Bungou Stray Birds Au - Tumblr Posts

Let me present to you something that sat in my head for weeks

Introducing three of Port Mafia members! Interesting detail, Akutagawa's ability works with his pelt, aka this feather cloak

I think I need to slow down with drawings and actually explain what's going on. That would be part 1 of a pretty long ramble about worldbuilding for the au.

So, let's start with a general introduction to what bird people are!

In this world, there are so-called "bird people"- probably humans that can turn into birds with the help of a special feather cloak called pelt

Pelt forms after first transformation into a bird during a bird person's childhood. When bird turns back into a kid, their wings and tail separate into this cloak, which can be taken off like any other piece clothing

In addition to pelt, bird people, as you saw, have unique, different from normal human anatomy, that mimics certain traits of bird species they can turn into

They lack outer ear, and instead of it, they have tufts of specialised feathers surrounding an ear opening that help channel sound into it. Those feathers can move, and bird people subconsciously display their emotions with them

Their hands and feet have claw-like nails and are covered in either feathers or scales, just like birds' feet. Some of the bird people have additional modifications for their hands, similar to modifications that their bird species' claws have

Peculiar exception are those whose bird species are among waterfowl. Their limb modifications go into their feet

All bird people have full nictitating membrane, or translucent third eyelid that allows birds to see while blinking to clear eyes of debris

[Example of Akutagawa blinking]

The feathers under eyes probably play no real function

Rest of the designs currently drawn, set of corvids. Gogol is an Eurasian Magpie

If you know about how selkies/swan maidens pelts/feather cloaks work, pelts for bird people work in essentially the same way. Stealing the pelt would make bird person lose their free will and obey the thief. Stealing just a couple of feathers would make bird person attached to thief, but still somewhat aware that it is wrong. In certain bird people it can create painful dissonance in their head mind splitting between loving the thief and being in anguish over lost freedom

Had to switch back to Medibang for Mori & Elise piece. People like Q in this au even less, sadly, because their ability invokes similar feeling to having bird person's pelt taken (it's actually surprisingly less bad than pelt stealing, but not a lot of people bother to understand). Elise has more of her own personality here

Only one character this time, but it allows me to get a little bit in-depth with details

Due to their hollow bones and other anatomical details that I've mentioned before, bird people require nonstandard health care. Yosano is one of few doctors who specialise in treating bird people

She doesn't go clothes shopping in this au. Instead, she buys fabrics and sews her own clothes because that's cheaper and easier and will last longer in her line of work

Oriental storks used to be frequently mistaken for red-crowned cranes in Japan and, therefore, believed to bring good luck and health

After Atsushi tore his first set of clothes during partial tiger transformation, she stared at him, very disappointed, and dragged him to redesign his clothes so they would accomodate his transformation

I don't have much about him yet

in the bird person au, how big is the ratio of bird people to non-bird people? you said that all ability users are bird people but not all bird people are ability users.

That's an excellent question! I never actually settled down on how much people are bird people in this world, but after doing some dubious math (seriously it is part counting the Japanese authors, part looking at percentages of various minorities in couple of countries and good chunk of just pulling the numbers out of thin air) I think that roughly 4 to 5% of world's population are bird people!

Regarding the "all ability users are bird people, but not all bird people are ability users", people like Ranpo, Gin and Naomi are part of the bird people's population that don't have abilities. But due to bird people that do have abilities being more noticeable, with how showy abilities are sometimes, general world's population usually assumes that all bird people have abilities from the get go

It is one of unfinished designs for bird au, mostly because I couldn't find references for undersides of copper pheasants' wings. Includes some reference pictures

Being birds may have affected the plot

I am having trouble with assigning a bird for Higuchi in bird au. So, if you like her and want to make a contribution, I will be really happy

In conclusion of Atsushi's and Akutagawa's first meeting, Higuchi and Tanizakis made a group chat together