#you don’t understand. THIS is when we really get a deep look into akutagawa personality

[doctorweebmd]

I’m vibrating at increasing frequencies as me and my partner are getting through the Cannibalism arc. Yes YES it’s all coming together soon you will SEE

[kazuwhora]

hello hello, i see your requests are open now and can i request izana, wakasa, chifuyu and kazutora with an akutagawa!s/o? hope you have a great day/noon/night! ✨🤗

hi anon! sure! I will try my best with izana and wakasa since there's not tons to work with personality wise so forgive me if theirs are a little shorter heh. im gonna include a little blurb from the bsd fandom wiki for anyone not familiar with his character! I like these kinds of headcanon requests so if anyone wants to see more please feel free to request!

"Akutagawa has a black and white "survival of the fittest" view of the world, claiming that weak people should die and give way to the stronger ones. He is not afraid of pain and defeat His ruthless, vicious nature makes him one of the Port Mafia's most dangerous members, feared by both ally and foe. As violent as he is, Akutagawa maintains a generally composed and detached approach. Towards subordinates and superiors alike, he acts aloof, distancing himself from social interactions however possible. Nonetheless, his composure is fragile. Akutagawa is quick to lash out, ridiculing him for risking the bounty by acting recklessly. This quick temper often gets in his way, fuelling his actions to the core of his very being."

SUMMARY: izana, wakasa, chifuyu, && kazutora with an akutagawa!so

CW: hints of toxicity and violence, mentions of sex but not really all that nsfw-ish so otherwise not much else!

IZANA

- this is an interesting one because from what we know about izana, he is very similar in personality to akutagawa in terms of ruthlessness that stems from childhood trauma and isolation.

- in the case of a s/o with this personality, I think it would be a troubling relationship. lots of bitter fights fuelled by nothing but an inability to express vulnerability, while leaving both of you torn up inside and begging for someone to nurture the trauma and allow space for emotions.

- that being said, with toxicity and trauma also comes intense passion and desire. this relationship brings a lot of fire both in the bedroom and outside of the bedroom, with simple arguments often spawning into intense desperate (and lengthy might I add) sex. like, intense. it's almost like sex is the only safe outlet of these pent up emotions, providing a sort of comfort and also distraction for both parties.

- however as I said in general, this is definitely a toxic relationship. one where neither can help the other when it comes to growth and improvement on a personal level. it's unhealthy and enabling, but for a short lived fling it is hot as fuck im not even gonna lie. lots of hate sex too.

WAKASA

- so wakasa is another interesting one alongside izana given the lack of information and content we have about his character so please excuse the slight kc fanon version I have in my head of wakasa lol

- wakasa has a "don't fuck with me because I do not fucking care" type of vibe to him. I definitely think he's the type to completely disengage from the type of behaviours an akutagawa-type s/o might display. this leads to sort of a sense of competitiveness in trying to get some kind of reaction from him, and it has the potential (much like izana) to become toxic in nature

- any attempts to get under his skin are failed attempts, and the way he looks at you with that half bored expression is something that only triggers more of a somewhat emotional response from you.

- with that being said, my fanon version of wakasa is someone who while cold and aloof, is also quite a rational person. he's been typed by the fandom as INTJ which is quite a quick thinker, and I think he probably (despite not showing it very well) has a soft spot for you. but your passion and intensity (as well as your easily triggered dynamic) keeps him from completely being able to express this care in any way other than not engaging with your antics

- as much as there are some similarities with the type of toxicity in this relationship with both wakasa and izana, the intense passion isn't quite the same as it is with izana. instead, feelings of passion are more to the point and driven by pure instinct and desire rather than toxic passion. wakasa seeming like a very literal person, is actually quite mysterious deep down and has a lot (I mean a lot) of hidden desires and kinks that begin to emerge with time. it's rarely a conversation, and more often just something that happens that surprises you. you just have to go with the flow here, and let him take the reigns for once. it might actually be a good opportunity to allow for vulnerability to take the spotlight for once, which is something wakasa is surprisingly in tune with and quite to the point about.

CHIFUYU

- this is something much healthier than the last two. chifuyu, being an enfp is someone that's able to handle this level of intensity in a person while still being able to understand what's really going on.

- call him the trauma counsellor king. he values each and every response to a trigger that you might have. he notices patterns, he makes mental notes of things, and he does this all without making it seem like he's analyzing.

- to be honest he actually loves the spunk you bring on a day to day level. even though most of the time it's driven by bitterness or hate (not always towards him just in general) he is still able to see beyond that and appreciate you for what you are.

- with that being said, chifuyu will not stand for any toxic behaviour towards him. no sir he will not. threats and pushes for fights wont be tolerated, and he will either disengage or try to expose your vulnerabilities in an attempt at forced submission. this can be hard to get used to, especially with having a personality characterized by the inability to accept being vulnerable. but with time chifuyu is one to create a safe space for you to allow yourself to feel emotions beyond anger and resentment, and he encourages this.

- because of this very feelings based approach, intimacy with chifuyu is just that: intimate. he's extremely loving and doting, hoping that his sweetness can rub off on you a little bit. however he's also very accepting of your need for power over him (especially during sex) and will absolutely submit to your needs in order to please you.

- he really likes to put you in a place of pleasure though, so however that may come to you chifuyu is the one to deliver it.

KAZUTORA

- oh boy. this one is a doozy. listen. if we're talking about timeskip kazutora (as is the case with all characters i write about but I feel it especially important to remind ppl of here given his history), we're talking about someone who is quite literally walking on eggshells in terms of his trauma and emotional vulnerability.

- he's pretty good at being emotionally aware of his needs and struggles as well as the needs and struggles of those around him, but that doesn't mean that he's entirely healed or capable of managing toxicity or his triggers. he still slips up from time to time especially when things get hard, and sometimes finds himself falling into his old patterns. after all, he's only human. but this is where things could get messy in a relationship.

- for the most part, like I said, he's pretty good. so let's focus on that part first since I want to give him credit where it's due. he is very desperate for love and dedicated to providing something to his partner. in this case, he will seek to tap into his emotional vulnerability to provide some sort of comfort for you. he wants to see you happy, and calm, because he sees so much of his old self in you that it gets to him sometimes. but at the same time, he struggles with your relentlessness and can become emotionally drained when things get tough. he'll beat himself up for not being good enough to help you, and this is when he'll isolate and fall into old patterns.

- however, akutagawa's personality type isn't all bad. with a s/o like akutagawa, comes an immense amount of protection and loyalty for their loved ones no matter how tough things might be. in this case it might be hard to communicate this, but there will be times when it's needed in order for kazutora to restrain from old habits and ways of dealing with hardships. but he wants to share his healing with you, he wants you to be happy, and more than anything he understands the struggle of wanting to be happy and healthy but being afraid of losing the one thing that makes you you: your attitude and relentlessness. nobody understands this better than kazutora, which is why things between you can get frustrating and very personal for him.

- much like chifuyu, sex is driven towards pleasing you and only you. chifuyu leans more into switch territory however, while kazutora is 100% submissive. in this case it works out well, however he has a lot of boundaries and limitations when it comes to the way in which you function. he doesn't like degradation. instead, he thrives from praise and any sign of love and care. this might be tough for you to execute 100% of the time, but when it comes down to it the way his eyes twinkle for you is enough to make the ice around your heart melt just a little more each time.

[hamliet]

What Does It Mean to Save?

I keep seeing it said that Deku, Ochaco, and Shouto will “save” Shigaraki, Himiko, and Dabi, but that there will be no redemption and/or no survival for them. I’m truly not trying to vague these posts and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but literary criticism is fundamentally responsive so I’m writing this anyways.

I personally think that’s not BNHA’s definition of saving nor of redemption. So here, have a deep dive into literary tropes related to redemption, genre, and character arcs as they pertain to BNHA and the question of: what does it mean to save Shigaraki, Touya, and Himiko?

Before we begin, let me say that while we might be personally uncomfortable with redemption (there’s a redemption arc in BNHA I am personally quite uncomfortable with), that doesn’t inherently mean the narrative won’t go there. The key principle I’m operating on here is BNHA’s message that heroes save people. It’s held up as the highest ideal. 

So let’s talk redemption in BNHA-verse. With this guy, whose redemption arc I dislike in principle but accept as part of the story so don’t come for me stans and/or antis. I’m analyzing because it shows us what redemption means in BNHA-verse, whether or not that is satisfying to you personally as it fits/does not fit with your own morality/philosophy.

If Endeavor can be redeemed and live, and he’s Bakugou’s negative foil, I highly doubt Shigaraki and Deku as well as Touya and Shouto and Ochaco and Himiko will be any different. Why? Because Enji is an adult character. The others--well, Himiko’s age we don’t know, but we do know that Shigaraki and Dabi are technically adults. But does the story consider them adults?

(It doesn’t.)

Child-coded characters are generally more likely to survive a redemption, which I’ll explain more later. First I have to define what I mean by child-coding, because I DO NOT mean this in the way it’s often (mis)used in fandom wank. Child-coding is a real thing, but it is not done to infantilize and it has nothing to do with shipping.

Child coding frames the character as a child for a few narrative purposes to convey a story’s theme or purpose. For example, if it’s a coming of age story coding a character as a child even if they legally are not emphasizes their journey to an understanding of self-actualization, or a true understanding of self with self-awareness and an understanding of self-value. An example of an adult coded as a child is The Kite Runner, wherein Amir is a legal adult for half the story, even married for fifteen years so we’re talking 30s-40s, but he does not truly become an adult until he returns to his homeland and takes responsibility for a childhood sin. In Attack on Titan, the main characters are now nineteen, but are still struggling to take responsibility as adults and have only started doing so now that their mentors/parental figures have started dying.

Along those lines, in any kind of story, you can code a character as a child of someone, regardless of biological relationship, to convey the type of relationship they have (usually a mentor one). For an example of this, see Bungo Stray Dogs’ Dazai and Akutagawa. Despite their two year age difference, Dazai recruited him to the mafia, abandoned him, and Akutagawa desperately seeks his approval. Usually in these stories a character will “overcome” their parental figure. This can be done through overcoming their need for the parental figure’s approval in stories where the parental figure is kindly (such as in Harry Potter, when in the final book Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave the Weasleys to find the Horcruxes despite Mrs. Weasley’s please) or through like, killing/stopping/leaving the parental figure when they are abusive (see fairy tales like Rapunzel and Cinderella). The parental link to self-actualization is because it is childlike (and a part of actual psychology that is reflected in literature) to see yourself as a part of your parent; self-actualized person would see yourself as a distinct person from your parent, but also acknowledge the ways in which they’ve shaped you.

So, how do you code a character as a child? BNHA isn’t subtle about it, because Horikoshi seldom is subtle about anything. The villain trio are all coded as children.

Shigaraki Tomura:

Who cannot achieve self-actualization so long as AFO has access to his body, as he’s literally trying to possess him. He’s trying, but it’s not gonna work because Shigaraki can’t keep AFO and become an adult at the same time. It’s a choice the narrative is setting up: your dream of destroying, or your freedom? (To get the latter, he’ll probably have to destroy AFO).

Todoroki Touya, who is repeatedly emphasized as a small child when compared to his siblings, and yes, I know he’s now tall. Specifically he’s spotlighted as the child of Endeavor:

And he’s the least self-actualized one in a lot of ways, contradicting himself constantly. I’m not Endeavor, DUH! But these are Endeavor’s flames! He’s gonna have to choose one or the other, because the tragic irony is that the more he takes out his rage on those around him, the more like Endeavor he becomes.

And Toga Himiko (who might well literally be a legal child), who is actually the most self-actualized one thus far, because she rejects Curious’s child insistence (Curious holds her in a Pieta pose, based on Michelangelo’s statue wherein Mary holds a deceased Christ):

She’s still got, like, a way to go though:

Because Himiko also wants to be like the people she loves to the point where she loses her own identity in them, which is er, not self-actualization. So she’ll have to choose whether or not she really wants to be like the people she loves or whether she wants to live her own way, which she herself tells us how that would end (death):

Deku said it himself: it’s good to focus on what someone is doing now. And look, I have issues with this statement and how it’s framed. I’ve talked about it at length and it was doomed to fail because Shouto himself told us long ago that it was annoying to hear a righteous speech by a stranger when you hadn’t gone through the same, plus Endeavor kinda failed by choosing being a hero over a dad here. But, the principle is that if the past doesn’t preclude Endeavor from seeking a better self, why would it preclude three characters coded as children, one of whom is literally somewhat the product of Endeavor’s sins? BNHA doesn’t think the past keeps someone from a better future. 

So what about Dabi’s counterpoint, which is indeed valid? Well, redemption doesn’t mean the past forgets, either. It’s complicated and nuanced, and we can debate how well Horikoshi strikes this nuance (it’s got its flaws), and admittedly I don’t know how this will go down in the future. But it is asking Endeavor: how do you redeem yourself to the people you’ve hurt? And we have Endeavor asking this question to Touya’s shrine. I mean, the foreshadowing is obvious. Endeavor has to redeem himself by trying to save Touya. However, it will still probably come down to Shouto to save Touya.

For our three villains, it’s a little harder to predict... well, sort of. For Shigaraki it’s extremely obvious: he has to help take down AFO. Dabi probably has to do something to help his family (siblings probably), but it’s vague. Toga needs help and not condemnation, but presumably she’ll help Ochaco with something.

So, is this redemption? I’d define it as redemption in the eyes of the narrative. To address what makes a redemption is another essay unto itself, but if we bring in the oft-compared Star Wars example: did Darth Vader get a redemption? Did Ben Solo? Everyone says yes to both. However, only Luke witnesses Vader’s redemption, and only Rey Ben Solo’s. So the rest of the galaxy? Doesn’t think so. When I say they’ll be redeemed, I’m defining it as their role in the eyes of the narrative, not whether or not society will accept them or even whether their victims will forgive them (of note, in canonical novels, Leia never forgave Darth Vader despite learning he was her father and obviously knowing Luke’s account of his redemption was true).

So, redemption in a narrative doesn’t mean all of society has to forgive and accept them. Dabi has still like, murdered 30 people--many of whom were thugs, but he himself acknowledges they didn’t deserve to die. Additionally, he himself also acknowledges that the families left behind--their feelings matter:

But why does that mean they have to die? Why even does it mean they have to languish in prison forever? (If there’s even a safe prison at the end of BNHA which I kinda have doubts about.) Heroes have also killed: see Hawks as Exhibit A. In fact, some people want revenge on the heroes precisely because they arrested or killed their loved ones (jail isn’t held up as a rehabilitative place in BNHA’s world. In most countries it isn’t in real life, either, but again that’s for another essay). So why don’t the League’s feelings on Twice’s death matter just as much as the feelings of unnamed and unseen (and thereby less important narratively) characters?

Additionally, regarding death... the villains routinely get called on their death wishes. Himiko’s determination to decide how/when she dies is called out because this is right  before Twice overcomes his trauma to save her, and the next arc they appear in is when Twice dies trying to save her again. Dabi’s suicide wish keeps him from getting close to others, and it keeps getting thwarted. Shigaraki’s obsession with destruction and death is clearly not a good thing, and his rejection of his family’s desire for them to join him in death this past arc is growth.

In other words: what Dabi said and what Snatch said about families and how they feel matter for the villains too. The villains are their own weird found family (Dabi as the deadbeat prodigal brother of both his families). Their deaths--Magne’s and Twice’s thus far, and I’m not ruling out further deaths in the future--affect the others. People’s feelings on losing loved ones matter. The villains are people, as Himiko said herself this arc:

Their feelings about each other matter:

How would Touya dying affect the Todorokis? At least they saved him spiritually, I guess, but that’s absolutely lame narratively, and if you have Enji eventually do a sacrifice to save Dabi (pretty likely, even if I personally think Enji will survive said sacrifice) then what’s the point of Dabi dying? How would Himiko dying affect society? As a martyr like Curious wanted her to be, even a redeemed one? A tragic warning story? What even is the point of Ochaco saving her if that’s the case? If Shigaraki dies, well, who would mourn besides Deku? How would Shigaraki dying affect the surviving members of the league? He just couldn’t be saved physically? 

