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if you remember this one you are og as fuck (a edit from my old blog)

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Tool – Prison Sex (1993, dir. Adam Jones)

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source

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vladimir kush

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film from january of my bestie with her gummo dvd,, she is too cool for me

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BYE she is so cutebi wsnt to bbher . love the lain tattoo (=^▽^)σ

my new serial experiments lain tattoo :3

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December 1998 issue of AX Magazine (published by Sony)

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Dazai’s views on death and life over the years

aka 80% of the time I waste on overthinking everyday can be attributed to Dazai

(Using information I gathered from reading the manga, as well as translations of the light novels by various translators including @looking-for-stray-dogs and @nkhrchy) 

Age 14: Dazai tried to commit suicide, but was stopped(?) and treated by Mori

By this age where most children went to play in the fields and went home to their parents, Dazai already understood the hollowness of life and the eventuality of death, and decided that life was not worth living, at the tender age of fourteen.

Dazai was also made to watch Mori’s assassination of the previous Mafia boss, and witness the fabrication of the will to declare Mori the next boss.

Basically, a child who had already given up on living entered the world of darkness, blood and death.

Age 15: Dazai officially joined the Mafia.

When asked by Mori why he wanted to die, Dazai showed one of his rare, most honestly childish expressions, and asked Mori if there was really any point in living.

A child, barely mature enough to hold his feelings together, betrayed one of his most honest emotions: innocent, pure curiosity. About the real meaning of living.

During his mission with Chuuya, Dazai shot a dying man as an act of mercy. He then laughed at how ridiculous it all was, that the man had died so easily, so effortlessly, while he was still standing, looking at life with contempt. He also emptied several rounds at the long dead body, before expressing a sort of childish amazement at how honestly innocent people were in their views on death and life. People desperately cling on to life, fear their own death, and when someone else is dead, they think nothing else of the matter. This is especially true for people who have been desensitized to bloodshed in an environment like the Mafia.

But I don’t really believe Dazai was totally desensitized to blood and death. I’m more inclined to think that he was, underneath his cruel and fearsome front, desperately trying to find the meaning of it all, to understand why people act the way they do, madly driven by whatever causes they were fighting for. He saw people willing to live, fight and die for their cause, while he had none, and he could not figure out why seeing their most lively moments did nothing to answer that gnawing question in his heart: What do I have to live for?

At age fifteen, Dazai decided to join the Mafia hoping that by witnessing people’s most lively moments before they met death, he might find something meaningful enough to live for.

Around age 15-16: Dazai met Odasaku and Ango, two individuals who would change his views on life.

Odasaku, while living in a world of bloodshed, decided to live by his own principles. He refused to take lives, while raising young orphans to cultivate more life. Ango, in his own way, tried to find signs of life in the world of death, by giving the dead a place to have their stories told. Dazai found himself attracted to these two because unlike himself, they value life. 

This tells me that Dazai was, the whole time, not trying to give up and die, but he was desperate to find the value in him going on living. And he found hints to the answer he was seeking, while enjoying the rare relaxing moments with the only real friends he made in that dark place. They taught him something no one else could have, not Mori, his mentor, who put him in the world of darkness and bloodshed, nor Chuuya, who had made the Mafia his home.

For the first time, Dazai didn’t have to look death in the face to know that life, after all, might still have some value.

At age 18: Dazai tried to stop Odasaku from going to his own death, despite himself not yet understanding the worth of his own life.

aka a very human side of Dazai we rarely get to see.

People are hypocrites. Dazai, who was always inscrutable on the surface, seemed to embody cold logic and ruthlessness at its finest. He was a poisoned blade sharpened and perfected for the sole purpose of deepening the darkness spread by the Mafia. And yet, in those few hours from the time Odasaku was resolved to go to Mimic, to his final moments, Dazai was incredibly human.

He didn’t understand Odasaku’s despair and resolve, yet he begged him not to go. He couldn’t understand the worth of his own life, yet he asked Odasaku to consider if there was nothing else to rely on, to believe something good would happen.

Dazai asked Odasaku to cling on to life, and begged him not to give up hope, even though he was barely able to do so himself. 

And in his last moments, Odasaku gave Dazai a new way to live, to find worth in his life. He laid bare something about Dazai that Dazai himself was afraid to face: the fact that even when Dazai faced death every moment of his life, he would never find anything worth living for in the Mafia. No noble causes, no camaraderie, no loyalty, no fear of death, no heroic or evil deeds would ever fill that empty void in his heart.

But instead of condemning Dazai to a lifetime of empty loneliness, Odasaku asked him to try being good. Doing good might not make him any less lonely, but even so, Odasaku believed it would suit him better.

Odasaku gave Dazai a new reason to stay alive: to do work that saves people.

Dazai probably still doesn’t see himself becoming a good man, but even so, he will be on the side that saves. It may not make him any less empty, but he trusted Odasaku and would fulfill his promise. Dazai may not see the value in his life yet, but he was willing to carry on Odasaku’s will if that meant he might find more fulfillment that way.

