And Here I Was, Thinking I'm Immune To Deranged Baseless Ranting.

What I think is really interesting about the papyrus account of the workers building the tomb of Rameses III going on strike to demand better wages is really fascinating to me because if you look at the description given by the royal scribe you see that there was an attempt to satisfy the workers by bringing a large amount of food at once but that was rebuffed by the workers who declared that it wasn’t just that they were hungry at the moment but had serious charges to bring that “something bad had been done in this place of Pharoah” (is poor wages and mistreatment). They understood themselves as having long term economic interests as a -class- and organized together knowing that by doing so they could put forward their demands collectively. It so strongly flies in the face of narratives that are like “in this Time and Place people were happy to be serve because they believed in the God-King and maybe you get some intellectual outliers but certainly no common person questioned that”. If historical sources might paint that sorta picture of cultural homogeneity it is because those sources sought not to describe something true but invent a myth for the stability of a regime.

and NPR did a segment on Fritz Faber mentioned in other reblogs. That part alone starts at 28:23, but the entire ep is good

all demographics and time periods and geography taken fully into consideration, some people were just born to lose

are we going to notice that in the last chap Fukuzawa got hazy eyes as he was assuming direct control over a shitton of people despite his opinions on the matter of people controling others? No? Okay.

Check for understanding:

What tone does the phrase 'fun fact!' give to the next statement?

Why did crabs-but-better phrase the extra time as 'forbidden'?

How does capitalizing 'Watch Out', as opposed to 'watch out', change the interpretation of these words?

What could have caused amiru-shubfeast to reblog with commentary?

What does the use of exclamation marks imply about their mood and mental state?

What formatting choices did their followup post use? Why?

Discuss with a mutual: what are the short and long term effects of sleep deprivation? Have you experienced any?

@reading-comp-posting

fun fact! did you know that you can gain extra ‘forbidden time’ by staying up late in the night? but Watch Out

yess so much space for Deep Ideas. how about… Akutagawa is fine, because he was ordered to prep himself for combat - but Tachihara being kept away from it, didn't have that order and thus just idled, so when (assuming Fuku didn't want the plan capstone to be as in anime; too much wiggling in the manga) Dracula stops working Tachihara is stuck like that. This would have Implications about Jouno's situation - let's say Asagiri's impenetrable plot armor kicks in, Tecchou + Kenji just contrivance his location out before Aya jumps off the tower. Here, we got options:

Tecchou moves him to Yosano at Hunting Dog speeds

due to Fukuchi quite liking Hunting Dogs, he's already in a location that's just good enough to stabilize him, so back to your boi Tachihara

Given the context, what about status of HG as an unit? wouldn't Fukuchi throw a lot of suspicion on the group? Obv they're not getting decommissioned, but either (or both, lel) on thin ice, or just… most of their bodymods removed (in preparation of), breaking the unit apart. The former could be used to create tension with Mori's requests, the latter via 'well now you're full-time mafia! It's a good thing you like it here, yes?'

Tachihara Meta below the cut-- heh, cut. Get it?

So I think his eyes were healed up when he was turned and he'll be fine.

But oh my god, the angst of the blinding not going away is so interesting to me. As much as i think a blindness arc would be so interesting, would there be any reason for magic vampiric healing to not fix his eyes? Idk, maybe a loophole or something.

I think Fukuchi blinds him so callously, not even turning around, because he knows that it will be healed. I think Fukuchi actually cared for the hunting dogs. They were under his command and he was responsible for them. Even if Tachi did turn on him, it was because Fukuchi was being evil on purpose to push humanity to his goal.

Anyway, back to Tachihara. I want to find a way to facilitate this cuz I want him to talk to Jouno and learn how to cope with this loss. Maybe find a way to use his metal ability to sense metal in the environment and "see" through his ability.

And imagine if he decides to go to Yosano for help, cuz he can't stand never being able to see the world again. Never being able to see the people be cares about. And she helps of course. And they talk and he learns more about how his brother died and how Yosano tried to stop that madness but was forced into a corner by none other than Mori. I think Tachihara would feel differently about staying in the mafia if he knew that Mori was the true culprit.

Maybe his injury was healed and his body is healthy but his mind is shutting down his vision out of mental trauma. He has to go to therapy to process his fucked up life and regain his eyesight. What a journey.

Ah fuck I'm writing this, ill call it an AU if I need to, if canon doesn't follow this thread.

My friend just pointed this out when I paused on a certain time stamp in season two of BSD episode 18, and we noticed fuckin' HILTER exists in this series now? Holy shit??? It was when that one staff member was bringing up tabs to hide the fact she was looking at Nastume the calico cat but...I has questions?

re: anime: well, Asagiri has been on board so everything that was added does provide extra data points.

re: Nikolai: ha, out respective brainrots got in the way. the focus on Nikolai w/ hand imo kind of signals the author gets a free setup to rewrite him into basically anything.

upside: dialogue (and the way the main panel is... "shot", hiding the mask) implies that now he has no reason for murderclown routine. alternatively: he's completely written out of the plot, either in Alcott-esque fashion (as pure satellite character), or permamently, as an used up plot device. Either way we forget.

downside: orrrr because it's not as upfront as Odasaku pulling Dazais bandages off, he can just double down on the mask. alternatively: the monkey paw curls and the genuine side is not to your taste.(or what happens is a synthesis of his face and mask, so to speak.)

