#abuse era

[outromoony]

I saw a TikTok earlier that asked for a Sirius headcanon they can't stand, and all the comments were: "I hate the over-feminization of him!" but I didn't see a SINGLE one saying: "I hate the over-villainization of him just for leaving his abusive household as a CHILD." And that shows me what these people's priorities are.

[moonstruckme]

hi love I like all ur fics!!! Ur most recent emt Maurader made me realize tho we don't always get to see Sirius being vulnerable so what about a fic where may be he's having an off day? Or runs into a cousin and they completely ignore him and he tries to act like it doesn't bother him and just reader comforting him and giving him space

Thank you for requesting angel!

cw: allusion to past abuse, discussion of toxic workplace dynamics

Sirius Black x fem!reader ♡ 1.1k words

Sirius gets home from work early. You’re in the bedroom, stomach-down on the mattress with your book in front of you. You hear the front door open and come out to greet your boyfriend, but your smile falls when you see him. 

Sirius’ face is red. He doesn’t usually color when he’s upset, so you take it to mean something that he has now. He steps on the back of his shoe a couple of times before he manages to get it off, stomps on the back of the other even more harshly. You think he might be shaking. 

“Sirius?” 

He flinches. Turning around, his expression twinges with some mix of emotions at seeing you, too muddled to parse apart. He seals them all away quickly. 

You take a step towards him. “You okay?” 

“Yeah.” It comes out hoarse. Sirius clears his throat. “Yeah. Just a shit day at work.” 

“You’re home early,” you note. 

Sirius nods curtly. You think maybe that’s that, but his expression is conflicted. 

“Do you wanna sit down?” you ask gently, going to the couch and hoping he’ll follow. He does. It’s a challenge not to reach for his hand, to pull him closer or offer some kind touch, but the stiffness about Sirius’ frame hints that it may not be well received right now. 

When he’s still silent after a moment, you say, “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I could make tea and we could just relax.” 

Sirius shakes his head. “It’s okay,” he says, tersely, like he might be trying to convince himself more than you. “I think I’m probably going to be fired, though.” 

You feel your eyebrows go up. 

“I…you know how I got a new boss a few weeks ago?” 

You nod mutely. 

“Right, well, she’s got a temper. At least a couple times a week I’ll hear her shouting at someone in her office and she’s already managed to fire from almost every team.” Your dread mounts as Sirius goes on, speaking faster now that he’s on a roll. “She called me in after lunch. I fucked up something in a report—I hadn’t checked it and it had gotten sent out with the error—and she was pissed. She screamed at me—really screamed, stood up and got red in the face and all that—for probably ten minutes before she sent me back to my desk. And I just came home.” Sirius lets out a dry chuckle. “If she doesn’t fire me, I might quit.” 

“You should, baby.” Your voice pitches with dismay, hurt and outrage for him warring inside you. You take a chance and reach for his hand. Sirius fits his fingers between yours instinctively, something seeming to loosen in him at the touch. “I can’t believe she really shouted at you. No one deserves that, least of all for a silly error in a report. She should be fired for that.” 

Sirius gives you a little smile, but it dissolves at the edges, watery. A cavity opens in your chest as his eyes grow shiny. 

“Baby.” 

He shakes his head, jaw clenched. Blinking. “Sorry,” he says roughly. “I never used to do this.” You feel your face pinch with sympathy. He means cry, you know. Sirius as an adult is more emotional than he was as a child, but you still rarely see him cry. “She just—she sounded just like my mother.” 

Realization comes like a blow to your middle. “Oh, my love,” you say breathlessly, moving to put your arms around him. 

Sirius usually hugs with his whole being. He throws himself into it, with force and purpose and his own rough brand of caring. So you’re used to letting him take the lead, but now, when his arms come around you hesitantly, you’re the one who applies the pressure. And Sirius melts against you. 

You cup the back of his neck in one hand and squeeze between his shoulders with the other, imagining your love pouring out of you and into him through your palms. Sirius is quiet, but you feel a couple of hot tears transfer from his chin to your shirt. You worry he’s holding his breath. 

