY fuck people over. We still don't know the nature of his ability, and it's entirely possible that he will resurface later. At most, at most, he's been weakened - and even that may prove temporary. Fyodor is like the Joker; don't believe he's dead until you have a DNA-verified, fully autopsied corpse. Even then, check for clones.

Bram is...whole. On the loose. I mean, he clearly likes Aya, so yay there, but ...I don't think this is the last we see of him.

I honestly do not believe Fukuchi's plot did jack squat to avert a coming global war. He may have changed some parameters, but the way he went about things means a) nobody learned a damn thing and b) a LOT of people just got the shit and piss scared right out of them, and c) scared people are extra, EXTRA stupid.

Side Note 1: Fyodor has to enact his ability through touch. Does he use the hand that apparently got blown off? Is his power ambidextrous? Somebody go check and get back to me.

Side Note 2: Chuuya was never a vampire? How the hell did he manage to get ordered to go to Muersault without other vampires working that out? Vamps don't seem to be telepathic with each other, but they're ALL tied to Bram. Surely Bram would notice Chuuya's not vamped? I'm ...actually kind of hoping upcoming manga chapters clear this one up, because while I expect ass-pulls, this one feels weirdly egregious.

Side Note 3: So...let's see. Yes. Dead Apple, Corruption Arc, Guild Arc, and now this long plot. Dazai and Ranpo know how to handle Fyodor now. Spend a while struggling theatrically. Set up dramatic countermeasures so Fyodor sees his rats running the maze he's built. And then arrange to kick him in the balls at the point where he thinks he's won. Fyodor's plots have gotten more direct, more dangerous, and have ever more layers to them, so "the point at which he thinks he's won" but does not have Yet Another Maze waiting is the real tricky bit, it seems. But the procedure's pretty well down pat now.

I'm not saying it makes me unhappy, but the manga damn well better explain how Akutagawa is not dead and also not a vamp. I don't want that handwaved, please and thankyou, because it affects A HELL OF A LOT OF THE WHOLE PLANET.

#bungou stray dogs #bsd analysis

8 notes · View notes

bandtrees · 9 months

Text

!!!! BSD5 EP10 SPOILERS !!!!

i take back all my ironypoisoned statements about bsd i loved that most recent episode a LOT a lot. its not like i disliked the current arc by any means, but it also reached a point in its absurdity where i stopped taking it too seriously - and MAN did this episode bring it back SO GOOD!!!

it did really well - between sigma and dazai being trapped in the flooded room, the sskk fight, the fyodor and sigma scenes, the bram and aya scenes - both with bringing all those subplots to very bleak devastating points, AND with something i have always always criticized about bsd: the violence here feels real, it has stakes - yes i expect a bsd-typical fakeout next episode after we saw dazai get (supposedly) shot to death, yes i know atsushi after being dismembered is probably gonna be fine, one way or another, cuzthats how this show rolls... BUT!!! BUT! let me bask in this until the next episode drops: the WEIGHT of it all!! how PAINFUL they made it!!!

bsd gives characters mortal injuries often, and doesnt really give them lasting impact. remember when atsushi lost his leg? kunikida lost his hands? or when dazai got shot in the eye in dark era? those bits essentially existed just for the striking imagery of violence - for the shot of dazai bleeding through his bandages, but he's still standing, pretty motionless, you know? and it's something you get used to with bsd, as much as i gripe about how the fights tend to not really have stakes...

...but this episode, though? i think going so long seeing these characters crumple and tear like paper and largely be fine, makes the absolute painful bleakness of this feel all the worse: dazai's crumpled on the floor from a broken leg, bleeding from the head, and he can't deliver many of his dazai-typical quips before he gets shot in the shoulder and just grabs it and screams. he doesn't get the satisfaction of being grabbed, or strangled, or whatever else by chuuya's hands, he doesn't even have the control of that: no, all he can do is just sit there while he's shot, over and over, and even when he's on a smarmy genre-savvy self-aware ramble, chuuya just stops him and shoots him in the head - and that's so fucking jarring and makes for INCREDIBLY striking imagery, i love it!!! for once, he's not safe! there's no plot armor! he's in so much pain and he is actively feeling it!!! AND THATS SO IMPORTANT TO HUMANIZING A CHARACTER LIKE DAZAI

