#don't like the term genius either?

[lilliganshitposting]

Just outside my bedroom

so genius is a weird term right? and i feel for the most part we've stepped away from the label, but it still pops up every now and blindsides me like a particularly tall curb that i didn't step down too gracefully from. we all know somewhat what someone means when they call someone a genius -- better than your average somebody -- but nobody knows what actually makes a genius a genius.

how would you even know that you are a genius? most people truly don't believe they are, but then someone proclaims "oh yes, you are!" with indomitable enthusiasm. it feels a bit like dressing up as santa for children and having them believe you're the real deal. it's a pretty bogus term, but still wouldn't it be nice to be called a genius just once?

that's the thing: you can't ever call yourself a genius because it's a label that's only granted to you by others. you only exist within the margins of 'genius' because someone else said so. it doesn't matter if you don't feel like you belong there, if enough people line up and say so, soon enough you've got a barricade surrounding you.

if you deny being a genius, you're humble; if you call yourself one, you're demeaning yourself-- or worse you think too highly of yourself.

i feel the shackles of greatness are too heavy for anyone to carry. you want to strive to be a genius? well what happens when no one ever acknowledges your efforts and you're left feeling like a fake? feeling like you never tapped into some unseen potential, that you've been denied your dues.

"you're gonna go on to do great things."

this too is another anvil to break the camel's back, because what unseen potential do others see in you that you can't? i don't mean to sound hopelessly pessimistic, i'm absolutely certain everyone is capable of great things, though our ideas of greatness severely differ.

if you'll let me waffle i'll give an example of what it feels like when someone says they say you're destined for things you can't quite see for yourself. i live in student accommodation (DOXXED DOXXED FUCKING DOXXED THEY'RE A STUDENT, GET THEIR ASS). as an affordable solution to students forgetting to turn off the light when leaving a room -- because some people's parents are rich and can afford to forget about the electricity bill so then dear, precious, darling business student, Brad, never learned to turn off the light -- our lights are motion activated. you're not in the kitchen, light turns off after a period of no movement: simple. even at my tall age of 19 (idiot baby) i'm still a little bit scared of the dark-- and excuse me, i live with a stranger, i'd rather see them standing menacingly at the end of the hallway with a knife than not at all. so lucky me, the light outside my bedroom door is super sensitive, always lighting up so that i don't have to open the door to the great dark abyss of an unlit hall.

that's what it feels like. to approach the door, to not even reach out a hand yet to turn the lock, pull the handle, because the light's already turned on before you've even had a chance to step out into it. it feels like everyone else is still standing on the other side of the door, and there you are, still in the dark, the light spilling through the cracks, but you don't have a clue what the hallway has ever looked like in pitch darkness. and guess what. you can't open the door either. so you have to live with maybe seeing a few peeks of light every now and then, but you don't really get to see what lies beyond the door until one day. one day someone says you've reached the other side and you haven't a clue as to when.

who's to take responsibility when the bar is among the stars; too high to clear for anyone coming from the dirt. when they fall short and come crashing back down to earth with no crash mat to soften the landing, who's to blame? you didn't give them anything to fall back on, in fact you didn't even give them anything to land on either, expecting them to keep soaring on and on without ever coming back down.

i don't think we need to carve our name in history-- too many people have just lived on and that's been enough. i doubt many of our ancestors did anything noteworthy, they slept, they ate, they fucked (sorry not a fan of that one). maybe the great things you're destined for are as simple as being happy most of the time, and having something nice to eat when you're not. it's nice when we see our efforts rewarded, but i don't think the essay you write needs to go on and win an award, redefine literature and influence a new generation of writers-- i think it's enough to have it make your mum cry, or any stranger feel something. viva la mediocrity... or something like that.

[popponn]

bits and such, about him.

summary: he loves you in his own way. (aka expanded hcs on how he shows his love to you)

note: i want an isagi so bad at this point i will just cry. also i miss sae. nagi is kinda there ig (jk nagi u shojo protag). sometimes thinking about these guys are very comforting even when it comes out as pure brainrot. warning: none, just fluff. isagi is downbad, sae is a house cat variant, and nagi is something else. reader's gender unspecified, implied post canon au.

characters: isagi, sae, nagi

isagi falls in love with you again and again over the smallest things. it could be you rearranging your things, it could be you looking up to the sky, it could be you crouching alongside him, it could be you laughing at something he finds actually unfunny—repeatedly, without fail it keeps happening. in these sorts of moments, it is very obvious too. his breath would come to a halt slowly, his shoulder sagged, his mouth opening into a silent gape, all while his blue eyes would stare at you, filled with feelings that are impossible to word out. his signs are obvious enough that even strangers could know them. the worst thing is that on times like this, it means isagi yoichi's infamously smart brain will go on a holiday for a bit. adding to the fact that his eyes rarely leave you whenever you are in his vicinity, this means it happens a lot in a public setting. after the third time of seeing this happening right in front of them, most of his friends sort of agree that it would be best to leave the lovesick, down-bad isagi alone. more for their sakes because all they get is either a dumb "huh" that is very cute actually or a very angry, on-field tone of "shut the fuck up fucking donkey i'm admiring right now" which unfortunately did happen to a genius, a speedster, and a king. it nearly ended in a bloodbath multiple times but at least you know he is a man that could not be moved.

sae likes it when you play with his hair and vice versa. the annoying thing, though, is that he rather doesn't say shit for three days than admitting this to your face. some call it an acute case of terrible communication skill some call it kuudere rizz—nobody knows which one is the correct term but the good thing is this guy speaks louder through his action than his words. which mean acting like a spoiled house cat with shitty attention seeking tendencies—where you could be working or resting your exhausted leg and without any warning, you will have his head on your lap. don't bother protesting, you will lose the inevitable staring contest. just play with his hair, comb it, pat it, arrange it while praising him—just spoil him. and if he says "your hair is wet" even right after you dry it off, just sit down and let him " dry" your hair. no, it's not an alibi to have you chatter while he listens and touches your hair. no, he does not kiss you on the hair you are imagining shit. and no don't let anyone touch your hair. sae's possessive streak is a rare thing but if anyone touches your hair, that's just asking for it. honestly, it will be easier for both of you if he just says "hey can we forego the hairdryer and have your head on my lap instead this time" but this is an itoshi bloodline elder. the best he could manage is just suddenly burying his face in your hair or suddenly touching it when he is not in the mood to play a game. again, like a cat just taking something he wants. the cat is handsome and loving in his own way though.

