#does angst even exist for bsd characters

[mysteriousmissme]

OMG NOOOO

If the sword succesfully gets pulled and Bram's ability is removed,

That means vampire!Akutagawa and Chuuya are gonna return to clarity with their partners gravely wounded (cough, dead) in front of them.

Somebody shut me up please

[mikayuumouse]

top 5 bsd characters?

Top five. Just FIVE?? You can't do this to me D:

Technically the ask post that I reblogged said "top five or top ten" so I will be ranking my top ten favorite Bsd characters before I spontaneously combust bc I wouldn't be able to pick just five 😔

#1: Akutagawa. He's been my favorite since like, ever, tbh. Yes he's cold and blunt and cruel and twisted and a beast. He's a murderer and a terrorist and honestly, his personality is rather sour. I still love him to death though (Atsushi loves him more than I do though 😔). He does have a good side, but not as stereotypical as that. He has goodness to him, but not every part. He also has the capability to be kind, yet falls into darkness easily. I love how he's written, and yes Akutagawa angst hurts me because I think he deserves a lot better. He's also got wonderful character growth, yet he hasn't changed completely. His own strength and his own journey, all of its so...dark. it's human, too. Akutagawa is a bitter, and for a good reason. He's dying— he knows he's dying— but he still has a reason to live. He killed people to prove his strength, show his worth, because Dazai taught him he was nothing, when in reality he wasn't. Akutagawa's skilled and fearsome, and Atsushi is the person who shows him that. He's such an incredible blend of dark and light morals and actions

#2: Atsushi. Sometimes Atsushi's my #1 favorite because I love him so much. Like actually I love Nakajima Atsushi so, so much he's the absolute best. I want to hug him 😭. I love him as an individual character, but I also love how integral he is with Shin Soukoku. I love how Asagiri wrote them both as so unique and human and realistic, and yet they're still very intertwined and mirror each other. It's crazy. Atsushi's so... relatable. I'm an Atsushi kinnie though, makes sense. He's selfish and scared but he's also strong and amazing. He's snappy and doesn't hold back when he means, but he's also kindhearted and tries his best to be a good person, to save people. Because if he doesn't save people, then what is he worth? According to his own philosophy at least. Atsushi's struggle with his trauma and his past is interesting while tragic, and seeing Atsushi's character unfold more and more with every chapter has me screaming tbh

#3: Adam. Compared to the essay I just wrote on Sskk why I like Adam is going to look very silly 🙏. Adam is my comfort character. He's a wholesome robot man, and he eats gum because he doesn't understand how it works, and he tells the lamest jokes in existence to cheer Chuuya up. I love him. He can even sort of turn into a pigeon<3 but in all realness, Adam is incredibly loyal and a good person. I mean, he's not a person, he's just a robot, but he's more than that at the same time. Throughout all of Storm Bringer, he's an absolute joy I love himmmm he's an angel. Also kudos to Asagiri for perfectly writing such a cheerful character like Adam into a dark story like Storm Bringer

#4: Dazai. Dazai's probably one of the most complex characters in the series, maybe just the most. Asagiri's even said Dazai's intelligence is superhuman, a different kind from Ranpo or Fyodor's intelligence. Dazai knows how to predict, how to manipulate, so easily. But Dazai is also...lonely. Dazai doesn't feel human, it's obvious as to why, and Dazai even believes that Chuuya is undoubtedly human because "he could never hate something man made that much" (or something, I didn't get the quote quite right). Dazai interests me greatly. His depression, his sins, his happiness, every part of Dazai's character is a puzzle piece to the bigger picture of the core of his character. I know what he did to Akutagawa, and I am not trying to justify what he did or his horrible personality. I hate what Dazai did to Akutagawa, I hate what he did to a lot of people, I will be honest. But Dazai is changing. There are a lot of different components to his character, and they're all pretty messed up, yet utterly interesting. Dazai is almost a monster, a demon if you will. But he's also human at the same time, with his emotions. I think if I talked about Dazai this would go on for way too long 🙏 there's so many different aspects about him, some better and some definitely worse, and at the end of the day he's still one of my favorite characters

#5: Chuuya. Oh Chuuya. I love him. He's incredible. He's fiery, he's alive, he's more human than he gives himself credit. His backstory and who he is as a character are written very well. I love like, everything about Chuuya. His attitude, his ability, his personality, and how he contributes to the story. Storm Bringer really opens up your eyes on Chuuya's character. His trauma, his real family, his found family, and his utmost loyalty to the Mafia. Yes, I ship Soukoku, but also his relationship with Dazai is super interesting. The way they fight, yet is there any real malice behind it? The way Dazai still calls him his partner, when Chuuya calls Dazai his ex-partner. How they can finally act like kids around each other, someone to fight and put up with Chuuya. And also I like how Chuuya's so...bold. He's confident, but he also knows his limits. He's a very enjoyable character, and he's just so likable. He has a complex introspection on who he is, and his backstory is the definition of pretty fucked up, but he grew from all of that. He deserves more screentime/page time, especially with how fleshed out his character is

#6: Higuchi. Another comfort character of mine, and I will literally slap anyone who thinks I'd dislike her because of her "crush" on Akutagawa. Okay, yes, I fucking hate her obsession with Akutagawa. It grates on my nerves and I think how heavy it's portrayed as a part of her character waters down how people see her. She has so, so much potential, similar to Tachihara. Also her relationship with Akutagawa is borderline toxic, and incredibly one sided. I hope Asagiri gives her character some more justice, and doesn't let her fall onto that stupid trait of just being obsessed with Akutagawa. It reminds me of Akutagawa and Dazai's relationship, which I also hate. Higuchi is reckless, and self-destructive. She doesn't belong in the Mafia (although she most likely is because she's an ability user). So while I think she has a lot of potential to become a better character, I still love her for her lightheartedness (I said she was a comfort character for a reason). Higuchi is like the best thing ever in Wan, and she cheers me up a lot. She's such a comedic, sweet character, but I know she could be a lot more too

#7: Ranpo. Every time I rewatch or reread Bsd and Ranpo is involved, I start to love him even more. He's actually such a joy. His blatant intelligence, his view of the world, and how even if he knows he's the smartest in the room, he still doesn't belittle people. Like yeah, he'll definitely poke fun at others, but Ranpo is still a good person at heart, it's how his parents and Fukuzawa raised him. Ranpo's quite unserious, while not being at all. He's got the duality of someone who knows exactly what they're doing, a detective with all the answers. And even if he's a genius, he's nowhere near a boring character. I love him soooo much oml, like actually. And he doesn't have wasted character potential at all, the way he's written is very, like, whimsical? He's still a kid at heart I guess lmao. I know Ranpo isn't just a happy 24/7 kind of character, but he's comforting. Seeing how he thrives in the world of Bsd is awesome, also Untold Origins is a masterpiece

#8: Nikolai. I think what pulled me into really liking Nikolai was his insanity. I mean, I know he's not really insane(?), but like, his personality. His wildness, his freeness. It's enticing. He's honestly unlike a lot of the other characters, and so is his reason to live. He wants to be free, of everything and everyone. He doesn't want to feel, because to him he's trapped, like a bird in a cage. But Fyodor? Fyodor makes him feel, and he can't have that. So he strives to kill his best friend (his boyfriend). Also oh my God imagine Nikolai after he finds out about Fyodor's subsuming ability. That's...going to be quite a crazy scene. Nikolai's such an odd character, stuck in a strange mental situation. I love him

#9: Kyouka. She's an amazing example of how ability users are treated in the world of Bsd, and also a wonderful character overall. First of all, Kyouka did not deserve anything that happened to her, she's just a child. I can't forgive Akutagawa or Kouyou for what they did, but I can understand. Akutagawa was taught by Dazai on how to be a mentor, but Akutagawa has also repented and has voiced that he's proud of Kyouka. Meanwhile, Kouyou does genuinely love and care for Kyouka, just in her own twisted way. It's still wrong, but I can understand why. And yet, despite all of this, Kyouka is still strong and still is on Atsushi's side. She's overcome so much for a character, and I love that. She's sensible and mature, but still has a childish side

#10: Jouno. Ahhh Jouno, I love him so much. He's sadistic, he's twisted, but his morals are still relatively on the good side. He's so sassy, and he's just so...enjoyable of a character. His cruel tendencies mixed with the fact that he's just on the right side of the law makes for such an interesting character. Although he's against the Agency, it's because they were framed of terrorism and what Fukuchi had manipulated the Hunting Dogs into. Jouno is smart and skillful, tbh I wish we could've seen a lot more of him before Akutagawa bit him and then like, threw him into the vents? 😭 I don't think he's dead though. Akutagawa wouldn't kill someone, even in his vampiric state. But he's still technically MIA for the story. Jouno's very interesting, especially with how ruthless he is

Just having to rank them hurt 💔

I love a ton of the characters, but these are my top ten favorites, I'd say. I think #11 would be Bram and #12 would be Poe btw

(also help this ended up being so long what the what)

[youroriginalsublimecupcakestuff]

Warning it's full on rambling and maybe many mistake too :

I though that in fanfiction and in canon even in work like beast kyouka and atsushi are always together, it's an inevitability best friend or siblings no matter what , no matter the universe power or no power even with differents backstory they will always find a way to each others.

But i did my research and from what i found irl kyouka and atsushi never met , i don't even think that they have a connection which link them together unlike akutagawa and kyouka which while i think that they never met , akutagawa read kyouka work and was inspired by or admired kyouka ( i read that akutagawa worked hard in order to have Kyoka’s complete works published.)

( but maybe they did have a connection i just never found it ( same for nakajima atsushi and akutagawa ryuunosuke by the way i searched if they have a connection even if it's small but i never found it ( except that nakajima atsushi was nominated for the akutagawa prize in 1942. ( And i just found from bsd-bibliophile that akutagawa ryuunosuke and nakajima atsushi we're compared ( in one of they post they have an extract from the Afterword of The Moon Over the Mountain and Other Stories we're they're compared).

