caringtransitions

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Baizhu’s Room

(note: this was written without any leaked spoilers or lore in mind)

Genshin 3.6 finally gave us access to the back room in Bubu Pharmacy, in anticipation of Baizhu’s upcoming release and story quest. And I have to give all the praise to the designers and developers here, because this small room has some of the best environmental storytelling I’ve seen in a game in a while, with only a few simple details. Today is Baizhu’s birthday, so I wanted to talk about it a little 💚🐍🌿

Nothing in this room is neatly in its place. The chairs aren’t in position, everything on the desk is messy and strewn about, and some of the drawers are left open. There’s a pillow on the desk, as well. Baizhu is quite frail and sickly, so this all paints a picture of him constantly looking for things and working, both as a doctor and frantically on his research into immortality, without having the energy or care to keep everything neat, and probably often falling asleep at his desk out of exhaustion (hence the pillow, though admittedly it could be for Changsheng, but I kind of doubt it).

There’s medicine on the bedside tables, which is probably just as much for Baizhu as it (and all the other medicine in the room) is for his patients. The bedside chair indicates he likely sits with patients there a lot so as to be as comforting as possible, but again, it’s also likely for people like Gui and Qiqi, when Baizhu is the one in bed. The sole small washtub thing stuck in the corner behind the screen... just makes me sad. I don’t know why in particular... it just does.

All of this, combined with the lighting, and the new, unique song, creates a room that manages to feel both warm and welcoming during the day, but solemn, lonely, almost suffocating, and unbearably sad at night, completely befitting the person who practically lives here, and the two very different sides he has. I say “practically”, but we have no indication so far that Baizhu actually does live anywhere else -- with his low energy and poor health, and all those damn steps leading up to the pharmacy, I’m fully convinced now that he does live here full-time, after seeing the state of it, which is... heartbreaking. He puts on a smile for everyone around him who are relying on him to care for them (and he loves his job, he truly does!), but his tiny, cramped patient room seemingly doubles as his living space, and even though Baizhu may lie and try to hide his own suffering... this room itself does not lie, and said suffering is bleeding from every corner here. The music is elegant, gentle, comforting, and soothing, but also delicate, weak, mournful, and again unimaginably lonely...... just like Baizhu. 💔

If you haven’t been here yet in the game, I highly recommend you visit it at least once; the atmosphere is simply unmatched. I can’t wait to see what happens here in Baizhu’s story quest, and how it will wreck our hearts even more 💚💔

[crazymadredfox]

I posted 6,347 times in 2022

That's 2,808 more posts than 2021!

40 posts created (1%)

6,307 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@megacarapa

@nullians

@your-fave-is-bi

@gonuclear

@tsunderecamour

I tagged 3,459 of my posts in 2022

Only 46% of my posts had no tags

#mp100 - 730 posts

#jjba - 522 posts

#mcr - 303 posts

#reigen - 257 posts

#sbr - 207 posts

#bsd - 205 posts

#dr stone - 165 posts

#teru - 149 posts

#kny - 133 posts

#diu - 93 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#and other is the ‘it’s objectively alright but i like it and i find enjoymentin it throught my day and my own investment in the fandom space

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

See the full post

57 notes - Posted August 6, 2022

#4

Ongoing list of mostly random, kinda insignificant things that just scream sengen:

Gen showing up on that lil tv screen in the second opening

That non essential (but appreciated) shot of them passing the telephone in ep3 that was also used in the trailer for s2

THAT ONE PANEL WHERE GEN IS THE ONLY ONE STANDING BEHIND SENKU AS HE ADDRESSES THE KINGDOM (after they merge with EoM)

Fucking senku making a Christmas tree literally knowing only gen would get it (???)