nagi turns out to be a very very vocal person when it comes to you. aw, he must be away for a week because of a match? good luck to everyone on his team because he will whine about it every minute or so. some wanted to murder him, but thank god, an "if you look cool don't you think they will be happy?" is enough to shut him up—on camera at least. and wow he thinks you look good in your clothes? you will know it. nagi will say "wear it again", " it suits you", and many other short sentences indeed—he is still not a wordsmith—but simply by the sheer frequency of his praise? everyone and their grandma will know it. one time a brave, poor soul asked him "why the fuck are you so noisy about them?!"—and turns out it is simply because he likes your reaction to his words. you could respond back with cheer, with a calm suave, or sometimes flustered laugh, and nagi eats those up. remember to have special reactions for him though, since he is not above copying a koala or maybe some flirty toucan to have those. nagi has been a tad bit shameless though, despite everything, therefore maybe it's not unsurprising that he kinda of becomes after getting together with you. (in the background, niko nods sagely, "i see. so it's like your oshi character who you want every info of from a dating sim." while barou snaps with a "fucking what?" nagi takes a second to think, and goes, "...kinda." which is obviously an understatement.)

[hopesangelsprite]

Illumi HCs I feel No One Else Has

(btw why does it look like he's about to put in work on a bi- nvm 💀)

Illumi is deffo either a genius or really good at hiding the fact that he has zero thoughts behind his eyes-

has a rock hyper fixation (istg he's a literal penguin give him a pebble and he'll be satisfied)

when he's in a silly goofy mood, he's in a silly goofy mood and there's no limit to the number of shenanigans he'll get into

He's definitely pulled some of the wildest pranks you've ever seen when he feels like it

He's a biter. That's it, he will definitely nibble on you when cuddling (and will bite at random times simply bc he could).

Will sit in your lap when he wants your full attention.

Has no gauge of his strength bc he's always around strong mfs

Therefore, him getting his licks back are horrendous-

Ass or boobs? Thighs. He's a thigh man for sure (but yeah ass too lol)

Will and has used common phrases you say to relate more to you so expect random slang terms

Is a fashion icon with zero filter so expect heavy criticism "There's no way you'll be seen with me looking like... whatever that is." "You tacky little shit- Go change immediately." "I've never wanted to kms, but your outfits are making me reconsider..."

Has a potty mouth and has definitely called both Hisoka and Chrollo "bitch", "fuck boy", and "hoe" on several occasions

Is the perfect driver but prefers to drive like a bat outta hell for the aesthetic (also bc he and the speed limit don't see eye to eye)

Will sometimes grin and release a little bloodlust to spook you

Is very babygirl and girly pop but hates it when you call him either of those.

When he's away on longer missions, he'll horde gifts he's bought for you to have unboxing days when he gets back

Keeps his nails long bc he likes the look (manipulates them to be shorter for... extracurricular activities 😉)

Color coordinates your outfits when y'all go out so everyone knows you're with him

Not big on PDA but won't let you out of his grip when behind closed doors

Is INCREDIBLY touched starved and has to have a hand on you when you nap together (mostly your chest and crotch idk why idk idk idk)

Remember when I said he was an ass man? And when I said he doesn't know his strength? Yeah, he'll smack your ass and damn near send you flying AND THE MF FINDS YOUR PAIN FUNNY

Most definitely a sadist. End of discussion.

Has broken several beds of yours during extracurricular activities.

Favorite petnames for you: wife, my love, liege, little thing.

Favorite petnames from you: pretty boy, lover boy, doll, honey.

Often when you think he's staring he's actually thinking about the most random shit known to mankind-

[END of pt. 1]

[kouyou-arc-when]

ON DAZAI AND EMPATHY: A character study Before you read: Obviously diagnosing any character in fiction seriously is a fool’s errand, but I am a fool, so let’s just do this for amusement. The main thing I desire is to discuss is the extent to which Dazai is capable of various types of empathy, as well as how that influences the way he sees and interacts with others. It will be chaotic and all over the place because I just sat down and wrote this in a fit. Let me explain some factors in analyzing Osamu: The author's intention is clearly to make Dazai's internal world a mystery. Since we don't have enough information, all we can do is hypothesize based on external elements. Generally, across all novels, the only time we’ve seen anything of Dazai’s perspective is in “The Day I picked up Dazai” (Beast continuity) – where he “saves” Oda and tortures that random dude. We don’t hear his thoughts narrated from first-person perspective, unlike many of the other novels.

Now, the crux of the issue. For years, it’s been discussed whether Dazai is a “sociopath”. If we disregard that sociopathy is a very loaded term that can mean a lot of things depending on which specialist you consult, at the very least, Dazai does strike me as someone with a unique expression of empathy, who could qualify for Anti-social personality disorder or a related condition. I will abandon the idea that Dazai is a sociopath, and use actual concepts that have legitimacy within this post. Whether Dazai could qualify for ASPD or any other disorder is something I've seen discussed for many years within the fandom. I'll try to analyze how these concepts could apply to him. In regards to mental health and Kafka (since it is a contentious matter) and the validity of any of this: I understand that a lot of people are resistant to the idea that any of the characters could have conditions more complex than depression, anxiety, and PTSD. This is my counterpoint. I have noticed that Asagiri emulates a lot of characteristics commonly attributed to “geniuses”, without confirming or potentially even intending to write these characters as having a specific condition.

A great example is Ranpo – who will read as autistic to any decent mental health professional (Untold Origins). Did Asagiri intentionally sit down and say “I am going to write an autistic character”? Maybe not. However, the “genius” stereotype is profoundly connected to visions of autism, even if people aren’t aware of it. Take people like Sherlock, House and L from Death Note – they’re commonly believed to be autistic by fans. All of these characters borrow from the same group of traits, that just happens to correspond with a certain condition - savants have always been popular in fiction. It's been known that the favorite type of character for Asagiri is the “prodigy” type, and he has used geniuses across fiction for inspiration of most notable intelligent characters within BSD. For Ranpo it was Sherlock, for Fyodor it was Joker from the Dark Knight (a classic sociopath), for Dazai it was Patrick from The Mentalist.