( I didn't found that either for fukuzawa and ranpo or yosano and ranpo ( and i can be wrong for what i say about akutagawa and kyouka i found that they never meet but in others hand i also found a picture of akutagawa ryuunosuke and izumi kyouka together).

And by connection i mean even something like one of them read the others work or admired the others, it don't even mean that they have to have met each others even once, i was just curious one two author who seemingly have no connection ( from what i know, i don't read japanese and never went to japan so maybe i just missed it and they're a connection) are so much linked together in bsd ( it's also why i rambled about akutagawa and kyouka connection it's because i can understand kyouka and akutagawa connection in bsd but i'm clueless for atsushi and kyouka) .

Maybe they're just no need, they're relationship is cool anyway but it make me think that they're so much possibility for angst, i plan to write it better later this post is just rambling :

For exemple What if chuuya is hit by an ability unlike irl all the characters live in the same time but they have the same relationship that irl, he call kouyou ane-san and she doesn't know him or dazai oda is somehow hit by an ability oda is alive but who is kazuo dan and why does he act like they're close also why don't he find any information about the armed detective agency and the port mafia, tanizaki jun'ichiro or akutagawa ryuunosuke come to a world we're gin or Naomi doesn't exist or mori ougai is swapped with author mori he can't feel elise and he don't understand why they're no hostility in yosano behavior toward him ( plus the whiplash when he find that he have children).

But my initial idea was atsushi is hit by an ability , his lung hurt, he find that he can empathise with akutagawa about that which he try not to think about, the first things that he did was search for the ada but it's like it never existed, he also feel empty, he can't use his ability, but what hurt him was when he finally found kyouka she act like she never met him, they're not any sign of recognition in her eyes .

He though that it was a joke at first even if it wasn't like her to play prank like that but then he saw her with ozaki kouyou following her and he though that it understand what happened that the other woman was fooling them all when she appeared like she let kyouka go and that it was her fault why kyouka acted like he was a stranger.

So he confronted her but what happened hurt him to his very core he have never seen kyouka look at him with so much hostility, she was acting like she needed to protect ozaki from him like he was crazy, they're was none of the usual warmth that kyouka have towards him.

So he ran , he searched the others too but when he found them, it was weird everything that wrong, he have never seen a picture of oda sakukonosuke but he remember the name from when he was with dazai san when he visited his grave, he also remember the quiet and rare moment when dazai san would mention him but here he was alive with sakaguchi ango from the special ability division and a man that he never met but was obviously close to the others three especially to dazai san, but what shocked him the more was the expression that he saw dazai san make, he never once have looked like that with them.

So he gave up talking to his mentor and went to ranpo he must know what to do, ranpo san know everything or so he though because this ranpo san looked at him weirdly when he talked about him as being a detective, like kyouka chan he looked at him like he was mad, so he tried to mention the others in the ada to get his help but he didn't even seem to reconnize the name of the president and yosano sensei.

So he ran again even if his lung we're killing him, he went to find yosano sensei to find her laughing with the port mafia boss, he don't know their relationship but from what the others say when he noticed that she was never in the office when he was here it's that yosano sensei doesn't like him and it have something to do with her past so seeing them laughing together was wrong, the blond girl that was always with the port mafia boss wasn't here too.

So he went the others way again, kunikida san was the least diffents to him but it was obvious that he didn't reconnize him, so he left, he saw tanizaki without naomi so when he asked him he was shocked again when he learned that they're no Naomi in this world, his personallity was so differents too everything here was weird, so he ran again and later saw akutagawa and tanizaki acting friendly debating about litterature, he was also shocked to see dazai san intensely watch akutagawa but hearing dazai call akutagawa , akutagawa sempai was his last straw.

Before coming back he talked with akutagawa and even he was differents, everything was wrong.

When he came back he avoided everyone to their surprise and they reassured him that everything was fine, he hugged kyouka and kunikida san and even was weirdly understanding to akutagawa which making look like he was losing it when he talked about his lung.

[crazybungoustraydogsauideas]

Bungou Stray Dogs x Demon Slayer ideas

There are a lot of possibilities with this, so instead of just info dumping I'll just make a list and wait till someone asks me to expand on one of them

(pls I'm begging you I need someone else to see the vision)

Akutagawa as Daki's apprentice:

Either when Dazai leaves the PM or when Akutagawa gets the whole 'wheres your head at' treatment from Fukuchi, he gets picked up by Daki who teaches him how to master his ability. Time progresses and he gets ranked up/stronger and eventually returns to Yokohama on a mission and absolutely flabbergasts Dazai LMAO

Bsd characters as Uppermoon's children:

Like, Dazai is Douma's son, Akutagawa is Daki's son, etc. Dazai and Inosuke are raised as siblings throughout the century between their eras. Muzan is dead, so the Uppermoons are fighting for the spot as the Demon King/Queen. The current ranking is Douma as King, Daki as upper 1, Dazai as upper 2, Inosuke as upper 3, etc. Akutagawa doesn't know he's half demon, most don't even know they exist. Dazai has to train him in the PM, but he intentionally stunts his growth because Daki is already a major threat to the hierarchy but a mini-her would upset the balance.

Dazai's backstory as Nezuko Kamado:

I have. so. many. ideas.

(this highkey turned into a story halfway, MEGA TRIGGER WARNINGS, it's Dazai gang y'all know there's gonna be sewerslide mentions, but I went a little overboard and it became more descriptive rather than a mention. He has repeated mental breakdowns, sorry gang, also I'm really bad at angst.)

Kamado Tanjiro's only surviving family member is Kamado Osamu, his younger brother. Osamu is now under the control of a powerful ability that isn't affected by No Longer Human- not even Blood Demon Art is affected. Turned into a demon, he sleeps for two years while Tanjiro trains to become a demon slayer. Canon events play out, but Osamu is in Nezuko's place. Osamu doesn't age, just like other demons, and remains twelve until after the fight with Muzan. Here, things diverge from canon:

Osamu doesn't get turned back into a human. Whether he doesn't take the antidote or it just doesn't work, he's still very much a demon (He does begin to age again though).

Tanjiro gets turned into the demon king, and Osamu is holding on to him, begging his brother to stop, saying over and over again that he was scared. The remaining three Hashira are fighting him, trying to hold him off as they have been weakened significantly. Lower ranking Slayers point out that since Tanjiro is still turning into a demon, if they gave the antidote to him it would kill him. Some disagree on ethics, but the battle is raging and time is running out.

Tengen swoops in and says something about how none of the lower slayers should have to shoulder the burden and he takes the antidote. One of the other slayers (I imagine Murata) warns him that since he only has one hand, he can't carry a weapon with him and it would be too dangerous, but Tengen says he won't risk anyone else. Afterall, the guilt would be too much.

Not only was he going to have to kill the man who killed Muzan, he was going to have to do it in front of the boy Tanjiro had fought for.

(And, oh boy, it gets worse)

And with Tanjiro flailing his bone-tentacle things everywhere, barely held at bay by Giyuu and Sanemi who both looked half dead, the only opening would be through Osamu.

Tengen's feet were quick and his aim was true; the syringe of antidote went through Osamu just below his collarbone and hit Tanjiro directly in the heart. Osamu turned to look at him in shock, and recognition and trust dawned on his face. He thought Tengen could make everything all better.

Tengen said, "I'm truly sorry, Osamu," right before he injected the antidote into Tanjiro's heart.

Trust turned to horror as Tengen tried to pull Osamu away from Tanjiro, now curling in on himself in pain. The syringe was yanked out, but it was unclear who had done it. Tanjiro fell to the ground, Osamu still desperately hanging on as his brother writhed in pain.

"Niisan! Please, Niisan!" Osamu begged, to his brother, to god, to Tengen, to anyone who was listening, but the only reply was Tanjiro's body beginning to disintegrate.

The world was filled with screaming as it shook and trembled and shook and trembled and the world was dark and covered in blood and dead bodies littered the ground but there was no body for Osamu to bury or mourn and the world was dark and bloodsoaked and the world was falling apart in front of Osamu's eyes the world covered in blood and filled with screams-

Osamu didn't yet register, even when nothing but blood came from his throat, that he was the one screaming, he was the one shaking his own world with such powerful sobbing that his skinny, breakable frame seemed determined to destroy itself in his misery and grief.

When he finally would register later, on an infirmary bed fastened down until he had nothing but his thoughts and no outlet for them, that way he couldn't hurt anyone, he would be unable to cry again. Ever again. He'd lost his joy, his happiness, his light when Tanjiro died. He'd screamed and cried out every emotion he was capable of until there was nothing, nothing at all left inside of him. A hole where his heart should have been.

His heart hadn't been ripped out when Tengen stabbed him; no, he'd felt how bad that had hurt, it had still been there. He'd cried until there weren't enough tears, enough joy, enough anger or disgust to form a heart, and now he couldn't feel a damn thing.

When someone finally came to rescue him from his thoughts, it was Yushiro. He began to untie Osamu imediately, barely restraining from cursing whoever decided that was a good idea.

Osamu didn't sit up, didn't move at all when Yushiro was done. There was a pause as Yushiro took in the state of Osamu, seeing no resemblance to the boy who had been so spirited, so driven-

But, he'd been so driven to protect his brother, and now his brother was dead.

Yushiro wrapped his arms around Osamu, silent because he knew no words could console him. Osamu was limp in his grip, not hugging back, and they stayed like that for a moment until Osamu rested his head on Yushiro's shoulder, and they stayed like that for a very long time.