It’s not impossible some of this happens, but it doesn’t seem like great writing, especially with panels like, oh, these that show us BNHA’s perspective on death:

Sacrificing something is a type of death that occurs in stories; this should happen in a redemption arc, which is why I’ve been saying Enji needs to sacrifice his hero reputation to help save Touya and even then it’ll still be Shouto imo who does the saving. But physical death?

If you want further analysis of the latter two panels and how they relate to the ending, see here.

We already have another villain who will definitely die redemptively (Kurogiri--an adult coded character--because he’s already, like, dead), and Spinner and Mr. Compress aren’t coded as kids so I hold them with anxiety towards the end. But again, this isn’t me being ageist or saying this is the way things ought to be in fiction or real life: it’s me looking at writing tropes and saying that child-coded characters tend to survive their redemptions. See: Zuko. Why? Because the death of children or child-coded characters is a tragedy. When a child-coded character dies redemptively it doesn’t feel like a happy ending and if framed as such, it’s often criticized for bad writing (see: Ben Solo). Curious even called this out in her fight with Himiko. I would hope Horikoshi doesn’t end the story being like yeah Curious was right that’s the best use of Himiko’s/Dabi’s/Shigaraki’s arcs:

Additionally, as for the believability of a character getting a new chance after so much destruction and murder... well, it’s kinda a thing in shonen and even in seinen? For better or for worse, it’s a thing. We have Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z and Kaneki Ken in Tokyo Ghoul (Kaneki, by the way, is absolutely an inspiration for Shigaraki). We can debate how well-written these redemptions are (I personally have been quite critical of Kaneki’s despite wanting it to happen narratively), but it can be done. BNHA’s Japan especially isn’t as harsh a world as Tokyo Ghoul’s Japan, so it would make even more sense for something like Kaneki’s ending.

The reality is that the cycle of revenge via hurting people and then leaving hurting families and loved ones has to stop somewhere. Someone has to be the bigger person and step up and be like “naw.” That’s heroic. That’s brave. That’s sacrificial itself. Justice itself doesn’t really exist in its purest form without mercy.

There’s another genre-reason I don’t see death or jail as likely (I could see, like, maybe a mental health ward like Rei’s? But it’s too soon to speculate).

If saving is considered a good thing for the story, if it’s truly the highest ideal, then saving someone should be rewarded by the narrative. The characters who save should have a positive result to show us this a good thing.

This is why it doesn’t work for the heroes’ end journey to be accepting that some people cannot be saved. The notion of just accepting that you cannot do something, you cannot save everyone, you cannot, cannot, cannot, is called out as a flaw of society. Determination, on the other hand, is rewarded.

We see it with Deku as well as with Mirio.

So, what if they save them and the redeemed characters then go on to sacrifice themselves in their redemption and die (come to the same end)? If saving changes absolutely nothing for the saved person, if it’s too late for the saved from themselves to change and/or do anything that matters besides die, then the narrative theme of saving as important is left unemphasized at best and undermined at worst. Simple intrinsic knowledge that the kids “did the right thing” doesn’t cut it for a story with so much focus on physical saving when the kids are already doing the right thing; moral struggles about whether to choose to be good aren’t really Deku, Ochaco, or Shouto’s arcs. It works for Aizawa’s arc with Kurogiri, but not for the kiddos. If BNHA was more of a philosophical/spiritual text, that would indeed make sense, but it is not. Genre-wise, BNHA is a fantastical superhero optimistic story, not a gritty real-world set drama.

[narrators-journal]

Moonlight

warning: Light depictions of violence, Aku really admires Atsushi’s tiger (idk if it comes off as super sexual, so idk might be a bit monster-fucker-y) Nothing sexual or vulgar, just him being super into watching Atsushi kill.

edit: Had to fix some glaring formatting issues, also just editted some of the choppier bits of the text :D

Akutagawa had no clue why he was out looking for a pissy tiger gijinka at 10 pm, but he was. He wasn't super thrilled about it, to say the least. However, Dazai had called and explained that Atsushi had apparently had an awful day at work or something and then changed into a weretiger in the evening, and the bandaged ADA agent wasn't sure if that was intentional or because of the full moon, so it was now up to Aku to go find the weretiger and bring him back to his apartment before he could cause any trouble.

Any good mafia member would've told the traitorous sociopath to go fuck himself with a cactus, but some weird urge had led the goth to agree to return Atsushi home for his old mentor. Had him receiving the crybaby's address from his mentor and heading out into the darkness.

It wasn't that he still wanted acknowledgment, he'd gotten his praise and acknowledgment a few weeks before. So while he still highly respected Dazai, he wasn't out clicking his tongue into alleyways and lifting himself onto rooftops at such a late hour for his praise. It definitely wasn't out of concern for Jinko, he could care less if the brainless house cat got hit by a car or stuck up a telephone pole. No, what had Akutagawa out near the hellish docks was a lingering sense of curiosity. He couldn't exactly place what he was curious about that exact moment, but he was intrigued. So, he poked around until he finally spotted a familiar flick of white and black disappearing around the corner in the slums.

When he spotted the first signs of Atsushi, Akutagawa dropped to a crouch and crept forward until he could look around the wall to see a dimly glowing white tiger nosing through a trash bag he seemed interested in. With him distracted, Aku took the chance to move towards him, bringing Rashoumon to life once he was close enough. Either the energy or the light near-instantly drew the predator's eye, but either way, he was now staring into the golden eyes of Atsushi Nakajima, or, more so, his tiger.

In that dangerous, uneasy situation, it finally clicked. He'd wanted to see this. Atsushi's full tiger form. That's why he'd agreed to go hunting for him upon Dazai's request. Not only that but staring into those predatory eyes brought a new sensation through his body. Awe.

        "Jinko," He said, doing his best to sound calm while he internally battled a storm of fear, awe, and honest wonder. "Can you understand me?" He asked it nonchalantly, his grey eyes just staying glued to the tiger's golden gaze as he circled to face the vampire of a man properly. With no answer, obviously, Aku took a deep breath to steel his nerves before trying to reason with the creature again, "Listen, I know we don't get along, you annoy the shit out of me, I'm sure you dislike me just as much. But, Dazai sent me to try and return you home, so can you please cooperate?" He asked, but the answer he got was a pretty huffy tail lash and the creature walking past him and across the street to dig through more trash. And for a moment, Akutagawa was nearly mesmerized, forgetting what he was going to say. The hunter's movements revealed the powerful muscles just beneath its snowy, striped fur, it knocked home just how dangerous this car-sized cat could be. He hasn't attacked me though, the mafioso realized, normally Jinko would maul me on sight, but his tiger isn't. Not even a growl. The realization almost made a sense of honor well up in his chest as he followed the giant cat to the next bag of garbage he seemed intent on investigating.

For a bit, the goth trailed after the large predator, his original task abandoned, mesmerized by the sight of it moving so quietly despite its lethal claws and hulking, muscular form. However, his observations were interrupted when a realization hit him like a brick to the face, Of course! He's hungry! No wonder he's been digging through stray garbage bags and whatnot, he's probably looking for meat! He slapped his hand over his face at how obvious that had been, then, he whistled to the massive feline, coughing a few times before he spoke again,           "Would you like to actually hunt, Jinko?" The snowy ears of the creature perked at the mention of hunting, perhaps he can understand me to some extent, the thought was swiftly shelved for later though, he had mentioned hunting, he had no time to ponder how conscious his nemesis was as a likely impatient and hungry tiger. "If you follow me, I can take you to someone you can hunt," he offered, once again looking into the yellow eyes of the beast, almost able to see him contemplating his offer before he suddenly moved forward.

Akutagawa's first thought was that the car-sized feline was going to eat him instead, but no. In reality, Atsushi simply headbutted him in the chest, sending him sliding on his back across the pavement, coughing and wheezing from the air leaving his weak lungs so suddenly.             "J-Jinko!" he snapped between coughs, glowing red in his annoyance, but instead of being even slightly intimidated or on-edge from the show of hostility, Atsushi just continued to headbutt or nose him, pushing him along the pavement until the choking mafioso finally managed to put his hand on the cat's striped, moon-silver forehead, Holy shit, you're so soft, and shove him back enough to let him get back to his feet. "What are you doing Jinko? Don't nuzzle up to me just because I offered you food, dumbass!" he snarled, keeping his pale hand on the cat's head as he glared at him.

The two stood there for a moment, Akutagawa's glow intensifying when Atsushi pushed against his hand and made him step back to avoid tumbling over again, all the while the choppy-haired vampire was trying to decipher what the weretiger might be doing this for. It's not likely that he wishes to eat me. If he did, he would've pounced as soon as I was on the ground...That also means he's not looking for a fight. Could it be his way of thanking me for offering to take him to hunt? Is he just trying to NUZZLE me?? His cheeks heated like stovetop burners at the thought of the elegant predator showing him, his most hated rival, affection of all things. He could handle the tiger trying to maul him, half expected it honestly, but he didn't know how to feel about Atsushi nuzzling up to him as a thank you or otherwise.

It was only when he gave another attempt at a nudge that Akutagawa got the message at long last.           "Oh! You're wanting me to take you there!" He rolled his dark gray eyes at that and pushed himself away from the weretiger, turning around with a huff and starting to lead the way. This also gave his pale cheeks the time to return to normal in the cool night air, though his heart couldn't seem to stay at a steady, calm pace. It kept jumping and thumping unpredictably with the excitement of maybe seeing Atsushi on a proper hunt.

It was sure to be a fascinating sight, to see the massive feline crouched, creeping up on an unsuspecting victim, to see his muscles bunch with so much power just before lunging at the prey. He was excited at the thought of seeing the weretiger's lethal talons tear into a person, and his jaws crunch down mercilessly on his victim's bones. The sheer power of it. The fact that he had fought someone who could tap into that primal potential. He'd looked into such an animal's eyes, he'd seen the human intelligence mingling seamlessly with the animalistic cunning. Atsushi's razor-sharp fangs had been mere inches from such a vital part of his body, and yet he'd done no malicious harm. No, not a scratch. Aku couldn't place the feeling of awe and nebulous adrenaline-pumping thrill he got from it. From being so close to a beast who could end him without hesitation or issue, and yet he hadn't. All of that strength was so beautifully control-

The goth's thoughts were interrupted by another headbutt, this time to his spine, sending him sprawling onto the pavement with an indignant squawk.           "Jinko! Wha- Are you trying to get me to speed up, or fucking kill me?!" He snapped, scrambling to his feet with a small cough and a tidal wave of humiliation for the noise he'd made on his way down, but his only response was another nudge from the beast, one he swatted away. "Oh no! I am not jogging or running ahead of you! Quit acting like an impatient toddler," he scolded, dusting himself off while the tiger huffed like said impatient toddler.

With his own grumpy huff, he continued, leading Atsushi out of the slums and into the nicer parts of town. It wasn't the rich end of Yokohama, where the homes were capped with long driveways and wrought-iron fences or had names for addresses, but it wasn't the slums. The neighborhood they ended up in, while sparse of people on the sidewalk and road, thrummed with life within the safety of the nightclubs and bars that were scattered about. It was somewhere near the outskirts of town without being too far, around there Akutagawa would find the mafia's casino and the one rival casino whose owner was as equally a customer of the mafia as much as a rival.           "Alright, you stay here for a moment. I've got to go find your food. Don't worry, they aren't good, innocent people, so you shouldn't feel a lick of shame for eating them." He promised Atsushi, now standing a few buildings down in a wide alleyway from the rival casino. "You eat the men in suits to your heart's content, in return, I'll destroy the street security cameras." The creature made a noise he assumed was agreement, so he left him in the alleyway and began prowling the street, taking out cameras as he went until he'd not only left the whole street defenseless but also found the owner of the second gambling hall.

Once he'd located the man and his goons relaxing at an outside table, smoking and drinking their booze in front of the closed shop, he used a ribbon of his coat to slither over and knick the owner with the sharpened cloth, slipping away before he realized it was more than a simple bug bite or accidental scratch. With the fresh blood now on his coat, he slunk back to Atsushi, letting the striped hunter sniff the strip of cloth thoroughly before he hoisted himself onto the roof with Rashoumon.

From his vantage point on the rooftops, the wheezy goth could follow the weretiger as he prowled down the street, following the scent of blood until he too spotted the prey at the cafe table and fell into a hunter's crouch. The goth repressed his coughing and wheezing as much as possible, paused with the cat, his grey eyes fixated on the silent animal as he inched closer to the men.

It amazed Aku that neither the owner nor his goons noticed the rabbit-soft white-and-black fur of the weretiger, part of him wanted them to spot the beast before he pounced, just so he could watch them run and panic and really see Atsushi chase down his prey. Sadly, by the time the small group had finally realized they were being stalked, it was too late. Atsushi was already on them, tearing them apart, his powerful jaws turning their muscles to pulled pork in seconds, his talons tearing into them like a hot knife through butter. They tried to run, but they didn't get far before each one was picked off with one swipe of the dark claws, or powerful jaws of the predator.

Akutagawa watched the scene from the safety of the rooftop, his heart racing with excitement, his breath quickening as he grinned like a lunatic. Not even his subsequent coughing fit could ruin the absolute thrill that zipped through his blood at the sight of such a gorgeous, efficient predator crunching on bones like they were nothing, his white fur now stained a lovely shade of red. It took a moment for him to come back from that high and realize that his lightheadedness and shortness of breath had gone from pure elation to an issue, so he had to swiftly fish his inhaler out of his pocket and pull from it, hoping it was enough to open his airways so he would avoid the hospital. He was not keen on having to explain to a doctor what exactly had gotten him so hyper.

Thankfully for the pale mafioso, his inhaler worked. So, after a moment to catch his breath and regain his composure, he brought Rashoumon to life and used it to lower himself down to the pavement again, a safe distance from Atsushi, who was contently tearing the mafia's rivals apart and devouring their flesh. With one final calming breath, he slowly walked over to the beast, not getting a glance as he approached until he was beside the car-sized feline while he chomped at a bone until it splintered.

Once he was sure Atsushi wasn't interested in him, Akutagawa crouched down and gently, tentatively put a hand against his side, feeling the soft, silky, striped fur and perfectly honed muscles just beneath his pale fingertips.          "I can see why Dazai chose you...over me..." he muttered quietly, his eyes glued to the tiger's mouth, admiring his fangs as they worked at the bones and meat of the casino owner, "You are far beyond my power level. So much more controlled, so much stronger, so much more capable than I'll ever be." It hurt to voice these shameful realizations, but for some reason, Aku felt like he wouldn't be judged by the beast, even if it did understand his words, it wouldn't shame him for his admitting to his faults.

So, he just sat beside the tiger, running his hand over the beast's side, shoulder, even along its back, from snout to as far as he could reach behind him. Just taking everything about him in. The car-sized feline didn't seem to care at all, unbothered by the admiring pets, or when Aku grabbed his back paw to flex his toes and unsheath his talons. Some part of the mafioso still reminded him, He could still eat you next, but it did nothing to dissuade the child-like curiosity that fuelled his exploration of every deadly part of the animal, from tracing his muscles, to bringing out his bloodied talons, all while Atsushi ate his fill of his prey until nothing remained save for their shredded clothing.

The pale man simply gathered those up and ran a hand through his chopped up hair,             "I guess I should take you back to your apartment now before dawn comes." he mused, judging that they had about an hour or two before the sun rose and Atsushi likely changed back to his more pathetic, weak form. Aku looked at the weretiger, watching as the beast licked his chops and shook himself off, then turned with a sigh to head to the address Dazai had given him. Atsushi followed without complaint, padding alongside the goth, much more content, it seemed.

