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bsd does have an overarching story that I want to witness unfolding, but it is and has always been mostly worldbuilding and character lore stuck together with thematic duck tape to hold it all together, and I am standing right next to Asagiri with my own roll of tape to contribute to

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Hey so does anyone else sometimes just get stuck thinking about how Oda inspired Dazai to live for just a little bit longer, tried to convince him that not everything goes away in the end, but when it came down to it, when it came right down to it, Dazai had to face the fact that he wasn't enough for Oda to choose to keep living, too?

Or is that just me?

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Hey so does anyone else sometimes just get stuck thinking about how Oda inspired Dazai to live for just a little bit longer, tried to convince him that not everything goes away in the end, but when it came down to it, when it came right down to it, Dazai had to face the fact that he wasn't enough for Oda to choose to keep living, too?

Or is that just me?

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this is killing me. get cherried idiot

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OK so I started Side B and I'm not far in at all but this is gnawing on me so I have to yell.

Side B. Side B is clearly supposed to be like the "bad end" version, the versions of Dazai and Oda that never opened up, never formed that weird, tentative-but-honest bond of friendship we see in Dark Era. But so far. So far? The difference? The main thing that stands out as having set them on such different paths?

Dazai hasn't spoken yet.

The thing that separates annoying-and-slightly-terrifying-but-ultimately-friend-shaped Dazai from whatever he is about to become in Side B, the first indication that this story goes Bad along the way. Is simply that Dazai refuses to speak.

I'm not gonna make it through this story alive.

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OK I just binge-read the second half of Side A on an eight hour train today and I think my brain hasn't yet caught up with the amount of unhinged I am about that story but ok it's fine listen gotta say one thing

I just double checked the artwork in Side B because they start exactly the same and I wanted to double check it wasn't mostly the same story or smth

I'm

This is gonna be a Beast thing isn't it.

I'm not gonna be OK, am I.

(Nobody spoil anything for me this is rhetorical)

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noncon friendship

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Corruption chuuya because I love him.

I,,,, kinda went even crazier than usual with the coloring for this one,,,

Realized after drawing this that dazai saying "be normal" is kinda ironic

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To be extremely fair, this is also the expression I'd be wearing if I had to be the adult in a conversation between Dazai and Chuuya.

Odasaku looks so dumb plz-

Oda: ._.

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I love how Odasaku radiates ‘just some guy’ energy like he’s some normal dude when no the fuck he is not.

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Just started The Day I Picked Up Dazai (and side note, sorry not sorry for the person I'm about to become) but I'm so obsessed with Oda on these first pages.

"This kid has a large number of unmarked bills. The only way he could have got them is if [detailed description of the printing process and logistics and money distribution to banks; detailed breakdown of several kinds of fraud, theft and international espionage]. Any Normal Person would have run a mile by now! A normal person (like I am) would have serious concerns about this issue!"

Bro. My good dude. A normal person does not know how to crime in this much detail, nor are they aware of the specifics of how money gets made and sent to banks in this much detail. My bro, you are the XKCD geologists comic right now. Someone help this man he is trying so hard to he normal and has clearly never managed it a day in his life.

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Hi yeah it's me. I'm gonna need Lucy and Kyouka to figure out a back way out and be allowed to do cool shit otherwise I might start biting. Thanks in advance.

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I'm not saying I'll be surprised if there's some twist. I'm just saying that if *this* was the chapter where Asagiri decides to get past whatever block he has on killing characters, the fandom would fucking explode. And he probably knows it.

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I think it's time we blow this joint....

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We all making jokes about Zuko working at the tea shop as firelord, and how humble he is towards his servants. But what if a diplomat from the earth kingdom shows up one day and catches Zuko in a more casual outfit while being ushered through the palace. The diplomat mentions something about how Lee must be very good at making tea if he was sent all the way to the fire nation and asks to be served during the meeting. Not one to turn down an offer Zuko obliges and disappears off into the kitchen. The diplomat sits down at the meeting table, awaiting the arrival of the firelord when his tea arrives. He pours a cup for everyone sat around the table including the firelord. The diplomat inquiries when the firelord will be joining, to which Zuko responds by sitting in the throne at the head of the table.

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The wizards said the orangutan would be able to lead them back to the dungeon in a couple days.

What a sentence, Chilchuck thought. It seemed to him that he’d been saying a lot of things with full sincerity that weeks ago would’ve been total gibbering nonsense.

The others had wandered off into the city like tourists. Laios was spending the day in some kind of pet shelter for dragons. Senshi had mentioned bringing Izutsumi to check out the local dwarven cooking. Rats were apparently involved, to Chilchuck’s total lack of surprise.