When Osamu started feeling drawn to death, Yushiro was there, a shoulder to collapse on when the weight of everything became too much. Osamu began aging again, and when he turned fourteen, he had convinced himself he was better, enough to find his own way. He ventured towards Yokohama, a bustling city. He stopped outside the city limits, in a homey inn that was just like their old home- Oh, how Osamu just wanted to be back home with Tanjiro, home was gone now, at least for Osamu, maybe Tanjiro had made himself at home in heaven, maybe Osamu could join him-

And suddenly he wasn't better, and Yushiro wasn't there to stop him and-

When Osamu woke up, he was fastened to an infirmary table again, but not one he recognized. Movement came from beside him, and a taller figure leaned over him. "Ah, you're awake. How are you feeling?"

He knew it wasn't, he could see with his eyes this wasn't Lady Tamayo, but it was so comforting to close his eyes to reality for a second and let Lady Tamayo take care of him.

Osamu had a brilliant mind, but it was very adept at creating falsities- both for others and himself. His thoughts wandered, trying to come up with a scenario where this was Lady Tamayo. Maybe, she'd had to disguise herself to stay hidden from Muzan. No one would expect a middle-aged man to be the woman who poisoned the Demon King. Maybe, she'd grown to like her new form, and maybe, she knew Osamu would see that it was still Tamayo and so she didn't bother to explain herself to Osamu because sometimes you just weren't comfortable in your own skin, the body of a demon.

Osamu had taken on a more human form after the Battle with Muzan, making his eyes brown and turning the red tips of his hair back brown again. Every time he looked in the mirror or caught sight of his reflection, he wanted to rip it all up, destroy the mirror, destroy himself. That hadn't changed when he began to look more human, but he stopped getting looks from other people that made him want to-

Osamu looked down at the injury he'd given himself in hopes of escaping life, which hadn't healed with his regeneration because he'd stopped using regeneration the moment he realized he wanted to die. He should've felt shame for his actions, a stranger having to patch him up, but the only thing Osamu could feel in his hallowed out chest was his lungs still breathing, how disappointing.

Akutagawa as Daki:

Essentially Dazai and him are on a mission, they get chased by a demon, Dazai injures Akutagawa so that the demon will eat him and leave Dazai to escape. Only, the demon is Gyutaro and this stupid ah kid reminds him of his sister who never survived the transformation to a demon so he offers Akutagawa demonhood. Akutagawa accepts, falling into the role of Warabhime(the Oiran cover Daki uses in the house of Kyogaku) He makes bank and power, feeding off of foul customers and soon being revered as a sort of goddess amongst the Red Light District women. In Uppermoon meetings, he takes his knowledge from the Mafia and applies it to help them function like a team and actually get things done. Mori hears wind of Akutagawa's work and sends the Black Lizards -Gin to go 'take care of it'. A beautiful Oiran greets them and lets them into the Red Light District, apologizing that the Manager isn't there to greet them. Oop, turms out the pretty lady is actually Akutagawa LMAO sorry Tachihara (or not idc)

Reincarnation AU:

Uh Dazai is Giyuu, Yosano is Shinobu, Mori might be evil Tamayo idk, Atsushi is Tanjiro, Akutagawa is probably Genya, etc.

[pleucas]

i'm still half asleep as i write this. sorry if unorganized. i wake this morning but a wee little soul accused of not dismantling the facade of the character, of demonizing mental illness and most horrendously, watching the anime first. oh Cheese is also here sitting in the corner. real ominously, kinda scaring me.

so, firstly, i actually hate watching anime and like all animated media where there's a book. they speak too slow and less information is conveyed. if i can read something faster than i can watch the show, im going to read it. ive actually only watched the first couple episodes of BSD and the Dark Era ones. ive read the manga like 3 times and most of the light novels relating to chuuya and dazai. now that that the clear most important point is out of the way, which is that my media illiteracy is through MY OWN CHOICE !! onto the others. dazai is a well written character. he's entertaining to think about. a character being well written doesn't make them likeable though? he was written to be annoying, he gets on near everyone's nerves in the show. i can be annoyed with him AND ALSO understand that despite that he is a multi layered character who isn't necessarily all good or bad. sorry if i came off like that wasn't the case in my other asks. i get his facade, i understand why he does it, ive been there to when i was reallllly deep in depression. and with that said, it still frustrates me. this is gonna be a shocker, a real hard pill to swallow, some other expression of surprise, living life in a state where you're always passively lying to people is bad for you relationships!! i feel the burden to see through the facade is often placed on the people around him, but i think setting the standard that people should just know without you telling them can be pretty unhealthy.

i think in these kinda ships where one of the character's has basically erected a wall between themselves in the war, the compelling part is seeing the bricks, day by day, be taken apart. and, ultimately, it is on the person who put up the wall to do that in the end. they can have help, of course. most need a remarkable amount of assurance for it, but still it falls on the shoulders of the person who put it up.

im not going to compare mental illness or toxicity, but i don't think Chuuya even wants to assure him. furthermore, given their relationship, i think that's a respectable decision. im not going to bash him for disliking someone who admits to doing everything in his power to annoy him even at his lowest moments (STORMBRINGER DAZZAI OH HOW I HATE YOU. TANGENT TIME: there's a difference between manipulating a situation to be advantageous and it happening to turn out good for the people involved and helping. intentions matter!! dazai wanted the outcome best for HIMSELF. he does this a lot, drags other people into it. all the time. beast dazai? even worse. hate that guy. people read beast as a dazai angst book?? what??? clearly it was sskk fodder.) Chuuya is far less intelligent than dazai, alright. not a negative, but when it comes to holding him accountable my standard isn't as high. he clearly cares for others and has a strong moral backbone, even if id disagree with him on it, unlike SOMEONE i know. he values personhood generally. mentally ill people still have free will. i don't hate dazai for being mentally ill, i hate him for the choices he makes. i understand they stem from the illness, everything exists in context or whatnot, but that doesn't excuse it. on the point about him changing for the better, i don't actually think he has. not in a significant way. once more, intentions matter. he's 'being good' because Oda told him to be, but to this day, he still manipulates the people around him - and this is an active choice. one example: everything he makes Akutagawa do. in the relationship, he's very clearly still taking advantage of the emotional abuse he put him through. it helps the ADA, but it also shows he falls into the same patterns he always has. he can change, of course, and id like to see him change, but in my eyes it hasn't really happened yet. when it does? maybe ill like skk!! ive got hope for this arc.

on a much lighter note, im pretty sure i know who Cheese is. i showed this page to a friend a couple days ago and they said something about sending an ask in. sorry about them, they talk too much. me? im very concise. This has obviously been Rimu

RIMU OMG WELCOME BACK I'VE MISSED YOUUUUU

to preface: yeah totally fine to hate a character and acknowledge their complexity. very valid perspective, don't let anyone tell you otherwise

this is getting intense (& interesting!) and i've received a few more additions to this Saga in my inbox so i supposed i'd get a little into it as well. dz's character and skk has always been interesting to me so m gonna start procuring theses... sorry

firstly, i apologize for disregarding your agency in your own media illiteracy. please understand that there was little ill intent and i was actually trying to protect you from the dazai glazers, tho idk if you rlly want my protection there. they do get kinda feisty tho so you are one brave soldier

abt the dazai brick-wall-facade thing: super interesting and yeah i generally agree with you. his inability to communicate has been emphasized and i think it's something that, if he were a real person, he'd probably have to work on LOL. idk if bsd necessarily treats it as a bad/good thing — just a Thing. but then applied to skk, i actually believe asgr puts a lot of time into showing (not telling) that dazai does Not do this with chuuya, especially when they're 22, arguably even in stormbringer (tangent for later).

it's all very subtle — laughing at the rich girl act, smiling at him during lovecraft, legitimately giving him a choice about corruption, even calling him a diff "partner" title in jp. very, very subtle shit. notice that bones kills most of this. the thing is, i think it's also made clear that chuuya easily reads through the remainder of dz's bullshit, mostly when they're 22 (but therefore suggestively 17 and on, since they haven't been in contact since dz left the pm) — playing into the rich girl joke, suggesting code-worded formations during lovecraft, reading through dazai's stupid rolling-on-floor shtick in meursault. none of this has to be explicitly romantic either, asgr employs this stuff to demonstrate that they have a close, long-term bond. again, subtle shit, probably only readable if you have the context of stormbringer, which leads into the tangent.

stormbringer dazai, or mafia dazai, is dazai at his worst. every character in bsd has a time when they are at their worst, and they are all working to redeem themselves, for themselves. that's kinda the point of the whole series: find a reason to live, for others but primarily for yourself, no matter what you've done or will do or didn't do. at the point of sb, dazai does not understand human connection as a part of the self, since he's an isolationist little imp and also a traumatized "i know too much" child. pretty sure the whole shipping container scene was meant to demonstrate this. so yeah, dazai put chuuya through physical and emotional hell because he didn't understand the weight of either of these torments. when he finally does in dark era, he gets outta his "worst."

but you'll notice that when it comes to chuuya's humanity, he gives chuuya as much time as possible and hesitates to speak. again, subtle shit. i really think it does sb a disservice to say that dazai was trying to have the best outcome for himself — his goal was to protect mori and the freshly righted PM from collapse (aka protect yokohama from collapse), and along the way chuuya gets a power-up after losing some friends and going through some pain (which isn't that deep to dz) while also hurdling the question of his humanity by finding out a bit of his past. it's a very "i'm above it" analysis of reality, which i think sets up dazai's character arc + og mindset pretty well — through dark era and fyodor, dazai faces that he cannot be "above it" if he wants to really live. and so, here we are, witnessing him come down here to eat, breathe, fall in love, and die.

abt BEAST — i agree with you lol. i think BEAST is the epitome of a dazai who is forever "above it." his only option is suffering, lackluster returns & the achievement of a singular goal, and suicide. it's a subplot and subtlety to read into. otherwise, BEAST is utterly and wholly sskk/aku/atsushi gourmet dinner.