Kohaku changing clothes in front of them and saying “like these guys would care” (meaning gen and senku specifically)

Feel free to add your own

102 notes - Posted April 3, 2022

#3

me seeing posts that aren’t about my chem on dash rn

136 notes - Posted May 13, 2022

#2

out of nowhere and been said before but having such a stark parallel between senku and gen through their birthdays is so so obviously intentional and meaningful on many other levels i probably can’t think of now but:

birthdays are quite substantial, i’d say mostly because senku’s birthday was a HUGE deal, with gen calculating it and senku finally knowing he is safe, to senku’s own last name and the reveal of the village name etc etc, but also because they were quite hidden from the readers for so long. There was an ongoing speculation for all of them in the fandom, and one day they were dropped on us and all hell broke loose because they obviously weren’t random dates

Tsukasa being the strongest coinciding with 10/10 is clever and all, but the real deal is in dates around senku’s 1/4.

Chrome, who was born only a month later, the date telling us he is senku’s supposed successor, his prodigy, a brilliant mind like his own, just a bit younger.

Taiju as well, mostly in the way it’s written: 4/2 always looked to me like he’s right after senku, slightly behind, but similar enough for us to know that he is very much connected to him.

And then comes gen, born on the first of april, an inverted number to senku’s fourth of january. And from there it just keeps piling up in my mind: they are the opposites in their fields of work: senku for natural sciences and gen skilled with people and humanities; the way they talk and act, one blunt with no bullshit, other coating every word he says in honey; their early interactions when they were almost on opposite sides, before gen chose his allegiance…

And maybe the most important thing that i can’t even articulate how much it means to me: they gifted each other their birthdays. Senku revived on gen��s birthday. (That alone is SO FREAKING VALUABLE, fueling the relationship strictly in the meta sense, for us readers to interpret.) Senku meticulously kept count, and PICKED A DAY HE WOULD BREAK OUT OF STONE- not knowing of course whose birthday that is, but you can’t deny it sounds like destiny. He wakes up, and to give himself strength and the will to keep going he craves the date in a tree. And it just so happens that that date is the day gen asagiri was born. Gen gets depetrified and it’s the first thing he learns about a stranger who is the reason he got brought back: he stayed awake and counted, and he carved his birthday in a tree. It almost feels then, like gen is the one returning the favor, a bit later when he decides to surprise senku with the observatory. To be the first person to think of senku in that sense: to give him something special, even though he could tell senku doesn’t care about birthdays. To show that he is grateful that on that day millennials ago, a particular boy was born, one who would save them all.

the numbers alone are such a strict, decided and intentional correlation, something the writer decided to put in, then build upon it more and more, until these particular two dates 4/1 and 1/4 are the only ones to have so much extensive significance

Beyond even the romantic connotations I literally refuse to ignore, all this just confirms one of my favorite facts and building bricks of this series. In a story with so many moving parts and lovable, charismatic characters, it’s impossible to give them all much screen time. So, even in arcs where pilots and scientists and warriors had to slightly outshine gen, all this underlining, almost background information and storytelling just lets us know that no matter what, senku and gen share a bond that cannot be broken, replicated, or overlooked. They’re essential to each other, and whatever distance is maybe separating them truly amounts to nothing at all.

243 notes - Posted March 16, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

you guys ever think how different bsd would have to go if poe wasn’t so fiercely in love with ranpo

i swear at this point ranpo’s using his “seal someone in poe’s book” strategy as if it were his own ability

1,205 notes - Posted August 3, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[aspoonofsugar]

Kunikida was inflicted by Q’s ability?! That wasn’t in the anime! Is that woman he’s hallucinating about supposed to be Sasaki from the Azure King arc? You said that Q’s ability causes people to confront “the thing they refuse to accept about themselves.” In Kunikida’s case, would that be his inability to save everyone?—BSD Chat Anon

Hello BSD Chat anon! Incidentally I like many of your thoughts!

Yes, Kunikida is one of the victims of the Guild’s plan to destroy Yokohama and the woman he sees is indeed Sasaki!

Nothing happens to him because Dazai and the others restrain him, so that he won’t become dangerous, but it is clearly significant that he has hallucinations of her among all people.

Unluckily I have yet to read the novel (even if I saw the anime episodes which adapted it), so my thoughts on this can’t be very elaborated.

