#dcst meta

[pangomelon]

Gen is such an interesting character and I KNOWW hes one of the main cast but it still feels like he doesn’t get enough screen time.

I’ve noticed that for a lot of characters after their introduction, they don’t get a lot of character development, and Gen is one of them. I crave to know his persona more in depth. I wanna know his ideals, how he feels about the KoS, what he plans to do after civilization is built again.

I want to see him share his favourite stories from the old world, to know who he is outside of his duties. His past isn’t thoroughly explored in cannon and that crushes me because he’s such an important and loved character. (Yeah his hair’s a little funny but so is. Literally everyone else’s. Like have you seen senku? Don’t even get me started on xeno. Or homura)

Aka: I’m coming after you Boichi and when I get there I better see a full ten billion page analysis on Gen. he deserves to be known!!!!

[songofscreams]

Byakuya Wasn't Rich... At First

Did research into Byakuya's character for some funsies, and did you guys know he has a doctorate? You have to have a doctorate to be an astronaut (according to NASA, I couldn't find info on JAXA, but I'm assuming it's an equivalent) like it makes sense all things considered but at the same time. Damn, this man has a *doctorate*. No wonder he was teaching at a uni and was able to just go straight into being an astronaut. Also according to some research, a uni professor in Tokyo with his background in terms of experience and degree would be pretty comfortable. Like not rich but middle class.

But astronauts make BANK meaning 6 figures USD (once again, according to NASA as I couldn't find info on JAXA probably due to privacy laws) I'm going to assume he made on the lower end of that due to experience. He probably made about 78-80k as a professor (which I think is about 10mil ¥ ????, but don't quote me). We don't know what his financial situation looked like, but I refuse to believe that Byakuya just spent frivolously. He wouldn't have just dropped money on a whole lab for Senku and while Senku was very clearly well-loved he was NOT a spoiled brat. (I'm sorry if you go under the cut, I got carried away... again)

Just look at all of his memories of Byakuya, they're not grand things but normal mundane stuff like getting a meal. It's telling that Senku remembers something like that on top of like that year he got a whole-ass lab and if memory serves before then he had been checking out books at the library. This was probably because Byakuya didn't want to get him equipment if this science thing was just a phase. (Which honestly fair, but it also points to him being money-savvy.) The anime also did a nice thing by adding stuff outside of science-related things such as them going to that festival when Senku was younger. Probably to keep him from getting obsessive and burning himself out on The Thing (tm). The Thing (tm) being science. I wouldn't be surprised if they went to museums and the aquarium! (Note: Museums are NOT climate controlled... they get cold ;-; train stations also get cold, hot beverage vending machines are life.)

Backstory

Okay tangent over, thank you. POINT of all of that is, is that he wasn't out here spending money at the drop of a hat. He made a strategic choice of selling his car probably because traffic is a bitch and a half to navigate. Trains *are* crowded too so he inconvenienced himself but didn't make it impossible to get to or from work. Byakuya may be a goof but he is responsible at the end of the day. It probably also helped him save a bit on things like insurance, maintenance, and oil. Also don't forget the recession that happened in '08, if Byakuya was lucky (and from his track record in the series he was EXTREMELY lucky) he probably sold his car before the recession hit which (from some armchair Googling) would have net him $4k USD more or less ( Note: gas jumped to $8 a gal in Japan during this time so most people weren't able to afford cars, don't know all the details on this but I'm going to assume the used car salesman wouldn't have been as happy to see Byakuya if it had been DURING the recession). I don't know what taxes would have been like though!

Once the series starts in 2019 Byakuya has had about 5 years of experience as being an astronaut so it would put him in a different tax bracket. (Does Japan do tax brackets? I don't know. I also don't know if he owned his apartment or rented it. Japan does have negative interest rates, though, so maybe he went through with owning it). Assuming he owned his apartment (two bedroom one bath most likely) it would keep a roof over his and Senku's head in the event of another economic disaster. Byakuya was born in the 70's. He's lived through a couple so it would make sense that he'd want to prepare for another possible one. (Japan had a REALLY big economic downturn in the 90s... right when Byakuya was in his 20s and entering the workforce. I'm not saying it's the reason for his morbid sense of humor but....) And assuming he didn't own his apartment, I think someone else did an appraisal of Senku's room and the amount it cost and came up with somewhere around $1500 which would have left left Byakuya with cash to secure rent and food if he lost his job. We're going off this number, in the event that I'm *wrong* ignore this second bit's math but take the theory.

