sorcerersandskillusers

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Witches Abroad!

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hc sometimes I think about what it would’ve been like if Verlaine managed to get Chuuya from the lab and they escaped to some countryside village…just picturing the villagers looking from Verlaine to Chuuya, then back to Verlaine, and they’re like pause…Something Isn't Right. this kid gotta be kidnapped or something ಠ_ಠ

like. can you imagine the two of them (and maybe Rimbaud. maybe not) showing up at some random ass village in the middle of nowhere with absolutely nothing— no luggage, no money, no ID, nothing but the clothes on their back…Verlaine’s all “no one will know or question us this is foolproof” meanwhile the entire village finds him suspicious as fuck 😭

villager: what’s your name, kid? Chuuya: …i don't know Verlaine: he’s shy villager: how old are you? Chuuya: …i don't know villager, half joking: do you know this man [points to Verlaine] Chuuya, looking at Verlaine, serious: …I’m not sure villager: Verlaine: villager: villager, shouting to their spouse: GRAB THE PHONE TO CALL THE CITY I NEED TO REPORT A CRIME

Verlaine: don’t get the wrong idea. this is my little brother villager, looking intently between Verlaine and Chuuya: adopted? Verlaine: no we’re true brothers villager, at Chuuya: oh. so this is your brother? Chuuya, serious: what’s that? villager: Verlaine: villager: let me check the news rn Verlaine: WAIT

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When Asagiri was asked about Dazai’s greatest fear, he replied that the greatest fear for an ordinary person is death.

But Dazai wants death itself, so there is nothing to scare him with.

However, when Oda Sakunosuke died, Dazai felt a terrible pain and does not wish to experience that feeling again.

God this makes this moment in The Day I Picked Up Dazai side B hurt so much.

This is Dazai acting out of fear, not just rage or revenge but actual fear because he remembers the single worst moment of his life in the main timeline and he never wants it to happen again.

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Some really interesting new info on Gogol in the new Q&A

Nikolai's view of crime was not due to a personal past experience, but rather stemmed from his immersion in thoughts and philosophy, which led him to the early realization that humanity's concept of freedom is flawed.

source

This is fascinating, him coming to the conclusion that free will can't exist just by pondering it rather then because of some traumatic event in his past makes his decision to try and prove it does even more interesting.

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It would still be better if I scan the work before posting it, the camera on the iPad leaves much to be desired.

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romantic relationships blah blah blah okay but what about risking everything for your sibling. what about the unwavering love and care that can only come from a parent to a child. what about someone who just wants their best friend back. ever thought of that.

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Fucking caaaaaalled it

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i’m so so tempted to reread the bsd manga from the very beginning because reading one new chapter each month is not enough for me

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Someone give Atsushi a hug or something

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Explanation is not the same as justification, people can have reasons for why they do things but that doesn't change the actions themselves.

it irritates me so bad whenever i see “blame mori” comments on content about dazai abusing akutagawa like holy shit ! people ! are ! responsible ! for ! their ! actions !! dazai was the one who abused akutagawa not mori so it is dazais fault. mori didnt even instruct him to treat akutagawa that way. sure you could place some of the blame on mori just as you could place some of the blame of aku abusing kyouka on dazai but at the end of the day aku and dazai are responsible for their actions.

yes trauma totally went into why they did what they did (hell i dont even think aku comprehends it as abuse “it didnt hurt. dazai gave my life meaning”) but when someone continues the cycle, the whole point of that concept is that they are now becoming an abuser as well and in the eyes of their victims they are just as guilty as their own abuser. we can understand why they did what they did and what went into it but that doesnt change the fact that they are at fault and responsible for their actions.

every defense i see goes like this: “heres why their actions are understandable” like ok great we sympathize with them and stuff but where does that connect to them being blameless??

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Holy shit! This is such an incredibly well put breakdown of an issue that has been driving me crazy for ages. People saying Asagiri "glorifies abuse" are somehow missing that one of the most core principles of BSD is how mutual love and support are always stronger then abuse.

Thats what the ADA as a whole is meant to show, how every member cares about the others so much they would both kill and die for them. How Fukuzawa's care for Ranpo carried over to Ranpo helping Yosano see a future. Oda showing Dazai a path away from abuse leading to Dazai saving Atsushi, leading to Atsushi saving Kyouka.