Once Atsushi was safely back in his own home, and the clothing was burnt and disposed of, Aku went home to his personal apartment, flopping onto the bed with a half groan, half sigh. Now that he wasn't running on thrills and curiosity, he was exhausted. His only thought before passing out was Never telling anyone of this.

[cureicy]

I love bsd wan because not only does it provide me with much needed serotonin in the form of cute chibi antics, it has some excellent and easy to understand characterization that doesn’t require an entire meta essay to figure out.

First episode: we see more of Atsushi being internally snarky about Dazai’s laziness, discover that Yosano enjoys wine, and Ranpo really likes small spaces full of food to hang out. Second episode: Higuchi is really trying her best to be helpful to everyone at work, and Kyouka’s need to be useful to others sometimes comes into competition with Atsushi’s. I think there’s an argument to be made for neurodivergent Higuchi, honestly; she sometimes misses social cues, hyperfixates on tasks, and has deep seated trauma from being considered useless that she copes with by becoming a people pleaser at the expense of her own health

Fourth episode, we see more of Akutagawa’s intense loyalty to Dazai, but also that Atsushi is passive aggressive and would rather avoid arguments than explain himself. Rather than openly telling Akutagawa “Dazai sent me here to act as the intermediary and deliver the groceries to him,” he just walks away and decides that finding him again is Akutagawa’s problem. He’s usually confrontational, but because of their work sanctioned partnership, he’s just...tired of being forced to work together. So he decides to take the moral high ground because he doesn’t want Akutagawa to have it. And then, when they get in a fight over whether Akutagawa is keeping his promise not to kill, Atsushi stalks him to make sure he’s fulfilling it, then feels bad about doubting him. And the really interesting bit-- he buys him pork buns as an apology, and calls Akutagawa a pig for snatching them up so fast with his ability. But both of them grew up hungry; beast has shown us that they can get along quite well and relate to each other if they meet on equal footing. If Atsushi knew about Akutagawa’s past, I wonder if he would have had the same reaction; if he would have sympathized with hoarding food like you don’t know where your next meal will come from. Then there’s the horror stories episode, in which we see that Kunikida has an extremely unhealthy outlook on work/life balance, Dazai and Kyouka are a bit hit-or-miss on stories that are both appropriate for work and unrelated to mafia trauma, and atsushi’s worst fear is being unable to trust his own perception. Kunikida is scared of failure, Kyouka no longer has a normal fear response because ~emotional repression~, Dazai is really fucking tired and probably needs to look into chronic fatigue as a symptom of PTSD, and Atsushi has been manipulated and gaslit so much that he no longer trusts his own mind to tell him what’s real or not. (That would actually make a good angst/horror fic; atsushi keeps seeing strange things, but can’t tell if they’re hallucinations or not.)

On a lighter note, let’s look at the school AUs. Episode five confirmed that Dazai’s basically a melodramatic chuunibyou, and while he and Chuuya will get into fights with each other, they still care. They’re just tsundere and have no idea how to express affection. And the preschool AU about Dazai getting bullied by four year olds and obsessing over a children’s cartoon was, first of all, a big mood, and second of all, showed that Ranpo has trouble relating to kids his own age and is lonely. Kyouka is creative, but has trouble expressing herself to others and gets disheartened when she isn’t understood. That might explain her blunt manner of speaking later in the series-- when she first meets Atsushi, she introduces herself, explains what she’s done, and expects him to understand her guilt. But he can’t comprehend what she means until she says “I don’t want to kill anyone anymore!” and leaps out the window. They have a really interesting and underexplored dynamic where they care deeply about each other, but don’t have a broad enough worldview to understand each other. And so Atsushi sees Kyouka as an innocent victim of a horrible and cruel person, and Kyouka sees Atsushi as a kind and pure savior who needs to be protected from doing harm, and they don’t truly understand how complex the other is. But they try their best to show affection in the ways that they know how.

tldr, wan explores characterization in simple and easy to understand ways and despite being a cutesy spinoff, it can provide a better understanding of canon

additions to this post are welcome! i’ve likely missed some things and would love to discuss <3

[linkspooky]

Kunikida + Oda: Death of a Good Man

While Kunikida and Oda have never met in canon they are characters with a lot in common. They both essentially play the same role, as the moral center of their respective groups (particularly acting as a conscience for Dazai). They both share the same strengths and weaknesses. However, one lives and one dies. MORE UNDER THE CUT. 

1. Relationship with Dazai

Dazai is a character who has trouble seeing himself as a person. That is, he doesn’t see himself as the same as everyone else. (His ability is titled No Longer Human, surprise, surprise). Oda says as much to Dazai, that traditional values like good or evil don’t really mean that much to him. 

“Whether you’re on the side that takes lives, or the side that saves them nothing beyond your own expectations will happen. Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander for eternity.” 

...

“Be on the side that saves people. If both sides are the same, then choose to be a good person.” - Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era

It’s not that Dazai is a sociopath, or even unfeeling, it’s just that he is so distanced from his own humanity, and from other people. He genuinely believes he can’t feel the same way as they do. Dazai even described the way he saw himself to Fyodor. 

Dazai tells Fyodor that he feels like he’s sperate from everyone else. It’s like he’s the player, and everybody else is pieces on the game board. But, even though he might come up with strategies and move the pieces, he’s not really the one changing things, or affecting other people’s lives because he’s not right there in the middle of things he’s far away. 

Dazai even flashes back to Oda and Gide’s final showdown when trying to explain this feeling to Fyodor. Oda his closest and only friend at the time, who he could not reach out to and save. Dazai believes he can’t touch other people, he can’t reach out and save them, because he sees himself as lacking in feelings or a heart. Which is why, Dazai relies on the people around him. Dazai attached himself to Oda when he was in the Mafia, and then again to Kunikida when he was detective agency to essentially act as his heart, his external conscience for him. That’s the relationship he shares with both of them. It’s why the first two light novels are essentially about Dazai, but narrated from the point of view of his partner at the time. Light novel one is about his partnership with Kunikida, and Light Novel 2 is about his friendship with Oda back in the dark age. The connection between them is that both Oda, and Kunikida are good, just men who have tried to understand Dazai in one way or another. 

The events of both light novels even mirror each other to an extent. Entrance exam is about Dazai joining the agency, Dark Era is about Dazai leaving the mafia. Entrance exam is about Kunikida failing to understand Dazai, but learning to trust him anyway. Dark Era is about Oda being the only one who fully understands Dazai, but then not listening to him at the end of the story. They both end with a symbolic death, Oda commits double suicide with Gide, whereas Kunikida pretends to shoot Dazai in order to follow his plan. 

Dazai’s a master strategist, but he’s not a leader of men, nor does he have any particular ideals he stands for. Dazai was given a position of leadership within the port mafia, and not only did he spend the entire time tormenting his closest subordinate but he didn’t care about the lives of his subordinates the way Chuuya does. 

Dazai sees Kunikida as someone having the ideals he does not have, therefore doing what he cannot, and being what he cannot be to others. This is a role Oda used to serve as his one and only friend. However, while they occupy the same spot as Dazai’s most trusted person their relationships with him are very different.

Kunikida is very combative with Dazai and always fighting against him. He personally expects Dazai to be better in all aspects. He scolds him for being lazy and neglecting his work. When Dazai messes with other people or manipulates them, it’s Kunikida who is the first to get frustrated with him. Kunikida also, tends to lack a fundamental understanding of Dazai. It’s a running joke that he’s always a step behind him (he’s the last person to find out Dazai was a mafia member when everyone else already knew). The literal first thing established about their relationship in the first chapter, is that they are constantly fighting with each other. They barely make it through a dinner with Atsushi. 

However, Kunikida also listens to Dazai when it’s important. It’s the other way around with Oda, Oda is someone who does fundamentally understand who Dazai really is deep down. However, at the same time Oda doesn’t really try to exert any influence over Dazai until the very end of his life. Their relationship was defined by being distant to one another, and not asking questions.

The reason why Ango and I were able to be by his side was that we understood the solitude that surrounded him, and we never stepped inside it no matter how close we stood. 

But in that moment, I kind of regretted not stepping in and invading that solitude.

Dazai Osamu and the Dark Era. 

 Him, Ango and Dazai could only keep meeting as the Buraiha at the Lupin bar if they pretended to not know anything about what each other did outside of the bar. They’re different in one main aspect, Kunikida fights Dazai, and Oda doesn’t start fighting until it’s almost far too late. 

2. Living and Dying for One’s Ideals

One more direct parallel between the two is that Kunikida and Oda are both characters who strive to live up to the ideal they find in a book. Literally. Kunikida obsessively writes out his ideals in his notebook where he has his whole future planned out.

What are ideals? There are innumerable answers to that question. One could say it’s merely a term, or an idea, or perhaps even the soruce of all meaning. But if you ask me, the answer is obvious. It’s the word written on the cover of my notebook.  My notebook has all the answers. It is my creed, my master, and a prophet that guides me. At times, it can either be a weapon ro a solution. Ideals. Everything I am is written in this notebook which I always carry with me. My entire future lies within it - Osamu Dazai’s Entrance Exam

Oda picked up a book and loved it so much he wanted to write the ending for himself.

After worrying about it for so long, I came to one conclusion.  “Then you write what happens next.” I decided to write about it myself. I would become a novelist, and write a story about why the man stopped killing. But to become a novelist, I needed to sincerely know what it meant to live. So, I stopped killing. -   Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era. 

Kunikida and Oda are both characters who find their will to live for the future within the pages of a book. Which makes sense as both characters struggle with lofty ideals and a harsh reality. Oda and Kunikida are characters written about the struggle to be a good man, in a world that is not good. To hold ideals, in a world that is not ideal. This once again ties back to what Dazai said to Fyodor, God isn’t perfect harmony, he’s illogical and absurd.

The world isn’t ideal and orderly. It’s extremely, extremely messy. Kunikida and Oda are both characters who strive to be better, and want the world to be better and because of that they fall into conflict. However, Oda lost his fight, and Kunikida is still fighting. Part of why Dazai got so attached to Kunikida is also because he saw Oda’s ideals within Kunikida, and knew that carrying those ideals could crush him so easily. 

“Justice is a weapon. It can be used to harm, but it cannot protect and save others.”  -Osamu Dazai’s Entrance Exams

The meanings of Dazai’s words are clear when you look at them in the context of what he learned after losing Oda. Oda decided to throw his life away to avenge the children after Gide. He achieved justice then. However, nobody was saved. The children were already dead. Oda himself wasn’t saved. Dazai lost his only friend. 

“Something?” I looked at Dazai. “There isn’t anything, Dazai. It’s all over. Everything. Whatever else happens now is meaningless - just like I’m about to do. AM I wrong?”  “Odasaku...” Dazai said softly. “Forgive me for the absurd wording but - don’t go. Find something to rely on. Expect good things to happen from here on out. There’s gotta be soemthing...”

[...]

Oda’s march against Gide isn’t just tragic, it’s a deliberate choice. It was a suiide. He’s given several oppurtunities to just walk away, or wait for something else to give him a reason to live and he doesn’t. His final actions hurt more than they helped. Yes, he did save Dazai in a way by throwing his life away, but Dazai also lost the person who could understand him. Oda could have lived. He could have done more if he had lived. Dazai even says so in dead apple, saving people is the more beautiful path, but you have to be alive to see that beauty. 

This is also why Kunikida and Oda have such a connection to Dazai. Underneath their struggles to be a good man they are both constantly dealing with suicidal feelings. 

Kunikida is far more fragile than he lets on. Part of the reason he attaches himself to ideals rather than people, is because caring about people hurts, and he is so afraid of failing the people in his life (the same way Oda eventually failed to protect the children) that he can’t admit the depth to which he cares about them.

Kunikida struggles to save everyone in front of him, but that’s also because Kunikida is internally someone who is very fragile. He can’t handle the loss, especially losing those he is close to. When Atsushi is hospitalized after his first fight with Akutagawa, he pretends to be unconcerned. When Atsushi wants to save Kyoka, Kunikida tries to persuade him to not save her. Oda and Kunikida are both avoidant characters, Oda avoided ever stepping inside of Dazai’s loneliness, and Kunikida avoids getting close to others because they fear the people they cannot save. Kunikida cares so much and so deeply, that he’s completely shattered when he fails someone. 

Every strategy by the detective agency’s enemies relies on crushing Kunikida because he’s the easiest target. When he fails like this he wants to give up. Kunikida and Oda have this dark underside to their actions where they’re fighting continually to be better, but when they fail, they long to throw their lives away and give up the struggle. 

Part of the reason they’re attracted to Dazai is deep down Kunikida and Oda both have the same suicidal feelings. Kunikida knows that his ideals will never live up to the reality. 

However, secretly he longs to fail so he won’t have to struggle against it anymore. 

“I let go of Dazai. I understand what he’s aying. Perhaps righteousness isn’t something you seek in others, but something you search for inside of yourself. Even then... Miss Sasaki is dead, and so is Rokuzo.  All I’ve found in my search for righteousness within myself is a sense of hopelessness.”

Osamu Dazai’s Entrance Exam

The question is can you continue to live? Even if you fail over and over again to do better. Even if the things you try to protect all die. Kunikida’s arc so far mirrors Oda’s. The things he told himself he would protect, he failed to. The promises he made, he breaks. He said he was never going to watch a child die in front of him, and then it happens. 

He said he was never going to fail to protect the agency again, but then the agency became the victims of the hunting dogs, and Kunikida had to go completely on the run. He said he was going to throw himself away in a big bang against the hunting dogs to show his ideals would never fail, and instead.

He even loses his ideals and his ability to write in the notebook. So, what is the difference between Kunikida and Oda that allows Kunikida to keep struggling where Oda did not. I think it’s not really a difference between them, so much as it’s a difference between Dazai. Dazai’s grown since then and realized his mistakes with Oda, and because of that doesn’t stay at a comfortable distance from Kunikida.

Dazai has grown enough between then and now he’s able to reach people who feel similiarly to him. He understood the suicidal feelings of both Kunikida, and Oda, but he didn’t reach out to Oda until it was too late. However, Dazai has grown to the point where he not only understands Kunikida’s struggle and sympathizes with him, but he’s also able to say the words he couldn’t say to Oda until it was too late. 

There’s no such thing as a point of no return. There is no point where everything is already over. Even if you fail to protect someone, even if you fail to protect everyone. 

"Anything I would never want to lose will be lost. It is given that everything that is worth wanting will be lost the moment I obtain it. There's nothing worth pursuing at the cost of prolonging life of suffering."

Dazai is still the same person that said this. Deep down that’s what Kunikida and Oda both fear, that after Oda failed the orphans, that after Kunikida could not save an innocent child in front of them, that no matter how hard they fought all of their attempts to protect someone would fail that way. At which point their fighting seemed to become meaningless.

Dazai knowing those feelings has moved past that lament. He still believes that the struggle may be meaningless, but he reassures them that they can keep fighting anyway. 

If there’s no great glorious ideal to live for, if nothing we do matters, than all that matters is what we do. The world isn’t good, the world will never be as good as we want it to be, yet Kunikida can still strive to be good in the face of that.

[along-came-atsushi]

Hellooooo! How do you think Dazatsu would happening ? I love this ship and even if that will never be canon… Well, we can dream, can't we ?

Hellooooo~ <3 Yeah I feel you. I love them, too, they are my OTP!

Me with my shipping glasses on: Dazatsu will definitely happen! How can it not? The signs are all THERE!

Me without my shipping glasses on: It will never happen. None of our gay ships will ever happen. And I know, you know, we all know the reason why. It’s all just fanservice and wishful thinking.

[Beware: Slight spoilers for the Hunting Dogs Arc!]

~ ~ ~

If you’re asking me from a personal POV: I am an avid fan of slow build-up when it comes to romance and shipping. I headcanon for my personal canon that Dazai and Atsushi are not a couple yet. But they are in the phase were they figure out that they have feelings for each other.

