#not every god has a plan

[cairafea]

he makes this joke every time.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Genuinely don't think I've seen anyone talk about chapter 25 as a pivotal moment for Dazai so I'm gonna put this out here because I think his reactions here kind of negate that whole omnipotent Dazai interpretation which I hate with every fibre of my being.

Firstly, he's like, clearly caught off guard here. And don't try to tell me he wasn't, because this is just one instance of his genuinely horrified reaction to Q's release and when he realized what was actually going on with Atsushi, Naomi and Haruno.

Him being caught off guard carries significance here because you'd never catch him screwing up this bad later in the series - which is exactly my point.

I wrote a post earlier about how I don't think Dazai really is very much like Mori or Fyodor at all, and I stand by that, because their motives are different. Tldr for that post: Mori and Fyodor are ambitious and proactive, while Dazai is empty/numb and reactive.

What this leads me to believe is that Dazai is less a chess master like those two and more of a contingency planner - he's so good at "predicting" because he is uncannily good at thinking like his opponent and then planning for literally any possibility under the sun he can come up with. He's no gambler. Everything and everyone is practically (and unknowingly) micromanaged. It's almost paranoid in a sense, and I definitely think it's a trauma response to something he went through that we don't know about yet - after all, he was more than capable of this before he even met Mori.

...which brings to me to Mori's influence here. It's straight up like Dazai forgot how willing Mori is to gamble huge risks for a good outcome. It's like he forgot the mafia could be a real threat to his best-laid plans.

Going to throw out a wild claim here that I don't think is actually all that baseless - I think it's widely assumed that Dazai molds himself to what he needs to be (true!) but I think this misses the idea that he is also easily influenced by the mindsets of the people around him (see: the difference between Entrance Exam Dazai and early manga Dazai, the whole "the longer he was in the mafia the darker and more incomprehensible he became" thing from Stormbringer, how dark his eyes get in the prison sections with Fyodor, etc.). I could go on, but for the sake of not making this post too much longer, let's assume this is true because it suddenly makes sense as to why he failed to predict Q but predicted other events much later that were inherently more difficult to predict:

He was in the wrong mindset. He was thinking like an Agency member, and dare I say, he even got a little complacent. He started to get used to not having to manipulate every last variable - he was removed from a toxic environment - only for Mori to pretty much instantly fuck that up in one scene.

Let's also not forget what happened the last time he miscalculated Mori's intentions.

The consequences of this blunder could've been a lot worse and he knows it.

In his mind, thinking like an ADA member wasn't good enough to stop a potentially awful outcome - awful outcomes that could bring him pain. So, he goes back to what he knows - think like the demon prodigy. Think like Mori. Later on, think like Dostoyevsky. Because it seems to me that he believes as long as he is still working for the light that it doesn't matter if he uses these horrifically manipulative and inhumane methods of getting there. But he is wrong. Darkness within the context of good intentions is still very much darkness, and it hurts people all the same.

In the very next chapter, Dazai arranges Ango's car accident. And he only gets worse and worse throughout the series as he regresses back into his paranoid darkness that manifests as this omnipotent facade - his safety net that ultimately prevents him from developing in a positive, more human direction.

[snorpdawg]

"Gramble Loses Sleep" | Bugsnax (2004-2006)

(unfiltered under readmore)

[swagging-back-to]

every single time you stress out about your taxes, or your rent, or your debt, or your mortgage, or your car payment, or your medical bills, or climate change, or your stress over having to work and just do basic things like eating----- remember that if you have children, *you are directly responsible** for them feeling all of that suffering and stress and pain when they grow up.

[blood-orange-juice]

You are all going to block me but I just realised that I do low-key ship Aether/Lumine.

Hear me out.

It's the plot of so many myths. The best known is, of course, Izanami and Izanagi's story (the whole reason why siblingcest is so popular in Japan. same level of cultural importance as the madonna/whore complex for Christians), but there are also Fu Xi and Nuwa, Sun and Moon gods of the Inuit mythology, a bunch of Greek gods, a bunch of Egyptian gods too iirc.

Old cultures that had god-kings (some dynasties in Egypt and, as we discovered recently, Ancient Ireland) considered marriages between siblings a norm for them specifically and something to be frowned upon or at least unusual for everyone else.

You can't convince me the twins were not god-rulers in some faraway world (they also found it so boring that they don't do it anymore. actually, I'll stand by this headcanon even without shipping them).

Celestial beings that already are one and the same in some sense. Twin stars.

The symbolism just does something to me.

I wish I could say this is not about boring human sex (they are interstellar eldritch beings anyway. merge your photons my funky little sibcons, as Ray says) but nope, I think their interactions can easily take the form of boring human sex too.

(it's just not the main thing they have going on)

I'll show myself out.

P.S. there's also a bonus: all Traveler ships are now threesomes

[soshadysoquiet]

It was my pleasure to draw some Soft Five holding Mr. Pennycrumb when asked. Then I realised I don't usually give Five's clothes much colour and had an aneurysm, the unicorn bag Did Not want to behave itself and got redesigned 3 times. Annnd then I got carried away and drew 4 5's to better showcase the lil gremlin with his emotional support mongrel.

Loved every minute, would 10/10 do more platonic 5 centric requests

I have 2 more doodles planned to do some time, thank you work meetings. The gift that keeps on giving.

[tianhai03]

here it is, the fursona i designed for dante a couple months ago for shits and giggles. i made him a bunny/dragon hybrid (aka i drew him as a bunny and gave him parts of his dt and called it a dragon) <3

[oflgtfol]

john <3

the cunt in yellow

[goldkirk]

I DON'T HAVE TO LIE ANYMORE!