& on the topic of dazai's death that you mentioned way back, i agree with you. dazai needs to get nerfed somehow to confront the struggles of living. i think meursault has been pretty good for that, now that fyodor's up and kicking again — dazai's been intellectually and physically bested, and now he's facing everything he thought was inconsequential. the loss of friends, of agency (lol of The Agency also), of purpose, of physical ability. his suicide stuff is quite possibly chekov's bazooka missile and he'll probably end up dying (maybe through self-sacrifice), although in a completely different tone than in BEAST. im going to tentatively trust asgr with that... it would possibly make or break dazai's character LMFAO

ugh this is so long. i have/had Thoughts and you've dragged them out. but abt dazai being good/bad (as dz glazer identifies it) or better (as you id it), i'm pretty certain the whole point of dazai is to demonstrate that there is no good or bad in the world. like. Yeah. i somewhat agree that he isn't "changing for the better" in any significant way, precisely for the reasons you pointed out. him relying on others directly is a good sign tho (trusting atsushi to handle things in dead apple, sending akutagawa as the eyes/flare, etc). i'm rather certain we're seeing, rn in meursault/airport arc, dazai's capacity to truly change being challenged. so yes!!! i too have hope for this arc :0

this ended up being pretty dz centric which is sad because skk are two components after all... but this is way too long now. as always, pleasure to read ur writing, and keep it going!!! and please say hi to your discursive cheese friend for me <3

what have you done to me, cas

[home-for-the-worried]

Rules and Requests!

Do:

Repost/reblog my work with credit of course

send in requests that are either for what I should write or just questions you have I'm not mean I promise!

Comment and leave constructive feed back on posts! Feedback is always good as long as it's not outwardly meant to be mean or inappropriate I am always looking to make my writing better ^^

Message me or DM me with requests or just to chat! I know even with the anon ask it can be a little scary to send something in, or if you just have a topic you don't wanna send in or check to see if I'm good to write it shoot me a message!

Speaking of writing! I will write the following: Comfort, Fluff, Angst, Scenarios, Headcanons, and sometimes oneshots

write comfort for heavier topics. These can be as small as insomnia or larger issues like self harm since it does exist and some people just need comfort for it at times

Don'ts:

Start arguments or give unneeded hate to requests or my writing.. I want this to be a safe space so please don't bring that kind of negativity here

I will NOT be writing NSFW or suggestive content. Not only am I still a minor I just do not feel comfortable writing that or posting that for possibly other minors to see

Romanticize Self harm or the like.. I can and will write comfort for subjects but I refuse to romanticize it or make light of the topic.

Write romantic for very much child like characters (think Ortho from Twst or Q from BSD) just... no.

Fandoms I will write for:

Project Sekai (vocaloids and characters)

Twisted wonderland

Hogwarts Legacy

Pokemon (Trainers)

Hades games

Bungo Stray Dogs

Honkai Starrail

[cor-corbinian]

So I had time to sleep on the last episode of bsd and I have thoughts.

So far I've seen so many different oppinions about it - so many people are exited and so many are dissapointed. I easily fit into both categories.

But my first thought was that the episode felt off .... And I'm going to try, putting that feeling into words

PACING: As always the anime is going for an olympic medal in rushing. But unlike the previous ones this one felt even more rushed. For me, I believe that has one mainreasons. 1) Ususally I marinade in the manga chapter before I watch the Anime. This time I had nothing to go off, so my brain couldn't automatically fill the gaps. -> Missing Plot/Plot holes felt a lot more present

FUKUFUKU: Alright. This is propably the part I enjoyed the most. I think it was the best way that could have ended. 10/10 Somehow managed to not feel rushed to me. Teruko coming in was suprising but not entirely unexpected. I really liked it. You can see were the most effort went into :)

Aya&Bram: This one was good as well. But I barely felt scared for Aya. Another case of rushing - nothing to outragous though, although I felt it took the emotions out of the scenes.

All in all I really enjoyed the majority of the airport Part and can very much see why people are so exited and happy about this episode.

Now for the mixed bag that is Meursault...

SOUKOKU: Here the opinions are split. Not mine though, I liked it. Does it have implicateion that I most likely haven't thought about? Yes. But as long as Dazai wasn't aware of Chuuya not being a Vampire for the entire time, I'm fine with it. It is very much Soukoku shenanigans at the finest. Still rushed as fuck and with so many open questions that the manga has to adress. So I can see why people dislike it.

FYOLAI: Oh boy ... I really disliked Fyodors death. They have to have cut something important from the manga, because it just felt wrong. I fully believe Fyodor is coming back in some way. But the death just was so unsatisfying. What do you mean, every character got an impactfull fake-out death and Fyodor just got stabbed by some no name and blown to bits?! Doesn't feel like a fitting end for the mastermind. Nikolais part was amazing though - exactly the reaction I was hoping for. Absolutely heartbraking. 10/10 for that small part.

SIGMA: AAAAAHHHHH. I'm honestly upset and absolutely livid. What do you mean, the character who just wanted a home and to be seen as more than a disposable tool got his fate revealed in a single line and was forgotten and disposed of??? What the actual fuck! I get what bones is trying to do - keeping it a mystery on what exactly happened to him. Trying to reveal absolutely nothing. But we don't even get Dazai mentioning that he has to go back into the prision for some reason? Or saying that he has something still left to do? Anything at all that hints towards Dazai remembering that Sigma existed? Truly, it fells like Sigma was abandoned and I hate it. I will be writing Angst about it.

OTHER CHARACTERS: The Montage was kind of nice, even though important characters were forgotten about (where is Jouno!). With the lack of impact of most of the characters shown it just felt kind of hollow I guess.

EPILOGUE: Why does it feel off? I honestly wouldn't be at all suprised if it was the set-up for some anime only filler content - However horrible that would be. Akutagawa was looking fancy though. And it seemed about the only relevant thing that happened to poor Atsushi this episode. For a Protagonist he was sidelined hard.

TLDR: I feel like the rushing and lack of explaining/skipping over plot details of the anime is making me hate the progression of the plot more than I could ever with manga. I'll have to wait and see.

[linklethehistorian]

Dr. Linkle TheHistorian onTumblrdotcom,

I'm inquiring about a ship I personally quite enjoy and truly I hope you can see the potential in my concept. This particular ship includes two characters you are quite familiar with, that being verlaine x faun/pan. I really enjoy this dynamic because it has so much angst potential, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!!

Hello anon! 😁 Ooh, I’ve been promoted to Dr. now, have I? I’ve a PhD suddenly? Thank you very much! How flattering! ^-^

Of course I’d be happy to rate your ship and share my thoughts!

Ship: Paul Verlaine (BSD) x Faunus/Pan (BSD)

Fanon ship name: Unknown

Have I ever heard of this ship before this ask?: Nope! This is my first introduction to it!

Do I ship this ship?: Well, not especially, no; as I’ve said before, I have other Verlaine ships I’m already interested in and with which I’m actively involved, and I’m pretty much a one ship per character type of person (barring any potential past relationships), so I wouldn’t be shipping it myself.

My personal rating of this ship: 9/10

More in-depth thoughts:

I may not actively ship this ship myself, but for the fucked up aspects, boy oh boy do I see it. 👀 Anon, you yourself have already mentioned the angst potential, and I must salute you for coming up with something so supremely tragic and awful and for enjoying it as such rather than trying to uwu-ify it into something sweet and fluffy.

While I may only have known this ship for as long as I’ve had this ask in my inbox, from a view canonical dynamic and personalities, it immediately very much does strike me as one of the ultimate angst or whump types of ships to exist within this fandom: at least to me, this ship instantly brings to mind images of brainwashed and lonely Paul who feels his only worth would be in serving and appeasing his creator, to whatever end he might need; I see a Verlaine who is utterly dependent on serving his purpose as his only means to justify his own existence — which at times he doesn’t even have full control over, as Faunus can take control of all of his actions during Brutalization — and eventually by proxy falls for the man who continues to give him said purpose, yet Faunus is only interested in controlling him.

Or…alternatively, though to me much less likely, perhaps Faunus falls for a creation of his that utterly despises him for bringing him into being, and even will one day kill him without remorse for his fucked up way of ‘loving’ him?

Either way, this ship seems chock full of angst, manipulation, pain, experimentation, and tragedy.

A bit dark for my tastes at times, but I can definitely see the appeal if you’re looking to enjoy some good old angst, or if you’re a whump-lover!

Congrats on the super unique and heartbreaking ship, anon! Enjoy fucking up Paul in the head even more than he already is. :’)

[awoogayanderes]

BSD MEN WITH THEIR TOXIC TRAITS

➪ characters : osamu dazai, chuuya nakahara, ryūnosuke akutagawa, fyodor dostoevsky, sigma, saigiku jouno

➪ other notes : i love writing silly angst with silly characters from my favorite silly anime / manga <3 non-edited

osamu dazai :

running away at any conflict with you

- whilst dazai has a lot of toxic traits and red flags, this issue is the biggest one by far

- running away is all dazai has left when it comes to arguing with you

- you’re someone he can’t lose, so instead he pushes everything under the rug, expecting it to go away

- you don’t dare mention his habit, but this fighting and forgetting habit has your hands tied together, not knowing what to do

- one minute you’re at each other’s throats, the next minute he’s gone, with uncomfortable silence choking you

- when you wake up, he’s hugging you tightly in the middle of his sleep as if your previous night’s encounter never existed

- he brings small bouquets of flowers to you when he comes back, wilting away once you get up and put them in a vase

- it’s almost a routine at this point, you fight, he leaves, you go to sleep angry, he comes back with flowers and lies next to you

- a relationship is staying with each other when things get difficult at times, but what happens when they leave you and come back into your arms with no other words said ?

chuuya nakahara :

over possessiveness and accusing of cheating

- this all roots from his previous betrayals where he thinks he’s found a family, only for it to be gone in a split second

- he’s a darling partner except that he can’t seem to trust you as much as he tries to