What I’m trying to say is, you can see various personality disorders connected to the portrayal of these geniuses, and even without confirming their state, it is clear they are either intentionally or unintentionally coded to be that way. Extremely intelligent characters not being able to read social cues, lacking empathy, disregarding rules etc. is something we commonly see in fiction. Basically, a lot of people don’t even know that these stereotypes are based on certain personality types, disorders, and illnesses. It’s sort of like drawing a character and dyeing their hair a certain shade of blue that you don’t know the particular name of: it doesn’t change the fact that you used that color, and the fact it has a name. Most authors are not mental health experts anyways, so they may not be entirely aware of every detail of the psychological framework they write the character to possess. They also may not write it consistently, as they're mostly emulating stereotypes. I mention Ranpo and autism because a character can embody traits of a stereotype without the author even necessarily having the intention to do so, however, to anyone who knows a thing or two, it is clear Ranpo is on the spectrum. If Ranpo were to express a few traits that go against this, it would not necessarily take away from the large-scale portrayal he is meant to exude: an autistic coded genius.

Why am I saying this? It is entirely possible for the author to write Dazai as a person with anti-social personality disorder, to “code” him in that way, but to not be entirely aware of how an individual with ASPD realistically tends to act.  Because he may be emulating a certain "stereotype" of a genius, he may also end up emulating specific psychological states, without making them entirely consistent in a realistic way. Writing the way individuals with ASPD tend to deal with empathy can be extremely difficult for anyone. It's easy to emulate a sociopath on a superficial level, but beyond that, it gets more challenging. How would a person with limited empathy act when they're hurting someone? That is an easier idea to handle. But how will they act in a friendly relationship? This is where it gets tricky. That is likely why someone like Dazai can never be consistently compatible with a very specific disorder: but, he can come very close. Besides, concepts such as anxiety and depression are pretty well-known, but more niche mental health conditions are not as well understood. So, BSD Osamu was written with specific attention to mental health issues because the author himself was someone who spoke heavily on the topic. I’ve read a lot of real-life Dazai Osamu, with special attention to No Longer Human (the main inspiration for BSD Dazai was Yozo) – and neither RL Dazai nor Yozo gave me the impression they could qualify for ASPD at all.

I know BSD Dazai is the opposite of the RL author in so many ways, but I guess it’s relevant to mention this because we know so little of BSD Dazai’s internal working processes, and Asagiri's main inspiration can tell us a lot about the intentions behind Dazai's portrayal. Generally, an intention or idea behind a character can give a lot of clues to us - more than anything, I am under the impression some of the main ideas behind Dazai's creation was that: 1) He doesn't feel like he belongs among humans 2) He has mental health issues However, we have difficulty defining the exact source of why all of this is in more realistic terms.

Naturally, since Dazai, an extremely socially intelligent person, sees himself as "othered", it is logical to assume he is not capable of fulfilling some emotional function most people can in a successful enough way. If he were just mentally ill in more typical ways (only depression), I theorize he wouldn't feel that "othered". He specifically is not meant to feel human. Obviously, his extreme intelligence is one of the things that isolates him, but the question is what else?

We are led to believe Dazai "sees" something the rest of us don't, and that is one of the reasons he wants to die. However, there is something more to it, as I believe it to be. We have two characters who are as intelligent as Dazai: Fyodor and Ranpo, and neither of them is suicidal, as far as we know. I believe Dazai "feels" a certain way, and then finds a way to logically justify it. Due to his intelligence, he likely falls into a complex loop which leads him to existential nihilism: but you usually don't end up in a place like that if you tend to feel alright in the first place, regardless of how smart you may be. While Dazai is certainly isolated due to his extreme intelligence, most of the people who made an impact on him are nowhere near him in that respect. In fact, I'd argue Dazai isn't even looking for someone equally intelligent to him, unlike Fyodor (this would take another post to explain).

The man who means the world to him, Oda, is more emotionally intelligent and full of common sense, but definitely not his cognitive equal. You can tell a lot about a person depending on what they value: and due to this I believe that Dazai's main issues relate to emotional matters. He primarily feels isolated due to his emotional state, and his intelligence pushes the problem further. Otherwise, he would treasure people like Ranpo and Fyodor over guys like Oda and Atsushi: he's looking for something to ease his emotional pain. Dazai doesn't seek out raw intellectual stimulation as much as comfort/excitement. This post will be an analysis of how Dazai compares to the "average" psychologically and some of the reasons he may feel so othered. Basically, my theory is that the feeling of being "othered" comes from his emotional profile, as much as it comes from his intellectual capacity. Those two take equal parts in his psyche.

Why would Dazai feel so emotionally "othered"? I believe it may have to deal with a specific personality disorder or condition, and mainly how he experiences empathy. One of the possibilities is ASPD. Anyways, let’s look into common ASPD symptoms, and then we'll look into common behavioral patterns the character shows. Dazai is equal amounts portrayed seriously and in a “jokey” way, but his worst traits and moments are usually described without humor. To preface: Keep in mind that you can have any or all of these traits without it qualifying you for a certain disorder. It is the extent to which you show it that makes a person, like Dazai, out of the norm.

1. Repeatedly breaking the law: This one goes without saying, he was in the Mob as Young as 15, and seemingly a violent criminal even before that age. To differentiate him from other members of the Mafia, it is stated by tons of people throughout the story that Dazai was practically born for this job.

Oda in Dark Era:

He was openly murderous before the age of 15, according to both The Day I picked up Dazai and Fifteen:

Dazai and Oda interacting in TDIPUD When talking to Kyouka, it seems that he has an “interesting relationship” with murder as a whole:

One thing is for sure, Dazai is much calmer, calculated, and more Machiavellian than most criminals in BSD, and this all started at an extremely young age. Many people kill when they're young, but they're not this casual about it.  The age at which he was this cold about would be of diagnostic significance.

2. Lack of remorse: Everything mentioned above, it is clear that Dazai has an even more complicated relationship with guilt and empathy. I’m pretty sure anyone in real life would consider him out of the norm, as it’s explicitly stated Dazai doesn’t feel remorse for all sorts of things he does, but there are some hints he is either ashamed of the way he is, or regrets his nature, but accepts it. What is particularly significant here is how young Dazai is when he shows a marked level of these traits. A key event that stuck with me is from the Dragon Head event in Mayoi (from my understanding it was written by Asagiri), where Shibusawa mentions Dazai will regret something (to me it sounded like he meant that killing Shibusawa will end poorly for Osamu). However, Dazai’s reaction was interesting – it was like he was almost amused that anyone would believe Dazai “could” feel regret for anything.

Mayoi Later down the timeline it’s quite questionable whether Dazai feels regret for some of his actions because he hides his feelings like a snake hides its legs, but there are implications he is somewhat remorseful if you read between the lines. More on that later. Dazai has changed compared to his past self, but to talk about that, and the extent to which he has changed would take a whole other post.