But BSD also tackles the complexity of abuse, its not always as simple as "evil person hates someone and abuses them". So often abuse comes from trying to help someone. That doesn't make it right, but it is important.

cant stand seeing people take the complexity of atsushis relationship with the headmaster and claim that the author is trying to push that the abusers a good guy. holy oversimplification of an incredibly nuanced topic and portrayal.

atsushi hates the headmaster. he expresses intense anger at him for what he did even in recent chapters but hes also repressing his sadness at his death because that anger is blinding him and its preventing him from being able to complete the grieving process. i think just in general he was struggling to cope with his own emotions at the time. he hated the director and thought that meant he couldnt mourn him. it was much easier to believe the director hated him and that was that but im glad asagiri tackled this topic because it adds so much more humanity to all the characters and is a pretty common aspect of abuse irl.

when he first comprehends the news atsushi is clearly happy but it also feels a bit like hes playing it up. as if he doesnt exactly know how he should act. he reinforces all hes done to him “he abused me horrifically so of course i should be ecstatic” but it doesnt feel entirely genuine. his real feelings are much more complex than that. tanizaki asks him if he wants to know why the director was here looking for him and atsushi says no, insisting the director mustve been here to hurt him. but the way he responds when he learns of the directos true intentions suggests that he mightve been considering this from the start. after all, the director told him to never hate himself as a child but he either blocked it out or didnt pay much attention to it so he mightve already suspected this.

at this age, he already knew the answers to these questions. as a child he believed he was being punished solely because the director hated him (which the director verbally reinforced) and he continued to tell himself that, trying to ignore the bits that suggested otherwise. he told tanizaki the director was probably there to kill him even though he was told that his punishment was a lesson to help him learn to endure pain so he could survive in this world, even after the director told him to take all his hate out on him and to never hate himself, even after the “poison” didnt kill him.

despite all the realizations, he didnt want to accept it. or couldnt for his own wellbeing. at this point, he remembered the directors words about not hating himself, realized he was being punished for going rampant as the tiger and was being fed nutrients, remembered the directors actions that suggested he wasnt doing what he did out of pure malice yet he still couldnt help but try to deny that the director could ever care about him. by now, atsushi knows that its true but he doesnt want it to be

he was unable to cope with the duality of the directors actions and his own feelings so dazai helped him. he told atsushi that multiple things can be true. the headmaster is despicable, he thought he was doing what was best for atsushi, the directors actions are a huge part of what made atsushi who he is today, atsushi doesnt have to forgive him, the director is unforgivable. he told him that he could still hate the headmaster and that he could cry for him as well. he was validating both atsushis pain/anger AND his grief and it was then that atsushi finally allowed himself to mourn.

its also worth mentioning he said “thats what i think” in regard to the orphanage directors actions keeping atsushi alive and teaching him how to live. at the end of the day, it must be said that this is dazais opinion and dazai is someone who has used similar methods. he gave akutagawa a reason to live regardless of how much trauma and pain it led to. he hurt akutagawa for the sake of keeping him alive. the director wanted atsushi to hate him so he wouldnt hate himself, wanted him to feel as if his entire existence is a burden and hes unworthy to live if he doesnt help others so hed save people just as dazai was degrading so that he could give akutagawa something to chase after, a reason to live, and just as he wanted akutagawa to depend his self worth on dazais approval and fear punishment so that he would listen to dazai and wouldnt become a slave to his own ability and destroy himself.

he did it with good intentions in mind but as he said, it isnt justified. although he can most likely somewhat understand the directors line of thinking because of that. so far it doesnt seem like he regrets what hes done because he believes hes getting the results he wanted (atsushi and akutagawa teaming up). he hasnt been shown to account for the pain he inflicted which i assume would be the case with the director as well. they understand their methods are cruel and horrible but they prioritize doing what they believe they need to do to raise aku/atsu right but i digress

and this wasnt the end of things. atsushi is still angry at the director. he didnt let this prevent him from hating him and he didnt start glorifying his abuser. he was finally able to healthily deal with some of his trauma which he still is dealing with to this day and he isnt portrayed as in the wrong for hating him

it is undeniable that he somewhat feels a bond with the headmaster. he looks to him for guidance and even had to cover that up by imagining dazai in his place. the journey is far from over which is another thing i love. him and akutagawa basically fall on opposite ends of the spectrum. both of them look towards their mentors for guidance but atsushis hate overshadows that while akutagawas admiration overshadows his contempt

in the main universe he has supportive people in his life and dazai is able to help him mourn but he doesnt have that support group in beast so when he learns of the headmasters intentions, he latches onto the idea of someone caring about him and glorifies him. it was a trauma response and including it doesnt mean asagiri is saying that the director was a good man. it is far from uncommon for abuse victims to form a trauma bond with their abusers and akutagawa is even shown doing some form of this in the main series. in beast, rather than helping atsushi mourn, dazai uses this situation to control atsushi and he doesnt get the chance to overcome this. at the end of the series, mori is the one offering to help him mourn and it is implied that he is able to heal eventually by letting go of the headmasters gift and finding something else to validate his existence with.