AND THE SSKK FIGHT GOD DONT GET ME STARTED - the way atsushi's screams were voice acted, my god youd think they were actually tearing off yuto uemura's limbs in that recording studio. sweet jesus. you see people complain a lot about manga-aname adaptation changes but, as someone who hasnt read the manga, any cuts studio bones made were made up for by the absolutely brilliant audio - the music and voice acting - in every way, in this episode. the screams of pain. fyodor's gayass little stunt. so good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

also sigma was awesome. aya was awesome. bram was awesome. fyodor made me feel a type of way (HIS ACTING WAS SO GOOD. MY GOD!!! TAKING ADVANTAGE OF SIGMA'S NAIVETE LIKE THAT!!! SPEAKING TO THEM IN TROPES BECAUSE THEY'RE LITERALLY A BOOK CHARACTER AAAUHHHH). 10/10 we are so fucking back. I LOVE ANIME.

#babbles #bsd spoilers #bungou stray dogs #AAUHHH I LOVE THIS ANIME WE'RE SO BACK WE'RE SO BACK #also theythemming sigma because i see the light now. i used to be like ':// eh kinda weird to only trans hc the feminine looking guy'#and like i still feel a biit weird if thats the ONLY kinda guy ur making Gender but like. i see them. i see them now

6 notes · View notes

applepi00 · 7 months

Text

20 questions for fic writers!

Tagged by @chubsthehamster

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

26!

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

139,299!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Bungou Stray Dogs, Haikyuu, and Trigun lately, but if you go back far enough in my fic career you’d find Hetalia, Black Butler, Doctor Who, Soul Eater, and who knows what else I’ve forgotten.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

First Scar, Rough Nights, Last Young Renegade, Wish You Were Here, and Time Enough.

However if we ask instead what my favourites are it would have to be:

All My Love (Bungou Stray Dogs, fem soukoku, boarding school au, soulmate au but a bit to the left)

When the Sun Goes Black (Bungou Stray Dogs, soukoku, canon divergence, the one where Corruption leaves Chuuya blind)

this masterpiece will (tear you apart), (BSD, soukoku, canon divergence, the one where Dazai gets kidnapped and traipses through alternate realities)

Wish You Were Here, (BSD, soukoku, the one that splits from canon after Dead Apple and Chuuya wrestles with Arahabaki in his psyche. Yes I’m aware Arahabaki isn’t canonically sentient or sapient but look I wrote this before we knew that for sure and also it’s a fun concept)

and Where is your heart in all this, Nicholas? (Trigun, Vashwood kinda, the one with attempts at a dom/sub thing, attempts at care taking, and absolutely no attempts at real communication on what anyone actually needs or wants.)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, always! I love the community aspect of sharing things online and I absolutely adore when people talk to me about the things I’m already vibrating over.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Uhhhhhhh probably Home With You since it’s about a twenty year old dying of a degenerative disease but to be fair most of my work is angsty and picking an angstiest is likely up to interpretation and perspective. (In other words let me know which one you would call my saddest if you have an opinion!)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

See I don’t really do happy endings in much of a traditional sense, but I’m gonna say Perfect Disaster. They get their shit figured out in that one!

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Not any that I recall!

9. Do you write smut?

Not this year I haven’t but generally yes I do!

10. Do you write crossovers?

Nope, haven’t touched crossovers in any sense really since I was twelve, they just never really were my jam.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Technically yes. However it was never posted anywhere and I would massively overhaul it if I ever did try to get it out publicly.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

I feel like I’m obligated to say soukoku lol, who else has taken up seven years of my life?