“Sirius.” You say his name with all the tenderness you can summon, afraid of him hearing echoes of his mother’s voice. “I’m so sorry, lovely. You never, ever deserve to be shouted at that way.” 

“Even if I told you I left your favorite mug at my office?” he jokes weakly. 

You let him go. There aren’t many tears to brush off his cheeks, and you make short work of them, soothing your thumbs over his face just for the sake of it. Surprisingly, his complexion is less agitated than it had been when he’d come in. He was holding it in, you realize. 

“Don’t ever let me speak to you like that,” you say.

Sirius’ expression sobers. “You wouldn’t. I know you wouldn’t.” 

“Really. Leave me if I talk to you like that, I’m serious.” 

“No, that’s me.” 

One side of your mouth tips up without your consent. “Bad joke.” 

Sirius mirrors you, grinning halfheartedly. “You think you’d have learned to evade it by now.” 

You gather that he wants things to be light now. That’s okay. You know Sirius has a difficult time with the truly heavy emotions—anger is an instinct for him, but tears and sorrow he’s never known what to do with. You’ll talk about it more over time, in bits and pieces where he’s comfortable. And just because you’re letting it go now doesn’t mean you’re done coddling him. 

You let your hands coast down from his face to either side of his neck, massaging gently the tension in his shoulders. “Did you really bring my favorite mug to work?” 

Sirius’ smile goes a tad sheepish. “Yes?” 

“Why would you do that?” 

“Because it makes me think of my most favorite sweetheart when I get coffee from the break room,” he says, smarmy. “Also, it was the first one I saw when I went to grab one from our cabinet.” 

You smile at him. Sirius pretends at facetiousness, but you know the first reason had been the genuine one. 

“What,” he asks, “you didn’t notice it was missing?” 

“No, I did. I only thought you’d broken it.” 

“And you weren’t going to say anything?” 

“What’d be the point?” 

A soft, intimate look comes over Sirius’ face. “I don’t deserve you,” he says, gray eyes raw and quiet, “do I?” 

You match his tone. “Of course you do, lovely. You deserve better than me, it’s just I’m what you’ve got.” 

“Mm, there’s another way you’re not allowed to speak.” He wraps his arms around you, pressing a heavy-fond kiss to your hairline. “I won’t have any of that talk.” 

“I’ll trade you that for the jokes about your name.” 

“No, I don’t think so. You’re going to have to work a little harder, doll, I’m not giving those up so easily.”

[inkyarcturus]

Harry having never learned how to play because the Dursleys refused to buy him toys, Dudley refused to let him play with his, and other kids generally avoided him.

When he gets adopted by Snape, pre-Hogwarts, Snape finds out about Harry never being allowed toys while they’re out shopping and he proceeds to buy him a little dear plush.

Harry is absolutely enamored by the plush, but has absolutely no clue what he’s supposed to do with it at all. So after about 30 minutes of him just appreciatively staring at the stuffed animal, Severus is completely perplexed and asks him what’s wrong.

Harry tries explaining to the best of his ability that he doesn’t know what to do, but truly does love the gift, leading to him asking Snape, “how do I play?”.

Severus is immediately reminded of his own childhood, pre-Lily, where he had no one to play with. He is absolutely distraught that Harry has had a similar childhood experience and needs to fix that now, like right now. He sits down on the floor, crisscross applesauce style, and attempts to teach Harry how to play despite having not done so in over a decade.

“First step, children tend to choose a name for their new toy. What would you think is a good name for our… little friend here?” Severus picks up the plush deer awkwardly.

Harry’s eyes crinkle in delight at the scene.

“Why do kids name them?” Harry tilts his head, staring wide eyed at the plush, “I don’t want to pick the wrong name.”

“Oh? Well, I suppose it makes you feel more attached to the toy, and it helps when it comes to imaginative play to specify which one you are referring to,” the tall man’s brows furrow for a second, “As for choosing the wrong name, there is no ‘wrong’ answer little prince. This is a gift. This is yours.”

Harry blinks, “Mine?”

“That’s right, now name please, it doesn’t need to be perfect, you can always change it later child.”

Looking around the room for inspiration, Harry mumbled out a name, “… Mr. Fawn?”

