#but I'm not 100% sure about some finer details so maybe not now

[rawliverandcigarettes]

(hey) (I'm officially back on the Empire of Preys grind 👀👀👀)

quick notes:

so SO grateful for past me who wrote a fucking 25 pages long worldbuilding document on the STG, including little graphs to help future me understand military ranks, internal organization, relationship to the government, history, current tension points, etc. It pulled me back instantly in what I should care about, and it's probably the most useful piece of writing I've done regarding worldbuilding

similarly grateful for the Aeon Timeline timeline I worked on a year ago, which helped me not be completely lost re: dates and when people were alive/dead and at which point, and also when specific treaties either I or the games made up happened historically

I think I managed to push past the initial bump, which was chapter 2; and by pushing past, I mean doing a new outline for a v2 since v1, while serviceable, was very meandery and didn't do a great job introducing the salarian cast that deserved something a little bit sharper to make a strong first impression. So I just cut through the meanders and "restarted" (aka: ripping through some parts of the old chapter and rearranging them in a newer one that is shorter and know what it's doing a little more). Not properly started on that yet, but the groundwork has been laid so that's good

there are so many salarians all of the time

I have done some thinking about each important member of the Liron dynasty (to the story at least), and yeah. No wonder they are all Like That

ouch???? I have reread my first attempts at the last chapter of the story and it's. It's a lot. I have not been in the TEoP headspace for a long time and it kind of tore my heart apart regardless, so! I cannot imagine how fucked up it will make me feel in due time!!

It's a smart story!!! I am sorry for saying this everytime I return to it and becoming insufferably smug, but seriously where the fuck did it come from conceptually, I don't feel capable of holding this in my brain, like I feel too dumb for some of the concepts and yet here they are. the sociopolitical worldbuilding feels very legitimate? why + how

I will probably (ughh) need to have it checked by someone who actually is very familiar with finance, just to make sure what I have written makes sense, because I'm confident about 70% of the jist, but there's 30% of like, niche regulations and attitudes and things you'd know if you have spent time in the stock market that I just couldn't guess even with a decent amount of research. which, yea

[microsuedemouse]

all right! okay! @mana-sputachu requested (via twitter) some Danganronpa TogaFuka with song number eight!

(send me a ship and a number from 1-100; I'll write a short scene inspired by the corresponding song from my Spotify top songs this year)

btw this was the last one I had in progress but I'm loving these and if anyone else wants to send me a prompt please dooooo

this one was really interesting! ToFu is a really unique ship, and I knew that pretty much any song I got for them would take some creative finagling to make work for them in an honest, non-AU sort of way. the fluffy and romantic doesn't fit very well. however. this song is about coping as a kid with your parents' divorce, and how that divorce can kind of fuck you up even into adulthood. and while neither Togami's nor Fukawa's parents were ever married or in love to begin with, the ways those parents' dysfunctional relationships affected them as kids was definitely something I could work with. it's also a song about writing a play, which works well for Fukawa :~) anyway. this is angsty, for the record, but I'm very happy with it.

also, quick disclaimer: apologies if it seems like I'm less versed in the finer details of canon here than I usually am with my writing. it's because I am! I've watched the first season of the DR anime and read up on a lot of game lore, but that's about it. I'd like to watch more and maybe even play the game(s) at some point, but god knows when I'll get to that, lol.

also yes hi I know this ship is uhh, Controversial, so just to be clear ahead of time: I won't be responding to any clowning or bad faith messages about it. I'll just block ya. I'm too tired to deal with people being rude and/or obtuse on the internet

My Play | 1 189 words | G

but when I show you my play will you pretend you didn't know if I make a mistake? it's gonna get really, really, really, really bad before it's okay

“The first thing I ever wrote was a p-play.”

Fukawa spoke quietly, her face tipped downward, gaze fixed on her own hands where they were tangled together on the tabletop. She fidgeted uncertainly when Togami lifted his eyes from his book of Shakespeare and regarded her for a moment.

He still had the instinct, sometimes, not to engage. But Naegi and Kirigiri had been on his case about that, lately. She’s come so far, they’d admonished him. She’s working so hard. Please just try to be nicer to her. We only have each other.