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

Let’s be honest, probably the other two parts of Tell Me Pretty Lies. My sister wants the Kuroo/Akaashi fic but it just was not working when I tried it and it’s been years now since I’ve written haikyuu.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Internal dialogue I think! Thought processes and poetics, I think there’s often nice bits of cadence and rhythm to my work!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot. I very rarely plot out fully and more often than not write without any plan at all, or only a vague outline of one. So anything requiring heavy lining up is often not there as much as I’d like. I’m a very go with the flow sort of person when it comes to the specifics in fics (which is funny because I can control everything in fic, but the only time I plan and plot consistently is in ttrpgs when I have to guess at what my friends will do)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

If you do it well it’s a tool, if you do it badly you seem a fool. I use it on occasion, and I use it often in live play roleplaying, but time and place and reason.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I think it was Black Butler back on ye old Wattpad but my sister insists it was Inuyasha since my “original fiction” as a kid was heavily ripping off my favourite anime at the time of writing it.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Answered kinda above but honestly I’m really still so fond of When the Sun Goes Black, and All My Love/Nothing Ever Counts. I feel like my prose was just really very good in those!

Tagging: @feralrookie @macavitykitsune @valoniel @doomedblade @blindblossom @nautilusopus and anyone else that wants to

#emi rambles #emi writes #tag games #writing

5 notes · View notes

valenteal · 5 months

Text

So I said I’m never gonna write the bsd x kotlc fic idea I came up with but I’m wavering. This AU idea has grabbed me by the throat and it won’t let me work on school. Bu t I have no idea what the plot would even be! So I’m going to brainstorm on here and post it and if anyone is interested I might get the motivation to write it, or maybe someone else will do me the favor of writing it instead.

Anyway.

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke and Tam Song are the same person, and by extension Gin and Linh are as well, but that’s not the point.

Akutagawa and Tam have the same key personality traits already: over protective brother, surly dramatic emo, authority issues, and silver bangs!

All you have to do is take Tam out of the elven world, drop him in Yokohama and BAM! Akutagawa!

Tam and Linh were banished and sent to Exillium when they were 11. Dazai found them living on the street when they were 14. That gives them 3 years to acclimate to the forbidden cities. And for Tam to get lung disease. I would say that he didn’t just get it from the polluted air. But that he actually breathed in like super deadly toxins after ending up somewhere really dangerous and the only reason he didn’t die is because he’s an elf, but because he didn’t get any treatment it left him with permanent damage. This is why Gin wears a mask, Ryu gets super worried and makes her wear it most of the time because overprotective.

But imagine the shock of Tam and Linh learning that humans have abilities to 😂! They would be so shocked! And then they’d realize human Abilities are better and more diverse than Elven Abilities and just be like… bro elves dumb af. Just the idea of these two universes coexisting— i cant even.

Anyway. Tam figures out how to use his shade powers in a way that seems a little more human and is less recognizable to any elves who might stumble upon them. Linh actually uses her ability as a hydro-kinetic, going out to the ocean to practice and to satisfy the part of her that needs to become one with the water sometimes. However, as Gin she pretends not to have an ability so that no one will use her for it, and so that she doesn’t loose control in a populated area.

So Tam and Linh become Ryuunosuke and Gin and live as “orphans” on the streets of Yokohama. Then every thing follows BSD canon. They find friends on the streets, grow close, those friends become a sort of found family. Then they over hear classified mafia intelligence by accident and only the Akutagawas escape with their lives. Ryuu decides to use the information to get revenge for their friends but when he arrives the people responsible are dead at Dazai’s hand. Dazai offers either enough money for them to get off the streets or for Ryuu to come work for him. And, well, he’d walked away from a life of comfort and plenty before, and he’d grown to despise normal society for how it treated people who were different, who were more powerful. He knew that the mafia offered a more honest lifestyle in which he and his sister could be respected and know exactly where they stood. Instead of the social and political world of regular society, which is full of lies and judgment and unearned authority he chose the mafia. A place of darkness and brutal honesty, where no one get power or respect without earning it.

So Ryuu and Gin both join the mafia, Gin quickly rises through the ranks, becoming an assassin commander of her own black lizard battalion. Ryuu on the other had faces unexpected struggles. He had committed to the bit, his ability was “Rashoumon” not shadow manipulation. It took him a good amount of time to perfect using his ability in ways that looked like he was controlling his coat. He ended up using shadow-flux (without any training or knowledge of what he was actually doing because he’s just that awesome!) to make his coat a powerful weapon. By seeping the shadow flux into the coat he was able to create Rashoumon for real. But Dazai doesn’t know that he’s holding back and figuring out exactly how much power he can use, instead expecting something from Akutagawa that is entirely different from what he can actually do. Dazai thinks he’s being a slow learner, that the things he’s trying to teach should come naturally to him.