“Perfect, Mr. Fawn, it is. Now, it’ll be a little difficult to demonstrate pretend play with only one character, but I think I can manage a small display.”

Severus proceeds to give the cutest lil introduction for Mr. Fawn, going so far as to make a voice to keep Harry as engaged as possible. Harry is absolutely having the time of his life giggling, gasping, asking questions and yelling out responses.

They end up doing this until bedtime. Severus gives back Mr. Fawn to Harry so he can sleep with him, watching as they go through their nighttime routine that Harry absolutely refuses to let the deer go. As soon as Severus shuts the lights out in Harry’s room, he hears Harry whisper, “night Sev’rus, night night Mr. Fawn.”

[undercovercannibal]

“As long as I'm around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you.” SUPERNATURAL 1.14 ⛥ Nightmare

[itsriotmotherfuckers]

Sirius who is so fucking confused when Remus doesn’t hit him. Whose memories of romance are all centred around his parents yelling and hitting, but everyone says marriage means they’re in love, so they must be. Who assumes that blood and broken bones and insults are all as much a part of a relationship as kissing and touching and giggling. Who wonders, one day, when he’s a little high and a little drunk, if Remus really loves him like he says he does if he won’t hurt him. Who gets on his knees and begs Remus to hit him, to hurt him, to make him bleed, because that’s all he knows.

[ceaselesswatchersspecialboy]

“Hannibal gave you three years to build a family, confident that he would find a way to take them from you.” Is such a deeply disturbing line to me, because it bleeds heavily into what we already know about Hannibal and one of the things he wants for Will:

Will bonds with his family, Hannibal takes it away. It’s a simple fact of life.

It makes me wish they did give us more scenes of Will and his family before Hannibal intervened, and before Will was taken back to the FBI, because I think what’s important to note when analysing how Will feels about Molly and Walter, is that most of what we see is Will being put in a deeply conflicted place, and the main interaction we get of him and Walter is after a deeply traumatic event, shattering the stability there once may have been. Will I don’t think is a bad father or husband, he’s just unsure how to navigate the blending of these worlds.

We know how Will’s mind works, and so does Hannibal. He knew that if he sent the Red Dragon after Molly and Walter, Will would be put in a place where he envisions them dying over and over again at his own hands — he knew that Will would never be able to return home, whether they were killed or not.

It’s a very common abuse tactic to separate a person from their safest environment, with people who genuinely love and support them and would likely intervene with the abuse and its effects. A lot of what Will feels towards Hannibal stems from that. Molly is like a warm fire, and Hannibal is like the cold sea, but the reason Will chooses to jump into the sea rather than sit by the fire, is because the sea put out the fire, and there was no warmth left.

Will cannot stand to be loved gently when Hannibal is around, because Hannibal’s violent love is like a drug to him now, and violence is simply what Will understands. Hannibal’s taught him that too.

[zal-cryptid]

Eleanor's backstory

[pigeons-paintbrush]

i couldnt NOT make this, like come on the guy is WEARING HIS OUTFIT

the white shorts with black stripes?? the black t-shirt?? COME ONNNNNN, you cannot dress like that and not immediately make me think of killer sans. i HAD to make this into killer. i had to. (esp since the evil dad energy fit so well too...)

meme source (i dont have tiktok so idk who the og creator is)

this took me hours. for what. why did i add so many little details (please stare at them.)

[my-castles-crumbling]

"Everything had been above board (s)he wasn't sure."

~ Taylor Swift (The Manuscript) Pairing: none (Black Brothers Angst) - Rating: M -CW: Child Abuse (Walburga Black's A+ Parenting)

“There are three Unforgivable Curses,” the Professor lectured, pointing his wand at the chalkboard to highlight the three spells listed there. “The Cruciatus Curse is the first. It is used to induce excruciating and debilitating torture that can cause the victim to descend into madness in rare cases. Sometimes-”

But Regulus, who was sitting in the back of the room, raised a trembling hand. 

“Yes, Mister Black?” the Professor asked, looking up.

“Excuse me, Professor. But I know you said earlier these Curses are extremely illegal. That’s not in all cases, correct? I know they’re allowed for punishment, for example,” Regulus asked blandly, his expression emotionless.