I think that Dazai realizes this pretty fast, since he has a good perception of how other people think and is able to interpret their intentions correctly. Which means, that he is able to analyze Atsushi’s personality in a very short time and estimate for himself, if he would like him or not. Despite his outer clownish behaviour, he is amazed by Atsushi when he saved him, especially considering the dire situation Atsushi is in. There are some tiny things I absolutely adore, where you can read that Dazai at least thinks that Atsushi is adorable.

(”You SAVED ME from my attempted suicide no. 16527? How DARE you!? But also: Do you like to wine and dine with me?” And look at his smug smile here, damn.)

In the anime, when he asks Atsushi what he wants to eat and Atsushi answers that he only wants chazuke, Dazai blinks surprised and then giggles. And I just !!!! Man, that giggle is like a: “Haha, so cute! :3″ giggle.

(Bitch, why you’re giggling like a teenage girl? No one understands right now - Kunikida, probably)

During the investigation for the white tiger Dazai learns a little bit about Atsushi, realizes that he had a harsh past, that Atsushi himself thinks he’s not worth living. And that made a deep impression, because: “Damn there was a time where I thought so about myself and I’m still struggling with it :/” and “I. Need. To. Protect. This. Boy.”

Which then leads to his infamous: “I’m not into hugging men”, because: “Haha, nope, I am NOT going to develop SUCH feelings! v.v”  And oh boy, does it look like straight out of a shoujo romance in the anime, when Dazai captures Atsushi in his arms:

(The new ghibli movie looks great!)

And Atsushi on the other hand is like: “Wow, this person is so nice, yet so weird at the same time! :) And this is actually the first time someone is N I C E to me! Who is he? What is he thinking? Wow, he’s so cool and confident, I wish that was me!”

(That is a totally heterosexual way to see someone, Atsushi. And Dazai, what is that soft look in your eyes, huh?)

And then when Atsushi has his entrance exam and he is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of others, Dazai is genuinely surprised. And not many people are able to surprise Dazai, because he’s a schemer and thinks so far ahead.

That for me marks the moment where Dazai thinks: “Oh God, HE’S the one! *_* I want THAT ONE!” and “But that also means he’s WILLING to sacrifice himself for others! D: I need to protect him at all costs!” followed by: “I must suppress my selfish feelings, for everything I ever wanted and that is worth pursuing will be lost the moment I obtain it!”

I imagine that Dazai is constantly torn between his romantic feelings for Atsushi, which he T R I E S to cast aside and suppress, and the fact that you just can’t disconnect from your feelings like that. In the end they often get the upper hand of him.

Which results in him showing his affection in little and subtle things like: fooling around with Atsushi, trying to spend as much time as possible with him, secretly protecting him without everyone’s knowledge, just be there for him (even if that portrait of a father chapter was horribly written in general), very very very slowly opening up and showing a little bit of his true inner turmoil. And over the time this all gets stronger and he tries to honestly flirt with him, all under the disguise of clownery.

(And oh boy, THAT particular scene in 55 Minutes wasn’t even subtle anymore. I almost choked on my water).

.

I think Atsushi takes longer to realize his feelings for Dazai. He is overwhelmed that there are people who genuinely care about his well-being. So, in the beginning, I imagine that he sees Dazai as someone to look up to, since he never had someone like that back in the orphanage. But the more time he spends with Dazai the more he realizes that he can’t ignore certain things: He sometimes can’t sleep at night, he catches himself blushing for some reason, he is sometimes nervous and tries to impress Dazai.

Atsushi: Wow, Dazai is really cool! I am so grateful that he helped me and I’m so amazed by him!

Atsushi’s Brain: Nah, bro, you’re just gay.

Atsushi: Haha, that... isn’t true. I mean, it’s true that he’s... very good looking. But someone like Dazai would never fall for someone like me. Not even if I was a woman...

Atsushi’s Brain: Bro, that’s really just gay.

Atsushi: It isn’t!

Atsushi’s Brain: And what about THAT dream you had last night?

Atsushi: THAT WAS JUST A FEVER DREAM I WAS REALLY TIRED AND CONCERNED OKAY?!

And then they get forcefully separated, because Dazai needs to go to prison. But their thoughts of each other and mental connection never disappears. Dazai slowly replaces the headmaster in Atsushi’s mind:

(I mean even ANGO realizes that there’s SOMETHING going on in Atsushi’s head. AND ALSO can we talk about how there is a HEART on the present Dazai is sitting?! Coincidence? That may be the case of course. But I don’t think so. In this essay I will).

And Dazai legit asks AKUTAGAWA (!!!) to protect Atsushi: “Hey, I’ll be going to prison soon due to personal reasons :) Can you please look after my future husband while I’m gone? Oh, and don’t you dare hit on him! >:| I know you’re slowly falling in love with him, too! EVERYONE IS! The competition is getting tiresome!!!”

So... yeah XD

.

I don’t think BSD’s storyline is even halfway through, and there are still a lot of things to come. There are so many possibilities what could happen, so I’m just getting along with the story as it is and patiently wait what will come next. For now, I hope that we’ll get a reunion hug between Dazai and Atsushi when he (finally) comes out of prison. Man, everyone of these characters could use a hug, tbh. I’m assuming when he comes back Atsushi may confront Dazai with some things (for example his treatment of Akutagawa in the past), and maybe Dazai will open up a little bit. But we don’t know.

Anyways, I’ve been in fandoms for many years now and have different OTPs, and never was I upset when my OTP did not become canon. I kinda always knew beforehand if there was a slight possibility or not, just rolled with it and enjoyed the ambiguous hints that were presented to us.

And of course, we can always dream and headcanon what we want. And then there is still the power of fanfics and fanarts ;D

[animepreferences]

P R E F E R E N C E # 8 - I H A T E Y O U

*Authors Note: I got sent home from work with a fever and I’m feeling a bit ill, but I wanted to write this for you guys. Hopefully my emotions don’t reflect too much on this preference and it isn’t too dark. Sometimes I overdue it a bit when I’m feeling low.

C H U U Y A

“I hate you.”

He had went too far. He knew it almost immediately, as he watched your face change instantly, the anger absolving into hurt. He would watch as your parted lips would mash into a grimace, your eyes instantly filling with hurt. He knew his words were mean, he even knew that he was taking his anger out on you. He didn’t know, however, that you were taking it so personally. And the second the tears would gush down your cheeks miserably, his heart would shatter into a million and one pieces because he would know.

“Y/N-Y/N...” He would stutter, his breath hitching in the back of his throat as he stared at you completely bewildered. He wanted to hold you in his arms, tell you how sorry he was, but he didn’t know how deep the hurt went, and he didn’t want you to push him away. Sure, he would be deserving of that. Sure, it would totally be in order, but it would hurt him. It would hurt him tremendously.

“I’m so sorry.” Deciding against himself, he would enclose you in a bone crushing hug. At first your arms would tighten at your sides, your frame unwilling to budge. You didn’t want to hug him back, you didn’t want to give in to his malicious damage control, but in your heart you knew. You knew Chuuya; the good, the bad, the ugly. You knew his heart, his intentions. You knew he would never purposefully try to hurt you. You knew he would never mean to make your tears fall. He was simply angry. And you knew better than anyone that he didn’t know how to control his anger. You were helping him every day, but he still had so far to go. He needed you. Slowly raising your arms, you would reciprocate the hug, your cheek pressing against his chest. “I can’t take the words back now. I know you may never fully forgive me, but my heart beats for you and for you only. You can’t even begin to know the disgust I feel with myself for making you cry.” He would whisper into your hair, stroking it gently as his own tears soaked into your scalp. “Please forgive me. I can’t lose you, I’m—I’m begging.” He would plead, his chest heaving as his own tears began to fall down his cheeks rapidly. You could hear the desperation in his voice as he cried, the remorse illustrated clear as day. There’s no way this man hated you. Not for one second would you believe that, not when the strongest person you know was currently deconstructing before your eyes in fear of losing you. Chuuya loved you. He loved you so much. This you knew. “I know you love me, Chuuya. I love you too.” You would whisper as his arms would wound tighter around you, his grasp reassuring you that he would never let go of you. Not now, not ever.

-

D A Z A I

“I hate you.”

Tears would roll down your cheeks, as you would drop to your knees face buried in your hands. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” You would scream until your lungs burned, your body becoming weak. “I hate you for putting yourself in danger, I hate for you never knowing when to say no, I hate you for not knowing your limits, and I hate you for-for leaving me!” Your screams would be shrill and desperate, Kunikida’s arms wrapping around your chest as he pulled you back away from Dazai’s nearly lifeless body. “L-Let go of me!” You would sob, struggling uselessly against the strong grasp. You hated how foreign his arms felt, you hated how the person comforting you should be the one who was close to death, not his partner. “Akikko Yosano will be here soon, calm down Y/N. He’s going to be okay.” Kunikida desperately tried to calm you as you let out uncontrollable wails, your screaming now happening against your own will. Really, you had forgotten you were screaming until you felt the urge to black out yourself. Furthermore, everything had became exceedingly blurry. You had always said the day you lost Dazai would be the day your own world would come to a screeching halt. Originally you had thought that it was just the romance speaking; that surely there would be a way to go on without him when that time came, but you were realizing the hard way that that would be impossible. You were realizing that without Dazai, there would be no reason to go on. No reason to live because in your body and soul you knew he was the reason. You knew that he was your purpose. Your only purpose. “You can’t die, Osamu Dazai, if you do I will-I will never forgive you. If you die before me right now, I will die HATING you!” You screamed, finally collapsing into Kunikida’s embrace your head dizzy and light. His arms clutched you tight as you sobbed, pulling the material of his shirt into your fists in frustration. “Damn it, damn it, damn it all.” You would whisper, the tears causing your frail body to tremble violently. “Kunikida-San. You can at least wait till my body is cold before you steal my love.” Dazai would choke out, blood trickling down his chin as he let out a strained cough. “Dazai, you idiot save your energy.” Kunikida would scold, loosening his grip so you could crawl to Dazai instinctively. “Don’t you dare die.” You would whisper, placing his head in your lap as you leaned down to kiss his nose, his blood transferring to your own face. “How can I knowing that you would hate me if I did?” He would inquire, his voice weak, his eyes blinking slowly. “That-That’s right. I would hate you so much.” You cried, tears dripping onto his face as he let out a frail laugh. “We can’t have that.” Feeling a hand on your shoulder, you would look up to see Yasano with genuine smile, her eyes hopeful and confident. “I can take it from here, Y/N-ah. This lunatic isn’t going to die that easy.”

-

A K U T A G A W A

“I hate you.”

You would explode, turning on your heel in a complete fit of rage. “Is that what you wanted to hear Akutagawa? Are you happy now? I hate you! I hate you! I HATE YOU!” Picking up the vase beside you, you would throw it to the ground with infuriation, ignoring how it scattered around you in a multitude of minuscule pieces. “It’s like you can’t even understand me unless I am speaking your language, so do you hear me now? Do I have your attention for once in my life? I HATE YOU!” The tears would roll down your face miserably. You had never once in your life lost your cool on him before. You had always been very patient with his unwillingness to accept the fact that he truly was a good guy in your eyes, that you loved him fervently. But you had grown exhausted by his constant stubbornness. You had had grown tired of having to tell him everyday that his heart was in the right place and he deserved to live. Most importantly, you had grown tired of his constant desire to get you to leave him; even if it was for your own sake. Why couldn’t he get over the fact that you loved him? That you weren’t going anywhere? Sometimes it felt like he didn’t want you anymore, that maybe just maybe he didn’t want you in the same way you wanted him. You just wished he would tell you that. “Y/N-“ Aku would say, his mouth parted in horror. “Don’t-Don’t look at me like that. It’s what you want, right? You want me to hate you, you want me to leave! Maybe I will!” The scream was gut wrenching, taking every last bit of energy out of you as you dropped to your knees ignoring the glass that crunched beneath your knees. The pain was unbearable, blood oozing out of you at a rapid pace, but not as unbearable as the thought of leaving Akutagawa was. To be completely fair, nothing was as unbearable as that. The room would fall into a pit of silence as your sobs would rake through your body, your sniffles as loud as a gun shot. Then Akutagawa would speak and say the words you had always yearned to hear. “I love you. Even if you do hate me. I love you for now and for always.” It was the words you had first uttered when Akutagawa had told you that he hated you. You couldn’t believe he remembered those words down to punctuation, you couldn’t believe that he was reciting them to you now. Truly he wouldn’t have remembered if he didn’t love you. “I wouldn’t want hurt anybody else either, you’re stuck with me for life unfortunately.” Quoting you again, he would lift you up by the armpits, supporting your limp body as you continued to cry against him. “I’m so sorry I’ve hurt you. I don’t for a second ever want you to leave me. I love you more than anything, more than life itself. You know how many things I’ve loved before you? I’ll give you a hint: nothing. But you...You’ve changed my life forever, Y/N. You’ve shown me humility, compassion, love...To me you are irreplaceable. To me, you are the reason why the world turns. To me, you are my reason for everything. Don’t ever leave me, I beg of you.” Usually a red blush would creep to his cheeks, but this time his face stayed grave and sincere. For once, you felt his honesty like a ton of bricks. Akutagawa loved you. He really, really loved you.

[lady-tortilla-chip]

I posted 7,487 times in 2021

551 posts created (7%)

6936 posts reblogged (93%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 12.6 posts.

I added 10,492 tags in 2021

#atla - 2048 posts

#fanart - 1644 posts

#bsd - 1593 posts

#bungou stray dogs - 1537 posts

#aang - 989 posts

#aanglove - 765 posts

#lol - 552 posts

#zuko - 523 posts

#nakahara chuuya - 513 posts

#zukaang - 328 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#we literally see him when he’s “looking into the future” and the way he’s moving suggests he’s legitimately living out whatever he’s seeing

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Dazai: Would you kiss Akutagawa for a one hundred thousand yen?

Atsushi: ....I don’t know why you think I have the kind of money to spend on that Dazai-san, but sure.

Dazai: Wait you didn’t get it—

Over in the the PM

Chuuya: Would you kiss the Jinko for one hundred thousand yen?

Ryuunosuke: *immediately slams money on the table*

Chuuya: :0

Ryuunosuke: What? Why is Gin laughing?

535 notes • Posted 2021-01-05 03:58:54 GMT

#4

I sometimes wonder what was goin on in Zuko’s head when he and Aang were trying to the escape the prison. Like when Aang told Zuko to jump on his back he didn’t hesitate but like? Did he think in his head “that sounds dangerous” then go “wtf??” When Aang just easily carried him? Or when Aang held him with his thighs? That small dude? Just? Holding Zuko’s buff self like it was nothing? What did he think????

653 notes • Posted 2021-01-27 01:04:07 GMT

#3

Some of y’all really can’t accept that Azula knew deep down that her mother loved her because in order to do that you have to recognize that Azula’s problems stemmed from her own inability to love herself as a person. Yes her issues with her mother were hugely related to her problems but the core of it was that she saw herself as a monster. (Which works as a contrast to Zuko who blamed himself for the fact that Ozai didn’t love him.)

724 notes • Posted 2021-07-27 18:24:18 GMT

#2

I don’t know how many of y’all need to hear this but Aang absolutely had a deep understanding of his own culture and to suggest he didn’t is to ignore the PHYSICAL evidence upon his skin that he had to earn in order to have. It wasn’t an accident on the writers part that Aang was a master and had the tattoos to prove it. One of the most important elements to the show and to Aang’s arc is how well he understood his culture and just how deeply he loved it.

On the note of his arc, even if he wasn’t the only one left of his people it was essential that Aang find an alternative to killing Ozai because it was essential that Aang realize he’s capable of being the Avatar and an Air Nomad without compromising either part of himself.