That’s all I’ve got for now. My head hurts owwwwwwwwwww

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #tam song #akutagawa ryuunosuke #linh song #gin akutagawa #au idea #bsd x kotlc #bsd dazai #dazai osamu #crossover #crossover idea #brainstorming #akutagawa ryuunosuke is tam song #akutagawa gin is linh song

2 notes · View notes

head-empty-just-sigma · 1 year

Note

Hello! Just read the new chapter and do you think that Dazai will die? I mean they sent Chuuya to kill Dazai, and Dazai is the only one who can defeat Fyodor right? what will the ADA do if Dazai dies ?

hihi :>

i genuinely don’t think Dazai is actually going to die mostly because he has always been and will probably continue to be a very important character in the story. i think Fyodor sending Chuuya to kill Dazai is more of a stunt to show that Fyodor has more control over Chuuya & is able to ‘use’ him better than Dazai, but this will most likely backfire unless Dazai literally just lets Chuuya kill him for some reason. this is probably as much of a ‘power move’ as it is more mind games on Fyodor’s part since, well, it’s Chuuya and it’s also showing Fyodor’s confidence (misplaced or otherwise) that he thinks he can beat Dazai using his own ex-partner and also leaving himself vulnerable with no body guard while Sigma is literally one finger twitch away from a planting a point blank shot in Fyodor’s forehead. or plot twist: Chuuya is not actually going to Dazai and shows up where Sigma and Fyodor are instead to reveal he’d broken out of the vampire’s mind control finally thanks to his hat and sheer willpower.

so tldr i think Dazai is just too important to the story and to the characters that the story is focusing on rn to die :)

#•- Inbox Answers #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd manga #bsd manga spoilers #bsd 107 #bsd dazai

11 notes · View notes

knockyasocksoff2022 · 11 months

Text

Dancing with My Love

Hi! I’m back with yet another relationship reveal. This one has more plot though, I promise. (I meant to post this way earlier but I completley forgot lol)

under cut due to length (2,117 words)

Kunikida's Perspective

Tonight we're at an event space in between Port Mafia territory and our territory. It has most of us on edge, except that bastard Dazai, of course, he's as cool as a cucumber. Humming that damn suicide song of his. I've given up.

The purpose of the event space is to hold the ball that we, the Armed Detective Agency and the Port Mafia are hosting as a celebration of peace.

(A/N: Totally not a Fukumori anniversary celebration in disguise)

I haven't seen the president all day. He said had an important meeting with Mori. The rest of us are in charge of the decorating and the Port Mafia are in charge of food and refreshments. The food will come in later but for now the decorating is done and it's almost time for the other guest to arrive.

"Everyone, excellent job with the decorations. You should do anything you need to get ready because everyone else will be here very soon." I tell them and they disperse to get change and so do I.

------------------------ A FEW MINUTES LATER ----------------------

"Dazai! WHAT IS THAT!?" The words are out of my mouth before I've even fully processed the man's outfit.

"Oh, it's my outfit." He says casually.

I look round at everyone else in standard suits and Yosano and Kyouka in dresses, all appropriate black tie event attire. Not to say Dazai's isn't fitting of the style of the event but . . .

"Yes, but what is it?"

"Why Kunikida-kun, you don't know?" He's teasing me and I feel my fists clench at my sides.

"No, I do not."

"It's perfect attire for a ball." He spins around joyfully.

I know my opinion won't do anything for him anymore, he's just too far gone. "Whatever, just try not to be too weird."

"Keep your expectations realistic, Kunikida." Yosano whispers in my ear. I know she;s right but I had to say it anyway.

—-----------------------------

The ball has been going very well so far, everyone is peacefully eating, drinking and dancing. However the night is still young so I keep my guard up.

Chuuyas P.O.V.

We arrive a little later than everyone else. I would say we were being fashionably late but it was really because Koyou had to drag me out of hiding with the promise of expensive wine. Koyou swats me in the arm, clearly in disapproval of my bitter and distressed expression.

"Come on Chuuya, I refuse to let you seethe like a wet cat all night. You are going to have fun for god's sake."