The Professor stared, blood draining from his face. “N-no, Mister Black. They’re illegal in all circumstances. No matter what. Not even the Ministry is allowed to cast them. Really, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to use such an evil spell….”

But Regulus’s eyes had glazed over, as if he was a million miles away.

-

Sirius hadn’t talked to his brother for months when, suddenly, the younger boy ran up to him, gasping for air and choking back tears. “It- it- they…Sirius,” he stuttered, grabbing for his brother. “They hurt us. They weren’t supposed to. Were they?”

And Sirius, tears falling from his own eyes, both for the past and for the brother that stood in front of him now, pulled Regulus in his arms. “No, Reg. They weren’t.”

[sundropcass]

before i was a marauders fan i was a massive golden trio fan. i still am. the relationship between harry, ron, and hermione is SO important to me. they are so codependent and they love each other so much. that being said: can fic writers STOP giving hermione all of ron's good traits??? i am tired.

[hibiscesque]

Gave my word to OOMF that I would get over my fear of y'all sophistiqué fellas on Tumblr and actually post an analysis here, so here goes nothing.

Mori and Dazai: a noncomprehensive opinion-based analysis of the most talked about parts of their relationship by me, Lily, that has been fleshed out and crossposted from Twt.

[Feat. attached screenshots of some of the interesting contributions others made when I posted this there over the summer at the end, and the links to their Twts so you can check their accounts out if you're on the hellbird app too!]

I figure the best place to start is the place where discussion about Mori and Dazai's relationship often starts and ends: abuse.

It is an unequivocal fact that Mori was in a position of power over Dazai, as his elder, superior in rank, and the doctor who saved him. I wholly agree with this piece of the fandom collective consciousness. I do have a bit of a different interpretation, however, regarding how he used this power.

I do not think Mori lorded it over Dazai to take advantage of him sexually or hurt him physically, and from my reading of it, canon seems to support that. In fact, it was in Mori’s best interest in his relationship with Dazai to do what all the best manipulative abusers do: pretend that this power does not exist at all.

He presented himself to Dazai as Dazai’s equal, a partner in a dastardly scheme to take down the Port Mafia boss. He knew Dazai would say yes—as a disillusioned boy who seemed to have no attachment to his old life, what other answer would he give?—but took deep care to give him the illusion of choice.

Maintaining the illusion that they were equals was very important, as Dazai was older and of an entirely different breed than Yosano. His old strategy wouldn’t fly here. I think this actually displays the versatility of Mori’s manipulative skills, how he was so easily able to adjust between them. Even the narrative of Fifteen, whether this was deliberate or accidental, seems to intimate to the reader that there was not the power imbalance between them that you would expect. It specifically corrects you from seeing Dazai as Mori’s son or charge, seeming to want you—or want you to see Dazai—come to the conclusion that they are, though I use this word very differently than we do when it comes to SKK, partners in crime. But that is absolutely not true. He was a fourteen-year-old playing adult games.

Mori probably figured out pretty fast that Dazai was used to being the best manipulator in the room, and that he was usually incredibly adept at hiding this from the adults around him. It was to his advantage to utilize this fact and let Dazai think that he was the one in control between them, ergo the easy agreement to giving him a painless death later on when he had absolutely no intention of ever granting him that.

That's not to entirely de-dimensionalize their relationship. I do think in some ways, a lot of ways even, Dazai had Mori wrapped around his finger. For starters, we see several examples of him being petulant or defiant to Mori that evidently amuse Mori rather than anger him. Furthermore, I think I can go so far as to say that in the early days, Mori admired Dazai, in a way. Dazai effortlessly lived an existence lacking traditionally defined humanity and empathy, something that hadn't come quite so innately to Mori. He himself hadn't had to cultivate that cold, heartless calculation until the Great War, at which point he got himself so far into this "character", for a lack of a better word, that he played to protect his country, that he'd begun to grossly overcompensate. Become the exact monster he believed he needed to be, though I don't think he'd put it in those exact terms.