Preparedness

According to historical data and my questionable math skills I looked at what apartments would have cost in Japan. NOW keep in mind they're not *in* Tokyo, from what I've been able to tell based on maps, they're (starting out) in *Yokohama*. The rent for an apartment like what Byakuya had would have been $542.91 (not including anything extra in terms of fees/utilities) plus an additional $230.42 for food (I'm going for a 3 person household which people said was about 60,000 yen on the high end, am I overestimating? yes, but like I said I'm not good at math and I feel like extra money would be put towards special things.) This would put Byakuya at $773.33 USD in 2004 money per month which means he'd have been able to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads for about 1-2 months (if you do the math you will find over 3 months but I'm also taking into consideration utilities and other costs I don't know about). So yeah... Byakuya was pretty smart with his money. It probably really started paying off when he became an astronaut... shame his riches were completely useless in the end, ouch.

NOTE: Also what I mean by we don't know his financial situation (before I broke down what little I could get a sense of) is that we don't know if he had hidden debts or investments. Obviously the show isn't going to focus on that (and Senku was a kid which typically kids aren't made privy to that kind of info) so we don't know the full scope of things. We can, however, tell that from above information and the overall state of how Senku grew up, they didn't do too bad for themselves even as a single-income household.

Bonus

Another thing that's pretty fun to do (that I just realized) is in order to learn more about Byakuya you have to analyze Senku (and you do the opposite for if you want to learn more about Senku).

Senku himself is pretty thrifty. He tends to want to reuse/ find new life for things sometimes even before they've outlived their purpose in their first form. (The poor lab...) Yes from a purely logical perspective it is energy efficient, but he tends to think outside the box at times. I believe that both of these were learned from Byakuya because of above mentioned finances. Senku absolutely never knew what their financial situation was like, he probably knew they were secure and that was likely enough for him. He was far more content being an internet gremlin which... also ties into Byakuya's character too. Byakuya also valued following his dreams and loved teaching, like he was a teacher until the very end which you can find in Senku and his rambles.

And for the opposite, it's pretty obvious to everyone that Byakuya wants to dote on Senku and I've beaten the horse dead on Senku's atrocious mental health. BUT apparently there was an interview recently (though I'm not a fan of 2 year post-series interviews) where it was revealed that Senku really *is* mentally vulnerable (not the right word at all, but stay with me) and does need a lot of stability. Byakuya just overdid it at first after he adopted Senku. Makes sense, they were getting to know each other. But it would explain why later on they would get ramen together.

The one thing that is constant is Byakuya is emotionally and mentally resilient. Yes he shows emotion and isn't afraid of it, but I don't think we've ever seen a time in the show or manga where Byakuya wasn't putting one foot in front of the other. Yeah he failed his lifelong dream at first but he still went and succeeded. Senku does the same, but it's a bit of a front because he's trying to imitate Byakuya.

Senku spent from when he was ~13-14 to petrification with more or less only teachers as his role models (Due to Byakuya being in Houston for ~1-2 years for training as per usual for space missions (This is according to NASA)) and I don't know about you guys but teachers can be some of the best or most horrid people on this planet. Especially when they get jealous of their students for perceived success. So the fact that Senku consistently kept his head down and worked toward his goal of astronaut in spite of those teachers (saying this because of that scene when he was little) really showcases how important Byakuya's perseverance as a character was and just how much of an influence his dad was on him.

TL;DR: Byakuya has good financial sense and would have done pretty well for himself if petrification never happened, likely enjoying a nice retirement. You can also learn more about Byakuya by analyzing Senku and vice versa.

[awesome-cookies-and-cream]

I've constantly enjoyed stanxeno's parallel with the KoS and Senku's closest friends, but anyway I love rambling since s5 aired. Anyway

Obviously, one of the main parallels should be Taijuu since Stan occupies the brawn best friend to Xeno. But I thought, isn't Stan more like Tsukasa in terms of attitude? When Tsukasa was dying and recalled a what-if scenario, he thought about being there with Senku as a childhood friend. I thought, yea that would be more fitting, isn't it?

But Tsukasa wasn't there. Instead, it was Taijuu and later on, Yuzuriha.

And that's the main difference between them I think (besides obviously Byakuya, but we didn't see Xeno's parents). Senku has Yuzuriha to help them with her own set of skills and the three of them were truly good friends (which i'm really glad honestly. at first impression, i thought taijuu was just going to be simping over her. but senku knows 1 billion % it's reciprocated because the 3 are close. good for them.)