"Ouch! Hey, you know I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for the wine."

"And a certain detective."

I just stop myself from punching the other executive in the arm by grabbing a glass of wine. She just smiles knowingly and walks off to mingle. I head over to the table with drinks and pour myself a glass of excellent smelling red, soon I find myself unconsciously scanning the crowd for the aforementioned detective.

Ah, there he—

Fuck!

What!? That tacky, sneaky, bastard! What!? How could he!? I at least deserve a warning first!!!!

I gulp down my wine and grab another glass while I attempt to control my mental sputtering. Normally I would take my time to appreciate the flavour but not tonight, right now I need lots of alcohol, as quickly as possible.

My husband stands next to Mori and Koyou, talking to Elise, the sight itself is unsurprising except for the fact that . . .

He's wearing a long flowing cape, the hood down so his face (and flawless black eyeliner) shows, the light making the hints of red in his deep brown eyes show. The cape is black with a silky looking red lining, and when he moves I see that underneath is a white dress shirt with a red ribbon to match the cape, and black pants that I assume are high waisted but I can't tell because . . . he's wearing a fucking corset. A corset! Who does that!? (Who does that and looks so good?) It's black with red stitching and trim, pulled tightly so that it shows off the gentle curve of his slim waist and hips.

I would say that I can't believe he would do this to me but I can. I sigh, swallowing my feelings with another glass of wine and head over to the group.

Why?

To ask my lovely husband for a dance, of course

Dazai's P.O.V.

The party is going well, my colleagues have drifted off to mingle, (I didn't miss that Atsushi and Ryūnosuke found each other, like magnets, almost immediately.) leaving me standing alone.

I hear small footsteps behind me, a swish of hair and a dress, then larger footsteps. Mori-san and Elise-chan.

My old boss greets me with a small smile and I return it. I can't help it, the satisfaction of my plan is just too much.

I allow myself to be temporarily occupied by Elies's complaining about the itchy dress Mori made her wear and how she wanted the red dress with black ruffles and not the red dress with black ruffles because she thought the former would match better with Mori-san's black suit and dark red dress shirt.

I agree with her as Koyou joins us. I can tell it's her by her footsteps as well. Elise jumps into her arms momentarily, for a hug.

We talk for a few moments before I find myself not paying attention, staring out at the rest of the room.

In the crowd I see Chuuya, as expected he's over at the wine table pouring himself a red into one of the fancy goblets that the Port Mafia brought. I go back to the conversation pretending not to pay my husband any mind.

I watch him from the corner of my eye. He's wearing the outfit I helped him pick, a custom tailored suit over a blood red dress shirt, a matching hat, with red stitching and trim and his favourite choker, which he refused to forfeit despite the formal nature of the occasion. I'm not complaining, I love it.

As I watch his eyes find me, and his expression changes so subtly most wouldn't notice it, but I do. His eyes widen a bit and his brows twitch. I keep my composure as he slugs down his wine (pun absolutely intended) and pours another even larger glass. He takes me in as he drinks eyes travelling discretely over my body, lingering on my torso. All part of my plan.

He drains the second glass, setting it on a table absently and walks confidently over to us.

Mori and Koyou smirk and busy themselves with small talk. A few of my colleagues, Kunikida and Yosano are staring, (Ranpo's too occupied with food and he already knows what's going on, he eats with Kyouka and Kenji, who's complimenting Gin on her pretty dress.), as well as several members of the port mafia.

He approaches us and stands directly in front of me, "May I have a dance, Osamu?"

"I suppose." I tease and he sweeps me up onto the dance floor. And then we're dancing. Moving in tandem with each other, perfectly in sink. Aware. Of each other, of Chuuya's hands on my back as they slip lower. Dancing with Chuuya is as easy as breathing. I feel the rest of the world melt away like ice on a summer day, slowly at first but then we're completely alone. I can't see anything but Chuuya. I don't want to see anything but Chuuya.

I break the silence first, whispering in his ears as we spin close to each other, "We must be drawing a lot of attention."

Chuuya just "hmms" then adds, "Probably because you wore that stupid thing."

"Ahh, it is not stupid, oh sorry, I forgot that dogs are known for their lack of taste." As I finish the sentence I feel my feet leave the ground, and my entire body becomes light.