But to Dazai, all of this seems to come easy as breathing in the light novels. It must have been fascinating, in a way, to meet what he spent so long striving to become in the form of a fluffy-haired, teenage attitude-filled, lower secondary schooler.

Even the fond admirenvy, however, would eventually become a tool. There's a clear logical advantage to Mori to letting himself feel regarding Dazai to the degree he did where he allowed himself be jerked around a little bit. It would make Dazai more secure in the thought that he was the one in control between them, exactly the belief paradigm Mori needed him to keep existing within to be able to maneuver him to the utmost degree of exactitude when it mattered.

Something else I do disagree with the fandom about, which you've probably been able to ascertain by now, is that Mori, so to speak, birthed the darkness in Dazai. Made him that way. Forced him to be that way. Anything like that.

This darkness, in my opinion, already existed when they met.

I think Mori sensing that, as aforementioned, is part of the reason he chose to ensnare Dazai in his web in the first place. There's a whole other discussion that could be had about the sheer coincidence of acquiring the one child in the world with an ability that could turn off the Deus ex machina we know as Corruption that existed within the second child he would acquire not a year later—and yet another about why the mafia higher ups saw Dazai as a credible witness to the old boss' death—but while no, Dazai would probably have not gone on to become a mass murderer and expert torturer were he not brought into this life by Mori, he was very likely not an angel otherwise.

To me, the adroitness with which he manipulated Chuuya into joining the mafia makes this clear. That is not something he’d picked up within the last year he’d known Mori. Seamlessly using manipulation of that caliber is a skill that usually comes from being exposed to other manipulators from a very young age and/or a natural predisposition toward it. Usually "and". It's still a skill that can be cultivated, whether on purpose or not, but it's not something that's easy to just pick up and learn intuitively unless you're pre-tuned to it for one of those reasons. I also bring up that infamous scene in Fifteen where Dazai empties a magazine of bullets into a dead body. I see many things in that instance, but primarily a hurting and psychologically disturbed child.

While watching the death of the old boss could easily have been a traumatic experience for him, I think we can extrapolate from Dazai’s other aforementioned behavior that one, he’d been exposed to the darker side of society far longer ago than when he’d met Mori, and two, he was at that point, whether by natural means or not, rather stunted in the empathy department. I’m not saying that Dazai is incapable of feeling it—simply that he does not feel it to the degree the average person does. I know a lot of Dazai fans will disagree with me on that, but I do believe this very strongly.

This all comes back to the circle of bonding him to Mori; Mori always presented himself as his equal in that way, after all. While I’m sure Dazai had met more than one unempathetic adult before him, this could easily have been the first time he'd met one who was like him in the sense that their intelligence allowed them the manipulative skills to use this "lack of compassion” to their advantage.

I think Dazai was quickly and, to steal his own word, indelibly fascinated by Mori. We can see that he’s adopted many of Mori’s mannerisms—the most obvious example being using a dramatic shtick to lower people’s guards and make himself appear more harmless. For Dazai that's his ridiculous suicide attempts that will never work and appeals to women for double suicide, and for Mori that's playing the doting, haggard father to Elise. I think they both enjoyed these roles more than they let on, especially Mori, but they do serve a purpose. Correct me if I’m wrong on this, but to this point I even believe I remember a Japanese-speaking fan saying that Dazai copied some of Mori’s speech mannerisms in the untranslated text of Fifteen that were hard to emulate in English.

I think Mori, in his own way, for the reasons I shared earlier on, is equally as fascinated by Dazai as Dazai is by him. Mori is such an enigma, however, that I’m left with a question when analyzing a certain part of canon that I think the answer to depends on how charitably you want to interpret Mori: why didn’t he just kill Dazai instead of ousting him from the mafia?

I think there are two possible answers to this. One, he knew Dazai would be useful to him in the future. After all, he wouldn't be able to use his Deus ex machina more than once without him. And of course, there's Natsume's Greater Plan, the lengths to which Natsume has gone to set dominos in place for I think we're only just starting to grasp.

But then there's also two, that he, against what anyone might expect, cared about Dazai enough that he didn’t want him dead. Perhaps it was even both. I will leave you with that to ponder. Thanks for reading! 💝

& Now... Bonus!