You have probably already seen this post because you follow @hamliet’s blog, but I have tagged it just in case and for people who might be interested in an analysis of her character.

When it comes to Kunikida, I think Sasaki’s death is something which hit him for several reasons and especially because it is a challenge to his own ideals.

As a matter of fact both Sasaki’s crimes and her death are a result of strong ideals. She committed crimes in order to live up to and to avenge his dead partner AKA the Azure King.

According to Sasaki, he was a man moved by strong and positive ideals, but society prevented him from realizing them in all their beauty and so Sasaki helped him break the law in order to turn them into reality.

However, their scheme resulted in both him and innocent policemen losing their lives. What is more, Sasaki herself ends up killed by one of the victims’ son.

It is important to highlight that by the time the novel is set Kunikida is close to become like the AK. As a matter of fact he too has lost some faith in institutions and this is why he has chosen to join an organization which operates in a gray area like the ADA. If Kunikida keeps pursuing his ideals without ever questioning them he might end up both hurting others and himself.

At the same time, the novel makes clear that his ideals are what prevents him from developing strong bonds with others especially when it comes to romantic relationships:

He has spent so much energy to create the image of a perfect partner, that he can’t accept anything different and this of course ends up working against him.

Interestingly, this is the opposite problem Dazai has:

As a matter of fact Dazai is implied to be a lady killer, but it is clear that he has superficial relationships with all his partners and he is probably just using them to feel less lonely.

In short, both Kunikida and Dazai end up lonely because they can’t approach others earnestly. Kunikida expects his potential relationships to be ideal, while Dazai expects them to be casual ones.

Going back to Sasaki, the story makes clear that Kunikida feels strongly attracted by her and that the attraction is mutual. However, Sasaki has started a path of self-destruction she can’t stop and Kunikida is not able to help her nor to understand her until it is too late. Maybe if he had tried to grow closer to her before he might have been able to figure out which kind of person she was and this could have led to a different outcome.

In other words, Sasaki embodies the darkest aspect of Kunikida’s ideals. Let us underline that Kunikida is painfully aware of this side of his idealism. For example, he knows he might have to compromise on it and to embrace ruthless methods:

This is something he probably realized after the police’s failure to capture the AK alive. In that operation some agents lost their lives and Kunikida ended up searching a new path by joining the ADA. After he joins he tries to follow in Fukuzawa’s footsteps and this means that it might be necessary to take extreme measures sometimes (for example, Fukuzawa tells him to kill Dazai if Dazai were to turn out to be a threath).

However, Sasaki’s death adds a new layer to his self-awareness because it shows him that not only idealism is complicated to put into practice, but also that it can be damaging.

It is not sure, but his experience with Sasaki might very well be why Kunikida, despite his strong beliefs in what is wrong and what is right, ends up hesitating when it counts the most:

Interestingly, in both the scenes above Atsushi is the one who does what Kunikida would really want to do and Kunikida ends up following Atsushi’s lead.

This might very well be because Kunikida finds himself stuck between two generations and two developmental stages.

On one hand there is Fukuzawa who has found a good equilibrium between ideals and pragmatism. Fukuzawa will act both for the greater good and to protect his loved ones and he has no hesitation in understanding when it is the case to do one thing or the other. For example, he immediately acts to save Atsushi, while Kunikida himself would like to do so, but hesitates because of the ADA’s general situation. Similarly he won’t let Mori take advantage on a traumatized girl, but is ready to work with him to save Yokohama.

On the other hand there is Atsushi who is willing to put his life at risk to save others. By following this strong instinct he has managed to save people and to pursue Kunikida’s ideals in an earnest way. However, he has still to realize how self-destructive his pursue may be and how this behaviour is rooted in trauma.

Kunikida gives me the impression of being in the middle. He is still far from sharing Fukuzawa’s self-trust and he can’t ignore how self destructive idealism and selflessness can be. Interestingly, differently from the other two characters, he doesn’t really seem to have a particular violent side/past to reconcile. Maybe it is exactly because of this that his struggle lies elsewhere and that he has much more doubts than the other two characters. This may also be why Kunikida might appear more rigid than the other members of the ADA.