More on his lack of remorse, In “The Heartless Cur” Dazai is very young when he gets some randos from the Mafia killed in front of Akutagawa, yet his main emotions are amusement and boredom. This is not the “typical” emotional range of most people, even practiced criminals. For example, Chuuya kills people just like Dazai, but his reactions to it are entirely different.  

from The Heartless Cur Murder tends to not be the preferred or first solution Chuuya goes for: there is an expected amount of hesitance if you read into Chuuya. He put a bomb below Chuuya’s and sabotaged Ango’s car without much bother. I’d say even if you do see It as a “means to an end”, the way he did it was really cold. Usually, when people of all kinds do bad things, they have remorse and empathy they need to suppress, but with Dazai we don't see much of that. It's like he can just "do it'. He’s also really great at torture, in Side B at age 15-16, he already describes himself as a “specialist”. This is also touched upon when he speaks to Kouyou:

No matter how "grey" a character is, torture is a very specific process that takes a particular psychological profile to pull off. To be a "specialist" at it, you definitely need to possess dented empathy. Lack of remorse and empathy does not mean a person is going to be a criminal at all - it simply opens the opportunity that they may get lost in those waters more easily compared to the average person.

3. Repeatedly being deceitful I’m pretty sure we don’t have to cover this one. Yozo, the character he was loosely based on, is a big liar, and commonly uses “clowning” to distract from his real personality. Even the real Dazai Osamu wrote extensively about the concept of “lying”.   There is a lot to talk about Dazai and “masking”, and I’ll get to that in the second half of the post. Generally, Dazai lies a lot, one can’t even be sure what his personality really is. He lies by omission, manipulates, and intentionally deceives people without any issues. There are so many quotes about this that I’d probably reach the image limit right there if I wanted to reference them all. 4. Being impulsive or incapable of planning ahead Does not apply

5. Has difficulty sustaining long-term relationships: Dazai is famously a hoe. From “All women are his type” (and it seems he has zero issues getting together with any woman, young, old or even taken) to being known as “the enemy of all women” (said by Chuuya), it’s clear he is very promiscuous. Wan is in the gray area of canon, but in one of the earlier chapters he has so many love letters by different women that Atsushi burns them all. Kunikida said he hits on any woman he sees in the Entrance exam novel, which is further supported by random Wan! Chapters, silly crossovers, and everything else (literally anything female).

Not only that, but Dazai sounds like a consistently manipulative and toxic romantic partner. In an Otomedia interview, written by Asagiri, Dazai’s real type was basically something like: “Any woman is fine, because he is confident he can shape her to suit his tastes” which shows a remarkable lack of care for the personhood and individuality of his partner.

When answered what he’d do if his partner cheated or betrayed him, his answer was even more concerning. Depending on the translation, it goes something like: “He has not been cheated on, but he has cheated on others” or “he set up women to cheat on him/betray him” where both are a lot, just in different ways.

Either he is compulsively unfaithful, putting all above together, or he plays mindgames with his partners. He’s also told Kunikida that: “And from my experience, it takes only a smile and some kindness to get a woman swooning over you when she's fallen on hard times” painting an image of someone who takes advantage of people’s weaknesses to get what he wants.

Regardless, it’s clear he is very manipulative and likely emotionally abusive. I won’t even touch upon his obsession with double suicide. There’s also the fact that he seems to use sex to get what he wants – insert scene where he fucks the nurse to get his phone back.

Other than that, Dazai appears to be rather solitary. Ango and Oda are said to be “the only ones close to him” because they respected said loneliness. Even in ADA, Dazai seems to be professionally close to people, but very few people seem to know him on a personal level. I’d say he keeps people at a distance intentionally – before it was violently, later it is by being avoidant. For as much of a womanizer he is, there was that early comic where he spent Valentine’s Day drinking at Lupin “with Oda”, instead of going out with any particular person. I think this demonstrates how emotionally distant he is from all the people he interacts with

6. Being irritable and aggressive:

Dazai is not particularly aggressive, nor irritable, but he has moments where he slips. Tbh, reading back, it says a lot about Dazai’s character who he gets angry at and why. It’s important to say that when Higuchi calls him out on “Hollowing out the hearts of his opponents” in incredibly brutal ways, Dazai replies that he thinks “Sadism is just a method, and how it’s boring”.

Akutagawa is the receiver of a lot of his violence to a disproportionate degree. He beats up Akutagawa beyond what could ever be “just training”. There’s something that ticks him off about Akutagawa, which is interesting, since Dazai tends to not react this way to anyone who doesn’t touch him “intimately” in some way. A lot of people justify Dazai’s physical abuse by saying it is “training”, but it stood out to me how he kicks Akutagawa in the stomach even the first time he meets him in “Beast”, when Akutagawa is just an extremely traumatized and deprived kid he refuses to recruit. There is not much utility to that kick, to me. It felt personal.

Another example of him expressing anger is when people “called him foolish for wanting to die” – clearly he did not take it well since all of those people ended up dead. This is from “The Day I picked up Dazai” when Oda tells him he is a fool for wanting to die.

Other times Dazai expressed rage was in relation to Ango and Oda, particularly anything that related to Oda’s wellbeing.

He snaps at his subordinates when they tell him he shouldn’t be friends with someone “of such low status”, and the only time we really hear Dazai say he hates someone is when he’s torturing one of the guys who put Oda in trouble in the Beast timeline of “The day I picked up Dazai”. Obviously, he is resentful towards Ango and incapable of forgiving him. “Dead Apple” guidebook touches on it.

“Though they were once good buddies who used to drink together, to Dazai, Ango is one of the persons who caused the death of Odasaku. He still holds that resentment up to now, and is unable to forgive. Ango also seems to feel Dazai’s silent wrath towards him.”

Harukawa has said to pay attention to how cloudy the eyes of a character are to accurately interpret their psychological state. I don't think there are many times Dazai's eyes are drawn in such an extreme way - there is no "light" she talks about here. His eyes are pure black when he talks to Mori during the Guild arc.

He also agrees with Fyodor on “Malice being the best fruit that God Bestowed upon Mankind”

There is also this with Jouno:

Basically, Dazai rarely gets angry, insults don’t work on him (as he tells Chuuya), nor does beating him up, but when he does get irritated he flies off the handle and has no issue crossing any normal boundaries.

That detail is what stands out to me – usually, people have a line they won’t cross when getting mad, but for Dazai it’s like most moral lines disappear. Imo, his anger is for social standards over disproportionate in how far he’ll go and how he'll act on it– he usually has a clear intention to harm the individual he's mad about. In comparison, Chuuya is someone who gets angry more than Dazai, but Chuuya clearly has a line he won’t cross. There is also no pointed sadism in his reactions. Dazai will likely do almost anything.