At age 20: During his mission with Kunikida, Dazai didn’t intervene as two people killed each other to fulfill their own sense of justice. While this was in a way inevitable, Dazai didn’t show interest in preventing each of their deaths, or convincing them to drop their ideals and convictions. He let the already raging fires burn out, without directly extinguishing them. This was very reminiscent of Mafia Dazai. While he didn’t kill, he didn’t feel the need to convince Sasaki and Rokuzo of an alternative, a different way to deal with their grief, or in other words, a different way to live their lives.

At age 22: Dazai hasn’t killed anyone during the course of the story in canon. After meeting people like Atsushi, who defies everything and lives, Dazai once again finds himself drawn to people who value life no matter what. He went the extra lengths to help Kyouka find the strength to go on living, and to become good, even though there was no logical reason for him to do so.

Dazai, through his honest conversations with Fyodor, also shows he is now willing to stand alongside the sinful, stupid people among whom he once found himself the alien, and possibly still does. Instead of an idealized, romantic death, I think what Dazai really wants is just a more fulfilling life than what he had seen living in the dark, alongside the imperfect human beings he considers his friends. Even if the deepest, darkest parts of his heart remain frighteningly empty, it’s quite alright, isn’t it?

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“a world-class-freak”

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BSD’s Honest, Human Depiction of Trauma and Mental Ill Health

I’ve waited quite a while to discuss one of the reasons Bungou Stray Dogs resonates with me the most, and with the recent release of episode 6, now seems a pretty good time. I want to talk about how the series uses its characters and even the supernatural to approach the subjects of trauma and mental ill health in ways which, though sometimes flawed, show an emphasis on acceptance, recovery, and identity.

This is a huge topic, which I could ramble about for hours, trust me, but here I’m going to tackle it by looking at four specific moments involving Dazai, Chuuya, Atsushi and Kyouka, respectively.

Keep reading

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Hi! I really love your analyses and was wondering if you'd do a general one on Oda? I think he's a very good character with an interesting personality..

Odasaku, a Character Breakdown

ODA!! BEST DAD!! YES, I GOT YOU!! (See, while my blog title may be “Sword Dad is Best Dad”, Oda is also best dad. However, Sword Dad takes precedence because, well, circumstances.)

Odasaku’s an interesting dude, because while he’s certainly a character in his own right, what makes him plot-important is his impact on other characters. So it’s easy to reduce him to a plot device for making sure Dazai doesn’t remain an evil bastard. Do keep in mind that I haven’t read Beast (I’m working on it lol) so this analysis may be incomplete, as I’m working off Dark Era only. 

On the surface, Odasaku’s very chill. He’s not apathetic the way Dazai is, but nothing ever seems to really bother him or break his composure. It’s why Dazai doesn’t needle him the way he does Ango, Kunikida, and Chuuya, all of whom are high-strung people. He maintains this easy-going attitude when being shot at by a sniper in Ango’s hotel room, when rescuing Akutagawa from Gide, and even when murdering his way through Mimic’s ranks. 

His composure breaks twice. The first is when Dazai nearly gets shot by the Mimic agent in the alleyway, when he yells at Dazai to stop. It’s brief, though, and his calm comes back soon after. The second is when his children were brutally killed by Mimic. The fact that cool, composed Odasaku has completely lost his shit in that scene is part of why it hits you in the balls so hard--the anime’s gone to all this trouble establishing that he never loses his cool, and here he is, completely destroyed. 

I’m guessing that Oda’s composure comes from his past as an assassin, though that’s only speculation. But while he can seem apathetic, he’s really passionate on the inside. A mafia member who doesn’t kill, after all, has to have strong convictions to survive on the fringes of a criminal organization. 

And Oda does have strong convictions, and a dream to become a writer. What makes him different from other BSD characters is, unlike many of them, the mafia/the ADA/the Decay of Angels etc. isn’t all he is. Characters like Atsushi don’t have a higher ambition than working at the ADA. But the mafia isn’t the end-all be-all for Oda, and that’s why he’s got such strong convictions. 

In a way, Karma from the Ace episode reminds me of him. 

He’s also unequivocally kind. Again, it makes him different. Dazai calls him a man of righteousness, though I’d argue he’s a man of compassion. Kunikida is righteous, but he’s not necessarily kind. After all, he was the first to suggest the ADA not go after Atsushi when he was kidnapped. Oda wouldn’t have suggested that, because he’s, quite literally, the type of man to care for orphans with no family of their own. While plenty of BSD characters show kindness and compassion at points, many of them are largely motivated by self-interest.

It’s because he’s so kind, and because he’s got such strong convictions, that he throws his life away in Dark Era. He’s given multiple chances to walk away, multiple opportunities to turn back and save himself. Dazai begs him not to go and even Ranpo, in a chance encounter, tells him straight-up that he will die if he continues forward. But he keeps going. 

You could probably make the argument that Oda didn’t really value his life, and that was why he went after Mimic. With such little regard for his own life, his selflessness would be what killed him in the end. But I’d disagree. Going after Gide was a selfish act, probably the first one he made during Dark Era, because it was the first choice he made for himself. 