He had decided to hole up in the nearest bar that would accept a fistful of foreign coins. He was at the stage of buzz that felt as though someone was wrapping a woollen blanket around his head, and it was loosening his tongue.

“And he’s a good kid,” he was saying. “He’s a good kid, he’s even a good fighter, but he’s got all the social skills of a dead donkey. This is a guy who hears that he has to eat part of his sister, and the first thing he says is-”

THE EGG IS PLACED ON TOP OF THE BACON?

He paused mid-ramble and blinked stickily at the stranger seated next to him. “Sorry?”

WHAT STRUCTURAL SUPPORT DOES THE BACON OFFER THE EGG?

He blinked again. “It’s for,” he tried. “You know. So you can eat the egg and bacon at the same time.”

INSTEAD OF CONSUMING THE ELEMENTS OF THE BREAKFAST SEPARATELY.

“Right.”

BUT IN THIS EXERCISE, YOU WISH TO REMOVE THE EGG FROM THE BACON.

“Right — right! The idea is if we take away the half of Falin that’s a dragon, we can resurrect the human half of her.”

THUS UNFRYING THE EGG.

He screwed an eye shut and tried to make out the face of the stranger through the three images swirling in the hot, lightheaded haze. It looked like a very skinny face.

“I’m starting to lose the food metaphor,” he mumbled. “My point is, the further we go to fix this problem, the worse it gets. And it’s not that i have a problem with resurrection — have you ever been resurrected?”

NO, BUT I HAVE BEEN WITNESS TO PART OF IT.

“Some people are weird about it. Senshi’s weird about it too, but he’s the one who suggested it. Anyways, it’s not that I have a problem with resurrection, I just don’t like the idea of eating an old coworker.”

Another sentence that would have been nonsense barely a week ago. He tried to shrug and missed. “I guess they say, ‘Eat to live, don’t live to eat.’”

A STRANGE THING TO SAY. A PARADOX OF SOME KIND, I’M SURE.

He was beginning to feel a slight headache. “No, it means, like — treat food as a fuel, a necessity, don’t get fussy about the experience of eating it.”

THEY ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. The stranger plucked a paper umbrella out of their drink. They twirled it thoughtfully between very skinny fingers. I WOULD RECOMMEND A CURRY, they said. I’VE ALWAYS BEEN FOND OF A CURRY.

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Probably been said already but I'm having a break today and therefore I have no filter.

So we have basically agreed that one of the main motifs of Dunmeshi is that eating food (especially food made of monsters) equates to the ability to take up space, the necessity of making your needs known and heard in order to survive.

Thinking about what that says about the characters. Readmore because long.

Most of the world is pretty down on the idea: they don't want to admit someone would resort to that, let alone find joy or satiation in it.

Senshi is open and unbegrudging. He not only enjoys it but he spreads the knowledge and ability wherever he can, and invites others to find that joy too.

Chilchuck admits the necessity, takes some joy, but remains wary. There are circumstances where he is encouraged to enthusiastically enjoy, and circumstances where other factors outweigh his enjoyment for the food's flavour.

Izutsumi is picky, and refuses to eat food she doesn't like, which has parallels, but honestly I think her character speaks more to the themes of freedom and restriction in the story than to the themes about exerting your will and identity on your surroundings. But still, there is something in her desire to eat only what she wants, when she wants, independent of others' needs for food. And her tension over wanting to have an uncomplicated relationship between I caught it = I eat it, ignoring intangible contributions from others, or contributions not directly related to hunting.

Kabru has a deep revulsion for it. His own background and circumstances mean that even if the food is good, he's, at least to start, incapable of enjoying it because of what it represents to him.

Mithrun (slight spoilers this paragraph) never chooses to eat, he is only fed when others decide he needs food. He is not capable of either enjoying or disliking food, not in any meaningful sense.

Laios GLEEFULLY enjoys food, and expects everyone else to as a matter of course. In Laios's mind, everyone who doesn't enjoy monster food must have something else going on that he can't understand. He wants people to enjoy food as much as he does, and wants, like Senshi, to invite that enjoyment. He openly, uncomplicatedly, unreservedly, loves to eat.

Falin I have ... Thoughts about but they involve a lot more reading between the lines so I would need to make a whole separate post. Suffice to say for now that she enjoys it, but nobody knows that about her or expects it of her. That's the very base, no-nuance reading.

Marcille. Oh Marcille. Marcille says she hates monster food at every opportunity. She rejects it in a way that almost makes her the "voice" of repulsed society, especially at the beginning. She is rigid about what food she does and does not enjoy. But almost every time she is given monster food and ends up eating it? She LOVES it. She is ECSTATIC to be eating it. She INDULGES.

Anyway, there are other themes and motifs that interplay with these but just saying. Just saying the characters have some Important Themes going on here.