Basically, it's not how much Dazai gets angry, but the way he gets mad that sticks out to me. Most importantly, Dazai only ever gets enraged if it concerns something very personal and intimate: Oda and his death, his suicide attempts etc. At this point, for me, It’s safe to say that if Dazai gets extremely angry, it means the topic affects him on a deep level (a hint to whatever Is happening between him and Akutagawa, I could talk a lot about that). 

More on Dazai’s unpredictable and violent nature:

Stormbringer I think there is a valid argument in seeing Dazai’s aggression as just a tool he uses to keep others at bay, something to hold over people and control them – but even then, it shows a marked disinterest in social norms people usually respect.

7.Having a reckless disregard for their safety or the safety of others This one builds upon all the others. However, it’s always been interesting to me how it’s clear something flies over Dazai’s head when it comes to regularly empathizing with others.

This is often seen with Chuuya. In my opinion, most of the bullying Dazai gives Chuuya is not motivated out of rage, but rather some form of spite. He goes at length to Rimbaud about planning Chuuya’s murder in “15”, then he also lets Chuuya be tortured in “Stormbringer”.

I am under the impression he sees these moments as “amusing” and doesn’t fully emotionally understand why this is something bad, even if he does on a rational level. I’ll say that Dazai did seem to show some rage whenever anyone hurt him physically in the past (seems likely to be a hint to a traumatic past), which Chuuya did when they met, but I don’t get the impression he is generally angry with Chuuya, it’s more like he just enjoys fucking with him. Ironically, for how rarely Dazai gets angry, it seems he reserves his rage/irritation exclusively for people and things he cares about, so Dazai being specifically irritated at Chuuya is just a sign of how much the guy gets to him.

If Dazai were angry at Chuuya, it is in character that he would try to hurt him a lot more than he does. However, I'd say Dazai has a blurry space for what's ok between "keeping someone purely safe" and "deeply hurting them". There is some lack of emotional empathy there - to him, it is more amusing than anything to see someone he finds interesting struggle.

Dazai sees boundaries differently. He’ll put people into danger or through discomfort without worrying much, especially if he’s sure they’re going to walk and live after it, but sometimes not even that. (there’s so many examples of it). I’d say it’s not that Dazai doesn’t care, he just cares about people differently compared to what we’re used to socially.

Regarding personal safety, it’s pretty obvious: he’s a suicide maniac, but even more, he also puts himself in harm’s way all the time without any anxiety present. Examples are when he provokes that sniper in Dark Era (when Oda gets angry at him and wants to punch him), knows he is going to get shot by Fyodor, but lets himself get hurt anyway. When he “dies” in 55 minutes, he seems “lightly” surprised, but there’s no strong reaction to it.  To me, it seems that the only physical harm he dislikes is pain he suffers from another person (when he doesn’t plan it). Dazai apparently doesn’t feel much “anxiety” – I remember many different times when he comments on another character’s timidness or meekness, seeing it as something unusual.

8. Behave irresponsibly and show disregard for normal social behaviour He’s extremely eccentric, and even Ranpo says he doesn’t get him. Dazai asks women to commit suicide the moment he meets them, and often attempts suicide around people even if it distresses them (Entrance exam).

While I think he made this excuse in Dark Era to Taneda because he didn’t want to work with Ango, I do believe he believes what he said: “You’d lose your job if I did that.” Dazai wryly smirked. “I don’t like places with lots of rules.” Not being able to accept conventional rules is very often a telltale sign of a personality disorder. Clearly, Dazai fits many of the criteria necessary for having ASPD, so let’s look at some other details that are common for people with ASPD.

Masking: In psychology and sociology, masking is the process in which an individual camouflages their natural personality or behavior to conform to social pressures. Masking is common with many disorders, such as autism, ASPD etc. I am pretty sure it’s canon Dazai masks – on a BSD exhibit, the key element Asagiri wanted to talk about in Dazai’s personality was related to this.  

“When I describe Dazai to the staff, there is a phrase that I always use, “an unworldly being with a mental age of two thousand years.” Dazai has far surpassed the mental dimension that human can reach, thus no-one can even tell if the emotions he shows are the real things or not.

There are rare moments when that Dazai shows his very “human” side. That is when he talks to another superhuman who is on the same level with him. The other is when he talks about his old friend who has passed. This is the scene when Kyouka wondered “Maybe I’m, after all, just a murderer at heart.” and refused to be saved. And Dazai’s reaction to that. When he said “Don’t give me any of that!” here, he really meant it. That was an outburst from Dazai, as a 22-year-old boy, in this scene.” Light novels often describe his smile as fake, mask-like, and I could probably find 20 panels where Harukawa clearly drew him to intentionally seem like a fake smiler. From “15” to “Entrance exam”, Dazai often drops his mask, and then goes back to acting silly just to make the other person relax. He does this with everyone, Mori, Kunikida, Atsushi, etc. Chuuya also mentions that Dazai’s “happy-go-lucky” personality in ADA is something new, and he believes it doesn’t fit him.

Kunikida says this in the Entrance Exam: "For someone so full of eccentricities, there is something about his behavior that makes it seem as if he has an unobstructed view of the world. I don’t know exactly why, but all his emotions strike me as an act to some degree. Is he just playing dumb? Could there be more to him than he’s letting on, lurking behind his ambiguous mannerisms?"

More than anything, Dazai himself says that Oda was the person closest to seeing his “real” personality. That pretty much confirms he keeps his real self hidden away. I’d say that there are several possibilities to why this is: He hides it because he dislikes being vulnerable, he doesn’t know how to act “normal”, people are unable to understand him, so masking makes it easier for him to communicate with others…there’s a lot of theorizing I could do here.

Dazai also tends to have interesting thoughts about personalities as a concept.

You’ll commonly see Dazai say something serious, followed by a severe reaction of the other character, ending with Dazai changing his demeanor and saying “just kidding” to lighten the air.

Manipulation: Dazai is extremely Machiavellian – he is prone to manipulating everyone around him, regardless of how much they care about him or not. He manipulated Chuuya into joining the mafia, he does the same with Akutagawa even today: Here we have him preying on Aku's insecurities to sabotage his self-confidence

He seems to be able to cut off his emotions from any situation, seeing people in a raw, factual sense.