That said, the series makes clear that Kunikida’s path doesn’t lie in leaving his idealism behind, but rather in him finding a better way to apply it. This is because idealism like everything else is a weapon and it can be used positively or negatively.

Talking about weapons which can be used both well and badly we go back to Q’s ability and what it represents:

On Moby Dick Atsushi hallucinates and sees the headmaster. he wonders if it is an after-effect of Q’s ability, but imo it is left ambiguous because in the end this is not the only time Atsushi has this kind of experience. The headmaster talks about how Atsushi has left himself be tricked by illusions and ended up giving others fake kindness. This is a reference both to his previous experience with Q, but also to a deeper trait of Atsushi’s personality.

However, once he confronts Lucy in her room Atsushi says this:

He repeats the headmaster’s words, but shows how “imagination” and the ability to be flessible has not only negative effects, but also positive ones because it lets a person do things they would not have considered possible up until that point.

In this meta, I mentioned how this is something true for Lucy and her power as well:

In the end, the true value of her power did not lie in Anne’s strength or in using it to kidnap people, but rather in letting people escape boundaries (the ability is used to overcome the effects of time, to let Atsushi escape a room and to let both him and Kyouka move around despite being wanted). This is something which fits the idea of Lucy’s ability representing “an escape into one’s imagination”. After all, what does imagination do if not letting people escape boundaries? Lucy used it to isolate herself, but once she starts sharing her power with others, she becomes more powerful to the point that she is considered Dazai’s queen in the current arc.

However, this is not something which is true only for Lucy and Atsushi, but for every character and this makes sense in a series which explores fiction and literature and their effects on one’s life. These activities which are rooted in imagination can both help a person bond and grow, but can also lead them to isolate themselves in a non-existent world.

I want to suggest now that the same is true for ideals and so it can be applied to Kunikida as well. Ideals are rooted in one’s imagination as well and they can make a person single-minded and rigid, but they can also make one’s perspective wider.

Thank you for the ask!

[joeys-piano]

Header created by @ao3commentoftheday, in where both creators and fans can motivate and appreciate one another for their support, company, and gratitude~

In this Motivation Monday segment, I want to shout-out some peeps that have been motivating me a lot recently and for their endless excitement and support as I’m outlining quite a monster of a story^^                                                     ~~~~~~~~

@feu-eau I’ve already told you this many times in the past, but I’ll keep saying it again because it’s always been true. You’re my favorite person to bounce ideas with, I feel comfortable sharing with you concepts or story directions that I’m planning behind the scenes, and our interesting talks throughout the day have inspired many genuine and very human moments that I’ve written or outlined into my works. Sometimes I like to joke that you’re my muse; but in light of very recent events, I can’t help but think that my little joke may actually be true~

A quality that I really admire and appreciate from you is that you’re able to take in some of the rawest, unedited ideas that run through my head and help me mold them from a simple iron ore into something fantastic, like a royally-engraved sword. Just as some of the strongest, most durable weapons are created from a mix of metals and materials, you’ve blended your thoughts and speculations with mine and a powerful story begins to unfold. Nowadays, whenever I’m working on my outline, I feel like I’m writing the story for both of us. There’s a little bit of me and you blended into the plot lines and it’s been amazing experience seeing it all come together.

Thank you so much for being my friend, Feu. In the nearly two years that we’ve corresponded with each other, I can safely say that my writing improvements can be attributed to all of our late-night conversations about characters, headcanons, meta, and crack ideas~!

@oscmudazai Pinch me softly if I’m wrong or if my memory is not as great as it used to be, but you were one of the first people I ever got to meet and interact with from the BSD fandom~ Although we haven’t spoken very much, I’ve enjoyed your company and getting to know more about the fandom when I didn’t know very much at all! I think my fondest memory that I have with you was the odazai week event that happened a few months ago, and that was the most fun fandom week I ever participated in. It was full of thrills, some heartache, but a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings that I’ll remember for a long time.