“I thought the first thing you ever wrote was a love letter,” he said finally.

She looked up sharply, seemingly astonished that he was responding. Then she swallowed and tried to school her face into a more neutral expression. “I-I didn’t think I ever… t-told you about that.”

Togami shook his head. “You didn’t,” he explained. “Jack did. She… likes to overshare, sometimes.”

She winced slightly, flushing. “I-I’m sorry. Even aside f-from the obvious, there’s s-so much she did that I h-have to apologise for.” She licked her lips. “That’s… p-part of why I’m trying so hard to keep her under c-control.”

“You don’t need to apologise for her actions. I wouldn’t,” he heard himself say. Fukawa seemed startled. In an attempt not to show that he’d surprised himself, he cleared his throat and continued, “Not even the most powerful person in the world can truly control another person’s behaviour. Jack might share your body, but she is another person. That’s how it works.”

“I… I guess,” she agreed softly, staring.

And there was his opportunity to end the conversation. By rights, he should. He wasn’t sure why, but he’d shown too much, and it would be wisest to put a stop to things now. Instead, he closed his book and leaned forward, just a tiny bit. “Was Jack lying to me, then? If you wrote other things before the love letter?”

“W-well, not exactly.” She flexed her fingers, twisting them more tightly into each other. “I-it’s just that the letter was… the f-first thing anyone else ever read. A-and, I had that teacher who saw it, and t-told me I wrote well, and to… to k-keep working at it. But I’d wr-written things before.”

“Like a play.” He propped his elbow on the arm of his chair and rested his chin on his fist. He had no idea why he was doing this with her, but at least Naegi and Kirigiri wouldn’t have any grounds anymore to claim that he hadn’t given her a chance. Yes. It was practical, if he looked at it that way.

Fukawa nodded. “I-I was… seven or eight, I think. No one ever really p-played with me very much, so I had to m-make my own fun a lot of the t-time. Somehow, I g-got it in my head to write a p-play. I think the idea c-came from school, or something. I was… c-convinced that if I performed a g-great play for them… my p-parents would be impressed with me.”

“And were they?” Togami prompted, when she petered out. It was a banal question. He had no reason to ask, and no interest in her answer, really. Then he added, “What was it about, anyway?”

“I-it… it was about a superhero who rescued a little g-girl… and then a-adopted her. And all of his superhero f-friends helped him take c-care of her.” She looked down again, this time low enough that her hair fell across her face and completely hid her from view. When she continued, her voice was even quieter than before. “I-I asked everyone in the house to c-come watch me, but n-no one did. They… p-probably would have hated it, a-anyway.”

And just like that, Togami was wildly out of his depth. There were hundreds of things in this world that he could do far better than anyone else he knew, but this… this was not something he’d ever been taught to handle. It was true that ever since Hope’s Peak, he’d come a long way, as far as understanding the value of connecting with other people. He’d learned first how to rely on others, how to let them rely on him, and since then he’d begun to learn what it really meant to have friends, rather than just strategic allies. But this was well outside of his realm of expertise. Naegi, maybe, would know how to handle this in a rational manner.

And then he remembered something Naegi had said to him, once, and the other Killing Game survivors, besides Fukawa herself. Komaru didn’t tell me everything Fukawa told her, he’d confided in them. But what Fukawa went through as a kid… I know sometimes it feels like we’ve been through the worst the world has to offer. I know we made it through the Tragedy and everything else, and it feels like we know what it means to really suffer. But I think maybe Fukawa had already survived that much pain before we ever even met her.

Togami hadn’t cared very much at the time, so evidently he hadn’t even bothered to remember it all that well, until this conversation jogged it back to the surface. Now, it seemed more important. It also seemed embarrassingly obvious, given that most of the literature on her disorder agreed that it was typically the result of considerable trauma. He supposed it hadn’t made a difference to him, when Naegi had shared this, what she had been through; he had no patience for her either way.

He was a little surprised that it made this much of a difference to him now.