That was his arc. That was the point. That was why he ran away to begin with.

874 notes • Posted 2021-05-26 18:55:07 GMT

#1

You know someone didn’t understand Aang’s arc at all when they say “ok but killing Ozai would’ve been GROWTH for him!”

1000 notes • Posted 2021-01-08 06:08:41 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[rintarous]

try again — a. ryuunosuke

SYNOPSIS | realizing nothing has changed between you and your ex, you thought it would be better if you two would just try again.

GENRE | ex to lovers!au, fluff, angst??

A/N | first piece for bsd omfg im shaking fr,,, takes place around dead apple time lmfao hhhhhh kyoka doesnt exist in this sooo ur ability is demon snow???? fuck i hate this so much lmfao also p.p.s this is my gif teehee ++ ty mal for beta-reading this HAHAHHA i will now [rest] after posting this cs i am: shy good day

“hurry up and go!” you hissed at atsushi who was struggling to turn off the safety on his gun while you were trying to fend off demon snow. atsushi lets out a yelp as he fumbles with his gun. before atsushi could pull the trigger, demon snow was shoved away by no one other than your ex, akutagawa ryuunosuke. 

akutagawa stands up from the ground with a huff. “akutagawa!” atsushi exclaims, aiming his gun towards the boy. akutagawa clears his throat, making brief eye contact with you. you stared at him with an uneasy expression on your face. it has been awhile since you last saw the boy you once loved.

“what a pathetic weapon” akutagawa deadpans, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. “no pea shooter is going to have an effect on her” he emphasizes the last word, her, motioning to rashomon who seemed to have a mind of its own just like demon snow. just as rashomon struts in, you felt demon snow’s presence behind you.

before anyone could attack, the weretiger has pounced on rashomon, sending it to the other side of the street. “how amusing.” akutagawa comments, “let’s see who comes out on top” an amused smile on his face watching his ability take on his proclaimed enemy’s ability. 

“now isn’t the time for that!” atsushi interjects. as the two was about to start bickering in the middle of an ability battle, demon snow takes this chance to make a move on you. you easily blocked her katana with your knife just in time. 

“there should be a secret passage nearby for the mafia brass!” you managed to let out. akutagawa scowls, knowing you were right. “tsk. let’s go, jinko” he calls out to atsushi as he runs towards the restaurant. atsushi looked like he was deep in thought. whether or not to follow akutagawa or help you with fighting your own ability. 

“hey-” “just go! i’ll be there, i promise!” you cut him off, knowing how long he decides to make a decision. you manage to shove demon snow far back but she was quick on her feet. “all right..” atsushi then follows akutagawa. 

you bought yourself some time after sending demon snow flying. you immediately run towards the restaurant that had a secret passage and swiftly maneuver around the bar, barely managing to get inside the elevator and just before demon snow could get you, the doors closed. 

“phew” you huff, catching your breath. “tsk, how weak” you hear akutagawa comment. the air was thick and stuffy. it’s almost like you couldn’t breathe. it was pitch black in the box too, making the situation far more worse for you and akutagawa. you wanted to avoid him as soon as possible but with the given situation, you can’t. 

“this emergency passage was built in case for a gifted attack. the fog won’t reach us here” akutagawa states. hearing his voice again sorta made your heart ache. you truly missed him being around you at all times. 

“what is that fog?” atsushi asked. “dragon’s breath” you hear akutagawa reply.  you focused your attention on the buttons in front of you, not wanting to hear anything. trying to clear your head and getting a hold of yourself. you’re not gonna let some stupid boy change that. your mission is how to get your ability back and that was it. 

“y/n,” akutagawa calls. you felt your breath hitch hearing your name slip off his tongue like that. it felt like home to you almost. “with neither of us having abilities, you could finally kill me just like what you said that night” he says. emphasizing on the word ‘that’; reminding you of that painful night you’re sure you’ll never forget.

the night you two broke things off. the night you never thought would come in a million years. 

you didn’t utter a word and continued to stare at the buttons in front of you. akutagawa tilts his head to the side “what’s wrong?” he taunts. “don’t you have a score to settle with me?” his words laced in venom but you knew better. he was testing you. he was testing if you had the guts to kill him. 

atsushi scoffs, “y/n-chan doesn’t think of you anymore!” he butts in. akutagawa felt his heart drop when atsushi mentioned that. ‘have you moved on from me?’ was a question that asks himself repeatedly. his feeling of hurt instantly changed into anger. how dare this nobody speak for you.

“want to end this while we don’t have our abilities?” akutagawa challenges him. “stop right there” you interrupt the two boys, standing in between the two of them so they don’t start lashing out. you sent a look at atsushi before turning to akutagawa. “cut to the chase. do you know how to get our abilities back?” 

akutagawa lets out a chuckle. ‘what was so funny?’ you thought to yourself. “that’s the first thing you say to me in months?” he then clears his throat once more, “but yeah. i know a way” 

“what is it?” atsushi exclaims once more. “defeat the ability, it would come back to the owner” akutagawa shrugs. he looks at you then to atsushi, “are you that uninformed?” he rolls his eyes. you stare at his face for a bit. your heart racing as it seems like all your memories with him are crashing down on you. did you miss him this much? 

“what is your plan?” atsushi’s question bringing you back to reality. “the same as ours” you respond knowing akutagawa well. akutagawa hums, “i’m going to shred shibusawa’s organs and end his life” akutagawa swears. “why? is there any other way to save yokohama?” he asks the question towards atsushi. 

“we won’t kill!” atsushi declares. “that’s not what the armed detective agency does” he continued. akutagawa lets out a sarcastic laugh. “how funny.” he laughs, “you really are something, jinko” 

“y/n understands what this job is all about” akutagawa suddenly looks at you. you two make eye contact and for a second there, you see his eyes soften at the sight of you. you quickly look away to hide the blush that was now forming on your cheeks. “she’s a former port mafia, after all” he sighs, remembering his golden days shared with you.

“i left the mafia to see the light of day, we talked about this already” you spoke, “i left the mafia to join the agency” you take a deep breath before looking at atsushi dead in the eye. “but the mafia killings are different from the agency’s. there’s a difference” you say.

akutagawa can’t help but smirk a little at your statement. knowing you were at his side rather than his enemy and your colleague. “y/n-chan…” atsushi stares at you in disbelief. “this wouldn’t have happened if dazai-san didn’t join the enemy side” akutagawa claims, “i’ll be the one to kill him.”

atsushi yanks out his gun and aims it at akutagawa. you don’t know what came over you but in one swift move, you jumped right in front of your ex boyfriend, shielding him from atsushi. akutagawa stares at you for a moment. ‘you still haven’t changed one bit’ he thinks to himself.

“i’m not letting you kill dazai-san!” atsushi yells. “and i’m not letting you kill him either” you snap back at atsushi. “y/n-chan.. why?” atsushi questions. from behind, akutagawa smiles and he was almost ready to hug you right there. “just.. don’t kill him. that’s my job” you dismissed. 

before atsushi could say anything the elevator doors opened. akutagawa moves around you, not missing the chance to at least touch you in any shape possible. his touches still have that lingering feel to it and leaves you behind with atsushi in the elevator. “we’re not going with you” atsushi claims. 

akutagawa doesn’t say anything and walks towards more into the darkness. the elevator dings, ready to close the doors when you put your hand over it and rush to akutagawa. “i’m going with him” you tell atsushi. “eh?!” 

in the end atsushi tags along with you. you walked beside akutagawa with atsushi trailing behind you. “y/n-chan, why are you following him..” you hear atsushi dread . “it’s simple. he has information” you look back at atsushi, “he’s a powerful asset and we both have the same goal” you say, turning your attention to akutagawa. 

akutagawa watches you from his peripheral vision before noticing the familiar cellphone dangling on your neck. “you still have that cellphone your mother gave to you?” he asked. you don’t say anything and walked faster. “mother?” you hear atsushi ask.

akutagawa stops in his tracks and faces atsushi, “you haven’t even been told about that?” rolling his eyes, akutagawa turns his attention back to you. “oy, wait for me” he calls to you, picking up his pace to walk next to you. atsushi can only stare at the two of you with a million thoughts running in his head. 

“what was the shortest route again?” you ask akutagawa beside you. “0505” he answers back. you hummed and continued to walk beside him. “i see you still haven’t changed” akutagawa starts, “i figured you would be an entirely different person by now” he shrugs. you bit your lip, not knowing how to respond. “you’re still the same y/n i know” you hear him utter under his breath. 

“that’s cause i still have unfinished business with you” you blurt out. unable to hide the truth anymore. you wanted him back more than ever and meeting him again just proves it. 

akutagawa shuffles closer to you and grabs your hand. “when this fiasco is over, how about we try again?” he proposes quietly. only loud enough for you to hear. you squeezed his hand, a tiny gesture that means a thousand words and makes his heart race over and over again. 

[writing-radionoises]

clear waters

ship: not ship centric, background kunikidazai and shin soukoku

genre: pure fluff

prompt: the ada goes on a family outing

notes: the new chapter has caused me nothing but pain so i wrote another installment in the ada akutagawa series

Atsushi has offhandedly mentioned over lunch break that he had never been to a zoo.

Akutagawa had agreed with him, stating that he hadn’t either, and really had barely been around Yokohama.

Hearing that gave Dazai a pit in his stomach, truthfully, though he’d never say that aloud.

Akutagawa had been with the agency for a little over six months now, they had put their past behind them maybe three months ago.

Dazai had watched the other flourish from afar, watched him open up and feel happy.

Dazai had watched from afar, watching Atsushi and Akutagawa’s relationship develop, giving them little pushes now and then to the final product.

It went unsaid, but Dazai knew what they were to each other. They smiled freely with each other, exchanged small talk frequently over work, and other such things.

Akutagawa had a habit of bringing in hot chocolate for Atsushi whenever he went to get tea.

Dazai had had enough relationships to know what they were to each other.

He was just glad he managed to make it all come together…

Though other than that, the gentle pushes to a relationship, Dazai remained uninvolved with Akutagawa.

Perhaps it was just neglect, or subconsciously avoiding it.

Dazai could recall being dragged to the zoo a couple times by Elise…

“Gin always wanted to go,” Akutagawa explained, sipping at his tea as he looked back up at Atsushi, “Never had enough money, nor time… So it never happened.”

Atsushi smiled in return, “I had never left the orphanage until I was eighteen, I’ve been meaning to take Kyouka for awhile. I think she’d really like it, you know?”

“Then why don't we go?” Dazai said with a smile, from his position on Kunikida’s desk.

Kunikida glanced up at his spouse, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Do we have time for that?”

“Probably not!” Dazai replied, “But regardless, it should be a little family trip! Have a break, we can take the whole agency. I bet Fukuzawa-senpai wants to see the big cats~”

“I wanna see the penguins,” Ranpo proudly announced, “I’ll go ask him.”

“Ranpo, wait-” Kunikida said, though Ranpo had already left the room as the blond sighed and nodded.

“Give in~” Dazai said to the other, ruffling his hair gently.

Atsushi smiled once more, shaking his wrist with glee, “I’m gonna go tell Kyouka!”

He passed his cup to Akutagawa as he dashed for the other side of the agency.

Fukuzawa had, of course, agreed. Dazai knew he could rarely say no to Ranpo, led alone Kyouka, who was extremely excited for the trip.

The group took the bus into the Yokohama zoo and from there, split off into a couple of different groups.

Fukuzawa, Kyouka, and Ranpo immediately went off towards the aquatics section. Kyouka wanted to see otters, and Ranpo wanted to see penguins. Dazai is fairly certain Fukuzawa just wanted to see the other two happy.

Yosano, Tanizaki, and Kenji moved off into the reptilian section, with Kenji mostly leading the way, and Tanizaki clearly nervous.

That left Atsushi, Akutagawa, Kunikida, and Dazai together.

Dazai was fairly certain Kunikida wouldn’t let Dazai alone in a public ever, so he expected this.

Atsushi held onto Akutagawa’s hand, and led them out into the big cats section.

Dazai and Kunikida followed suit.

One way or another, Kunikida and Atsushi trailed off more towards the lions, while Akutagawa seemed mesmerized by the tiger exhibit.

Dazai stayed back, standing beside Akutagawa and watching him intently. He occasionally glanced back at the tiger exhibit, of the tiger just happily basking in the sun. A smile came to Dazai’s face.

“You like tigers?” Dazai asked, to which Akutagawa nodded.

“I thought you knew that,” he replied, looking down at the locket around his neck and fidgeting with it.

It was a golden heart locket, the chain tucked underneath the collar of his short sleeved white blouse. Dazai was pretty certain there was likely a photo of Gin inside the locket, since the two siblings separated, though he had never actually seen it. The most notable part about the necklace was more of the charm on it, next to the locket. It was a simple charm, half of the full yin and yang symbol, the dark side of it.

Dazai had seen Atsushi with the other half of the symbol, clipped onto one of his handmade bracelets that Kyouka had given him.

“Well, I assumed you did,” Dazai replied, half mindedly running a hand through his curls, “Though I thought I’d confirm.”

“Why?” Akutagawa asked, looking up at Dazai in confusion, “What does it matter?”

“Why not?” Osamu replied with a chuckle, “You’re a part of the agency now, you’re like family. Why shouldn’t I know some things about you?”

Ryuunosuke glanced away, looking back at the tiger with a face of dismay.

“... I’m not used to that.”

“Used to what?”

“People wanting to know me as a person, and not just a weapon,” Akutagawa explained, followed by a soft sigh, “There wasn’t a point to getting to know me when I was in the Port Mafia, most of the people I met there were more interested in my ability than my person. Now that I’m here, it feels like whiplash.”

“Ah, I thought the same thing,” Dazai mused, propping up his face in his hands, “I used to be so angry with everyone at the agency, I’m not sure why. Everyone was kind to me, and yet, I still thought everyone there was out to get me… I suppose there probably is a reason I could figure out if I dig deep enough in my memories, but that never goes well.”

“Mm,” Akutagawa hummed in response, nodding along, “It may be… Strange to me as well, because I had never really had a family before.”

“Oh?”

“I barely knew my parents, and I hated them,” Akutagawa said, followed by a slight laugh, “I had always wondered why they bothered creating my sister and I if they were never going to care for us… Regardless, I didn’t know them long, as you know, I grew up on the streets.”

“I remember,” Dazai remarked, “You looked like a drowned rat when Odasaku and I first found you. I just about had to apprehend you to get you to take a bath.”

A smile appeared on Akutagawa’s face as he instantly hid it behind his hand, followed by a laugh.

Dazai stops mid thought at the sight, a certain unnamed emotion making its way into his chest, as if being hit with a sudden understanding.

For the first time in the six or seven years Dazai had probably known Akutagawa, it was the first time Dazai had seen pure joy on the other’s face.

Not fear, not unease, not stress, not anger.

Pure, and unfiltered joy.

It was almost hard to comprehend, Dazai had known this kid since he was fourteen, maybe fifteen, and never seen a genuine smile.

He almost felt like a proud parent, having taken in this kid off the streets and cared for him enough to finally feel joy again.

… Is this how Odasaku felt, all those years ago?

“Dazai?” Ryuunosuke asked, looking up at the brunette with curiosity.

Dazai snapped out of his thoughts, of his own epiphany and gave Akutagawa a smile.

“Hey, let’s go find Atsushi, alright?” He said, ruffling the smaller one’s hair as Akutagawa gave a nod.

They left the tiger exhibit, and met up with Atsushi and Kunikida at the center of the room. Atsushi had ran for Akutagawa instantly, catching the other in a practically bone-crushing hug.

“Ryuu! There you are, I was just about to text you!”

“I don’t answer my texts ever, jinko.”

“Well maybe you should! I’d like to know where you are sometimes!”

“No.”

Dazai looked at the two and laughed, then looked up at Kunikida and gave him a wave.

“Did you have fun, mister honey bunny?”