Thoughts from Alli omgdqzai on Twitter:

[CW: CSA, though not in the form of sexual contact between Dazai and Mori]

Thoughts from Pysta pysta_myn on Twitter:

[lulublack90]

Prompt 12 - First Words

@wolfstarmicrofic January 12, word count 533

CW - Child abuse

“Remember Sirius, you are representing The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black while you are at school and your actions will reflect that, am I making myself clear?” Walburga growled out to himå without even looking down, yet somehow she caught him rolling his eyes. Sirius felt the cut even before the blood could begin to ooze out as she sliced her long, pointed nail across the back of his hand.

“Yes, Mother,” He quickly responded, bowing his head and covering the scratch with his other hand.

“Good. Now go and find a seat. We will be expecting your return during the Yule holidays. Your cousins will be reporting back to me any failures in your behaviour,” She paused, and her eyes flicked down to her other side. “You may say goodbye to your brother,”

Sirius immediately rushed around her and gathered Regulus into his arms before she could change her mind.

“I’ll write you everyday. I love you Reggie,” He quickly told him, wiping away a tear from Regulus’s cheek before their mother saw. “I’ll be back before you know it, promise,” Regulus didn’t answer him, probably because his voice would show emotion and Walburga would drag him away. Sirius pulled him in for one last hug and made his way to catch the train.

He found an empty carriage. There was luggage in the luggage rack, but no one was sitting in it, so he hoisted his own trunk up opposite the one already in there and sat down to look out at Regulus and his mother waiting on the platform. 

He waved at Reggie and got a little half-wave back before Walburga's mouth twitched, and he stood up with his back straight. Sirius hated that he was leaving Regulus alone in that house, but there was nothing he could do about it. He sighed as he tried to figure out again a way to keep Reggie safe while he wasn’t there, but his thoughts were cut short as the compartment door banged open.

“Oi, dickhead, I’m sitting there,” Sirius looked at the scruffy looking boy with the out of place sandy curls, untucked shirt, scuffed boots and a long thin scar that started at the back of his jaw, trailed down his neck and disappeared into his creased collar, and knew this foul-mouthed boy was exactly the type of person his mother had warned him about.

“Sirius Black,” he declared happily, offering his hand to the boy.

“Remus Lupin,” Remus returned the greeting, shaking his hand and settling into the seat next to him.

The train began to pull away and Sirius looked out of the window and watched Regulus until he couldn’t see him any more. He slumped back in his seat. “Chocolate?” Remus asked him as he offered the muggle chocolate bar to him. Sirius looked at him wide-eyed and eagerly took the offered treat. He’d never had muggle anything.

“Thanks,” he beamed, taking a bite of something called a Mars bar. He groaned as the myriad of flavours hit his tongue. He sighed happily and thought he was going to like Hogwarts very much, especially if grumpy, scruffy near strangers like Remus Lupin gave him chocolate. 

[junespriince]

mean girl wally era

Wally: there's a thin line between being a genius and being an idiot.

Wally, pointing at Kyle, Bruce, and Slade: and these idiots uses that line like a fucking jump rope.

----

Kon: I think I'm in love with your cousin, any thoughts?

Wally: and prayers, you're gonna need them.

----

Slade: I want nightwing to join me!

Wally: And i want him to have healthy habits and stop trying to die a hero, but we all can't get what we want!

----

Kyle: So I've been thinking-

Wally: oh, that must have been hard, are you okay?

Kyle: fuck you.

----

Dick: Slade you have the right to remain-

Wally: A fuckin loser, ha!

Dick: Flash...

Wally: I told you, I'm not nice baby.

----

Damian: I will stab you for less West!

Wally: okay? and? my sperm donor hit me for less, try a different threat next time short stack.

[acewitch-writes]

Fandom decided to make Remus a hyper-masculine dom, and for some reason, this involved stripping him of all of his kindness and softness in the process. Because I guess a character cannot be gentle and kind AND masculine. Only fem characters are allowed to have a character trait as soft as kindness.