- ‘it’s just for precaution’ he says when he sends his men to be with you when you go out, it makes you feel weird having someone by you at all times

- if he ever gets the feeling that you’re being too friendly with a random waiter it always ends up with him accusing you of cheating on him

- you beg him to believe you when you say that you aren’t like the people he had in his life before, that you wouldn’t leave him

- he wants to trust you but when someone gets too close to you, it’s almost like a primal instinct to get you away from them

- he spoils you to no end but nothing materialistic compares to being alone without someone breathing down your neck

- it’s overwhelming not having time to yourself, always being surrounded by someone because they’re afraid to lose you

- you love him like a human so why does he love you like a trophy in fear of betrayal ?

ryūnosuke akutagawa :

lashing out at you for caring

- what else were you expecting when you started dating someone with so much trauma that he can only express with anger

- he doesn’t mean to lash out at you for no reason, he wants to make it work but instead of improving, his attitude continues to grow

- he doesn’t like you “nagging” at him to take better care of himself

- you know that there’s a big brick wall that stops you from reaching his heart but at what point is too much, too much

- when you nod at him after he screams at you, it almost angers him more because he thinks you aren’t listening even though you are, not wanting to argue back and cause more chaos

- there’s times where he makes up for his behavior, sometimes he picks a random flower from grass and gives it to you

- he doesn’t know why he gets so angry that you care for his wellbeing, isn’t that what couples normally do for each other

- it’s saddening seeing the own man you let into your life berate you for no reason

- it’s so hard to love someone who just seems to loathe you so much even with his small actions of caring

fyodor dostoyevsky :

seeing himself as your superior and seeing you as a pawn in his own game

- another man with a shitload of red flags and toxic traits, this one rising above them all

- he cares about you, he does ! but not in the way you’d like, he cares about you like how humans care about their pets

- sure he’d give you the world if he could, but he’d also give you up for his ideal world if it ever came down to that

- a relationship is a balance where each partner sees the other one as an equal, yeah not with fyodor it’s not

- you’ve proven your worth to him so many times for him to see you as the same as his level, instead it just makes you seem as a pawn under his control

- despite this, there are times where it almost seems that he cares about you like a person should, when you’re hanging onto his arm walking in a park humming quietly

- he indulges in your needs every so often, not before bringing you right back down to your place beneath him

- not even death would allow you to escape this cycle of rising and being kicked down

- why does he expect you to see him as the righteous hand of god when he sees you as a mere pawn ready to be sacrificed

sigma :

unintentionally guilt tripping you every time you get frustrated at him

- he’s been used so many times, his naivety is something he hates to the core, all he wants is someone to settle down with, a family

- he’s another sweetheart partner when you can push past the teary eyes and begging for you to not be mad at him and to not leave him

- his biggest fear is losing you, someone who doesn’t use him, he’d rather abandon his casino than end his relationship with you

- whilst he doesn’t realize, you notice his wording when he begs you to stay, often saying that he’s nothing without you, that he’d rather die than be without you

- maybe it’s heartwarming for the first few times but once it becomes a cycle you start to truly wonder if he’d actually go crazy without you or if it was all bluff

- even then, you can’t deny him when he guilts you into staying, he doesn’t know any better

- if you ever mention this to him, he’ll burst into tears, thinking you were breaking up with him, it takes hours trying to convince that you were here to stay

- it’s a repeating cycle he doesn’t notice and you can’t break for the sake of both of you

- love is a powerful thing, powerful enough to guilt you into staying with a man who loves you a bit too much

saigiku jouno :

putting his work above you at all costs

- he swore to protect those that need him, he’s not going to break that just for you

- you knew what you were getting into when you started dating the hunting dog, yet sadness can’t help but fill you when he misses important events with you

- after all you’ve been through with him, and not a single happy birthday text, not a single note for your anniversary, nothing

- he knows when you’re upset with him even if he can’t see your face, he can feel you rejecting his touch, and that’s when he reminds you of what he swore and what you agreed to

- it doesn’t help when he has his snarky attitude and almost mocking voice explaining to you why he can’t just walk out of a meeting

- despite this, he does love you, otherwise he wouldn’t waste his time on you, he loves that you still stick with him no matter what

- you really don’t ask for much, you understand his work and what he has to do, but he still thinks you make a big deal out of nothing

- as hypocritical as it sounds, he always expects you to be there for him even if he’s not

- you knew you were never going to be his first priority but it hurts so much more when he makes sure you know

[spacexseven]

“this is so sad poor reader ill save you” tuna, you say this while you place the poor darling with fyodor. I have no place to argue tho. i’m just as guilty with placing poor reader in this too. also scapegoat/pawn darling has the worst isekai experience. The fact that they never even existed and fyodor simply used the book to warp reality to make it so “sk” exists. I can’t help but imagine how horrible it must be, especially if darling is a bsd reader of fan, for them to slowly piece together that reality is contorted to fit the narrative of a cruel serial killer who took so many ability users life. Fyodor re-writing deaths only to ensure for the deaths to be exceuted by an innocent murderer. the realization of scapegoat/pawn darling is going to be horrible when they remember the abilities names and connect it to oda. However, this could also backfire for fyodor. Darling doesn’t want to die, and i can imagine this darling having a more cowardly and selfish attitude towards people in bsd. either imagining as monsters who are after them for crimes they never committed because they never “existed” or putting themselves first because they’re “only fictional characters.” Maybe resentment builds up towards fyodor? a lucky day, or even a single minute is all that takes for even a man like fyodor to fall.

Imagine of they were close with mushitaro? maybe a way to coaxe him to be more at ease before fyodor makes them kill him? the betrayal and the angst. so much trauma for both.

THE NIKOLAI DYNAMIC. it’s so different since this “sk reader” actually isn’t sk reader because they bever truly “existed.” Scapegoat/Pawn darling is emotionally vulnerable, a rat placed into a corner, not quite willing to bite just yet, but not willing to die either. I Imagime it’s very tense and it’s more thank likely that Nikolai probably falls first compared to the more anxious and survival driven darling.

I have many ideas brewing with Jouno, Dazai, and Ranpo bc of this. A lot of it mixing with them building up a love-hatred (emphasis on hatred) turned to savior complex built on the fact if they find out about the truth with the book and darling’s existence.

Oh, Tuna, this was truly a delight to read and think about. thank you as always, and thank you for sharing this wonderful writing with us - 🦄

i actually didn't think that far about how else darling could react to the situation, but i think it's highly likely that they do end up resenting fyodor so much (and/or becoming detached from the idea of bsd being 'real' or the characters being 'people') to the point where they are actively planning his death. him teaching them how to use their abilities would become a painful memory when they end up using it to kill him. ouch

this version does give a lot more potential for (more) characters to develop a weird infatuation or complex regarding reader. for instance, nikolai approaching reader abt killing fyodor knowing their distaste for him (if they end up developing a hatred toward him) ^-^ im glad you liked it

[thedetectiveofinaba]

1. When are you usually online?

I’m usually online during evenings and/or afternoons most active during either the late afternoon, evening or late at night my time. This does cause me to miss most activity & squeeze hours from later hours bc smh why do most ppl I write with have to be from States -

2. What verses are you involved in outside of this page?

My multimuse side blog (with the url @multiplelivesinline​). It’s multi-fandom even though Pokemon seems to dominate there atm, if I decide to write or test any other muse than Naoto I’m likely to add them instead of another single muse blog. Side blogs have their own small headaches but they’re easy enough to deal w/ for now since it’s mostly followed by people who are mutuals with me or specific fandom folks (Pkmn RPC).

3. What is your biggest RP pet peeve?

Not reading people’s rules before they’re following or lurking. This especially goes for personal blogs, with whom I’ve had several headache inducing situations. One other pet peeve I have is not having backbone to say that your muse isn’t always canon or that you have a ship bias: if your muse is bi/straight even though canon says otherwise don’t claim that they’re canon compliant. People will only feel lied to when they find out later that your muse is closer to a hc-based and that can lead to bad outcomes.

4. Are you drawn to specific types of muses?

Either calm, cool and collected muses who are using their first impression as a facade of sorts or muses who care too much on what others think or try to be the Hero Who Can Save Everyone. My gender bias seems to be on ladies even though one of my biased muses is Gladion from Sun/Moon, the edgelord brooding side cast whose backstory is sth what shook me at first but gave me reasons to care on him. One day I’m using his AU verse for BSD more.

5. Are there recurring themes in your writing that people might not notice?

The theme of how there can be darkness and failure in your life but it’ll always pass due time and how there’s small momemts of joy in life. It’s how I tend to see hurt/comfort or angst used for the best end goals and my personal mantra in life. Time heals all wounds, even though it might take months never give in or think that it’s worthless to even try. There is always a way and people to help you along the way, depressive shit or moments of desperation will exist but you will always survive through.

6. What are your favorite RP trends?

Slice of life stuff what is focused on small joys of life in middle of a greater storyline, character dynamics studies and how they fluctuate + the trend of opposites attract. In Naoto’s case it’s the concept of her personal growth during P4 and after it & how she’s not the most extrovert type piques my interest. and the gradual realization on why media Hell is a bad place to end up in. She hates that part of her career the most. 

The character dynamic is something I noticed later on the AUs what have a Naoto who isn’t too opposed to chaotic behavior/her temperament or ego taking over her rationality more. It’s thrilling to write the contrast what works fluently without any big hassle: Especially Michiru (1/4 angel!AU) has been a clear sign on how her type is an extrovertish person who can do things you wouldn’t assume from them or an anomaly. 

7. What is your process for starting a new story with someone?

A starter call and/or plotting calls continued with Tumblr IMs are an easiest entryway for starting a thread I want to plot. Another option is for me to send an ask and approaching you in IMs if I get an idea I 100 % want to do. I don’t personally do open RP posts and want clear plans so neither party will have an unpleasant experience. 

