#bsd fyodor dosteyevsky

[kikizoshi]

Fyodor and Nikolai Actually Have Similar Senses of Humour

I present my case:

(To be very clear: I'm talking about the imitation of Japanese TV hosts specifically.)

And again:

(In both instances of Nikolai's Japanese language antics, Fyodor plays along--the straight man to Nikolai's jester, but nevertheless clearly an enthusiastic participant.)

And yet again:

(Here, Fyodor even foregoes the straight man altogether--leaving the role to Sigma--and melds utterly and seamlessly into Gogol's silliness.)

I believe it is now clear to all that Fyodor and Nikolai, indeed, have similar senses of humour.

Official Translation version Below (didn't fit my analysis as well and is therefore resigned to be Below):

[chuuteau]

The Bonds that Break Us ~ Dazai Osamu & Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Did someone ask for angst? No. Yet here it is, spewing out of me like a fucking geyser. Feel like this had a lot of layers??Have I finally turned my stories into onions?? It's 2:08 and I haven't slept in three weeks. Might make a second part or a full story, idk, probably not because I suck. Spoiler most of the other stuff I have planned out is fucking angsty as hell too although it has happy endings, kinda sorta maybe.

Everything was so cold. You could feel the temperature drop and the shivers wracking your body. You couldn't tell why you were shaking. Cold, fear, rage, sorrow, shock, or some disgusting mix of all of them. The hair on the back of your neck was standing on end, and the silence that rang through your ears was deafening. 

Fyodor stood there, the cold enough to make his bones ache, but he stood unwaveringly and without a single sign of vulnerability. 

When Dazai had approached the empty alleys in the abandoned area of Yokohama, he was expecting it to just be him and Fyodor, as well as whoever the man set up to trap Dazai. It was going to be their final battle of wits, the defining moment to settle this war between them. Dazai didn't account for you showing up. 

You were a beautiful Port Mafia agent, known for your powerful ability and closed off heart. You were ruthless and saw others as either beneficial or irrelevant. Iron walls surrounded you, and you carried out all of your tasks without a shred of emotion. But Dazai was the famous demon prodigy, and your walls were paper thin in his all seeing eyes. 

His words charmed you, to say the least, his silver tongue caught you off-guard. But you were never one to easily accept someone, and the gleam in his eyes made you wary. He wooed you, weaseled his way into your routine and life until his presence had almost become part of your identity.

The two of you weren't lovers, the two of you had never put a label on your interactions, although sometimes you wondered. When his skin grazed against yours, even for simple things like grabbing a pen, you felt as if you were on fire. When you leaned against him after he invited himself into your home without permission, you could have sworn you heard his breath hitch in his throat. 

It broke your heart when he felt the Port Mafia, and the only sense of familiarity was pulled out from under you, sending you crashing down. The barriers he had craftily passed through became more solid than ever, and the blood that stained your hands only accumulated as you threw yourself into your assignments.

The tenderness he had given you in his looks had to be forgotten, instead you just had to remember was the expressions of hatred and blood lust your targets gave you.

Your ability would no longer be beautiful like he said it was, it must go back to being nothing more than a tool to slaughter. 

When Dazai left you behind, it was like he took the human part of you with him. If you had known how much he wanted to take you with him, you would have cried. You never spoke to each other again, and there were only brief glimpses on the street.

You heard he had defected to the Armed Detective Agency, and that he had changed into a different person. You tried so hard not to listen. The less you knew the better, and if that made you an ignorant fool, you were more than willing to take on that label. 

Fyodor had heard rumors of you floating around, and when he finally looked into your records, he was intrigued. The files were vague, you were almost a ghost. All he had to go on was an impressive kill count and a few blurry pictures of your ability picked up on traffic cameras. You were a valuable asset to him, and he wanted you to play right into his hands. 

He meticulously planned out everything, this moment where he would finally have everyone exactly where he wanted them. The genius had crafted this series of events so he could break you apart, and when you were completely exposed, put you back together in a way where you would never be able to recover from his influence. 

When Dazai entered that ally, he knew there would be a trap waiting for him. He wasn't surprised when he sensed another presence above him. 'A sniper. If he hits me, I'll just make sure it's in a non-vital spot,' he thought to himself, unconcerned by the assassins presence. Fyodor stood ahead of him, his eyes unreadable, but Dazai could sense an air of confidence.

This was truly the ultimate battle, two prodigies ahead of their time going head to head, all other things were irrelevant. No words had been spoken between the two men, the thick silence said everything they needed to know. 

His spine stiffened when he heard footsteps tapping down the ally behind him, he could easily recognize your distinct walking pattern.

The same feet that would patter down his apartment hall in the middle of the night for a glass of water after he managed to convince you to spend the night with him.

The footsteps that hesitated by the edge of his bed when you returned as you wondered if this was really normal like he had said.

The slippers you would kick off onto the floor as he cajoled you into crawling back between the sheets.

The legs that tangled with his when he pretended to be asleep and wrapped his arms around you like it was nothing more than something any acquaintance would do. 

When Fyodor sent him a smile, casual but terrifying, Dazai whipped around to face you. Your face was as closed off as when he first met you, but the second your eyes locked, there was something there. Your (e/c) orbs displayed how you crumbled at the sight of him, and what Dazai hope was affection. 

The gleam of the barrel was in the corner of his eye, and he put his body in front of yours, moving on instinct. He wanted to protect you. His survival and safety were number one. But when it came to you, priorities just didn't seem to work they way they used to. 

The bullet tore through his chest. The flesh and bone that was ripped apart in the path of the unforgiving metal were in agony. He tilted forward, and you reached out to catch him.