If that wasn't bad enough, they also stripped him of any flaw that could be perceived as emasculating. His well-established avoidance and cowardice? His insecurity and passivity? His people pleasing tendencies and self-loathing? His devotion to Dumbledore and his deep admiration (and perhaps envy) for James and Sirius? All gone. Doesn't exist. Fanon Remus is the coolest, smartest, bravest, and most capable of all the Marauders.

Even his appearance was completely altered to ensure that Fanon Remus is just oozing with raw, unfiltered masculinity. This is a topic I am especially heated about as someone who is chronically ill. I relate deeply to Remus because I see my own struggles in the ways his Lycanthropy affects him. It makes him sickly and pallid, he is described as thin and worn down, both from the effects of the disease itself and later from the struggle of keeping himself fed and housed due to the stigma surrounding it.

But Fanon Remus? He's huge. He's buff. He towers over everyone else around him, intimidating and aloof with a cigarette hanging idly between his lips for optimum sex appeal. He is so strong, with his broad shoulders and his rock hard abs, and his Lycanthropy just makes him super fucking aggressive and horny around the full moon. He can lift Sirius up over his head with one arm. He's the Casanova, everyone wants him because he's just so hot and so cool. The fact that he is a werewolf only serves to elevate his primal, masculine allure.

[itsriotmotherfuckers]

What if muggle AU Sirius and Remus meet in a mental hospital. What if Sirius is angsty and suicidal from his parent’s abuse and Remus keeps having panic attacks due to being in a car accident that left him physically disabled and they meet there. What if Sirius is grumpy and mean and aggressive because of trauma and Remus is quiet and jumpy and shy because of his pre-existing anxiety. What if Sirius takes a liking to Remus because he never treats Sirius like he’s some kind of bomb about to be exploded and that fascinates him. What if they get close because Sirius looks for people to protect after the death of his brother and Remus definitely needs protecting. What if they get close because Sirius needs someone to support him and help him stay calm and Remus is really good at both of those things. What if they learn to lean on each other and accept help together. What if they sit together and listen to music together while Sirius draws and Remus reads. What if James comes to visit Sirius and he’s so much calmer and even smiles and when he asks about it Sirius talks about this cute boy with freckles and a cane who sometimes needs a wheelchair and has the sweetest laugh. What if Hope and Lyall come to visit Remus and see how much he’s come out of his shell and how much more comfortable he’s gotten, and when they ask why, tells them about this boy with long hair and piercings and the sharpest wit he’s ever seen. What if they slowly get closer and closer and closer while bettering their mental health. What if they fall in love with each other more and more while watching each other become healthier and healthier.

[hina-has-no-life]

Dark Era: Dazai and Akutagawa

The Scene in Dark Era where Dazai shoots Akutagawa was abusive and messed up, but sadly justified on Dazai's end.

Now this may sound harsh but let's take a step back from the emotions the scene causes and look at it purely logical and analytical. (No I am not excusing the abuse Akutagawa went through. Dazai had no right to abuse him but this scene is more than abuse.)

What happens in this scene?

Per Dazai's orders as an Executive within the Port Mafia agents from Mimic were captured to be taken to Kouyou for interrogation, as is her department. Akutagawa then kills the hostages in retaliation for the casualties the Mafia suffered at the hands of Mimic. Dazai proceeds to punch and shoot Akutagawa.

In essence this is what happened: Akutagawa disregarded direct orders of his executive in front of multiple people and said executive. Plain and simple, this is insubordination.

We know, due to Stormbringer, that insubordination of the Boss and his executives (who essentially work as extensions of the Boss within the BSD Mafia) is a death sentence. It's at the same level as betrayal.

So, while messed up and abusive, Dazai's reaction can be classified as a mercy. Had it been another executive or Mori, Akutagawa would be dead. And no, you can not use that Chuuya cares for Akutagawa as an argument against Akutagawa dying here were it Chuuya. Chuuya's loyality is to the Mafia and Mori in a situation like this. We saw this at the end of the Guild Arc when Chuuya asked Mori what punishment Akutagawa should face for disregarding Mafia orders and going on to the Moby Dick. Since the moment in Dark Era is a similar case, it is safe to assume Chuuya would have asked Mori for the punishment and then delivered it.

Now here comes the much more interesting part about this scene I sadly do not see talked about. (If you find posts talking about it please send them my way!)