Kunikida rolled his eyes, “Call me that again and I’ll divorce you.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I might,” Kunikida replied teasingly, “But yes, it was interesting. I take it that it was the same for you?”

Dazai nodded, glancing back at Akutagawa, who was now being clung to against his will.

“Yes, definitely,” Dazai replied, happily, “I learned Akutagawa likes tigers.”

“Ha,” Kunikida remarked, rolling his eyes as he glanced at Atsushi and Akutagawa, “Never would’ve expected that.”

[pompompurin1028]

4, 5, 10, 23, 24, 25, 34,35, 36, 37,39, 43, 44 — sending u the same asks i sent rai cuz i wanna know what goes on in my faves minds 😌🤝 feel free to skip some tho ik its a lot LOL 😭❤️

No worries at all! This made me really happy🥺❤ And I am one of your faves?😭❤ I'll try my best to answer them all hehe

4. Link your three favorite fics right now

Just so you know they’re all about Dazai because I’m biased and he’s my favourite

Limerence in it’s Purest Form (genre: angst to fluff) This is literally one of my favourite fics that I’ve read before I actually started posted on this blog, it is so beautiful, and it made my heart ache at the same time I just- 

Dépaysement (genre: angst) Another fic I read before I started posting on my blog and it absolutely stuck to me. It hurt me so bad but at the same time I think this is something Dazai would absolutely do which only saddens me even more, but it’s also so beautifully potraying Dazai’s character

Kind to the Lovers (genre: fluff) Jess’ writing is always absolutely beautiful, but this is one that I adore, I might be biased since I requested this one. But it absolutely made my heart flutter, and everything about it is so poetic, I could just clench my heart reading through it

There are of course many other fics that I enjoy, but these three are probably my favourites as of this moment

Putting a read more here because this is going to be long, since I also have a horrible tendency to overwrite haha I’m so sorry😂😅

Fic writer ask game

5. What are your fanfic pet peeves? Do they have a huge effect on whether or not you decide to read something?

I think my biggest fanfic pet peeve is that a character is not in character if that makes sense? It just doesn’t feel right to me, and I would say yes, it does have an effect, not really on whether I read something, but more of if I like it or not. That’s why I do try very hard to make sure that when I write I do my absolute best to make sure that if I do write a character that they’re as in character to the best of my ability.

10. What’s your favorite fandom, pairing, or character to read fic for?

Dazai haha. He’s my favourite and my comfort character at this moment, so I tend to read a lot about him. But I also read others such as Chuuya and Akutagawa as well

23. What’s your absolute favorite trope to write?

Hurt/comfort fics. I write a lot of them because I enjoy exploring different emotions, but at the same time I always want a happy or just a hopeful ending for my characters because that is what they deserve, especially in BSD. I especially enjoy exploring Dazai’s emotions in my fics and have the reader help him with getting a revelation and understanding, as it genuinely makes me really happy and I feel like gives a great sense of positivity and hope

24. What’s a trope that you’d like to never hear about as long as you live, let alone write?

I can’t exactly think of something off the top of my head at this moment, but I don’t think I’ll write smut as it makes me uncomfortable

34. How much of yourself and your life experiences do you put into your writing? What do you think your readers’ image of you is?

I would actually say that I put quite a bit of myself into my writing, though of course most the feelings I write in the fics are not my own, as I write mostly from Dazai’s POV. But they are quite personal to me, as I would try to imagine myself in that scenario to write them, and I would also put feelings from my experiences into them if applicable. But if I had to choose one fic that is most personal to me it is this one

As for my reader’s image, I am honestly not really sure haha. I do hope they think me well! Though judging by the way friends whom I’m comfortable enough to show my writing to, they think it’s beautiful, deep yet still feels like me, they enjoyed my play on perspectives, and I can only hope my readers on here feel the same🥰

35. How much has writing fic changed your life?

I think it changed quite a bit! I’ve always loved writing since I was really young, and writing fics actually encouraged me to pursue in this passion and actually get down to write haha

36. Are there any fics or fandoms you’re embarrassed to have written or been part of?

No not really, also I’ve only written for one other fandom than BSD and I am embarrassed about it haha, not for being a part of it but for what I’ve written because looking back my writing style is so bad😭

37. Give an update on your current WIP - if you don’t have one, give a sneak peek to a title or idea that you have and would like to write.

I’m literally working on a fic at this moment👀It’s still in progress but it’s coming along?

39. What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?

I like my writing style as of this moment haha, I do like the expressions that I use and I pride myself in that!

43. Talk about a positive experience with fanfiction or the fanfiction community that you will always remember

Honestly just meeting new people and friends! It is always lovely to me that we can meet people from all over the world because of a common interest!

44. Rant about something writing related

Starting a fic is so difficult for me at least. I always want my opening sentence to be a nice hook but at times it can prove to be quite difficult😥

[dearosamu]

DESPERADO - APELPISIA

SYPNOSIS: she, a dancer with personified problems all the while more that intrigues osamu dazai who came into her life amidst the chaos that is [name] [last name].

WARNING/S: none

nine - ten

"so?"

with arms linked around dazai, [name] gives him a curious glance. "what?"

"how was it? were you pleased throughout this day?

the female nods. "yeah. it's safe to say i enjoyed it. you're surprisingly not you when you're not aroused."

dazai pouts at her comment, with the female snickering at his crestfallen expression. "i'm kidding. you're a gentleman. i just didn't expect this from you." she smiles as they continue to walk in the direction of her home. she still had to pick up yumeno from gin's place after all.

dazai contemplates asking her his question for a moment, unsure if he would get a positive response. he decides against his doubt. "then if possible," he pauses, warily gazing into her [e.c] irises.

"what is it?"

".. could we do this again?" he murmurs. hesitation crept onto her face, worry and doubt edging through within a mirror like image of herself.

"dazai, you understand that i -"

"don't do love, yes, i know. you've told me that like, twice now," he sighs as he attempts to hide his disappointment. he stopped walking by this point, making the female stop abruptly so. [name] gives him a moment to recollect himself, noticing how his hand seemed to tremble the slightest bit. he appeared nervous. which was unlike of the man, seeing how she was used to his calm, almost smug and carefree persona.

"at first i thought i didn't even know id be able to feel that again," he continues. the female blinks at him, frowning slightly.

"but i guess i was wrong."

"you're telling me you have feelings for me?"

"how else am i going to describe it?"

she bites her lip upon the upcoming question waiting to be spewed from her mouth. she was afraid of what his answer was going to be.

"do you see yourself with me for the long run?"

"yes." dazai gives an answer almost immediately. he didn't hesitate. as if he was expecting her to ask him that. it caught [name] off guard, removing her hold on his arm as her face flushes to the slightest shade of red.

for once, the [h.c] haired female was rendered speechless. dazai took her silence as a bad sign and continued to spew words that came onto his mind.

"i mean, i enjoy being with you. i like spoiling you. i feel like i've bonded with yumeno too. and if you'd let me," he clears his throat, preparing himself if he were to be rejected.

"i want to become some kind of father figure for him." [name] stares at him with astonishment. his eyes showed utmost sincerity. she might even say he was way more flustered than her at this point.

"you'd do that for us?" he nods, linking his arms with her once again and saunters forward. unbeknownst to him, a small gentle smile curled up on her lips.

"in that case, i'd love to go on another date with you."

dazai doesn't spare her a glance - he didn't want her to see the blossoming flush on his face. he didn't know why, but he felt his chest enter a frenzy state of ecstasy.

--

how dazai wished he could capture this moment. face flushed and lips agape in shock. she looked adorable all flustered.

"w-what was that for?"

"a goodnight kiss. on the forehead," he grins. he'd have to thank oda for suggesting such a romantic gesture to end the night. it really was unlike him, but he was willing to do small changes. all for her.

"how charming." she moves to unlock the door.

"well, thank you aga-" she was quickly cut off as a small push of force nearly knocked her off her feet, dazai placing a hand on the small of her back to help maintain her balance.

"woah! im sorry!!" exclaimed yumeno. he seemed to have ran from somewhere all the to the front door, gin followed closely behind, giving an apologetic gaze towards the female.

"sorry [name], he got all excited when you called to pick him up."

"it's alright. thanks again so much for sparing time to care of this lil' brat," she ruffles the messy two-toned locks of yumeno.

"don't mention it. i don't do much other than tend to my brother's home. he's always at work. he basically married to it already." she hands [name] yumeno's doll.

"almost forgot this."

[name] gives a small smile. "i'll give you your payment once i get this one home first, okay?"

"by all means, take your time. i'm not going anywhere. i'm always here if you need someone to watch over him." gin waves a small goodbye as [name], along with yumeno are escorted back into their home by dazai.

[name] lets yumeno go in first, leaning against the door frame to bid dazai a farewell.

"this is me," she pauses, leaning up to plant a small kiss near the corner of his lips. she pulls away, smiling at his flabbergasted expression. he looked much cuter this way.

"good night, dazai."

the brunette saunters away from the steps of [name]'s home, passing by gin's place, waving to the woman. "i take it that things went well?" she points to the corner of her lips, noticing the little stain of lipstick smudged on his own. dazai makes no move of removing the little smudge of red on his face, grinning at the younger akutagawa sibling.

"you could say that. still need payment for being nanny for a day?"

she waves his comment offhandedly. "i suggest leaving [name] to take care of it. believe me, she'll probably fight you over this."

"well, you're not entirely wrong."

"she prides herself being a single independent mom. she's just that kind of person. she's really great."

dazai nods, agreeing with her words.

[name] was simply one of a kind.

--

"so are you guys official yet or what?" akutagawa asks, voice slightly muffled as he had his phone in between his shoulder, hands busy with stirring a bowl filled with cookie dough.

"nope. but she agreed to go on another date. still a win for me," dazai echoes. he believed he made good progress. she was all chipper and relaxed.

"i think i'm making good changes - progress? i hope." akutagawa hums in approval. "gin told me about it yesterday when you both stopped by to get yumeno. i happen to think you did well since twelve years-"

"hey, you shush with that!" dazai silences akutagawa before he could drawl on about his previous dating experience. "i'm fine with taking the compliment instead, thank you very much." he continues, sarcasm dripping in his words.

he hears the younger male snicker over the other line. "yeah, okay. whatever you say."

"anyway, are you gonna stop by?"

"well, duh. i'm baking something right now though. shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes."

"great," dazai replies. "make sure to save some chocolate chip for me though. i'll be getting home a little late."

"alright, see you then."

--

"what is it?" dazai communicates through his telecom.

"sir, there appears to be a woman looking for you. a woman named [name] [last name]." dazai nearly sprints out of his office as soon as he heard his secretary utter her name. he made quick, long strives to the elevator to get to the ground floor.

he sees that she was standing idly near the reception desk, anxiety and distress were apparent on her features. they quickly dissipated once her eyes met with dazai. "d-dazai!" she moves closer to him, all jittery laced with alarm.

"[name], what's the matter?" he inquires with care, worry evident on his face as he runs a hand up and down her arm to calm her down.

"can we please talk about it somewhere private?" her voice was small as she requested the brunette for a much more less crowded place. dazai didn't say another word, opting to take her with him to his office instead.

the pair were silent, advancing through the halls until they've reached his office. once they've reached it, dazai closes the door and sits down on one of his office couches, gesturing to [name] to sit beside him. she walked over in the spur of the moment, crawling over to his lap, head buried in his chest as she takes a deep breath. she seemed so distraught, dazai noted. he'd have to let her relax a bit more before he could ask questions.

he had wrapped his arms around her, comforting her in a sense of saying she'd be safe in his arms. no one could harm her. they stayed in that position for a few minutes before she decided to speak up.

"i.. i didn't think i'd see him again." "who?"

"yumeno's father .." she replies somber in a whisper. her lips trembled as she continued. "i-i thought that he'd m-move somewhere else! b-but .. i saw him. i saw him with his- his wife .." she takes another deep inhale of air to calm her nerves.

"but why are you so shaken at this? could you please explain?" dazai asks, running a hand through [h.c] locks, tugging away at tangled hair. he hoped it would somehow calm and distract her enough to explain.

"it was a while ago. i had gotten in a relationship with this guy. i fought for him, you know?" a few tears escaped her eyes. "but i was too stupid. too dumb. i'd fallen for him more than he had for me." she wipes off her fallen tears with aggression, furious at the fact she still spared tears for the man.

dazai remained silent, only tightening his hold on her at her fragile state.

"i didn't mean for any of it to go that far. we were .. so careful. i was so young back then, i didn't realize. then i had yumeno. i thought he'd be happy for me. the only thing was," she pauses, choking back a sob waiting to spill out. "i didn't know he had a wife. i only found out a few months after i had yumeno. he had lied about everything. to both me and her. he's abandoned me. he wanted to take yumeno from me and i .."

[name] stopped, her form shaking with eyes shut tight. she couldn't bare going on. dazai takes her head and places it against his shoulder, placing one hand on her back to rub comforting circles around it. her muffled cries and tears stained his blazer, but he couldn't care much about it in this moment.

"you're scared they might try taking yumeno from you again?"

he feels her shake her head. "i was positive i was done with them. i thought they'd just move on and forget about it. or maybe i'm just being paranoid .." she mutters.

"i just wishes yumeno had a better family for a happier life."

"hey," dazai cups her cheek, tilting her head up to meet his eyes. "don't say that. i assure you, yumeno is far better off with you than those two. " he reassured.

"he's more than lucky to have you." his soft tone and look of fondness had the woman in his arms shaken to her core. her tears had dried up, chest swarming with an emotion she'd describe as yearning.

"listen, i get if you don't want to, but i still stand by what i said," dazai spoke carefully. "you could always come live with me. you won't have to work at that club anymore."

"dazai, i .."

"you don't have to if you don't want to," he places one hand on her left shoulder. "i'm always here for you."

she stares right back at him with an emotion he couldn't perceive. he sighs, mulling over his words. "before you say that you're 'just going to be a burden', believe me, you're not. and you won't ever be."

"i want you to understand that i'm in love with you." he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. dazai squirmed a bit in his seat, uncomfortable with the fact that he didn't know what she was thinking.

"y-you're in love with me?" before dazai could respond, she spewed out words that came to her mind, too overwhelmed.

"why? why me? i've been so rude to you and disrespectful. i -" dazai makes the move of cupping her jaw, successfully silencing her worrisome train of thought.

"you make me feel all kinds of things. my  heart aches for you. it's been a while, you know? pining over you," he chuckles.

"i feel them everyday. i sure as hell don't want it to stop."

the female makes the move of placing a chaste kiss on his lips, moving them ever so softly. they molded splendidly against his. it wasn't a way to silence the talkative brunette, nor was it intense or too rough. it was loving. filled with ardor and raw emotion.

he felt her warmth all over.

he wanted more of it.

[bsd-bibliophile]

If you have only watched episode 31 of Bungou Stray Dogs and have not read chapter 39 of the manga, this is definitely worth reading. If you only watch the anime you are missing out. 

If you’re not convinced check out my analysis under the cut.

Bungou Stray Dogs is more than just an anime series full of supernatural powers, action scenes, and tension between a detective agency and the mafia. The series is based on world famous literary figures, and by doing so invites its readers to compare BSD to the beloved authors and literary masterpieces it features. You are supposed to look closely at the characters, their backgrounds, development, and compare them to the authors and literary characters who inspired them. You are supposed to look closely at the plot, dissect it, notice foreshadowing, and analyze how events are sequenced and presented. Asagiri Kafka, the author of BSD, has obviously written the series in a way that gives bibliophiles a chance to compare, analyze, and dissect the series to their heart’s content. 

The anime does a great job of making the characters Harukawa35 created move and interact in a beautifully animated world. The voice actors put everything they had into their performances and as a result the characters have very distinct voices that reflect the characters’ personalities and traits and draws audiences deeper into the world and story of BSD. The action scenes and moments of suspense are amazing to watch with a heart pounding soundtrack to match. Visually and audibly the series is superb.