So at this point i'm kind of afraid to ask: what result would you consider return to (better) form? keeping in mind that whatever research Asagiri did it pales in comparison to yours

re: re: scheduled Dostoy pivot: nonsense trust speech -> adapts strats and THIS being the rough CnP pivot (as opposed to Sigma :|)

can we form a coup against asagiri and make you the writer instead? genuinely... I am not taking the Fyodor immortal information well.. please help............................ ( ´，_ゝ` )

Oh, I would absolutely not do BSD well either. I just wish Asagiri had stuck to his roots more. He was a great comedy writer, and the beginning of the story was great for it. It's the action and Death Note stuff he can't seem to get mastery of. But for the immortal part: I'm not entirely sold that Fyodor's immortal, yet. It seems like yet another twists that will twist to reveal oh, shocker, he faked his memories to confuse Sigma/the ADA... or something. Could very well be immortal, but not 100% guaranteed.

mmm we could still be like "Dostoy had a shot perfectly lined up, and instead of offing Dazai right there merely uses it to force cannibalism arc to go brr", and then course-correct with 'because Reasons Dazai is crucial to whatever plan to erase ability users is being cooked', and THEN course-correct with 'not that easy to abduct', and then course-correct with...

the point is: you are reading a manga. The authorial intent is to keep Dazai alive and to showcase that normies can do stuff too. (the latter was mentioned in interviews, but you can work it out asking 'why is this the author-approved outcome, what themes/ideas does it reinforce'). How exactly this happens is razzle dazzle and willing suspension of disbelief, most likely induced by the plot being engaging in the moment.

Wouldn't be surprised is that for all our whining we're sticking around due to logic underpinning these two decisions.

also notice Fukuchi didn't Amenogozen Aya to pieces either and use the 10s window to cover to cutting down Bram. Because otherwise a) Aya would have no agency in the plot, see above b) we wouldn't get zonked by Tachihara vs Fukuchi (which happened to enable more character building and to slowly raise threat level. Without the slowdown the readerbase would go "this is OP bullshit" even harder. As is, the bootstrap paradox is framed more as a logical extension of what was already known - we just didn't sit down and try to break it Jojo-style)

You know who would've been a perfect person to be in prison with Fyodor? Ranpo.

Give Ranpo an earpiece, use Ango's influence, and Ranpo can easily communicated in Morse code or something. It doesn't need to be that secret because Ranpo can figure out Fyodor's plans just by looking at him.

Because that puts Dazai on the outside. Everyone's still using Ranpo's genius, but now they have No Longer Human, and that changes everything.

Time-traveling sword? Nullified, Fukichi loses. Vampires? All Dazai needs to do is touch the sword in Bram. One Order? Dazai destroys it. Dazai just needs to touch the Page and it's gone. Seriously, Dazai's ability was so perfect for all of the problems in the series and he just wasted away in prison playing mind games with Fyodor. I love Ranpo, but he doesn't have a fighting ability, and he literally stayed in one room the whole time anyways.

alternatively: he read the rumor mill post Dead Apple and knows Ranpo was yeeted out into the normie dimension, hence: not an ability user. So the angle would be more that he would shine brighter and dazzle more people if there was noone with magic bullshit powers to overshadow him, with the parry could be that then he'd be utterly alone (no way for Fukuzawa to come up with 'you're a wizard Harry' bit with enough confidence to not seem sus) and there would be no convenient explanation ('I'm magic, deal with it' vs ...do they even know autism exists?) to throw at people.

...but should it? That would be revealing an exploitable weakness.

...which could be parried with:

greatness would find greatness (to nod at C&P some more)

that's what the internet is for (wink at the camera :^) )

that he would end up making his own group, thus creating a place to be for others (wink at the litnerds in the audience + give this sort of 'selfdestruction for the benefit of others is fine, actually' vibe)

at which point the followup would depend purely on the demands of the plot/authorial intent, yeah?

also interesting we never had Naoto Shirogane moment with him - i.e. without ADA, even if he was let to crime scenes he'd be treated as a tool, not a person. In this context, it really is noticable how it seems Minoura is framed like his sole point of contact with the local force. Yes, it's to set up him rescuing Ranpo later, but...

now that i think of it Untold Origins does not include a single use of an ability that could not be explained via mundane skills - Flawless as raw skill+luck, for instance.

... ONE MORE THING: what are the implications of Ranpo basically RPing Dostoy out of necessity to get a result he needs, side effects be damned?

Listen. Ranpo wasn't born with an advantage. Ranpo's ability to understand cases rationale seems like an advantage, but actually it is not, because Ranpo is trying to hold on among the talented people with his brain, and he is fighting with people who have a gift in their hands. What happened like someone fighting against superior intelligence with their own analysis. A working person who makes the move with their ability to analyze against someone blessed with talent. Ranpo seems to have an advantage, but actually he also has disadvantages because there would be no world he can live if his learned talent gone. That's why I so want to see Ranpo and Fyodor talk. Imagine, Fyodor there are people gifted with ability, Fyodor see this as unfair, a sint and argues with Ranpo, who isn't actually gifted but has a talent.

Miron Białoszewski, Namuzowywanie -> Musing up

Oh Muse! Inspirouse

i just for you endinfying from unwritinging

do tell me ing o se