Coincidentally, you’ve inspired some of the biggest projects I did over the summer. From meticulously-detailed outlines to some of the strangest ideas that somehow work, you’ve indirectly laid out the breadcrumbs along the road and like a chicken, I dashed, nearly choked, and tripped over my own feet as I pecked at those crumbs. Something that’s been keeping me going in writing and I feel that you relate as well, judging from our most recent conversations, is that we’re both finding things that genuinely interest us and it’s that excitement that keeps us going and motivates us to work through the ideas that are flowing from our hands.

I can’t wait to see what you come up with, and I can’t wait to read some of the ideas that you’ve been brewing~!

@serenity-writer-goddess Out of all the people I’ve talked to and have shared story ideas with, it’s quite refreshing talking about the technical process and strategies with you^^ From outlining formats, to developing character/event arcs, to sharing minute or large changes as scenes are shuffled around, and getting into a little bit of the hardcore discussions around worldbuilding and of the alike have made our conversations pretty invaluable in my eyes.

I know you’ve helped me quite a bit in developing the pseudoscience in my wip and in finding easy, approachable ways to describe difficult and even challenging concepts that are present and prevalent throughout my story. And in much the same way, I think I was able to help you with your worldbuilding and in how to approach some emotionally-charged character arcs in a grounded, human way. It’s often when you work in fiction, you kind of forget how people act in certain situations and follow trends to how someone would act. But it’s especially in fiction, no matter what kind it is or how abstract it is from reality, there is a sense of reality that binds everything together. There is a distinct human-quality behind characters that can allow them to be more approachable or relatable to readers if you to decide to polish that quality and make it visible in a character’s lowest moments and/or in some of the highest moments throughout their arc.

Characters are not caricatures to an idea, but are merely characters inspired from an idea. It’s our goal, as writers, to make our characters more than just what they’re inspired from and to give them a quality that a reader could resonate to. Those are the thoughts that come to my mind in our interactions and writerly talks, and it’s these thoughts that are in the back of my mind as I’ve been working lately.

@schizoidwire​ From fandom talks to absurd incidents that have occurred in our daily lives, we have a broad and random package of things to talk about. I never know what our next conversation is going to be about, and it’s that pure randomness that makes me excited whenever I see a message from you~!

From Hannibal to Bungou Stray Dogs, you’re one of the few mutuals that I can talk to about a variety of shows and fandoms, and that has always been a plus in my book because it adds to the diversity of things that can be pulled from thin-air and spun into a conversation. Although most of the stuff we talk about doesn’t involve fandom and it’s mostly funny posts that float around on the dashboard, I think that’s one of the things I enjoy most about you. You’re a chill person to interact with and with that, I feel comfortable sharing some behind the scenes things about my projects~

@dreaming-of-butterflies Every now and then, I know you’re going to slap me over the head for spoiling things from my wip so that’s why I’m going to keep this response as spoiler-free as possible. No promises, though, for I am human and will inevitably slip up somewhere~! Rather purposely, but that’s beside the point

You are a true wildcard when it comes to sharing snippets or what happens in a story, that I often don’t die know if you’re going to scream at me for sharing something that I shouldn’t have, crying because I somehow broke your heart, or you going to give me this wide-eyed look of excitement and want to hear more. I never knows what’s going to happen, and I think that’s why I’ve kept you in the dark for a while because there are certain things that I can’t share with you, and there are certain things that I do want to share but have no idea how to approach it from a non-spoiler angle. So as I raise my metaphorical chalice into the air, I don’t give a damn and I’m going to spoil for you anyway.

There’s a certain book that’s referenced throughout the story that you may want to pay attention to. This book doesn’t exist in real life, so you don’t need to fret about avoiding its cover and title like the plague. But just keep in mind when that certain book is referenced and what scenes it’s referenced in. For you see, this book holds a lot of answers to questions that are made clear at the beginning of the fic. Although you’ll rarely read any passages from this book that doesn’t exist, it has a profound influence on the first third of the fic and on the characters that are associated with it.