However, if you only watch the anime then you are missing out on a lot of the details that make BSD so intricate and adds all the depth to the series. The anime has only so much time, and as a result various moments, scenes, and characters get cut. The anime also has a tendency to prioritize certain characters above others, so anime viewers see a lot of a handful of characters but don’t get to see the other characters’ scenes, backstories, and character development in their entirety. As scenes and characters are changed or left out in the anime the world of BSD gradually drifts away from the manga until ensuring the continuity of the anime means the series becomes more of its own entity and less connected to the manga. Of course the anime has not moved so far away from the manga that it has become its own entity, but there are distinct differences and unique atmospheres that are not shared between the anime and manga.

And that brings me to how the material in chapter 39 was presented in episode 31. There are three important facts in the chapter that makes it so powerful and memorable to readers: 

Atsushi’s experiences at the orphanage: In season 1 on the anime there are various short flashbacks to when Atsushi was living at the orphanage. All are very brief, focus on Atsushi sitting helplessly as verbal abuse is heaped on him, and they are shown repeatedly to emphasize how deeply these experiences have affected Atsushi. Because of that when you see a new moment from Atsushi’s past you instinctively pay attention and notice how it is different from the flashbacks you had seen before. In chapter 39 the flashbacks are more than a mere few seconds where a few words are spoken and we see a helpless Atsushi; these flashbacks are complete stories about very specific instances where Atsushi was blamed, ridiculed, beaten, publicly humiliated, forced to have his foot nailed to the floor, had an unknown liquid injected into his system, was locked up, and taught some very important lessons that he didn’t understand at the time but would make him into the amazing protagonist he turned out to be. Episode 31 did not show any of these scenes in their entirety, condensing them into eight seconds of minute representations of the horrors Atsushi experienced, and only showed one part of an exchange between the young Atsushi and the Headmaster. Considering that Atsushi is the series protagonist it is strange that so much information that is vital to understanding Atsushi’s character was condensed into one third of an anime episode (while Kyouka’s backstory took up two thirds of the same episode).

The way Atsushi views his relationship to the Headmaster compared to how Akutagawa and Dazai view it: Chapter 39 shows Atsushi’s initial reaction the the Headmaster’s death as a kind of manic joy, which is also accurately portrayed in episode 31. Tanizaki, in both the manga and anime, is obviously concerned that Atsushi would be so overjoyed at someone’s death, even if it is the Headmaster who caused Atsushi to suffer so much. However, it is only in chapter 39 that Atsushi admits that he knew very little about the Headmaster and only knew “that he was the king of that small, small country,” the orphanage. That is the first hint that the way Atsushi remembers the Headmaster is skewed because he was so young and ignorant at the time. To Atsushi it is only natural to hate the man who he believed disliked him and tortured him because of it, but to outside parties like Akutagawa and Dazai the situation looks different. It is only in the manga that Dazai helps with the case by contacting an informant and sending Atsushi to meet them. The informant turns out to be Akutagawa. Atsushi and Akutagawa are foils, so while they are opposites they also complement each other which makes Akutagawa the perfect person to throw a wrench in Atsushi’s way of thinking. Akutagawa proves through the information he gathered that the Headmaster was not in Yokohama to do any harm to Atsushi, but to sell a gun in order to buy something and that there was no foul play that lead to his death. Akutagawa is also the only person to point out that while Dazai taught him, the Headmaster taught Atsushi and says he will let Atsushi off the hook today because it is “the anniversary of [his] mentor’s death.” Later when Atsushi doesn’t know how to feel after learning that the Headmaster had come to Yokohama to give him flowers and congratulate him on the person he had become, Dazai is the one to refer to the Headmaster as Atsushi’s father. It is only after this that Atsushi understands the role the Headmaster played in his life and he is finally able to cry and face his emotions and confusion surrounding the Headmaster’s death.

How the Headmaster’s past influenced the way he raised Atsushi: If you only watched the anime then you would have absolutely no idea how amazing and complex a character the Headmaster is! He didn’t just happen to become the Headmaster of an orphanage. When he was a child he grew up in an orphanage, “experienced a hellish life” that made the orphanage Atsushi grew up in “seem like heaven,” graduated from the orphanage only to join the criminal underworld, and he watched as all his friends from the orphanage died and he was the lone survivor. After becoming the Headmaster he, because of his past experience, recognized Atsushi had an ability and hid it from the rest of the orphanage until Atsushi was 18 in order to protect him. He knew how Atsushi would be hunted down and mistreated because of his ability and did the best he could, considering the horrible upbringing he had himself, to teach Atsushi to hate those who would hurt him and do everything he could to survive. The Headmaster taught Atsushi to be who he is and enabled him to have the will and determination to become the person who would save a drowning man while he himself is nearly dead from hunger, throw himself over a bomb to try and protect people in a detective agency he doesn’t know, risk his place in the Agency in order to save Kyouka and rescue her from a hopeless situation, and risk his own life to stop the Guild and become the hero who saved Yokohama. Can you imagine how proud and relieved the Headmaster must have been to learn that Atsushi was not only alive but had saved countless lives? How comforted he must have been knowing that his worst fears of Atsushi being killed, resorting to crime and living in a worse hell than the orphanage, or being tortured or used because of his ability had not become a reality! How could he be considered anything other than a proud father who wants to find and congratulate the son he raised? In my opinion, the absolute worst thing the anime has done is deprive its viewers the Headmaster’s complex and incredible character. Without knowing him there is no way of understanding what Atsushi truly felt and how much he grew to understand himself and his place in the world as a result of learning about the Headmaster’s past and what he had risked and sacrificed for him.

To me the anime’s biggest disappointment is how they treat the protagonist. The most important chapter for understanding Atsushi’s character and what makes him protagonist material has been squeezed into 7 minutes and 43 seconds of an anime episode (about 1/3 of an episode). As the protagonist he at least deserves his own episode explaining his backstory, or the two thirds of an episode that Kyouka got for her backstory. Asagiri Kafka and Harukawa35 took the time to create a vivid portrayal of Atsushi’s childhood and him learning what role the Headmaster really played in raising Atsushi. The writing in this chapter was superb. The characters were deep and fleshed out. The plot and the way evidence and memories were presented were so powerful people were dreading seeing it play out in the anime because it had that big of an effect on them. After getting ready for the most emotional chapter in the series to be animated, actually watching the episode was a major let down in so many ways. 

I will always remember chapter 39 and what it taught me about humanity, perspective, and the influence one person can have on another. Reading it changed me as much as reading No Longer Human has, and I am just as fond of it as I am of Dazai Osamu’s works. What Atsushi and his battle to overcome his past represents has already helped me overcome some of my own demons. I hope more BSD fans will read the manga, and I mean really read it the way you would a work of literature, and allow the characters and writing to really sink in as they read. The manga is just that powerful and that relatable, because all of us have felt like the outcast, all of us have had our own demons from out past that haunt us even after they are dead, and all of us are looking for a place to belong and the power to conquer ourselves.

[linkspooky]

Synonyms or Antonyms: Dazai and Dostoevsky

From the moment they meet within Bungou Stray Dogs, Dazai and Fyodor are set up as foils. 

Foil Definition. In literature, a foil is a character that shows qualities that are in contrast with the qualities of another character. The objective is to highlight the traits of the other character.

That is to say from the moment they are drawn in panel together, the audience is naturally meant to compare and contrast them. Their entire first scene plays their similarities and differences up. First, Dazai dresses as Fyodor not only as a joke but to draw the eye to how similar they are, both of them dark haired skinny males with pale complexions who wear overcoats. 

Dazai explains he was able to predict where Fyodor would end up, because if he were in the same situation it was what he would do. When he says that, Fyodor shows Dazai the same smile he showed him earlier, like Dazai is looking in a mirror. 

Dazai and Dotsoevsky are able to read each other so well, knowing the other like they know themselves. Which allows both of them to continually one up the other and predict the other’s movements. However their relationship extends far beyond ‘Being the same’, or just the fact that they’re both highly skilled manipulators who are able to pull off complex plans. It’s even much more than Dazai and Fyodor are just smarter than everybody else in a way that isolates them. They are each other’s inverse in almost every way while appearing to be exactly the same. I’ll elaborate in detail beneath the cut.

1. No Longer Human

First off, while Fyodor’s character, such as being referred to as a demon and his ideology for crime and punishment draws from Dostoevsky’s novels, the relationship between Dazai and Fyodor is a direct literary reference to No Longer Human. 

The character Yozo (who Dazai is in part based off of due to his tendency towards buffoonery to use as a mask for his feelings, and his ability is directly named after the book) in the fourth Memorandum of No Longer Human discusses the antonym of crime with his ‘friend’ Horiki. Already from the way the narrator describes his friendship with Horiki you can see parallels in how Fyodor views his connection to Dazai. 

The conversation starts when Horiki refers to Yozo as a criminal. Don’t be so cheeky, I for one have never been tied up like a common criminal the way you have.” After that the conversation turns into an antonym game between the two of them. Yozo turns it into a game to distract from the serious accusation that he is actually a criminal and he got away with not only committing double suicide with a lady who amounts to a stranger to him, but he’s lived his life so far stealing money from the other women he’s been in relationship in. The “joke” of the conversation is that while it sounds deep, the two of them are just playing a game.

Any of these two words could be set up as antonyms as long as you give enough justification. It’s a joke of binary opposition and dualism. In short, you can give justification that things are opposites, or you can give justification that things are actually the same, there is no universal truth there is only differing justifications. 

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At the end of the conversation Yozo relents to this point, he tries to think of antonyms of crime but they are all synonyms. Crime, and god, Crime and repetance, Crime and confession, Crime and punishment  he finally questions whether the last is synonym or antonym but before he can finish the thought he’s interrupted. Just before then though, he believes himself having come to an understanding of the chaos of Dostoesvski’s mind. 

Hence the relationship between Dazai and Fyodor. We are meant to question, are they synonyms, persons with similar meaning, or are they antonyms absolutely incompatible ideas as irreconcilable as oil and water. Note that in the original novel Yozo does not really come to a conclusion on this thought, and in all of my thinking this over I don’t think we are meant to see them as all the way one way or the other just yet. 

Either way this conversation has already been referenced several times in Bungo Stray Dogs. “God, is the antonym of crime”. Then you have Dostoevsky who positions himself as the opposite of crime, and therefore sees it is his responsibility to become God. 

However, the antonym of God is posited by Yozo not to be crime, but rather satan. Therefore we have Dostoevsky not only taking on the role of God, but also of a demon. Despite being referred to as “Demon Fyodor” several times, Dotsoevsky actually positions himself as both at once, he is both God and his Antonym the devil, and therefore they are synonymous because they are both him. 

Horiki at one point in the conversation even references, that while talking philosophically about crime Yozo is also a criminal. What does Fyodor do, but get Dazai arrested and separated from the rest of the Detective Agency for the crimes he committed in the past, because despite which side Dazai is on in the eyes of the law he is just as much a criminal as Dostoevsky is. Even if they are on opposite sides of a conflict (antonyms) they will still be seen as the same in the eyes of society (synonyms). 

Then there’s of course the scene from the movie Bungo Stray Dogs: Dead Apple which directly references not only this conversation with Horiki, but at the same time the novel Crime and Punishment.

Therefore in the original text Yozo may see them as antonyms, but Fyodor makes the argument they are synonyms. While he does so, both him and his shadow (his ability removed from him by the fog) are standing in juxtaposition of each other holding contrasting objects. A skull, and an apple. Apples can literally symbolize so many things, but here it’s just a symbol of binary opposites life and death. Or rather what is perceived as binary opposites. Life and death perceived as antonyms can also be seen as synonyms as Dazai explained to Chuuya. 

Death can be viewed as something opposite and entirely alien to life. That is life cannot possibly exist within death, because death by its nature kills life, or death can be viewed as a natural part of life. Therefore it is impossible to understand the value of life without contemplating it’s perceived opposite death. 

Poison and medicine can be seen as opposites, one kills and one saves, but if you overdose on medicine its easy to poison yourself with it. The more closely you examine them, the lines between supposed opposites begin to blur. 

Then you have Dostoevsky, crime and punishment are seen as opposites. Crime is unjust, and harms. Punishment is justice, the opposite of crime, it’s foil and prevention. Except, Justice can harm too, it just harms criminals. Except criminals can just be innocent people falsely accused. It’s never as black and white as it seems to be. Therefore, Dotsoevsky’s belief that they are not enemies but rather friends, it’s impossible to punish crime without thinking like a criminal. To punish crime, Dotsoevsky becomes a criminal. 

The apple, and the skull while seeming like opposite symbols can actually be the same thing, hence the title of the movie Dead Apple. 

2. Dead Apple

As the movie is canon material I also think it serves as a great introduction to the psychology of Dostoesvky’s character especially in comparison to Dazai. There are two subtextual psychological components to the movie, drawing from both Freud and Jung. 

In a brief summary of the movie itself, ability users are separated from their abilities due to a fog which causes their abilities to take form and attack them. This is really obvious Jungian shadow symbolism. Their abilities which always exist as a part of themselves and therefore a subconscious part of them are brought to the surface and they are forced to confront them. 

In Jungian psychology, the "shadow", "Id", or "shadow aspect/archetype" may refer to (1) an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself, or (2) the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is the unknown side.

Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspects of one's personality, the shadow is largely negative. There are, however, positive aspects that may also remain hidden in one's shadow (especially in people with low self-esteem, anxieties, and false beliefs).

For example among the three main characters of the movie each of them are confronted with a shadow version of themselves, Rashomon for Akutagawa, Demon Snow for Kyoka and Beat under the Moonlight / The Tiger for Atsushi. There are several Jungian symbols associated with this process already, for one it’s specifically a fog that allows these shadows to manifest. The fog of the mind is what allows us not to be aware of the subconscious. When abilities are stolen they manifest with crystals that appear on the forehead, which also happens to be where the brain is. Neither of the three main characters are able to win their ability back until they accept something repressed about themselves.

(Pictured literally a tiger in shadow, two Jungian symbols the beastial instincts that represent the unconscious mind, and also the shadow which obfuscates). 

Kyouka that she does not want to hate Demon Snow even though the ability is responsible for killing her parents and also making her a murderer. Atsushi is the slowest of all to regain his ability back, due to the fact that he subconsciously rejects being an ability user. We see his flashback in the movie, first he blames the Tiger for his miserable life, he sees the tiger as the opposite of himself beast rather than man, an out of control monster. Then, when he realizes the tiger also protected him during life, despite being violent, Atsushi comes to the realization that his relationship is more complex than light and shadow, complete opposites.

People tend to deny their shadows, but the shadow is not necessarily the true self or more right than conscious mind, at the same time its still a part of yourself that needs to be acknowledged. Atsushi’s ability is even named “Beast under the Moonlight”, the moon is a classic symbol associated with Jung, because it represents the unconscious mind, the time of dreams, illusion, and when shadows are the longest. 

In the climax of the movie they literally ascend a tower, directly underneath the moonlight. 

Then there is Fyodor whose ability never separates from him and attacks him during the fog, and why is this? It’s because Fyodor already knowingly, willfully embraces his own shadow. He has no reason to deny what everybody else represses, because crime and punishment are friends. 

In other words Fyodor already is his own shadow. He’s a walking Id. 

The id, ego, and super-ego are three distinct, yet interacting agents in the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche.

The three parts are the theoretical constructs of how the activity and interaction in our mental life is described. According to this Freudian model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.

Why are both the protagonists and antagonists assembled in trios in dead apple? It’s because both of them are representative of the trio of the psyche. Fyodor, Dazai and Tatsuhiko are deliberately grouped as a trio, because they are Id, ego, and superego. 

