Sorry if this is an old topic, but I just realized another thing I don't particularly like about the PSOH spin-offs with grandpa and papa is the implication that all D's are super long-lived, I'm fine with them remaining youthful, but the longer lifespan seems over the top and imo muddle the og timeline and worldbuilding even more (and that's without mentioning the implied time-travel shenanigans!) and makes the whole deal with the D's bloodline respawning through the ages kinda... unnecesary?
* warning for incoming rambling *
I know that in the og manga there were no specific dates but it's more or less implied that grandpa D ran his shop from the 30's toward maaaybe the 50-60's, that Papa D was supposed to succeed him during the 60's until possibly the 90's and maybe he did for a while until he dipped in the 70's to go to the university where he met Vesca, which may or may not have forced our D to fill in his role at a younger age than he should have (I personally headcanon that the LA store was his first time acting as Count D) which may have been why he was being watched over by grandpa.
And in my humble opinion this is further with the Dynasty chapter, the girl that was destined to reincarnate and fall in love for count D, the one whose original life is supposed to be the one who granted the title to begin with! Because again, the bird (sorry I forgot the name) says that it was our D's great-great-great grandpa who sold her to the queen, two generations before Sofu D, and the math is mathing because the one before him was probably operating during the early 20th century while the previous one to him, was the one the queen fell for, at the end of the 19th century, accounting for the 4 times she reincarnated, counting Monica.
And then, Passage-hen tell us that Sofu D was the one living in Europe... but in the 19th century instead of 30's? That in the 30's Papa D was already alive and an adult and he was the one dealing with WWII?? And I'll stop there because the time clusterfuck of the chinese girl who became empress just plain pisses me off.
(Another thing, in a lesser scale, that I just don't buy is the whole... um... idk what to name it, power up? of the D's, like we went from our D being able to summon extinct animals but normal animals from his blood to Papa D having a dinosaur?? I get he was experimenting but come on)
rubbing my hands together, i LOVE getting psoh meta asks!! apologies if this took long to answer, i've been out travelling this past month and i didn't take my laptop with me (but!! i did get more chinatown reference photos for my leon pilgrimage!! and this one is even present in canon!!!).
another thing I don't particularly like about the PSOH spin-offs with grandpa and papa is the implication that all D's are super long-lived (...) but the longer lifespan seems over the top and imo muddle the og timeline and worldbuilding even more (...) and makes the whole deal with the D's bloodline respawning through the ages kinda… unnecesary?
Honestly i agree! I do think they ARE longer lived than humans (and certainly remain youthful for most of it), but definitely not on a level that spans several centuries.
I feel like another thing that really muddies the waters is that the Ds lie all the time. They refer back to two or three generations back at most - D mentioned that the title of "Count" was given to his grandfather, and then Sofu D says the exact same. Outside of the tragic backstory of their kind, I don't think any generation older than a great-grandfather is ever mentioned in canon.
versus Passage-hen, with Sofu D:
So D is not even saying that Sofu D is the current holder of the title, but rather that he acquired it himself. Sofu D says the same of his own grandfather.
The lies are hereditary, adapted to make their family history seem more recent than it is, and I assume they do this on more than just one topic.
Well. We know they do something similar on another very important topic, actually:
Seems like the youngest generation is always assigned as "father" to whichever new D respawns, regardless of whether they were involved or not in this "birth" or where the past version of new!D lay in terms of age.
Way to make the bloodline even more confusing!
In addition to that, of course, there's Wandering Ark which canonizes time-travel 🙄 which is never explained, or mentioned on any other of the installments, despite the main core of the series being lost and dying species, which you would think that at some point a random soft-hearted D would capitalize on to save their kind or another dying species.....
So on the below, we can't even tell whether that was actually Papa's grandfather, or Papa himself travelling through time:
(cue pause for me to bitch about Wandering Ark's horrible and round art style, and horrible overall story and pacing, and mourn about what we could have had for Papa's backstory, and--)
That being said, I think we can basically disregard the entirety of Wandering Ark. Sensei is inconsistent at best (throwback to when D mentioned a sister previously to the orangutang chapter, for example), and Wandering Ark came so long after the rest and veered so far away from it that I personally don't really consider it canon. Passage-hen can stay, if only because it was surprisingly fun for a Sofu D series, but you can absolutely disregard it as not being "true" canon as well.
I know that in the og manga there were no specific dates but it's more or less implied that grandpa D ran his shop from the 30's toward maaaybe the 50-60's, that Papa D was supposed to succeed him during the 60's until possibly the 90's
I tend to agree 🤔 Outside of Passage-hen (set in the Belle Époque iirc, which would be 1871-1914), we do know the WWII bear (1939-1945) was definitely not Papa's doing, and therefore Sofu's or Sofu's "father"'s. The Belle Époque having ended so late gives a little more credibility to it still being Sofu D, assuming that their lifespans are a little longer than the average human's.
Passage-hen seems to be set 1899-1900, which tracks reasonably well with their lifespans being around 120-150 years or so? Assuming Sofu D is in his 20s here (like D in the original series), he would have been "born" around the mid-to-late 1870s, which puts him at the age of around ~120 at the time the original series happens. He seems to be at the longer end of the D lifespan from the Ds we've seen so far, so it's not a stretch to say he's also unusually long-lived for their kind (it's the bitterness, I assume).
Other than this, there's also the possibility of him having extended his normal lifespan through unnatural means - much like how it's mentioned he made a "sacrifice" (one of D's eyes?) to be able to take on Q-chan's form in OG PSOH.
My personal headcanon is that he's outlived several generations of Ds outside of his father and grandfather dying from everything from heartbreak to recklessness and human exposure, and that's why he's extra bitchy about everything tbh.
I also think Papa highkey dipped out of the petshop outside of (ugh) Wandering Ark's timeframe, or maybe did not take it over at all, which tracks with Sofu having been the one to pass it down to D and handling stuff during Papa's "era". There's also another possibility: that of there having been another interim D, which died in the meantime to give "birth" to Papa, who was the one to handle the petshop in the meantime until the 50s or so.
Papa gives me the impression of being relatively young and not yet "damaged" in the 70s college era, but that also clashes a bit with the timing of D's birth and growth, considering our D is in his early 20s in OG PSOH. Unless Papa specifically went to college in 1970 nearly exactly (idr if an exact year was named) and our D spawned right after, making it so Vesca didn't witness Papa's crashout after D's illness and Sofu taking D away?
which may or may not have forced our D to fill in his role at a younger age than he should have (I personally headcanon that the LA store was his first time acting as Count D) which may have been why he was being watched over by grandpa.
This is canon, I think! They don't mention him being too young to take over the petshop, but iirc he does mention Sofu only left it to him recently (and you can also tell based on a lot of interactions D has, which paints him as fairly green on acting as the count or not knowing a lot of the history of past purchases).
(Another thing, in a lesser scale, that I just don't buy is the whole… um… idk what to name it, power up? of the D's, like we went from our D being able to summon extinct animals but normal animals from his blood to Papa D having a dinosaur?? I get he was experimenting but come on)
To be fair, that was very much Papa's field of study! I think he didn't manage to replicate dinosaurs exactly, but instead ended up with mutant/incorrect copies much like D's "sister" in his quest to save lost species. He did spent around 20+ years solely dedicated to researching genetics and dead species, and with a little help of D's magical bloodline bullshit, I personally don't think it's too farfetched, though they're likely lacking in a lot of aspects and probably not able to reproduce.
Let me know what you think!! And thank you so much for the ask 💖💖