There are several moments throughout the novels where Dazai talks about people as if they’re purely resources or pawns. An example of this in Dead Apple (where Chuuya gets angry because he doesn't respect people or show enough sympathy)

The way he speaks of Atsushi, when asked what he thinks of him in a guidebook, is something like “developing as expected”. Especially in the original, it sounds extremely factual, mechanical, and cold. To me, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about Atsushi, he’s just the type to compartmentalize his emotions in opposition to his thinking. This is very common for a few personality disorders and mental health conditions: the capacity to totally cut off your emotions from the equation.  Obviously, many people are capable of doing this to one extent or another, but the amount to which he does it is what makes it significant.

Lack of traditional empathy: Personally, I think everything comes down to this. Dazai's experiences with empathy are one of the main themes of his character arc. I believe one of the things that makes him feel othered is his lack of emotional empathy.

People with ASPD tend to have issues experiencing what a lot of people consider “typical” empathy – however, ASPD is also on a large spectrum, so experiences certainly vary. Keep in mind that "lack of empathy" is common for all sorts of disorders, but since ASPD seems to be one of the most popular choices for Dazai, I decided to start there.

Before we continue, there are 2 types of empathy: Cognitive empathy is the ability to recognize and understand someone’s feelings and experiences and imagine yourself in those scenarios. Emotional empathy is experiencing shared emotions with someone or feeling emotions as though the experience is your own.

People with ASPD can commonly do the first type easily, and struggle with the second one. It does not mean they cannot experience emotional empathy, it’s just rarer for them to feel it. In my opinion, Dazai heavily relies on Cognitive empathy compared to Emotional empathy.

You can see often that he seems to not entirely understand “why” something is wrong on a personal level, but he can logically see it. This is a running theme, and you can commonly see that Dazai doesn’t fully understand “normal”.

“15” Asagiri seems to be writing Dazai as someone who has gone “beyond the human dimension” in his skills and intelligence, so other people can’t fully understand him, but I think this goes both ways. Dazai has lost touch with what’s the standard human experience.

One of the times Chuuya specifically calls out Dazai for not "acting human-like" is when he's not expressing empathy and respect. It is clear that Dazai's lack of empathy is one of the aspects which make others see him as "inhuman".

There is another situation with Kunikida  during the Azure Messenger arc where Dazai seems to apologize for not getting something “is normal”, it slips by you very easily. It is framed as a joke, and it can be read as him making fun of Kuni, but Kunikida asks himself why Dazai apologized. It does read a bit unusually.

To me it seems like Dazai doesn’t fully emotionally understand other people, so when his mask slips you can see that he struggles a ton with getting what’s exactly “typical”.

Because Dazai is extremely intelligent, he masks in order to fit into society, and he does it successfully since he can intellectually understand most social and emotional functions and processes. However, he slips up like everyone does. This is why he got along with Oda well – since Oda just let him act like himself without having ulterior motives. Dazai didn’t have to “mask”. He didn't see Dazai as "just anyone", but he also realized Dazai was human. Basically, to Oda Dazai was a kid that had empathy issues, but he was struggling much like everyone else.

Personally, I feel like Dazai doesn’t feel entirely “human” because he doesn’t feel “emotional empathy” on the same level as other people, and this is one of the key issues of the character (as it's clearly stated in the Dead Apple manga, where Dazai does seem a bit upset by Chuuya's reaction)

. The reason he felt “seen” by Oda is because Oda fully recognized this and still believed Dazai could do “good”. In our society, it is common for people to think that "empathy" and "sympathy" are conditions for being a good person, but it isn't so simple. The possible complexity of Dazai's moral state is why I find the character so interesting - a person without traditional empathy choosing to be good is really fascinating. (more on this later).

Boredom and general emptiness: “Boredom” is an extremely common complaint for people with ASPD – in fact, intense, non-standard boredom, along with other symptoms such as atypical experience with empathy, is one of the easiest ways to recognize ASPD. A “numbed” emotional state is common for people with ASPD, and due to their different emotional range and inability to connect with others in a more typical fashion, they are prone to “boredom” and seeking out extreme experiences.

Alcoholism/Substance abuse is common for people with ASPD, and it’s pretty much canon Dazai drinks a lot (alcohol is even in his likes). Aside from that, Dazai often cites boredom as one of the main reasons he wants to die, and I remember so many instances where he complains about it in bizarre circumstances. This is common for people with ASPD: depression/suicidality is comorbid, and I have heard people with ASPD mention they wanted their life to end once they no longer have enough stimulation. Dazai is often stated to be “bored”, or look bored even when extremely horrifying things are happening (people dying around him/telling their life stories..).  An example with Mori where he talks about wishing to die (from 15):

Another really funny thing, a lot of people with ASPD I have seen tend to dislike “dogs”. Obviously, this hatred comes from the real life Dazai being scared of them and thinking they can attack at any moment, but it’s a funny coincidence. They tend to dislike dogs for an entirely different reason than Dazai does, to be fair.

How Dazai seems to see himself and morals in general

Generally, to me it seems like Dazai is not entirely happy with his nature. He admires Oda and doesn’t understand why he wouldn’t use his talents to rise up in ranks within the Mafia, simply because that is logical to Dazai – perhaps it is that difference between them that he enjoys so much. He is frequently attracted to displays of empathy:

Examples: 1. Ango documenting the deaths of people within the mafia even if it’s “just a waste of money” 2. Almost everything Atsushi and Oda do

He often describes altruism as “interesting”. I am also under the impression that Dazai has a tendency to project his nature onto others, which we can gather from his “Evil expects evil from others” quote to Mori. Furthermore, he sadly remarks in Dark Era that he is “a man despised by righteousness”. so I feel like there is something up here, some sort of guilt, distaste or shame.