His breathing was labored, and blood leaked from his gasping mouth. Dazai could feel the fluids building up in his punctured lung, and breathing felt like a challenge he wasn't sure he wanted to undertake.

As your arms steadied him, and your eyes grew wild with panic, another shot rang out. The sniper was a professional and didn't let the chance escape from him to take out the vulnerable bandaged man. 

The air had already started to get colder as another bullet tore through one of his arteries, lodging near the organ he wished he had admitted long ago belonged to you. 

You sank to your knees, supporting him on your lap. The temperature of the atmosphere kept dropping as you pressed your hands against his cheeks, looking into his chocolate pools that you used to drown in. 

"I'm sorry. I wanted to take you with me," Dazai said with an apologetic smile. 

You know what he was really trying to tell you when he said that. He knew that you knew, as a wave of emotion surged on to your face. He had never really been one for sentiments, and this was the closest thing to a confession that you'd ever receive from the elusive man. 

His eyes slid shut, the galaxies you saw in them dying out as his ragged breathing no longer reached your ears. 

The air was frigid, and ice had already started to coat the ground around your hunched body. It crept out along the paved street, crawling up the sides of buildings, coating the area in a white sheen. 

You clung to Dazai, tears starting to drip down onto his face as you stared at him. You were experiencing more emotions swirling around inside of you now than you had felt in your entire lifetime.

The silence was the most oppressive things you had ever felt, and you felt as though you were suffering. Your breath created small clouds, and you felt your body start to go numb. 

Fyodor stepped back, out of range as you let out a wail. All of your feelings had died out, and the only thing you had now was raw despair coursing through you. As you screamed out, sharp, jagged crystals erupted from the frost you had emitted. They coated the area, shielding you and the barely warm body you clung on to like a lifeline. 

Razor sharp geysers protected you from the rest of the world, but what else was there left for you to protect? Your own well being was far from your mind. 

The sniper was gone, his body torn apart by your outburst. Fyodor had one thing scratch on his arm, blood trickling down the appendage and falling from his fingertips. He was smiling nonchalantly as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. 

The only possible man who could rival him had been wiped off this plane of existence, and a powerful ally was waiting for him to rip apart like a piece of prey. 

He couldn't lie to himself in thinking he was just interested in your ability. He couldn't deceive himself into thinking that he didn't see something in you besides potential.

The stoic mask you usually wore irritated him. Seeing it crumble sent a jolt of exhilaration through his body. He looked forward to seeing the other faces you would make whole he had you wrapped around his finger.

Since he discovered your existence, your fates had been inescapably intertwined. The red strings that were your lives had been tied into a knot, and he was planning on choking you with your own thread. 

Fyodor's hands were warm against your face, and you let your arms fall to your sides, your empty eyes looking to him. He could practically taste the desperation, and he used his thumb to wipe away a stray tear.

You were spent, you were tired. Like an animal caught in a noose, you had exhausted yourself and no longer had the energy to fight what was about to happen. You couldn't resist it, so you embraced it. 

You lifted your hands to cover his, gripping onto his warmth as the one in your lap faded. 

[kikizoshi]

It's so surreal to me that anime-only BSD fans haven't even seen Prison Fyodor yet.

Not only have we manga readers lived with him and his expositional machinations for years, he's on the verge of escape after all this time, and some of the anime-onlies are just now finding out Dazai was even put in there with him. They're gonna think Nikolai is dead. It feels so uncanny valley in a way. Like watching a real-life replay of fandom events that took place years ago.

[kikizoshi]

Given Dostoyevsky's signature writing style of having not only dysfunctional protagonists, but protagonists who have so much mess that a chronic hoarder's house would look positively minimalist in comparison, whose mess make the pages grind as they turn not because of boredom, but because of sheer second-hand torture—given all that, it's surprising how much I've avoided adding mess into Fyodor's character.

I mean, yeah, in canon he's definitely not by far the messiest person. If anything, he's pretty easy on the soul. But to truly imbue Dostoyevsky's essence into him, I feel like he needs to be at the very least majorly morally dysfunctional and self-sabotaging.

And I'm not saying like Underground Man levels of dysfunctional. But like, Raskolnikov is a good example. Fairly messy, painful to read the actions of most of the time, destroys himself so thoroughly it's a wonder he had any pieces to pick back up, but overall still enough of a human being to be invested in his arc, even if you don't like him (though I do like him quite a bit).

And I just don't get that from Fyodor as-is. Sure, he's wrong. Clearly. But we don't see him truly suffer through an utterly unendurable conversation solely caused by his own—entirely preventable—actions. I never see him (in fanfiction) actively neglecting his loved ones not from ambivalence, but from being so consumed by his own angst that he just isn't there for them. I've never seen him destroy himself, knowing full-well what he's doing as he's doing it (while he is destroying himself, he doesn't seem to be doing it consciously), and then continue to plant another ticking bomb. I never see him be wretched.

...And I really don't want to write it. I've tried before, and not only is it more difficult, but it's painful to write. Like I've said before, I don't like writing sad or painful scenes. But with characters that're supposed to be instilled with the essence of Dostoyevsky and Gogol, I feel like to really achieve that, it's entirely unavoidable.

[kikizoshi]

I feel like Fyodor in Sakhalin would've been so much more interesting than Fyodor in Meursault. Especially if Sakhalin was a place where Abilities just didn't work for some reason. What he needed was to be aggressively humbled, not to have a time-out to degrade himself to the peanut gallery with his ego-inflating mental chess rival.