"Chuuya?" His name comes out breathy, I feel my heartbeat and breathing quicken.

He wraps his arms around my waist, the warm weight a contrast to the cool airy feeling of Chuuya's anti gravity. "Just hold on to me."

"Always."

"And don't activate No Longer Human, or we'll both fall." We're floating probably eight or so metres off the ground now but the event space's ceilings are high and I know Chuuya knows what he's doing.

Dancing up here is worlds different, we move so much more freely and the music sounds cleaner and closer but at the same time like we're underwater, it's not a bad feeling. We dance for a while more, I don't think I could ever get used to this.

"You can let go now." Chuuya says

"What?" I wouldn't mind suicide like this but his words surprise me, he's never been encouraging of my attempts.

"Trust me, Osamu. Let go."

I do. The weight leaves my body completely. I'm afraid for a second that I'll drift off but I don't. I stay exactly where I am. I twirl experimentally and the movement feels exactly the same as it would on the ground, I'm completely in control, like there's an invisible floor beneath me.

A child-like laugh leaves my lips, as I climb invisible stairs and turn back flips all the way back to Chuuya. I'm aware that I'm being immature and that everyone's probably watching but I don't care.

The last time we did this was a time I'd rather forget. But Chuuya's actions made it unforgettable. I hadn't thought about it in a very long time.

Suddenly Chuuya pulls me back to him so close the people below probably think we're kissing, not that I mind. I want him to kiss me, to have his gentle lips, hot against my own. He leans into my neck, whispering in my ear, "Do you know what that stupid corset is doing to me, what you're doing to me?"

I remember the garment I'm wearing and my original intent with a giggle, "Of course, that's exactly why I wore it."

The look in his eyes is not amused but hungry, "In that case . . ." he presses his lips to my own pulling me even closer. I can feel him taking back control of my gravity and I let him, this is after all, what I wanted, "why don't we give them a scene, then?"

I nod almost too slightly but he feels it and continues. When we stop to breathe and I take my chance to pull him close to me. It's amazing, kissing like this. I don't even have to bend down. "Mmm, bet Chibi likes being tall doesn't he?"

Chuuya just growls and continues more forcefully, biting my lip.

"Bad dog!"

He pulls away, a testing smile on his lips, "No kisses if you're going to insult me."

"So sensitive slug, master was just joking."

He leans in again, "Yeah but we should probably stop, I don't want to scandalise Kyouka. And aren't some of your coworkers basically kids?"

"Awww, Chibi's so responsible."

The imaginary bubble disappears and I can see the other party guest again. They all look appropriately shocked as Chuuya floats back to the ground, carrying me bridal style.

Kunikida looks like he's about to explode, oh right. He's the only member of the agency who still thinks I'm straight, well thought.

I look around the room unable to keep the smile off my face, "What?" no one says anything, I can hear Ranpo munching on a chocolate bar he brought and the sound of flipping pages of the book that the president's reading. They both know about our relationship already. The president found out from Mori when I was still in the Port Mafia and Ranpo deduced it shortly after I joined the Agency, although he never guessed that I worked there. . "We're married." Chuuya and I speak at the same time.

Chaos breaks out across the room. I can feel Chuyya tugging my arm, clearly wanting more, I do too. "Now excuse us, we have to go." he informs the now rowdy crowd.

It isn't the quiet slipping away we'd hoped for but it works as well as anything. "Yeah, we're leaving." Chuuya grabs a bottle of wine and we both dash out of the venue, excitement building as we run.

He looks back, meeting my gaze. I see myself in his eyes, someone I like. This me that's happy, this me that can be with the one I love, this me that is capable of love . Chuuya and I both know that we'll have huge messes to clean up at work but for now, we only have each other, and that's all I could ever ask for.

(A/N: Writing this inspired me to make a one shot of they're first time dancing together, so expect that out soon.)

#Soukoku relationship reveal #soukoku marriage reveal #Dazai Osamu #Dazai Chuuya - nee Nakahara #Dazai Osamu in a Corset #Corset Osamu Dazai #relationship reveal #My writing #knockyasocksoff2022's writing #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bsd

6 notes · View notes