This tells me:

a)Dazai sees himself as “evil”

b)He is constantly assuming the worst in others or is prepared for the worst

Another thing this tells me is that Dazai is someone who is likely extremely wary of people’s intentions. This is a ubiquitous theme all across BSD, especially when we see him as a kid. Osamu tends to be skeptical of everyone and everything, as if he’s waiting for people to betray or fuck him over at any corner. In TDIPUD, he keeps getting upset that he can't figure out Oda, since it makes no sense for him to be so charitable for absolutely no reason. Oda said “good and evil are the same to you” – personally I interpret this as Dazai being largely amoral rather than immoral.  Whether Dazai can be described as “good”, “evil” or “neutral” largely depends on your view of ethics. Just because someone lacks traditional empathy, it doesn't mean they are necessarily sadistic or bad at all. Immoral and Amoral are two words that sound similar but have different meanings. Immoral is an adjective that describes “something against pre-established morals, ethics, or standard societal practices.” Amoral, on the other hand, is an adjective that describes “something or someone completely lacking morals.” In common society, if you’re not “good”, you are often automatically “evil”. Basically, a person who has "no morals" is just as bad as a person who has cruel beliefs, but those two fundamentally differ. However, in a technical, utilitarian fashion – this is often seen to be true. More or less, “good” is the neutral state, and the more you step away from it, the more “evil” you are perceived to be. The more moral conventions you break, the more "evil" you are, regardless of your intentions. The results of the actions matter more than the source and motivations. In the end, a person is dead, regardless of why you killed them or how you felt about it. The reasons why people do conventionally moral things can be all over the place too - people aren't always kind because they have sympathy. When I hear “evil and good are the same to you”, it sounds like Dazai has no need for either, meaning, yes, he has no inherent need to do good, but no need for bad, he is simply not opposed to either of them. Regardless of what he's doing, he feels the same way. They're both tools to satisfy particular needs. Many people read this and say "aha, so if he sees no difference between the two, that means he is evil", but I think the truth is in the middle. I always say that to estimate Dazai's moral framework, you need to judge him outside of normal conventions. Basically, his starting point in making decisions is different. He begins his process likely by thinking "what will this bring me?" Most of his “evil” is not out of pure sadism, it’s just that he feels no need to stop himself due to moral conventions, he mostly cares about practical results. This is opposed to Kunikida who cares about ideals and morals in a vacuum and pursues them in their most idealized version (and it's well known Asagiri writes duos as opposites). Entrance exam as a novel was about how idealism can lead people to ruin when it's unrealistic.

He’s naturally immune to socialized pressure that forms the moral frameworks of most people on an emotional level. All of this is very common for ASPD, and a few other conditions. The more I see Dazai talk about how he sees the concept of personality, murder, morality – the more I am convinced his ethical framework is focused on results rather than the inherent morality of said actions. Example: He's going to lie to you to make you happy, even though "lying is bad". There is no inherent value in staying honest if it makes an individual miserable in the long run, even though society sees frankness as a virtue. That way, most actions are “open” for Dazai to undertake, he has no qualms most people have against them, since he doesn’t have socialized morals. A lot of the time, we only see certain things as "unconditionally bad" because we've been socialized to see them that way, even if it's not necessarily logical. He simply lacks socialized morals, leading to a tendency to be amoral. Everything is a means to an end, every action is alright if it's a tool that has more pros than cons. Oda's death was a useful character arc, since it led Dazai to taking Oda's moral framework as his own. He doesn't believe he is better than others, nor does he enjoy hurting random people, he doesn't kill or rob randos to get something and believes he is justified in it. Things of that type would make him “immoral”. Most of Dazai’s evil actions seem utilitarian, rather than committed for the pure act of pleasure or cruelty. When I say “amoral”, I mean this from Dazai’s point of view. Since he has no “moral boundaries”, all actions are open for him to undertake. He can go as far as he wants to any extreme largely depending on his subjective worldview and feelings (as seen in Beast, where he breaks all sorts of ethical codes of being "a good man" so Oda could get a decent life). However, since he is aware that there is a fight between good and bad in every person, and that evil tends to win out compared to the good, under enough pressure, he admires people who selflessly continue to be kind. That is why Oda, a highly moral person even beyond what is logical (his insistence to not kill even if it harms him) is the opposite that pushed him to change. Ulterior motives tend to be something Dazai is worried about in people, perhaps because he is possibly projecting all he is, or can be, on others. He describes Oda specifically as:

"a man who has no ulterior motive". Oda is obviously being a good person partially out of self-interest ("people live to save themselves"), but this self-interest is not destructive. I think for Dazai, it was difficult to find people who didn't have an ulterior motive that was ultimately hurtful, and he projected that onto everyone. Oda acting in his self-interest was ultimately beneficial to everyone. All in all, while Dazai does admire Oda's morals - I think a lot of this appreciation comes from an intimate and subjective place, where he feels comforted someone like Oda even existed. Continuing Oda's work is likely an extension of this as well. Keep in mind, any person has the right to see Dazai's actions as bad, as they often are. I am more speaking of Dazai's internal mental framework. Conclusion: Dazai has no inherent need to do good or bad, for the most part. He just goes as far as he needs to to satisfy his emotional needs.

Oda saved Dazai’s life in the day I picked up Dazai, and listened to him, but expected nothing in return. I feel that Oda saw this struggle within Dazai, and the way “good and evil don’t mean much to him” due to his disorder, but recognized that Dazai perhaps didn’t want to be this way.

Since Oda saw Dazai’s “irregular” nature, and still believed he could be a good person, Dazai was touched and decided to change his life. I believe Dazai had some distaste for himself, regardless of his lack of empathy, he could recognize what he was doing was not entirely right. As Asagiri mentioned, Oda told him exactly what he needed to hear, and the fact that these words were so life-changing to Dazai tells us a lot about what he had on his mind.  In my opinion, to see who Dazai is, you need to follow exactly which words got to him.

In my opinion, it likely meant a lot that a person he actually admired wanted to be in his life, especially a person he considered so kind like Oda. He often says that Oda is “the most interesting person he knows”. Imo, this is because “empathy” is one of the things Dazai doesn’t fully understand. He had to learn it. Since he understands human nature so well, cognitive empathy comes easy to him, but he still fucks up sometimes.

Here, I also feel like he is talking about himself – he sees himself in Kyouka. It doesn’t come naturally to Dazai to be “good”, but he is trying his best, that is his ideal now. (Asagiri said this was one of Dazai's rare human moments). For that reason, I think Dazai admires empathetic people and tends to dislike those who are naturally violent, or even choose to be violent out of sadism.

On the BSD exhibit, Asagiri said Atsushi was "an empathy user", and how that is the key to his character. During one interview, the author mentioned that Dazai keeps testing Kunikida's ideals, but Osamu secretly hopes that Doppo will prove to be right, and Dazai wrong. This to me paints a picture of someone who hopes that "good" is worth it, at least from an intellectual point of view. When talking with Fyodor, he seems to admire people who live emotionally, thinking god doesn't prefer perfection, logic and harmony.

"The ones who actually make the world run Are those who scream in the storm of uncertainty and run with flowing blood"

Dazai seems to reject the idea that him and Fyodor and better because they are more calculating and cold - like I mentioned earlier in this god-forsaken post, this to me says Dazai believes empathetic and emotional people are better than him.

"I've come to see it many times, his gimmicks are the accidental and illogical that's a weakness two of us have in common" He suffers because he is not like them, and that contributes to him feeling "othered".