This scene shows us, in a very subtle way, how the dynamic between Akutagawa and Dazai works.

But how? Let's count it: - Akutagawa is very self assured in his insubordination. - Dazai gives him a chance to speak up about his reasoning, to defend himself and ask for forgiveness for his blatant insubordination. - Akutagawa in turn arrogantly doubles down on his decision. - Dazai punishes him.

While Dazai framed the moment at the end as a teaching moment with his comment about Akutagawas use of Rashomon, it is mostly a punishment. Yes there are 2 moments that can be seen as a teaching moment but what Dazai does is in fact nothing more than a punishment in his eyes.

(Giving Akutagawa the chance to think about his rash action was the first teaching moment btw)

Now the way the scene is handeled with it's framing tells us something interesting about the relationship between Dazai and Akutagawa.

Dazai actively favours Akutagawa with his treatment.

But how? It's a good question because the answer is very much hidden.

Both characters treat the situation as something usual. This in turn tells us that Akutagawa often commits insubordination against Dazai. And only Dazai, since Dazai takes him under his wing as his direct and only student. (This is made clear in the short where he actually recruits a younger Akutagawa) This means that Dazai does favour his student above other subordinates rather openly. We know he would not let this slide with other people under his command. The scene at the beginning of the Dark Era LN with Hirotsu shows this.

Akutagawa's reaction to being shot also tells us that this is the first time Dazai points a weapon at him. While not expecting, but accepting, the punch he did not expect to face a harsher punishment than this.

He is visibly surprised. But not just him.

In the Anime adaption (which is the best LN adaption in BSD) we see that even the other subordinates around them only become surprised when Dazai draws the gun and shoots Akutagawa.

Did Dazai think Akutagawa would survive being shot at? 100% yes. He even says as much after the fact.

(This is actually what makes teaching moment number 2, since he remarks that Akutagawa "finally" managed to protect himself with Rashomon. This tells us that they were actively training this and Akutagawa was failing at it for some time already.)

In short: - Akutagawa feels very much secure in his position at Dazai's side, despite the regular abuse. - Dazai favours Akutagawa openly enough within the PM that other subordinates are surprised when Akutagawa faces an openly harsh punishment. - Akutagawa, in committing insubordination, regulary disrespects Dazai as his superior and Dazai let's it slide. This is something that mirrors the relationship between Dazai and Mori, as Dazai does disrespect Mori in private and Mori let's this slide. (The biggest difference in this relationship mirror is that Dazai never disrespects Mori in front of other people.)

In my eyes (and I hope we learn more soon) this also shows that Dazai's abuse of Akutagawa has multiple reasons. - Dazai sees himself in Akutagawa. Dazai also hates himself and blames himself for shortcomings so he projects this onto Akutagawa, who he then abuses because of it. - A warped sense of care. In his own, very fucked up, way Dazai does care for Akutagawa. Is he good at showing it? Absolutely not. He wants Akutagawa to be stronger than Dazai himself is, he wants him to be better. So he favors him but also abuses him. - He favors Akutagawa so Akutagawa needs to get strong extremely fast to avoid a conflict within the ranks of the Mafia. - Dazai tries to get Akutagawa as strong as possible as fast as possible since Akutagawa effectively went from joining to third highest rank in 10 seconds and needs to prove himself in front of everyone else, not just Dazai's eyes. In this he ends up abusing Dazai because he himself is a child with a very limited understanding of teaching. What he does know, through Mori as his teacher, is that cruelty and abuse are effective teaching methods that work faster than proving patience and taking things slow.

(am I saying that Mori physically abused Dazai? No. But he, as shown in Beast and Fifteen, honestly answers to the questions his students ask him. It is entirely possible that he simply told Dazai different teaching methods and Dazai decided on the fastest one instead of the best and most effective.)

and thank you @sorcerersandskillusers for sending me the LN parts I mentioned above!! I didn't have the energy to look them up when I initially posted this and he did me the favor of getting them for me!

To summarize: The scene is a punishment for direct insubordination and shows us, the viewer, a deeper look into the relationship between Akutagawa and Dazai.