Meanwhile, Xeno only has Stan, who truly is worth about four people in the KoS alone skills and relationship-wise (Tsukasa, Taijuu, Ryusuui and Gen) but also meant that they're pretty cut off from the rest of the world. so you get Xeno's frustrations later on.

which goes down to Senku and Xeno's philosophical differences. Senku puts human cooperation above brute force, reflected on all his friends and family because he has people who understood the joys of creation and knowledge acquisition for curiosity's sake (of course he also happened to be with 2 of the most kind-hearted people in the world. meanwhile he's such a scheming gremlin lol)

Anyway. i think it's nicely woven in. Xeno's jaded self would immediately build an empire. while Senku worked on finding a cure. Granted, Senku woke up alone. Xeno had Stan (and platinum). Perhaps if Xeno woke up alone, he'd find a way to wake up Stan too. Even with platinum, there's only so much he can do.

All of that to say:

[khepiari]

How Dr. Stone Breaks the Rules to Make a Better Story

[sofiadragon]

So I'm writing a fanfic, as I do, and I need Gen to try and puzzle out how he's going to handle the latest hurdle in his life but get distracted by nonsense that doesn't matter. So me, being autistic, decide to just let my brain go and have that stream of consciousness be what Gen ends up thinking about.

(The part of Kohaku in the below Gif will be played by Gen's internal monolog.)

Hey Senku, do you like skirts?

Like it's fine. I'm not judging. Pants are hard to make and rocking the kilt life early on could have been a lack of choices. It seems like the villagers gave you a shirt dress for under your winter coat after you became chief, and who looks a gift horse in the mouth under those circumstances? Before the observatory, you weren't sure of your place, I get it.

But are the red suit trousers the only pants you own? Is... is this a deliberate choice? It has to be, Yuzuriha and Francois are right there, if you wanted trousers you could have jeans, cargo shorts, sweatpants, and durable work pants to match your lab coat yesterday.

Like I said, you do you. I wear my kimono on the outside and my haori on the inside with a full second outfit in a completely different style under that. Unique and quirky styles are fine, and you clearly do it without being frilly or girlish. It looks good on you.

If you like the breeze around your legs that's fine, and if it's just conserving resources by not replacing clothing that isn't worn out that's fine too. I'm just thinking about gifts and don't want to get you something you'll never wear. I'm thinking a raw silk button down shirt dress that goes down to mid-calf with deep reinforced pockets. Creamy color to match your existing wardrobe, just visible under your lab coats. Nothing feminine about the cut or the trimmings, just a really nice button down shirt that doesn't stop. So am I nuts or is that something you'd go for?

[songofscreams]

Interesting thing I've noticed looking through the Dr. Stone wiki/ rereading the manga. (Spoilers for Treasure Island arc and beyond below the cut)

god that text is tiny... it says: He (Stanley) is the fifth antagonist to be petrified in order to be defeated, following after Tsukasa, Hyoga, Moz, and Ibara.

I think it should be important to note that Tsukasa was petrified for medical reasons (if I remember right) and shouldn't be counted here but regardless... I'm still going to include him just in case.

If Senku can't handle a tough (people) situation he runs from it. Which honestly makes so much sense when you think about his emotional maturity and the stressors that he is under. After all he's in his mid-late teens for most of these foes (all of whom are older than him at the time they went toe-to-toe.)

For example Hyoga was in his early 20s when he was introduced, Tsukasa was 18 when he first teamed up with Senku (who was, at the time, 15/16). So of course he's put so far out of his element when every single person he has been up against is an adult. He was 18/19 when he squared off against Stanley and Dr. Xeno who were both 29. That 10-11 years of life experience makes a huge difference. Look at how much he struggled against Ibara who was 50. He seems to start panicking when his enemy is in their late 20s and it just gets worse from there.

And this isn't even taking into consideration the fact that Senku hasn't had an adult with a backbone in his life since before he was petrified. He probably doesn't know how to handle being around adults so he relies on those around him to handle those situations. He has not had a mentor to help him finish growing up for a lack of better wording and it shows. The teacher-student relationship is literally so important and is argued to be one of the main reasons we have a prolonged childhood (as stated in The Origins of Humankind by Richard Leakey).

THIS is why Senku's weakness is his WIS stat and not necessarily his CON. It would be easy enough for him to adjust for his crappy constitution and he has done so before.

He is literally so inexperienced with life and under so much stress (both self-imposed and not) that he almost has to have the reaction he does when faced with someone who is: A. set in their ways, and B. has the life experience to read him like an open book.

It's honestly such a cool little insight into his character that I didn't even process the extent of until now. And that's not even going into the ethics of petrifying someone or the fact that he could very easily be read as a "bad-guy". Especially since protagonist doesn't necessarily mean "good person" and the line is that the antagonists in this series will kill a man. Where as Senku would let them slowly go insane while encased in stone.