Id, or I desire is uncoordinated instincts similar to the shadow. Reading the movie through this lens, it paints an interesting psychological portrait of Dotsoevsky. Of the trio he’s the most straightforward with his desires, he’s the one who seems to be ‘evil’ only for the sake of indulging in it and enjoying it. 

He plays the part of laughing villain the entire movie, and yet he also makes it clear this is an act to him. Therefore, when he claims that this is all for a laugh that’s not a statement that can be taken as a direct truth. 

As the symbolic Id of the movie, as the one who embraces his shadow he also plays the role of bringing the repressed truth that Tatsuhiko hides. He’s the one who encourages Tatsuhiko to rampage at the end of the movie. 

As he gives this speech Fyodor and his shadow overlap, because Fyodor is his own shadow, a walking shadow, he deliberately indulges in the worst of himself. That is why he sees himself as a demon, that is why he acts out on his god complex. That is the methodology which he chooses to bring forth his ideals, a world without Ability Users. 

Therefore his actions in the movie make perfect sense with his established motive in the manga, to commit a purge on ability users. Dazai even asks if Tatsuhiko will be saved by an angel or a demon before Dostoevsky introduces himself as a demon. 

It’s more binary opposite symbolism and the intention is clear. Dotsoevsky views himself as soemone who becomes a demon to save others, in line with his actions in his major introduction chapter in the manga. 

Demons are also in the bible, the creatures in charge of punishing sinners. Despite the fact that they are seen as rife with sin themselves. Another contradiction, for Fyodor a demon is something he has to become in order to punish crime, therefore he walks side by side with his shadow, therefore he indulges his id. 

Then, you have the other two serving as the opposing roles of the mind. Tatsuhiko is superego. Not only is he capable of controlling others to such an extent that he can make their abilities manifest against their will, but the extreme control he has makes him an utterly joyless existence. 

The balance between the two, the ego Dazai is the only one of the three of them who seems to have found any reason to live at all. His reason being the opposite of Fyodor. [Death] and release of the yoke of sin saves the soul. In comparison to Oda’s words. People live to save themselves huh, how true...

Dazai is the only one out of the three who has any semblance of control or purpose to his own life, and it comes from following Odasaku’s words. 

Ango’s summary of the three of them at the end of the movie shows that he does not quite understand Dazai, which makes sense as to why they never quite became friends. Demon Fyodor, Dazai “Disqualified from Humanity” and Tatsuhiko (turns into some kind of weird dragon) all three of them may seem inhuman but the moment you refer to them as aliens you fall for their illusion. All three characters are still undeniably and painfully human. They want to be seen as aliens to avoid being confronted by this, that’s the game all three play. 

Here’s the thing, Dazai is the only member of the trio who is not alone and part of that is because he had a friend who just saw him as he was, a flawed human being. 

3. The Demon Fyodor

For this final part I could list all the similarities and differences between Dazai and Fyodor, but that would just be a boring list so instead let’s analyze Fyodor who is currently the more mysterious character as to his motivations, using Dazai as a reference point. 

Before anything else, I’m going to use Oda’s words on Dazai as a reference point, because Oda had the best read on him. 

"Listen. You told me that you might find a reason to live if you lived in a world of violence and bloodshed. You won't find it. You must know that already. Whether you're on the side who kills people or the side who saves people, nothing beyond what you would expect will appear. Nothing in this world can fill that lonely hole you have. You will wander the darkness for eternity. (...) Be on the side that saves people. If both sides are the same, become a good man. Save the weak, and protect the orphans. Neither good nor evil means much to you, I know... but that'd make you at least a little bit better. (...) Of course I know. I know better than anyone. Because... I am your friend."

So, let’s define Dazai as a character who good nor evil means very little to, and is on the side of saving others simply by choice. He’s not motivated by lofty ideals. He’s not even a particularly moral person, willing to indulge in the unsavory sides of himself if it gets the results of ‘saving others’. 

He’s someone who can commit crimes with little foibles. Though I would not say he does not feel any guilt at all because there’s a clear difference between his mental health when he was in the mafia killing people, and when he was on the side of the Armed Detective Agency. He also has the ability to feel attachment to others, because he was clearly sad over Oda’s death. He’s not empty of all emotion, but at the same time a lot of Dazai’s life is spent in contemplation of his own emptiness. 

While Dazai moves pieces on a chess board and can see the bigger picture, I would argue that his motivations are much more personal and selfish than Fyodor, even though Fyodor is a cackling demon of a villain. Dazai is motivated by human beings and their individual stories, he leaves the Mafia not because of the hundreds of people he killed but because his one friend died. He is pushed to becoming a better mentor, because both Atsushi and Akutagawa need him to be. I’m not saying selfishness is bad, or selflessness is good the entire point of this essay is to deconstruct that simple black and white thinking. 

Let’s say simply put, Dazai is a selfish character, lacking in ideals but still motivated to save others. He contemplates life and death similiar to Fyodor, and the same way that Fyodor finds punishment for criminals in crime, Dazai tries to find a reason to live in pursuing death.

Even that, is a personal motivation. 

So then in comparison, Fyodor is impersonal and acts against his self interest. If Dazai is on a path of salvation, living to save himself, then Fyodor’s path is marked for self destruction. 

Starting with his formal introduction in chapter 42, Fyodor is introduced as a soulless man, lacking sympathy for anybody else. However, I would argue the opposite the chapter clearly shows Fyodor sympathizing with the child he spends most of the chapter talking to.

Remember the entire chapter Fyodor is playing Ace for a loop, he’s only letting Ace see him as he wants to be seen. Therefore everything he’s described as to others “Something more awful, and heinous than a villain” is the act he puts on. 

In the chapter we see a child honestly encourage and try to connect with Fyodor, only for his attempts to fall on deaf ears by the end of the chapter when Fyodor chooses to kill him as a witness. Fyodor gives the impression that he was not listening to the boy the entire time.

Yet, if Fyodor was ignoring him, if Fyodor did not feel a thing about the boy and was not sympathizing him in the least then why did he take the time to explain things and talk to him before sending him off at the end of the chapter? If Fyodor is able to kill him so easily so as to not see him as human, why does the boy feel like he is understood? 

Rather than just ignoring him and treating him like a piece on the board, I argue that Fyodor did see the boy as a person. The panel shown afterwards does not display the emotion of a remorseless slaughter. The entire panel is shown as empty. Fyodor regrets this action, killing the boy in such a way. 

At the same time he feels like he must do something he personally does not want to do. In order to punish evil he must become something even worse than evil. 

Therefore you have Dazai, living to save himself, attempting to be a better person than himself when he’s really just kind of a self obsessed person, and you have Fyodor, who lives to save not himself but the whole world and therefore he must damn himself to demonhood and become the worst version of himself. 

Dazai searches for life in death, hence why he constantly attempts suicide. In its own weird way, his suicide attempts, his getting involved with death, murder, it’s all him looking for a way to live.

Whereas Fyodor genuinely believes with all of his heart, that death is something that cures the sickness of life. Not only do we see him have the opportunity to save someone only to kill them as a witness, denying himself the possibility of redemption. We also see him manipulate a child into suicide in front of Kunikida. 

Because as he currently believes it, the world as it is will never bring salvation to those children. His act of manipulation is just a symptom of what is currently wrong with the world. After all, Dostoevsky pretty easily got this man to agree to arm his little brothers and sisters to the teeth and put them into danger. A child who exists in this world as it is cannot be saved. 

Every character who ideologically alligns with Fyodor is looking for freedom from the world, in some form. Fyodor’s style of manipulation itself is a paradox, he controls their every action even resorting to blatant mind control in some places, and therefore he frees them from the burden of making their own decisions. 

Then, if Fyodor is actually an idealist who genuinely does want a better world, and not just a laughing demon then why does he specifically target Kunakida the idealist of the detective agency? It’s because he’s an idealist, that Fyodor wants to crush him. In other words he wants to break weak and faulty ideals that cannot save the world. 

Yet, it’s also an act of self loathing. It’s not that Fyodor is necessarily evil, but rather someone who becomes evil for the sake of his ideals. The reason for that is ideals are so high and mighty he needs to become god to enforce them, he desires a world much better than this one therefore he carries the weight of the world of his shoulders. As a person, just like Kunikida, Fyodor is constantly being crushed under the weight of his own ideals. That is why he seeks to crush Kunikida, to prove that Kunikida is weak, and therefore he is strong.

If what he seeks is paradise, then it makes complete sense that he would see it necessary to become god in order to achieve that. However in the end, Fyodor is not a demon, nor god, nor alien, he’s infallibly human. He’s so completely obsessed with the bigger picture, with providing salvation to all, that he will never be allowed to moved by personal motivations. 

He sympathizes with the child who is wearing Ace’s collar, but cannot allow him to live even if he wants to. 

It’s not that he will never allow himself to be moved, it’s not in Fyodor’s own mind he cannot. If he were to cede to one personal bias then he would never be able to accomplish his goals that are so lofty that he would need to become god in order to accomplish them, therefore it’s better to become an inhuman monster rather than be tripped up by personal feelings.

Whereas Dazai is motivated towards good and saving others, almost exclusively by the fact that there are people in his life who he is personally invested in. 

It shows finally even in the difference for how they use people. Both Dazai and Fyodor rely on trickery and manipulation to move people, and sometimes it can seem like they only view others as mere pieces on a board. They have a tendency to also assume they know what is best for other people and move them without their consent. 

The difference being that at the end of the day Dazai still sees others as individuals. He always leaves the element of choice. While Dazai pushes Atsushi and Akutagawa together even though they hate each other, because he believes the two of them are what’s best for each other he always leaves Atsushi with the choice of how he wants to proceed. 

Therefore they remain individuals, therefore they are still people in his eyes. Even if Dazai always plays with his cards close to his chest, his plans fundamentally rely on trusting others, and others trusting him. Even in Dead Apple, his plan involved knowing Chuuya would use Corruption and that Chuuya would trust in him to stop him. 

So, let’s say Dazai is someone who generally needs other people to carry out his plans. This is in contrast to Fyodor who once again, takes the burden entirely on himself. 

Fyodor’s allies are more akin to slaves who worship him. 

He literally messes with their brains to free them from hardship. Which goes along with again the binary opposition, his brain is modified to feel unhappiess, therefore he is happy. Because by that black and white logic, unhappiness only exists as the opposite and antagonist to happiness. The extension to Fyodor’s extreme logic, that the absence of crime will therefore bring peace to the world. All of Fyodor’s direct subordinates are liberated in this way, if he takes on all the decision making for himself, takes on all the burden for himself, then they are freed. 

Goggol explains what are probably Fyodor’s own viewpoints via foiling, and being allies very well. That it is easier to imagine all of them as inhuman monsters who cannot possibly have a reason behind their actions. It’s more comforting, it’s freeing. 

To do what he needs to do to change the world, Fyodor must become an unfeeling villain and he does the same to his subordinates, he actually modifies them and removs them of their emotions. 

So therefore it’s a paradox, his allies and servants see themselves as completely free in their devotion to him, yet at the same time Fyodor’s manipulation is the opposite of Dazai’s. Rather than leaving it to choice and trust, he removes their ability to choose, he removes their ability to disobey him. It’s as if the only way he can think of for people to be righteous, is to remove their ability to sin in the first place. 

It’s even apparent in their joke question and answer session. Dazai tells Fyodor to just inspire his subordinates to be better people the way he does with Atsushi and Aktugawa, and it seems like the idea did not even occur to Fyodor. Fyodor tells Dazai the way to win a woman is to cut off everything else to the point where she becomes completely dependent on you. 

So, in conclusion it seems a lot of Fyodor’s mindset is a result of him purposefully taking on the burden of saving the entire world on himself, because he cannot allow himself to view others as equals. In order to continue justifying himself, he needs believe that he is the only person capable of doing these things and therefore he knows better than anyone else. 

Dazai and Fyodor are both smart enough to be aware of not only the emptiness of life, its lack of purpose, its senseless cruelty. Their reactions however are opposite, Dazai decided to live in spite of being unable to ever find meaning whereas Fyodor decided to dictate that meaning to everyone else and decide it for them, like his words are the word of god. 

Bestowing sins is the work of god. If god god does not Exist, I’ll become him. 

[redxblueihateloveyou]

Oh, I didn’t realize you watched Bungou Stray Dogs! I just finished it the other day. Sorry if you answered this before, but why don’t you like Dazai? Also do you ship anything? I personally like Dazai/Atsushi and Atsushi/Akutagawa, but just curious about yours because I really like your take on ship dynamics.

Akuatsu, Akuatsu, AKUATSU 100%! I mean, I’m okay with Soukoku, I really shiped them after s2, but now I just don’t care because I honestly don’t see any progress or caring there (I thought they were the perfect combination, but actually their powers are the perfect combination, not them lol). As I said before I personally think that Dazai was the most human/warm with Oda and I seriously don’t get why he picked that dude as an object of his affections, but whatever. If he doesn’t need us we don’t need him lol

Why do I love akuatsu? They went from mortal enemies to risking their lives for each other; rashomon loving atsushi is the sweetest thing ever (and when you think that it’s really a part of akutagawa it’s even cuter); they gave each other an out from their painful pasts absolutely accidentally (isn’t that a soulmates thing?); they’re literally the ying and yang (I really love how even their clothes represents it and all the dark within the light and light within the dark thing); their bickering officially became “a married couple” kind; I think the “lawnmower” is the cutest nickname; but I seriously love their relationship progression, and they’ve made each other so much better (Atsushi got much more character when he’s with Akutagawa, while Akutagawa learns all these new emotions with Atsushi and now look what a cinnamon roll he became in s3, I cried). I love so so much about them.

As for Dazai, well.. he is one of those anime characters type, who enjoys manipulating people and thinks of them as his marionettes. And I never really found this attractive. Sometimes they give those types some backstory, like how they got this way... to at least like make ppl.. understand them more? And I personally don’t think there can be any justification for behaving like this with ppl who cares about you, but at least it’s something.

But as I mentioned before, the bad thing about BSD is that is has too many characters, but no one even cares to write them. Akutagawa is literally the only one who has a great character progression and walks the right direction, others are just complete fucking mess: Atsushi at least given a full backstory but he’s walking circles every season from accepting his ability to suddenly again not accepting it; we did have a glimpse of Chuuya’s past, but then he’s suddenly dumb as fuck for the rest of the season, which I didn’t think was the case in s2; others are just dark forest seriously with “very very dark pasts” that no one knows about. And I can’t quite care for someone I don’t know anything about.

Also I’m just so fucking in love with characters who stay great human beings even with a horrifying pasts. Because I find those super incredible. Like Levi and Kanda had fucking awful pasts, but man, they’re such good human beings, even though they pretend like they hate everyone which they’re very bad at xD they’re just such kittens.

I guess it just depends on how much inner strength you got. Bc Wei Wuxian could never become like Meng Yao and do things like using good ppl for his gain, even though society also treated him like absolute garbage. He could’ve become an asshole after everything he’s been through and how much he’s lost, but he was strong enough to stay the most amazing human on earth.

I have lots of other examples. But I understand that it’d be weird if every character had a character to stay that way. And sadly it what mostly happens to ppl under such circumstances. And would BSD be some well written dramatic realism I’d watch it differently, but it’s not that deep you know. 

So either way I can’t like Dazai. Because there are ppl who are trying to be good there and he disses them. I don’t really think that they could’ve shown me anything that would justify such behavior, but I mean if they at least showed something I guess I’d at least pity him and let it go. Is he genius? Yes. Is he a good human being? No.

I guess maybe I was just spoiled with so many great characters, but I don’t find him no interesting, no relatable, no charismatic or worth sticking around for, he’s also very selfish and the way he treats Akutagawa and Chuuya makes me very mad (and no, enjoying watching Chuuya destroying his brain is not funny for me). But at least he’s a hardcore Akuatsu fan, so we can agree with him on something haha.

p.s. I actually thought I’ve posted a lot about akuatsu, but maybe not, I need to fix it :D