mori expresses he disagrees with dazai and his method of using atsushis trauma to control him as well as the directors cruel methods, insisting he lets him help him overcome his trauma from the headmaster and he is presented as a positive force in atsushis life who is there to help him heal. if asagiri was trying to insist that the director was a good guy, atsushis singular positive influence wouldnt be disapproving of his methods and preventing atsushi from leaving until he can discard of his gift. and he wouldnt continue allowing main universe atsushi to hate him right after dazai explained why he did what he did let alone in the recent chapters

this was longer than i expected it to be so i hope my thought process is coherent and i didnt screw anything up. im always too chicken to post the long stuff but maybe thisll make it out

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The genius writing of Akutagawa and Dazai's relationship.

Dazai and Akutagawa's relatuionship is incredibly interesting and is essential to the story as a whole.

Here I want to talk about how we see Dazai’s careful manipulation of Akutagawa at the start of BSD and what his motivations are for doing it.

In Dazai's entrance exam we see how Akutagawa is still pursuing Dazai even after 2 years. But he is going after him more for revenge, he has clearly become more independent but still desperately wants to find Dazai and hopefully understand why he was left behind.

Akutagawa sternly watches the agent go. “Wait. I’d like to ask you something.” The agent stops in his tracks. “I’m looking for someone. He has the ability to nullify others’ skills upon contact. Know anybody like that?” “Sorry, afraid not.” “Then get out of my sight.” “You got it.” He begins to walk again before disappearing into the darkness of the evening twilight. “…Where did you go? Why did you suddenly disappear?” Akutagawa soliloquizes, alone on the street. “For a moment, I thought you might have been the Azure King, but I was wrong. Where are you? There’s no way you’re dead. You are somewhere here in Yokohama. I just know it.” The winds of the night collect his words and carry them away. “I’ll find my mentor if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll find you, former Port Mafia executive Dazai.”

By the time the manga really starts we see that Akutagawa's attitude towards Dazai has changed a lot.

This is his first time seeing Dazai in years and he is able to keep his cool and brush it off. He is even confident enough to threaten Dazai when we know Akutagawa before this and even later in the series would never.

Dazai taunts Akutagawa here, poking at the old insecurity’s and letting him know Dazai is still not impressed with what he's achieved. you can see from his reaction Aku is affected and shows that even though he's acting tough, he hasn't really escaped his past.

This is where the mind games begin.

Look at Akutagawa's face when he enters ,you can see that he is really nervous about confronting Dazai here, and Dazai pointedly ingoring him like he's nothing when he tries to intimidate him really just emphisises that Dazai doesn't see him as a threat.

Akutagawa tries so hard to be in control here, Dazai is chained up, sententenced to death, has no friends or allies there to help him while Akutagawa has the whole mafia at his back. But still its clear that Dazai is 100% in control of the situation.

Akutagawa hitting Dazai, threatening to kill him, saying how he is no threat, we would never see him do this kind of thing later in the series. Dazai here very carefully brings him right back to the state he was in before he left.

Dazai bringing out every old insecurity, dismissing everything Akutagawa strived to achieve and the strength he uses to justify his existance. We see Akutagawa trying to justify why he doesn't need Dazais approval, how he's a traitor and doomed to die anyway, but Dazai just talks about how disapointing and pathetic Akutagawa was as a student and for Akutagawa who's ability and talent are what he values most thats a deep wound. Akutagawa is trying so hard to control the present but the fact that Dazai's words affect him so much shows that he is still very much trapped by the past.

An important note is that we know for a fact this is Dazai lying. He says multiple times in the Dark Era that he sees huge potential in Akutagawa and that he thinks he could be the strongest ability user in the port mafia. All of this is Dazai deliberately getting under Aku's skin, breaking down the confidence he built in the years after Dazai left.

But what Dazai said that cut the deepest was comparing him to Atsushi.

The fact that Dazai had taken on another pupil after him, and that he said he was better means that Akutagawa was just weak. And we see how after this Akutagawa developes his hatred of Atsushi since to him Atsushi is everything he despises but some he won Dazai's approval.

Akutagawa is brought right back to how Dazai used to train him, the hell he went through to earn Dazai's acceptence, and somehow this random weak coward gets everything he ever wanted dispite everything he did to earn it.

By the Guild arc we see that Akutagawa is now completely motivated by Dazai again. This is also important because he is a lot less cocky here, it's clear that losing to Atsushi really has pushed him to start fighting with everything he has.