8. How do you feel about duplicates?

Duplicates are cool, and a neat thing to exist. I’m not chasing them away w/ a pitchfork. I can’t ofc assume that my girl will 100 % vibe with them automatically but if that happens assume me to throw an idea for a sibling/twin AU or multiverse interactions at some point. (Also if you get any ideas you’re welcome to go to IMs to plot around that & talk OOC stuff, I’m not the most outward person ever to exist & am likely to say hi back.)

9. How long have you been involved in roleplaying?

For about 5 and half years. I started this as an extension of my already existing writing hobby for own stories with OCs when my online friend enabled me to go for it and discovered pretty quickly that even though my Naoto was crappy at first I really enjoyed this & wanted to continue even though I had a rough patch at first. 

10. Is there a muse or verse you wish you could write in, but haven’t?

I’ve had the small interest to try writing Atsuro Kihara from DeSu for some time, probably the only thing stopping me is the lack of energy to sink hours to a JRPG to see if I have enough inspiration for that. The other character who I have memed on is writing Kanji or Yumi from P4. If I write Yumi though, I am deleting the forced romance BS. No forced romance paths, we delete their existence like based people who want fluent romances.

Tagged by: @fatexbound​

Tagging: Steal it from me if you want to ^_~

[afinepricklypear]

**Update: The works mentioned in this post have since been taken down. The “message” was removed by AO3 because it was a violation of their TOS and it seems the author chose to remove their “opinions” piece.**

Despite the ongoing world crisis, I hope everyone is doing great as the year comes to a close and prepping for a safe holiday season.

I don’t really post here a lot, but I just wanted to talk about a problem that exists in every fandom and has recently come up for me in the BSD fandom. This problem is typically referred to as: toxic behavior, however, I sort of hate that term because it’s an umbrella term that encapsulates a wide array of behaviors that is purposefully vague so as to imply everything can be toxic, which means the definition changes depending upon the person, and ends up getting thrown around to describe any behavior that a person dislikes. That said, most people can agree that the term ‘toxic behavior’ includes “shipper wars” and harassing people because of their “ship”.

Yesterday, a user on AO3 going by the penname E_C_arts posted a message titled “deer Soukoku fans” and giving it the not-innocuous summary “please we’re begging you, please stop”. Clicking through leads to a rather prime example of this particular flavor of toxic fandom behavior, guised as an attempt to defend those who were allegedly victims of this self-same behavior, also a lovely example of emotional manipulation.

Although what’s currently posted (and what I managed to screen shot below) may not seem terrible on first glance, if not a little cringey, and can be easy to agree with (don’t bully people that write for a ship you dislike), this was not their original message and has been edited since being posted and, and only after receiving the number of comments it did and which they’re now noting as “proving their point” – a point which they erased, thus manipulating perceptions. I wish I had gotten a screenshot of the original, but if you scroll through the comments, you can find some people that quoted it.

This person most definitely did open their “message” to Soukoku fans by literally telling them to “stop writing” for it. They claimed there was some unspecified AU (or maybe multiple unspecified AUs) that had been overwritten for, that it was overused, and not original. They went on to talk about how the abundance of soukoku content was turning off new fans to the series (don’t even know how that logics…) and bullying people from creating content for other ships, basing these irrational sentiments off some false claim that removing everything with the soukoku ship from the fandom would only leave behind a sad, inacccurate (and oddly specific) 305 posts.

Evidence of their now deleted perspective can be further seen in another post they made to AO3 a couple days before this ugly rant. Titled simply “My unpopular BSD opinions”, they didn’t manage to garner much attention and went mostly ignored because, well, it’s your opinions about the show and that’s whatever. Of course, when you click into it, the very first “opinion” shared, is that they hate Dazai x Chuuya. Okay, that’s an opinion everyone is entitled to, and that’s fine. You don’t like the popular ship, that’s…not exactly an unpopular opinion, there’s quite a number of people that don’t ship soukoku. No problem. Until, they go on to elaborate.

Despite the title of this piece being ‘their opinions’, they state as ‘fact’ that its confirmed that this is “not a thing”, so ‘please stop shipping them it doesn’t work, it’s way too overused for it to be “funny” anymore’ (I’m a little confused about this wording, because Shipping is Serious Business™, so…not sure there are too many soukoku shippers doing it because they think it’s hilarious or whatnot, in fact, most soukoku fics are tagged ‘angst’, which we all know, angst is very ‘haha, lol’…but whatevs). They then include the same sentiment they expanded on in their Dear John to soukoku fans and subsequently deleted: “Please stop, there are too many au’s with almost the exact same plot Chuuya and Dazai being together, its really difficult to find any non-Dazai x Chuuya au’s”.

On the surface, once again, there are some “truths” to this sentiment. DaiChuu is a popular ship and there is a disproportionate amount of soukoku ship fics on the fandom comparative to other ships (soukoku comes in at a whopping 10,000+ currently, with the next popular ship Aku/Atsushi sitting at a decidedly less 2500+). It’s really not that difficult to find non-DazaixChuuya fics, if you know how to use filters on AO3, but there are going to be less to read from when you filter it down, and depending on your ship, you may find yourself in a fic desert, and I can certainly understand why someone young and lacking in rational thought processes might want to blame the popular ship for this predicament.

The problem with this logic, and it permeates every fandom, not just BSD, is that the shippers sharing and loving their ship are not to blame for your lack of ship content. You just don’t have a popular ship. If all the people who love soukoku stopped creating content for it, as this person is ‘begging’ them to do, that’s not going to increase the amount of content for your ships, because the reason that content isn’t being created is because there aren’t enough shippers for it. So, the only way this person’s logic works, is if what this person is actually saying, isn’t that they want these people to stop creating content for the BSD fandom, they just want them to jump ship, stop creating content for soukoku and start creating content for their ships.

Any creator/fan is going to have a visceral reaction to that: who the fuck are you to tell me what to create? And for free, no less!

This moves us more towards a clearer definition of what is toxic fandom behavior. In short, its telling anyone how they should interact with or interpret their favorite content. I mean, even Word of God does not have this power. That’s because every single fan in a fandom is an individual human being. They are possessed of their own autonomy, and as a creator I know, that once you put something out into the world and give it over to others, you have little control over how people consume and feel about your work. You can tell them your intention, but that’s not going to sway them to interpret it that way, and that’s…just the way it works.

Now, the elephant in the room needs to be addressed. It’s easy for me to be ‘offended’ by this person’s post and not see their complaints because I am a soukoku fan. I’m also the target of this person’s rant, and one of those people this person is attempting to emotionally manipulate into writing for other ships in the fandom for which I have no preference. But I am capable of seeing the other side of this argument.

First, because I do have other fandoms in which I am part, and for which I have a rare-pair ship. For example, I am a Gundam Wing fan and a 2x5 (Duo/WuFei) shipper. I’ve posted two 2x5 fics on fanfiction.net. While 2x5 is not the rarest of rarepairs in the Gundam Wing fandom, it is significantly eclipsed (as are almost *all* ships in the fandom) by the 1x2 (Heero/Duo) ship. Do I hate 1x2 shippers for my lack of 2x5 content? No. I just appreciate what I’ve got all the more, and I’ll create content for it when I feel compelled, and I sure the fuck won’t implore 1x2 shippers to stop writing for their fave and write more for mine because I want more 2x5 – that’s sheer entitlement, right there, pure and simple. I also ship 3xD (Trowa/Dorothy) in Gundam Wing, which *is* the rarest of rarepairs – I think there’s only, like, two stories in existence that features this pair on the entirety of the internet. I’m also a RavenxMurphy (Murven) shipper in The 100 fandom and I do not hate Bellarke fans because…those people are scary and have canceled the show’s creator for not delivering on Bellarke, and in BSD, I ship Atsushi/Lucy (yes, I said it, they’re cute af and I hope Asagiri delivers on that ship). I also low-key ship Yosano/Ranpo (sorry, Ranpo/Poe shippers, I understand the appeal, I just think him and Yosano is sooo cute, please don’t kill me…), and I also ship Yosano with Kunikida – all of which are some of the rarest in the BSD fandom.

Second, because I have seen and called out shipping harassment in the BSD fandom, so I am well aware that this kind of thing exists – as it exists literally everywhere and in every flavor. Against soukoku shippers from antis and by soukoku shippers against shippers putting Dazai or Chuuya with any other characters and by soukoku shippers against other soukoku shippers that are, uh, “doing it wrong”. None of these is appropriate. You’re not fighting fire with fire if you’re an anti-attacking the popular ship, you’re just creating a bigger fire and burning the entire fandom down. You’re not defending your ship if you are a soukoku fan attacking non-soukoku fans, you’re just punching down by attacking a less popular ship. And top/bottom arguments aren’t just toxic, they’re also deeply entrenched in fetishization of same sex pairings through a forced heteronormative lens and is, kind of, sort of, actually homophobic in its basis (yes, I said it. It’s ignorant and homophobic and trying to argue with ‘personality/physical traits’ as evidence of who serves what position in the bedroom can be emotionally and mentally damaging to members of the LGBTQ community. Claiming that Chuuya should be bottom because he’s shorter/smaller, or that Dazai has ‘bottom energy’ because he’s more flamboyant and ‘feminine’ is straight up discrimination – a shorter guy can definitely be top, and a manly man can be bottom, it’s not a behavior based on perceived gendered traits, it is just a fucking preferred sexual position, and no, you are not ‘fixing it’ by purposely using positions for these characters that eschews the stereotypes either. Trying to justify positioning by personality/physical traits at all, in any way, shape, or form is just not okay – if it’s your preference, it’s your preference, no justification needed, just recognize that it is *your* preference and arguing what’s ‘right/wrong’ positioning is just plain wrong).