I just think he's neat. He's very obviously got the best of intentions and doesn't want to actually cause harm so this realization adds so much nuance to him. I know we're aware that all of his antagonists were older then him but I just think it's interesting that the likely hood of him running increases the older they are.

(For anyone who is curious, intentional petrification of antagonists seems to start after 23 years old and "time to panic oh my god they're going to kill me" starts at 29.)

[songofscreams]

Thoughts on Suika

Listen, I know we all have the same thoughts so this is more of an appreciation post!

I've just been recently having some thoughts on Suika, mostly in the way that she's just such a pivotal character and how important she is from the start of the series. Now, we all know I have some pretty big feelings about the pacing of Dr. Stone and the way the plot points are set up (specifically where we are now in the story), but Suika's importance was set up way before all of that. Suika was important from the beginning.

I can also hear what you're saying about "she is too hard on herself and she has anxiety!" And I do agree that she does have concerns about not feeling useful, there could be some things to explore with that and food scarcity in Ishigami Village before Senku arrived. What I'm saying is she's so important because Suika represents the hope of the next generation that will live to benefit (or suffer) from the decisions of the previous generation. She's being shaped in real time by the importance of science and the collaboration of humanity and honestly, I think we all resonate with that as fans of the series.

Suika is literally the personification of future generations and the knowledge that is passed down from mentor to student. The mentor(s) were not even that much older than she was! Senku was 16 when he met Suika who was 9, there were only 7 years between the two of them which could have made him an older brother figure. Senku and Suika's relationship shows that it doesn't have to be a parent and child or grandparent and child type of mentorship but you can even learn something from your siblings! (Not that any of us who do have siblings would admit to that.) Knowledge comes from everywhere and everyone and Suika even does her own fair share of teaching in the series by just being herself.

She embraces curiosity and grit and excitement about the world that I think everyone needs to remember. Her importance has never come across as 'too convenient' or 'annoying', but as a character who is just learning as much as she can so one day she can step up and make the world a better place.

[songofscreams]

Ishigami Village Brief Thoughts

What's this? Sterling having brief thoughts (whatever THAT word count is going to look like) on Ishigami Village? A topic they're WELL known among friends for having A LOT of thoughts on? Well, you're in luck! This is a new weekly challenge in the server (which is 18+) and our first prompt was "Ishigami Village" which is interesting enough by itself, but I'll be addressing some follow-up questions related to the prompt! So sit down, buckle up, and get ready for a 'brief thought' to surpass 5k! (Please keep my joints in your thoughts, there's a reason I'm a retired meta writer LOL)

(update: it was 1.4k!)

Follow-up Questions

who’s your favourite ishigami villager?

what customs do you think ishigami village has?

what changes do you think happened to their culture when senku came along?

what cultural aspects of their group are you drawn to?

any headcanons about the village?

I know, very strange to list the follow-up questions at the beginning, but this is going to give us structure and remind me to not go overboard.

Who is your favorite villager? Any Headcanons about the village?

The first one is pretty easy for me as it's a 3-way tie with Kohaku, Ruri, and Suika. They almost feel representative of different aspects of the same person (and is very heavily implied that Lillian is a direct ancestor so my HC is they're three of Lillian's "faces" if you will. Her diligence and hardworking attitude, her willingness to fight/protective nature (hers looks different than Kohaku's, it's not a physical manifestation, but a mental one), and her loyalty and sense of duty.

I do have a fair number of headcanons especially one related to the Grand Bout that seems to have gained some popularity as a way to explain how the headstone was brought over. (The Grand Bout being a way to determine who would go on the voyage. You can read more about my addition here)

Additionally, it is also important to remember that smaller groups of people, generally speaking, mean that everyone is in everyone's business. People who come from or live in close-knit communities would know that it just feels like everyone is your aunt/uncle, your grandparent, parent, and so on and so forth. I am not even getting into the headache that is the fact that everyone is literally cousins, though I do theorize that since it is possible for people to break out of stone from mental fortitude alone it is an issue, but they aren't dying from 3,718 years of 6 people intermarrying.

Senku did the math and confirmed that it seemed as though the brain being active+nitric acid helped to speed the process. There is an implication that, say, someone with racing thoughts could have awoken from the stone possibly earlier if in an acidic environment... and Japan does have acidic soil where as Sacramento does not generally have acidic soil... I need to write meta on that.) This is naturally going to have a HUGE impact on dynamics and politics in a group. (But also kind of makes the existing worldbuilding fall apart, it's okay, we'll just fix it with duct tape later.)

BUT I DIGRESS, This is supposed to be BRIEF.

What Changes do you Think Happened When Senku Came Along?