On Mobi Dick we see that Akutagawa has completely abandoned the mafias orders and is solely focused on killing Atsushi.

We also see just how much Akutagawa's attitude has changed from when he met Dazai in the prison, here even just the chance to talk to Dazai makes him throw everything else away. He's desprate and confused and needs to know why Dazai would choose Atsushi over him.

Then, Akutagawa learns a bit of Atsushi's past.

This is it, I think that here (even though he would never admit it) Akutagawa kind of realises that him and Atsushi want exactly the same thing, but to Akutagawa approval has to come from Dazai while for Atsushi even he doesn't know how or when it will be enough.

Atsushi thinks his life has no value unless he saves others, Akutagawa thinks his has no value unless he kills others. Both are wrong and both need to learn that from the other.

(Atsushi and Akutagawa's dynamic is also incredibly well done and will probably get an analysis of its own but this one is too long already)

Now I want to talk about why Dazai did this, why he dragged Akutagawa back to this state even after he has seemingly moved on. I don't think it was just to control him (though thats probably part of it), I think it was because he knew that the only person who could save Akutagawa was Atsushi.

Very important point: Dazai was not the one who made Akutagawa think his life had no value, or the reason he was so eager to kill. Both of these are part of Akutagawa long before he meets Dazai. We see in The Heartless Cur that Akutagawa was already very quick to kill and had no will or reason to live.

In the Dark Era Dazai tells Oda that he wants Akutagawa to learn to temper his rage and not always jump to killing.

“That skill user Akutagawa was one of your subordinates, right?” I said, tracing my memory. “I heard he had a rather aggressive skill…but even he’s no match for them?” “Akutagawa—he’s like a sword without a sheath.” Dazai grinned from ear to ear. “He’ll surely become the Mafia’s strongest skill user in the notso-distant future, but for now he needs someone who can teach him how to put that sword away.” I was surprised. I had never heard Dazai openly speak so highly of one of his men like that before. “Is he really that talented?” “When I first saw him over in the slums, I was horrified. His talents are extraordinary, and his skill is extremely destructive. Plus, he’s stubborn. If I’d left him to his own devices, he would’ve ended up a slave to his own powers until he destroyed himself.” Dazai didn’t freely make people work under him, period; much less a boy on the verge of starvation in the slums. But Dazai seemed to have his own reasons for doing it.

Notice how Dazai says he needs "someone" to teach him to sheath his sword, not that "he" can/will teach him.

Dazai seemingly regressing Akutagawa back to being 100% dependent on his approval was because Akutagawa never really escaped it. He was still just an attack dog who killed indescriminatly and whose self worth was tied entirely to his role in the mafia. If Dazai had just left him alone he probably would have ended up destroying himself just like Dazai predicted. But when Dazai met Atsushi he knew he had found a way to save Akutagawa too.

This is not me (or Asagiri) trying to justify Dazai's abuse of Akutagawa. Dazai himself says about Atsushi's headmaster that the methods he used were horrific and unforgivable, but that doesn't mean they didn't shape who Atsushi is now.

In the mafia Dazai wouldn't have cared about how he "saved" akutagawa, he says it to Akutagawa himself.

He immediately pointed the gun at Akutagawa, who was still on the ground. “I have this friend who’s supporting several orphans all on his own, you see,” he continued, his weapon still drawn and aimed at the boy. “Akutagawa, I’m sure Odasaku would’ve been patient enough to give you the guidance you needed had he been the one who’d found you on the brink of starvation in the slums. That would have been the ‘right’ thing to do. But ‘righteousness’ doesn’t take very kindly to me. And there’s only one thing people like me do to useless subordinates.” Dazai mercilessly pulled the trigger the moment he finished his sentence.

We even see this play out in BEAST, Oda and the ADA are able to really help Akutagawa and teach him the value of life both his own and other peoples, what Dazai did wasn't nessacary or justified. But it is what happened and can't be changed.

Obviously Dazai was also struggling with horrific things of his own, but that doesn't change or excuse what he did. Everything he put Akutagawa through left a mark, so to undo that damage and let him move on he needed to make him and Atsushi truly understand eachother by breaking down the walls Akutagawa had put up.

In the end this isn't a moral exploration, good and bad in general have very blurry meanings in bsd (and in real life). I just wanted to deconstruct this since it's such incredible writing that I almost never see talked about. And it's extrememly important for understanding the latest chapters.

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Hey what do you think about the ship of Nathaniel Hawthorn x Kunikida Dopoppo? :)

I didn't know it existed, but if thats what you like then power to you

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I killed 35 people, what about you?

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How have I never seen these???

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"you fought so hard."

new bsd chapter! what the fuck