But this brings us to a different issue: bad actors and blaming a whole community for a ‘few rotten apples’. I could easily lump this one person in with everyone that does not ship soukoku and deem them all toxic, aggressive, entitled, bullies attempting to harass soukoku shippers off the platform. Or I could see them for what they are, individuals with individual motivations and drives and morals that also happen to share the same shipping preferences. Is it true to say that there are no soukoku fans that engage in the behaviors described by E_C_arts? No, there are definitely those that do, as there are antis that engage in that same behavior against soukoku fans. But this person also asserts that soukoku fans turning ‘every BSD post about soukoku’ is also a toxic behavior. To which I refer you back to one. This is how they engage with and interpret the work. Don’t yuck on someone else’s yum. People want to gush about how cute they thought soukoku were in an official art, or that they felt there was some hidden (or not so hidden) interaction between them that validates their ship, or their inspired to create soukoku content based on it, so what (for the record, it irks me too when people go ‘see it’s canon and Bones totally ships it’, because it’s unlikely, given BSDs genre, that any romantic relationship will be confirmed, soukoku notwithstanding). It is not, in fact, toxic to gush over it. Let them have their fun with it, let them enjoy their ship. Now, if you go and make a comment about liking the art for other reasons and they reply to you about “…but also soukoku”, then still, that’s not toxic, that’s just them enjoying the content the way that they enjoy it, so let them enjoy it, and you opened yourself to engagement without any qualifiers for the type of engagement you were soliciting, you can’t then backtrack and go ‘but I’m not a soukoku shipper, they should’ve been able to read my mind and known that, it’s totally toxic of them to share their personal reasons for loving the show in response to my sharing my love for the show’. But if you comment about another ship, and they reply to you “…ew, gross! It’s 100% soukoku” then yes, that’s toxic. A lot of people fail to make this distinction, that they are, maybe, merely being triggered and not actually harassed, by feeling like their ship isn’t being validated because they see another ship all over the place and everyone they engage with ships it.

It’s also toxic, to take an experience with one person and hold every soukoku shipper in existence responsible for that one person’s inappropriate behavior. The truth is, that bad actors amongst soukoku fans are not unique, not to the ship and not to the fandom and not even to fandom culture in general. Every group in existence everywhere has bad actors in it that, while the group disavows their behavior, they continue to be held accountable for those individuals and judged by them. For current events, look at how the BLM movement has been blamed for bad actors (many of whom were not actually BLM activists) that took advantage of the protests and started riots and chaos. A small percentage of people were involved in these behaviors, but the entire movement, despite speaking out against rioting, continues to take the blame for it. For me, that’s the root of toxicity. We need to start holding individuals accountable and stop blaming people who have no control over those individuals, because they share a few similar beliefs or interests. That’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But the shippers as a whole are not to blame for the actions of a few, and the reason that it feels that there are so many more soukoku fans that do this is because of volume, there are so many more soukoku fans. It’s basic math. If two percent of fans are these toxic kinds of shippers, then there’s going to be so many more of them in a larger population than a smaller one.

I try to call out toxic behavior, no matter if it’s my ship being lambasted or one of my fellow shippers doing the lambasting, whenever I see it, but the trouble is, I don’t typically go into fan content that isn’t for my ship and, thus, I don’t see it. The same goes for the vast majority of soukoku fans out there. We’re here for soukoku content, we’re seeking out soukoku content, and avoiding what isn’t soukoku content. But here is my offer to all of those who are outside of my ship. I like to argue. If someone is harassing you for having a non-soukoku ship, call me, let me know, I will argue with them for you. I will explain to them in no uncertain terms, and in many unpleasant ways, that they do not represent the soukoku shipping community and they are an embarrassment to us. Content for any and all ships is welcomed and encouraged within the fandom. Write, draw, contribute, be a part of the fandom and express yourself, please. If you are a soukoku shipper (or even if you’re not), and someone is harassing you about your top/bottom preference, call me, let me know, I will argue with them for you. I will explain to them why their justifications for which character should be top or bottom in a same sex pairing is grossly misrepresentative and exploitative of the LGBTQ community and rather disgusting. Do not assume that because we seem to remain silent on these types of harassment that it’s because we are in agreement with them, it is only because we haven’t seen them – why would we, we’re not going in those spaces that weren’t created for us. Ask the community for help, don’t attack the rest of us for the poor actions of a few that we were not even aware of. Let us help you in policing them, rather than assuming we don’t care. We are just too busy staying in our lanes, but if you need us, we are here. Majority of us want a clean, friendly, welcoming community for creators of all types as much as you do.

All of this aside, there are spaces and places for these debates and AO3 is not it. Posting this kind of message is actually a violation of AO3 TOS, constituting as harassment, which is defined on the AO3 TOS as “…any behavior that produces a generally hostile environment for its target…”( https://archiveofourown.org/tos#IV.G.). This general behavior also falls into the realm of another kind of toxic fandom behavior: hijacking a platform/tag for your own purposes that is a direct contradiction to its express usage (otherwise, known as trolling). AO3 is for posting fan-made content that contributes to a deeper understanding and expansion upon the original work. Using AO3 to attack people who are using AO3 for exactly what it is designed to be used for is an abuse of the platform. It’s not okay and invites similar content that will ultimately interfere with the original purpose of the platform. AO3 is for fan content, not for your own personal rants about other people in the community, please keep it that way

I do also want to note, that this person choosing to edit their post after receiving the justified ire from fans (notably soukoku and non-soukoku fans alike upset by the audacity of this person, who, as far as can be told, has never themselves contributed fanfiction to the community, to tell people what they can and cannot write) for their original comments, is a form of manipulative abuse called ‘gaslighting’. They are now claiming to be a victim that “never said to stop writing”, despite that having been the literal words they used in the opening of their original post. They are now pointing at these comments as “proof” of their point that soukoku fans are aggressive bullies that attack without cause when there was definitely cause from the original comments. This person clearly has bigger issues than just lacking shipper content for their personal preferences on the BSD fandom.

To all of those who are afraid to share content for your ship because you think you’ll be harassed, as evidenced by this person’s claims, that is simply not true. While there might be one or two people that say something, we all get them no matter if you have a popular ship or a rarepair ship, haters are gonna hate – I’ve gotten my share of hateful comments towards my ships too, but there are many more people that share your ship and are interested in your content, in fact, some of them are starved for it. While having a rarepair might mean you’ll garner less interactions with your content, you have a better opportunity to form a deeper bond with the people that do interact, and they may be more appreciative, because what you’re delivering to them is so much harder to come by. The existence of one ship does not affect your ship’s popularity, and if it simply went away, that doesn’t mean that your ship would receive more attention – in fact, it might mean the show itself would receive less attention.

Create and let others create and use platforms for their appropriate purposes, and most importantly, when it comes to addressing toxic behavior in a fandom, look to yourself first. Are you placing the blame where it belongs? Are you addressing the root cause of the problem or swinging blindly and attacking innocent bystanders in the process? Will what you say actually help the problem? Or will it contribute to the issue, and maybe even create an issue that didn’t exist before?

[hamliet]

Pain, Fear, Death, and God: Fyodor and Gogol as Two Halves of Kirillov

God is the pain of the fear of death. Whoever conquers pain and fear will himself become God.

-Alexei Kirillov, Demons

So remember how when I first read Bungou Stray Dogs I started screeching incoherently and turned those screeches into a somewhat-coherent meta on how Fyodor in BSD was modeled after Alexei Kirillov from Dostoyesvky’s Demons? 

Well, here’s the follow up.

As I said in my previous meta, Demons is (tied with Crime and Punishment) my favorite novel of all time, and Alexei Kirillov is my very favorite character of all time, in any fictional medium, ever. He’s a walking bundle of paradoxes, existential angst and stunning compassion. But Demons is not necessarily a popular novel by Dostoyevsky standards and so Kirillov, despite being written about by literary critics and Camus, is somewhat obscure. That Asagiri is so clearly inspired by his character is shocking and thrilling for me; I’m pinching myself. 

The tl;dr version of Kirillov is that his whole schtick is that he wants to kill himself to prove that he is free and thereby can escape. It’s far more nuanced and complex, as I’ll go into, but essentially both Gogol and Fyodor’s philosophies and goals reflect this.

Gogol does not want to kill Fyodor because he hates Fyodor; rather, it’s because Gogol and Fyodor are two halves of a whole. They are a paradox together, embodying Kirillov’s complexity. Like Kirillov, they are suicidal, because killing one of them is like killing themselves. To achieve their goals, they both need to die. 

Fyodor reminds Gogol that he is human and can connect; therefore, Gogol wants to kill him to assert his free will, as he views connections as a cage. Similarly, while we haven’t gotten much insight into Fyodor’s thoughts on Gogol, I think it’s highly likely Fyodor allowed Gogol to kill himself (he thought) because he clings to his beliefs at the expense of his (very much there) empathy, and it’s better for his goals if people who provoke his empathy die. Basically: Fyodor allowed Gogol to “die” not because he doesn’t care about him, but because he does. 

For a brief background: Demons itself is an allegory about how people who become consumed by their ideas become possessed by said ideas; thus, they become devils or demons. The actual title of the novel, Бесы, is difficult to translate, hence why it has three different titles in English: The Possessed, The Devils, and Demons. The word “Бесы” in Russian refers to the ones doing the possessing, which is why the latter two are generally considered to be more accurate translations of the title. In particular, the novel demonstrates the tragic consequences of Russian nihilism and singles out moral nihilism. (It’s also looked to as a rather eerie novel, because almost everything it wrote about happening in a--then fictional--political revolution is exactly what happened in Russia a few decades later.) 

As I wrote in my previous meta, Fyodor, like Kirillov, is “consumed” by his ideas, something Kirillov laments in Demons. Fyodor’s consumption with his ideals means that he is willing to sacrifice everything for his goals. Gogol, too, shares this trait. 