[fluffs-n-stuffs]

silly vampire costumes and their added benefits™️ (directly based on this)

[whyrubuyingclothesatthesoupstore]

Shin and Midori are almost the only characters in yttd that have a whole scene dedicated to them messing with someone’s PTSD

It’s a really good parallel and shows just how messed up Shin’s actions were and how he ended up acting more like Midori even after he stopped trying to. The only person that went as far as Shin did was an actual cultist serial killer and one of the people responsible for the death game happening in the first place

It also highlights their differences because of how and why they do what they do. Shin does it because he thinks he’s justified, and it’s also an impulsive decision made right after Kanna is killed. He’s not there to laugh at Sara when she finds the Joe AI, we don’t even know how he feels about the whole thing after the fact (I don’t think giving Sara amnesia was an intended consequence. I wonder how he reacted when he found out). But Midori makes a whole show out of messing with Keiji, and he had to have planned the whole thing in advance to make the Mr. Policeman doll. He also doesn’t hide behind revenge or a greater good, he just torments people for fun

It really shows how Shin is just that close to being on Hiyori’s level, but he’s not there yet, and the scales could be tipped to either side depending on what happens next

[marimeeko]

Yeah, Izuku is not the sole person to ever call him Kacchan....

But Denki has only done it like what, once or twice?

Everyone else only called him that when they were kids and grew out of it.

Izuku is still undisputed champ of calling Katsuki Kacchan. Kacchan really wouldn't be as much of a thing, if he hadn't kept calling him Kacchan throughout their entire lives. That significance is not nothing.

So like...people aren't exactly wrong to associate Katsuki calling himself Kacchan with IZUKU and his refusal to let that name go.

So I don't fully know what this all means yet, but you cannot deny that the name Kacchan is so heavily associated with Izuku. And that the choice Katsuki made to call himself that over his chosen Hero name is unexpected, and interesting at least.

[jasontoddenthusiastt]

Why are people who look at comic books from a “critical real-world lens” so obsessed with identifying the one person who is “100% right”. That doesn’t even exist in the real world.

Lost Days wasn’t made to protest global issues. It is a comic book exploring fictional character Jason’s mental journey after being resurrected and regaining consciousness against his will and/or power. Now how dare this character, in his own story where he has his own personal objective, not go out of his way to make sure each individual child from the collective hundreds he saved from traffickers and the likes gets adopted into nice homes. Obviously we have to disregard any good he did or that he cares at all because all he did was kill the fucker at the top who was responsible. Winick also never fleshed out all 42 of the trafficked children into nuanced characters with their own thoughts and feelings which was apparently neglectful lol.

In regards to utrh, Idk what this person read but there were more drug dealers Jason didn’t kill than those he did. Not once did he ever say he wanted to eliminate the flow of drugs in the community. He took over the trade. Not to mention he explicitly stated control vs elimination is where his goals differed from Bruce’s pipe dream hence why he’s successful and Bruce is still failing. Obviously if you completely misunderstand the character’s motivations you’ll find issues that don’t exist.

People just don’t want stories to be about what they are about, huh.

[tabernacleheart]

It is very important that we should understand just how Jesus did treat [the sinner]. It is easy to draw the wrong lesson altogether and to gain the impression that Jesus forgave lightly and easily, as if the sin did not matter. [In truth, however, He did not effectively] abandon judgment and say, "Don't worry; it's quite all right." [He never pretended that sin had no consequence, or that it did no harm. Rather, in both mercy and justice,] what He did was, as it were, to defer sentence. He said, "I am not going to pass a final judgment now [for I do not wish to lose you to sin; therefore,] go and prove that you can do better. [Yes,] you have sinned; [but] go and sin no more, and I'll help you all the time. At the end of [your efforts] we will, [together,] see how you have lived." [Always,] Jesus' attitude to the sinner involved [a] second chance. It is as if Jesus said to [each hurting soul]: "I know you have made a mess of things; but life is not finished yet; I am giving you another chance, the chance to redeem yourself, [for that is what I truly wish for you]." ...In Jesus there is the gospel of the second chance. He was always intensely interested, not only in what a person had been, but also in what a person could be. He did not say that what they had done did not matter– broken laws and broken hearts always matter– but He was sure that every man has a future as well as a past, [and He strove to lovingly yet firmly draw every sin-wounded soul into that healing hope with Him.] He did not say: "It's all right; don't worry; just go on as you are doing." He said: "It's all wrong, [but it can change]; go out and fight; change your life from top to bottom; go, and sin no more." Here was no easy forgiveness; here was a challenge which pointed a sinner to heights of goodness of which [they] had never dreamed, [while graciously giving, in Himself, the vital strength & encouragement to reach those lofty realities]. Jesus confronts the bad life with the challenge of the good, [and so flings wide the doors of hope. By all this we see that] the amazing, heart-uplifting thing about Him was His belief in men and women. When He was confronted with someone who had gone wrong, He did not say: "You are a wretched and a hopeless creature." He said: "Go, and sin no more." He believed that with His help the sinner has it in him to become the saint. His method was not to blast men with the knowledge-- which they already possessed-- that they were miserable sinners, but to inspire them with the unglimpsed discovery that they were potential saints.

William Barclay

[gunkbaby]

people who weren’t around for tokyo ghoul re releasing weekly can never understand the anxiety of the entire community being wholeheartedly convinced shuu was absolutely gonna croak it at any moment

[isekyaaa]

The hard thing about typology is that eventually you reach a point where, despite knowing theory very well, you type purely off of habits/quirks/etc because they're easy to catch (when you know what you're looking for) and almost always right.