I am AAAAAAAAA, I could write a whole meta on this topic alone. Senku is not exactly the best person, we've established this. Even in the series itself he has mentioned he's not a saint when it comes to his emotions (which he does have... SO MANY). You can be an overall genuine person and have good intentions (which he does) but still not be a good person. He's an incredibly messy character who does view the villagers as people, yes, but as a means to an end. It's an additional benefit for him to make sure they're happy and bribe them to help but there was a HUGE cultural shift that's going to deal irreparable damage when you suddenly introduce things such as the Agricultural Revolution Pt. 2 to society. Generally speaking it didn't end well for women. And considering Japan doesn't have large animals that live there (and would be okay there for almost 4,000 years) it's very likely that the gathering and farming (reliance also on a single crop... which totally doesn't have a history of ever going wrong) would have slowly phased out women from the table. Not to mention things such as processing textiles, hides (from what I have found, plant materials was more common to use in Japan throughout history), dyeing, spinning and weaving were all typically done by women and men. However dyeing with natural plants is anything but an exact science and often times those dye recipes are passed down from one generation to the next. That would likely be one of the areas that Senku would "improve" with synthetic dyes (not all natural dyes are toxic, a lot of times they're just not colorfast or lightfast, lightfastness is a main one because of sunlight. But you can get a wide breadth of colors from just plants and metals (be careful, because that part CAN be toxic, don't just pour copper water down the drain!)

It seemed from the beginning when Senku first joined it was more egalitarian. There were gender roles, but no one really thought twice about Kohaku being a warrior, they were more irritated that she caused trouble and caused her father more worry when he already had one child dying of an unknown illness, the same one that killed his wife. Even Jasper himself mentioned that Senku came and made a mockery of their traditions because Senku is ~15-16 years old, he's still of the mindset of "I have a problem, I need to fix it" and just sort of blunders through life as teenagers are wont to do. For him, his problem is he needs to save humanity so he can find Byakuya, he's not thinking of the implications of destroying thousands of years of cultural traditions. Often times, I've read papers about the invisible elderly or how in archeology it is easy to gloss over the contributions of older folks in society due to older bones not exactly preserving well. This tends to be the reason behind the incorrect assumption that everyone lived to 35-40. In Senku's mind the "best" way is unchecked progress without considering the other areas due to his general lack of wisdom.

After Senku has taken over the village through a marriage and divorce (which I have in my Kos Meta and will include in citation below, but divorce is not a new topic for the villagers, they were just shocked over his audacity and his overall lack of respect for their culture). There is a shift for more men taking active roles. Ruri, it is implied, holds a lot of power as the priestess, but her role and Kohaku's role as what appears to be leader of the village guard, are overlooked for Chrome who was technically banished from the village for "Sorcery". It was meant to show that Senku did it all without one of his generals being a fighter, HOWEVER, it also sends a pretty clear message when ALL of the antagonist factions have women in positions of authority except for the KoS. (Kirisame, Charlotte, Minami, and technically Kohaku in the beginning since it's uncertain if the village will be on Senku's side at first.)

In order to understand how the other groups in the series may view the KoS we have to look at it from their perspective. Starting with the Ishigami villagers. From their perspective they are having some random man come into their village, make a mockery of their traditions which are then voided because outside help (remember he doped everyone so technically the bout was void from the start and he was able to divorce Ruri so easily because he legally didn't win), and then saved the priestess' life.

-The Perception, Ishigami Village

From these changes we can now make deductions for some of how Ishigami village was BEFORE Senku (remember, he's likely considered a god in the religion) showed up.

Customs of Ishigami Village

From how it seems, there's a variety of customs with Ishigami Village, such as the Grand Bout (which may no longer continue after Senku's arrival). Fish is a main protein staple, though it would make sense for the village of that size to move around every so often so they don't exhaust their resources. They likely did practice a form of agriculture, but also supplemented with gathering and hunting. Everyone knows how to sew (not that big of a surprise, sewing is an incredibly useful skill that everyone should know) so it wouldn't surprise me if there were customs around making new ships, I would also not be surprised if there were coming of age ceremonies and ceremonies for early childhood (once you pass through childhood, you are in the clear for living a relatively normal life). I tend to have Kohaku a little more "eh" about privacy as a Kohaku thing, but I generally feel like the village being small with possibly multigenerational houses means that everyone's once again, aware of everyone else's business. Kohaku is just Kohaku.

What Cultural Aspects of the Group are you Drawn to?

All of it. Just. All of it.

Thank you for coming to my brief.... only 1.4k word meta talk with sources on Ishigami Village! Very brief! Under 5k! It was a lot of fun and I had to really hold myself back from doing a deep dive (which I will absolutely do in server omg)