And maybe, over all this time she’d spent working so hard to gain better control of herself, he’d been losing some of his own once-tight self-control. Because before he even realised what he was doing, he swallowed and reached out, brushing a hand against her hunched shoulder, and said, “My parents never loved me, either.”

Yet again her head snapped up, and she stared at him in shock, this time with eyes shining and tears beginning to track down her cheeks. Togami was uncomfortably aware that he was staring straight back, his own confusion and uncertainty beginning to show on his face. He couldn’t seem to help it.

They looked at one another for what seemed far too long. Then Fukawa sniffled, bringing a hand up to her face and scrubbing at her eyes with her sleeve. “I’m not really… much of a p-performer,” she managed, voice still a bit thick. “B-but if I decided to write a-a new play… would you r-read it, Bya… um, T-Togami-sama?”

His mouth felt dry. “I… yes,” he answered, very slowly, and yet again he didn’t know why. Why on earth would her decision to be vulnerable with him – for far from the first time, too – trip him up so much? Why was he indulging her this way? What was wrong with him? “Yes, I think I would.”

She began to smile, and something, certainly, must have been very deeply wrong with him. Because he began to feel better.

[professor-doc-emeritus]

been trying to figure out the odds on someone coming along and finishing berserk, and the more i think about it the less optimistic i am.

To start, I'm willing to bet good money that we're going to get, at a minimum, berserk chapter 364. Significant work has to already be done on it, it was originally due in april. What form we'll get it in remains to be seen, i could just as easily see them finishing it as i could see them publishing whatever exists now as a volume bonus in the final release. Maybe it will be like one of those old video game builds that people think is lost for decades and then just randomly shows up on ebay one year. But short of actively destroying what exists of it 364 will come out.

Anything after that depends on how far ahead miura planned and the whims of the copyright holders.

The best case scenario for an author's death is a Wheel of Time scenario, where the author naturally planned their work out before writing it, had at least a year to prepare for their demise, was near the end of the series anyway, and had a readily available heir apparent in the author's genre that could come in and finish the race. For berserk, the ideal scenario is that miura 1) naturally planned things out very far in advance, 2) had significant documentation detailing what was going to happen in berserk in case of exactly this, 3) didn't have that much story left to tell, and 4) either prepped his staff to be able to do berserk without him, or had an estate that's in touch with the manga scene and can find someone to captain the ship to harbor. Anything short of this is going to make finishing berserk in a way that feels true to miura extremely difficult.

I really don't know if miura was the kind of writer to have everything planned out in detail, or if he just figured stuff out as he went along like Martin does. I'm positive that he didn't have everything planned out in detail though. Word from his assistants was that his death was super sudden, he wasn't particularly ill or stressed, so short of literal divine inspiration in the past year and change I highly doubt that he has everything storyboarded to the end. The ideal would be that he did, and all that was left to do was to draw, which his assistants could easily do, but it seems unlikely. But it is entirely possible that he's had the whole plot line written up in a filing cabinet since 87 that he just added finer details to when storyboarding time came. We really just don't know.

I doubt it though. As recently as 2019 Miura said he was still wrangling with some writing details, for instance he wasn't sure whether guts and casca would have a happy ending or not. granted, it's possible he definitely did know that and was just playing coy for the interviewer, but regardless it seems clear that there was still major stuff he was figuring out.

We also don't really know how much was left. in that 2019 interivew miura described berserk as being in it's "back half," but a lot of the fans seem to be of the opinion that we were more in the last quarter. Either way, that's a minimum 100+ chapters of manga that needs to get made. This goes beyond cobbling together an editing team to push out a handful of chapters, whoever ends up helming the task of finishing berserk is going to end up having a huge impact on the overall manga

I've said before that I think it's worth continuing the series. Best case scenario, we get an ending we're all happy with, worst case scenario, we ignore it and berserk ends at chapter 363 anyway. But I wanna qualify now that if there aren't significant plans left by miura then i don't want a continuation. I'd rather berserk end where it is than have 100+ chapters of glorified fanfiction, no matter how good, stapled onto the end of this masterpiece.