Where they differ is in motivations for their respective plans, motives they share with Kirillov. Kirillov’s master plan is to commit suicide for two reasons: firstly, that he has free will and will thereby inspire society to live freely, and secondly, because he sees life as nonsensically painful and thereby not worth living. The first reflects Gogol’s personal aims, and the second Fyodor’s.

Let’s discuss Kirillov and Fyodor first. Kirillov believes that mankind invented God (keep in mind the context this was written in; God=Russian Orthodox Christianity) to go on living because of the absurdity of life. 

Listen: this man was the highest on all the earth, he constituted what it was to live for. Without this man the whole planet with everything on it is--madness only. There has not been one like Him before or since, not ever, even to the point of miracle. This is the miracle, that there has not been and never will be such a one. And if so, if the laws of nature did not pity even This One, did not pity even their own miracle, but made Him, too, live amidst a lie and die for a lie, then the whole planet is a lie, and stands upon a lie and a stupid mockery. Then the very laws of the planet are a lie and a devil's vaudeville. Why live then, answer me, if you're a man.”

Fyodor's disgust for the world and determination to save it from the sin of abilities reflects this same attitude. Life is wrong, so it should cease to exist. Abilities are wrong, so everyone with one should cease to exist. The reason is, most likely, strongly based in how painful Fyodor’s ability has been for him.

Kirillov laments:

“God is necessary and so must exist… But I know He doesn’t and can’t… Surely you must understand that a man with two such ideas can’t go on living?”

...

“If there is no God, then I am God.”

If Kirillov is god, then he is the ultimate master of his fate. Kirillov is very aware of his own limits, and so he thinks this absurd and life pointless. 

That conversation continues (Kirillov’s responses are bolded):

“There, I could never understand that point of yours: why are you God?”

“If God exists, all is His will and from His will I cannot escape. If not, it’s all my will and I am bound to show self-will.”

“Self-will? But why are you bound?”

“Because all will has become mine. Can it be that no one in the whole planet, after making an end of God and believing in his own will, will dare to express his self-will on the most vital point? It’s like a beggar inheriting a fortune and being afraid of it and not daring to approach the bag of gold, thinking himself too weak to own it. I want to manifest my self-will. I may be the only one, but I’ll do it.”

This very much reflects Gogol: killing his high moral power (connection and empathy) through the man who identifies himself as a god (Fyodor) to prove his independence and freedom. 

But we’ve kind of already seen where this ends:

Gogol you’ve literally shown yourself terrified of dying (which Kirillov is as well). I know Gogol was likely acting in this scene, but given the themes of BSD and Gogol’s character, plus the fact that he did, in fact, choose not to die, I think this is likely somewhat reflective of his true feelings.  

But again, Kirillov asserts:

“I am awfully unhappy, for I’m awfully afraid. Terror is the curse of man.… But I will assert my will, I am bound to believe that I don’t believe. I will begin and will make an end of it and open the door, and will save. That’s the only thing that will save mankind and will re-create the next generation physically; for with his present physical nature man can’t get on without his former God, I believe. For three years I’ve been seeking for the attribute of my godhead and I’ve found it; the attribute of my godhead is self-will! That’s all I can do to prove in the highest point my independence and my new terrible freedom. For it is very terrible. I am killing myself to prove my independence and my new terrible freedom.”

As Gogol outlined, what disrupted his plans was Fyodor’s empathy for him, and his empathy for Fyodor. Their connection literally saved his life (hence I kind of doubt their connection will kill them in the end). He cannot die without killing that connection. 

Two things almost disrupt Kirillov’s plans. Firstly, and chiefly, it’s his empathy for others. Kirillov is noted to be a character who is extremely kind, good with children, and unafraid to risk himself to help others. When Kirillov finds out his friend betrayed him and is planning to use Kirillov’s suicide to get away with the murder of a third friend, Kirillov is horrified. He refuses to go through with his suicide at first, screaming in horror that his friend is dead and that he unwittingly enabled his killer to end his life. When he does ultimately go through with it, he states that it is because “I want to kill myself now: all are scoundrels.” He goes through with it because his human connections are failing. 

Even the novel’s most villainous character concludes “I agree” when Kirillov is called “good.” Kirillov will stop at nothing to help his friends, and he believes all people are good and will become good if they are just told they are. However, the tragic irony of this scene is that the person speaking to Kirillov--Nikolai Stavrogin--is very much a literary example of a psychopath. (Those of you who follow me know I don’t use that word lightly.) However, Stavrogin does not want to be this way; he wants to feel, he wants to be bothered by the terrible sins he’s committed. What he’s asking Kirillov, essentially, is to understand this and call him wrong for what he did, which absolutely no one does in the novel:

“Everything’s good.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. Man is unhappy because he doesn’t know he’s happy. It’s only that. That’s all, that’s all! If anyone finds out he’ll become happy at once...

“And if anyone dies of hunger, and if anyone insults and outrages the little girl, is that good?”

“Yes! ...They’re bad because they don’t know they’re good. When they find out, they won’t outrage a little girl. They’ll find out that they’re good and they’ll all become good, every one of them.”

“Here you’ve found it out, so have you become good then?”

“I am good.”

“That I agree with, though,” Stavrogin muttered, frowning.

“He who teaches that all are good will end the world.”

“He who taught it was crucified.”

“He will come, and his name will be the man-god.”

“The god-man?”

“The man-god. That’s the difference.”

Stavrogin’s examples are based on things he’s done. Kirillov isn’t aware of these deeds, but he does know his friend’s mind better than most of their other friends. The problem is that Kirillov refuses to truly act on this empathy, to accept that men can be scoundrels and good, because he wants what he believes (that all are good) to be so. Kirillov’s too consumed with his desire to end the world (hello Fyodor) to save mankind via proving himself free to actually use his empathy to help his friends. In fact, the murderer points out to Kirillov that if he’d focused more on his friend, he might have been able to prevent the murder. 

A similar attitude is reflected in Fyodor’s desire to destroy ability-users (i.e. end the world) and in his interactions with people. He doesn’t put his empathy into forming actual connections, and those he has he deliberately does not invest in (such as when he kills the kid in his introductory chapter). He kills ability users paradoxically because he cares about them and about other people. I wrote about it a bit in this meta here:

Fyodor... lives very much in a world of black and white. He makes Goncharov happy all the time, unable to experience pain or negative emotions. He believes all ability users are a sin and should be destroyed. He’s an idealist in a lot of ways, believing in absolutes (which is also a hallmark of a childish perspective...).  he wants to... force every single ability user to feel his pain (that their abilities are a sin) by wiping them out. In short, Fyodor wants empathy despite refusing to listen to the feelings of others. (He understands their feelings; he just chooses to emphasize his pain over theirs.) 

Unlike Kirillov, however, whose last scene is renowned as “the most harrowing in all of literature” (I can’t even describe it; it has to be read) I think there’s pretty good reason to hope that Fyodor and Gogol will not end up taking each other out. Because the thing about Kirillov, the reason his character resonates so much with me, is the second reason his plans are almost disrupted: it’s how desperately he wants to live. He just wants to know that his life matters. The way Kirillov expresses these desires is absurd in a lot of ways and certainly hyperbolic, but it’s a desire reflected in most of BSD’s characters, and in, well, a lot of us in real life, too. 

Empathy and genuine human connection are the greatest powers in BSD’s world, as we saw recently through Atsushi getting the location of the page from empathizing with Sigma by telling him what he most wanted to know: that he mattered. 

Sigma now knows, to an extent, that he matters. At least, he’s been told as much.  

Gogol states that Sigma is key to his plans succeeding: Sigma’s ability can tell him Fyodor’s ability, which will enable Gogol to kill Fyodor. Except... Sigma’s ability might just work in an way that cultivates empathy post-connection with Atsushi. If Sigma can trust that he matters, despite having been created by the page and having been abused and subjected to all manner of lies and exploitation, he might be key to Fyodor and Gogol’s conflict resolution rather than to them actually killing each other.

Fyodor matters despite having an ability that seems to make him unable to touch people--because he can touch people with his empathy. (His empathy is, of course, literally what draws Gogol to want to kill him.) Fyodor’s empathy with Gogol has already physically saved Gogol.

Gogol matters even if he is understood by someone, because empathy is a strength and not a weakness. Someone understanding him doesn’t make him matter less, and being bound by feelings isn’t actually a bad thing. His connection with Fyodor has already saved his life.

Both Fyodor and Gogol have now saved Sigma at some point. Sigma’s design, of course, is literally split with two different colored halves of his hair, indicating that the artist likely means to symbolize the clash of two halves (see: Q, who represents how soukoku (Dazai and Chuuya) are two halves of a whole in terms of their best and worst traits). However, they exist in one person, and Sigma seems reasonably stable for someone with his situation. 

Additionally, Fyodor and Gogol both are also somewhat modeled after Rodion Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, whose name literally means “split” in Russian. (Actually, Kirillov is very much a more internal, tragic version of Raskolnikov.) Like Kirillov, Raskolnikov is a paradox embodied: he’s stunningly empathetic and kind (rushing into a burning building to save orphans), but his philosophy is that it’s fine for him to kill others because he’s a “Napoleon” (special figure; “man-god,” to use Kirillov’s term). 

But what is split is ultimately made whole in Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov meditates on the raising of Lazarus from the dead and essentially resurrects himself, redeems himself. 

I highly doubt Gogol and Fyodor’s story will end with them dead because:

It’s BSD and nobody stays dead unless you’re Oda or a red shirt; 

Gogol and Sigma have already served us fake-out deaths, so it’s a lot to ask your audience to buy another death from the same character (killing Fyodor is essentially Gogol killing himself);

them surviving and having Fitzgerald-esque redemption arcs very much fits with the themes of Dostoyevsky’s works and specifically with the book after which Fyodor’s ability is named;

resurrection seems to be a motif with everything involving Fyodor, from Cannibalism to this current arc.