I mean, in case anyone needed another reason Dark Era was so goddamn tragic. 

In short, Oda’s one of my top favorite characters ever, and I really do need to read Beast. Anyway, hope this was helpful and I answered your ask!

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The Cycle of Abuse in BSD

A more character-analysis post tonight, though I should be working on that Akutagawa fighting style analysis. 

BSD has tons of well-written themes, such as the meaning of life in relation to death, what it means to be a good person, and things to live by. But I especially appreciate how the show portrays abuse, and how it’s a cycle–just as well, I’d argue, as the She-Ra reboot. There was a vid done on the She-Ra reboot that I will find and link that inspired this post somewhat. 

There are some pretty obvious parallels drawn between Mori and Fukuzawa, Chuuya and Dazai, then Akutagawa and Atsushi. There is a chain of mentorship and partnership that is passed down through the generations, but there’s also a chain of abuse–from Mori, to Dazai, to Aku, and finally to Kyouka. The most obvious abusive relationship would be the one between Dazai and Aku. 

Physical abuse notwithstanding, there was the extreme emotional conditioning that Dazai put Aku through. We see in flashbacks that Dazai belittled Akutagawa at every opportunity, telling him to be faster, better, and stronger because he was not good enough as he was. He destroyed the self esteem of a child who was already traumatized from a terrible childhood until said child was dependent on him for approval.

Aku is desperate for Dazai to give him praise, considering many of his lines are about how much he wants Dazai to acknowledge him. You’d think, once Dazai left the mafia and tried to be a better person, the abuse would stop. But it doesn’t.

During the Guild arc, there was that scene where Atsushi needed to get past Aku. Dazai tells him how, and he follows orders. He says to Aku, “Dazai wants to talk to you”, then chucks the phone out into the chasm. Akutagawa goes batshit, abandoning his self-imposed mission to dive after the phone. When he finally grabs it, Atsushi is long gone and Dazai has hung up. 

This happens again during the Rats arc, when Atsushi and Aku team up to fight Fyodor’s creepy earthbender. Dazai says to Aku, “It’s been four years since you’ve been under my command. I hope you’ve gotten more capable.”

Akutagawa’s only response is “Yes, sir.” His single-minded focus on succeeding on this mission is played for laughs when Atsushi tries to snap him out of it, but it’s actually quite chilling. Dazai, who is ostensibly his abuser, is still manipulating him in order to make sure his goals are met.

Is it for the greater good? Arguably, yes. But abuse is abuse, and within the greater context of Aku’s character arc, Dazai’s reestablished presence in his life is concerning. Because he still wants Dazai’s approval. I’m pretty sure he states that it’s one of the things he lives for. 

And if you look closely, he does what he’s been taught to Kyouka. You don’t belong with the ADA, he tells her, echoing Kouyou’s “flower of darkness” rhetoric. You can’t be a good person. The difference between Aku and her is that she escapes, to become a happier person away from the Port Mafia and away from Aku. This makes the scene where she confronts him in the cannibalism arc so powerful, because Aku is happy for her. 

Mori and Dazai are a little harder to parse, mostly due to a lack of information and the subtle hints that Dazai isn’t actually like the other characters in BSD. He lacks something–be it a will to live, the capacity for empathy, or the ability to care about other people’s suffering, there’s something missing. It’s evident especially in that scene in Fifteen, when Dazai shoots the corpse of the GSS soldier several times before Chuuya forces him to stop. There is something wrong with Dazai that isn’t based in trauma or abuse. 

The problem, then, is that Mori encourages this. He cultivate’s Dazai’s ruthlessness and manipulates him first with the promise of an easy suicide (at the beginning of Fifteen) and then with the promise of something to live for. Dazai is turned into a living weapon and he knows this, he’s fine with this. That doesn’t make it any less right, and makes what he does to Aku just as unforgivable. Akutagawa is molded into a rabid dog whose leash is supposedly held by the Port Mafia–but really, it’s held by Dazai. 

What I love about BSD is how it explores these themes with care and without romanticizing them. There is nothing cute about Dazai shooting a corpse multiple times. There’s nothing sexy about the way Akutagawa tells Kyouka numerous times that she will never be a good person. There is nothing hot about a confirmed pedophile promising a fifteen-year-old kid an easy way to kill himself. 

I mean, maybe this is just a response to all the Dazai thirst I keep seeing popping up on my Insta feed. I think he’s amazingly well-written and a good protagonist, and his character arc is glorious in its subtlety. I also see why someone could find him attractive–he is, after all, the pinnacle of bishounen. It’s just not for me, ya know?

But the complexity of all the characters in Bungou is why I love this show so much. Dazai has numerous sides to him the way Aku, Mori, and Kyouka do, and they combine to make a person who is neither entirely good nor entirely bad. There’s just something about morally ambiguous characters that’s very compelling.

That said, I don’t hate Dazai. Please don’t burn me at the stake.

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Marla’s philosophy of life is that she might die at any moment. The tragedy, she said, was that she didn’t.

Helena Bonham Carter as Marla Singer in Fight Club (1999)

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