Negative emotions and Akutagawa

My guess is that one of the reasons Dazai has so many issues with Akutagawa is because he is projecting his own issues with his lack of empathy onto him. This makes him relate to Akutagawa, but also dislike him beyond how he usually treats people. Akutagawa questions why Dazai's acts of violence are justified, while Osamu is judging Akutagawa: to me it sounds that Dazai sees his actions as at least partly justified because they are "logical" and utilitarian. He puts a difference between him and Aku, as if Dazai's natural instinct is not to mindlessly hurt others. However, it's interesting he needs to draw this line.

I believe Dazai sees a lot of the hurt he enacts on others as either "justified" or subconsciously defensive. "If I don't hurt others, they will hurt me", and he uses this against all kinds of people to keep them in control. In the Dark Era novel, Dazai speaks of Akutagawa like this:

“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.” Interestingly, Dazai was "horrified" at what Akutagawa was capable of, where most things don't seem to exactly phase him. I think something about Aku's capacity for violence even scares him, and he "lashes" out in response to control him.

Later on Oda calls out Dazai's thinking indirectly in Beast, saying that hurting Aku is still bad no matter why he did it. (more on this in the next section) However, it’s very clear he cares for Akutagawa in “Chopsticks and a Spoon”, so I do feel like he’s likely aware of it. In fact, that story contains one of the gentlest expressions Dazai has pointed at anyone, so I think he partially sees Akutagawa as "innocent" in nature, and more like a wounded animal. I'll likely write a post about it. Since Dazai has expressed some lament or even shame regarding him being a person "hated by righteousness", I do think he is a bit ashamed of who he is. This part is a theory: When talking about "No Longer Human", Asagiri mentioned that he felt the book was about "embarrassment". Since Dazai is canonically famously based on Yozo to some extent, I feel that we can guess that Osamu likely does feel some shame - the question is about what. The rare times we see BSD Dazai express something similar to shame is when talking about his moral nature (when he beat up Akutagawa in Dark Era), but it's a "blink and you'll miss it" type of thing. Yozo and RL Dazai's relationship with his father was one of the cornerstones of his work (NLH even ends with him mentioning how he would have been alright if he had a better relationship with his father). Within the book, Yozo feels all sorts of things which make him feel "inhuman", but he is terrified about being open about it due to his strict father who sees him as somewhat strange. Since the theme of "fatherhood" was lightly touched upon when Atsushi's orphanage director died, I do think this is potentially a sore spot for BSD Dazai too. My guess is that Dazai likely had a poor relationship with his father figure, who saw him as "strange" or "inhuman" due to the way he acted: leading BSD Dazai to feel shame over his nature. Perhaps one of the things that made his father see Dazai as inhuman was his lack of typical ethics and empathy. Osamu internalized this - and ended up becoming a criminal at a very young age, perhaps in an attempt to confirm what hurt him, seeing himself as someone who could mostly do bad (which could be one of the reasons he wanted to die so young). Perhaps Oda making a way for him to "act good" was life-changing because of that too - it targeted a specific wound. All of this is speculation, but Dazai did mention that "self-pity leads you to living a life that is an endless nightmare". My guess is he was talking about himself there: and his own experiences with shame. To extend this: I think one of the reasons Dazai is so harsh on Akutagawa is because he is possibly projecting his relationship with his father onto Aku. Akutagawa is violent and troubled, and Dazai was shamed for the same thing. (but it would take a lot of time to work through this theory, so moving on..)

Dazai exhibiting empathy However, Dazai does show empathy for Oda, and a lot of it. I’d go as far as to say that he over-empathizes with Oda, while he underempathizes with everyone else. His relationships with the people closest to him tend to be why some people think he may have BPD. Especially due to devaluation and the "favorite person" concept. For someone with this type of BPD relationship, a “favorite person” is someone they rely on for comfort, happiness, and validation. A FP is a person who someone with BPD relies heavily on for emotional support, seeks attention and validation from, and looks up to or idealizes. For Dazai, this is Oda. On the other hand, In the context of BPD, “devaluation” refers to a psychological defense mechanism or coping strategy that individuals with BPD may employ in their interpersonal relationships. Devaluation involves a shift in the person’s perception of others, where they view someone they previously idealized or held in high regard as unworthy, flawed, or worthless. They become unworthy of their affection and praise. The person with BPD may engage in behaviors such as intense criticism, verbal attacks, withdrawal, or even cutting off contact with the person they have devalued. These actions are often driven by the individual’s fear of rejection, abandonment, or a desire to protect themselves from potential hurt or disappointment. For Dazai, the clearest example of this is Ango. However, a person can exhibit the "favorite person" and project the phenomenon of devaluation without having BPD. In my opinion, Dazai does show heightened polarity in his feelings toward others, but I am not sure if BPD would be my choice for him. It's very difficult to say, as many conditions mask as BPD, and Dazai's expression of empathy is unique.

Dazai idealizes Oda, and deeply sees his pain as his own, while he always frames Akutagawa in a negative light, even though he is likely one of the people Dazai cares about the most (next to Oda, Chuuya, Ango, Atsushi, especially according to Beast). Another example of his heightened negative emotions are Ango, and Chuuya to a much lesser extent. My guess is that Dazai doesn’t deal with caring about people well, especially when they are any sort of “threat”: which is why he tries to “bully” them down. The reason he goes easier on Chuuya than Akutagawa is because he feels Chuuya is in his nature more sympathetic.

In my opinion, the moment Dazai warmed up to Chuuya was when he realized that The Sheep were pushing Chuuya around: he was no “King of the sheep”, he was acting out of empathy and care. Since Chuuya is so powerful, it was likely admirable to Dazai that he didn’t abuse his abilities for self-gain. This is when he decided to isolate Chuuya from the Sheep: and I think the reason above is specifically why

I'd say Dazai is likely "spikey" to anyone he cares about but has less confidence they won't hurt him. There are two camps of people: 1. Atsushi, Oda, Kunikida, Sigma (generally upright, meek, moral at the end of the day) 2. Chuuya, Akutagawa, and lastly Ango (people who are aggressive, challenging, and need to be put down in Dazai's eyes).

He cares about both camps (Sigma is debatable, I spoke of the type of personality Dazai seems to deal with easily in his case), but he likely feels "less safe" with the second type. Mori could potentially go into the second camp - there is some respect and resentment there at the same time. He even talks about this with Kunikida in Entrance exam.

"“I guess. But you, Kunikida, I’ve got a good idea of who you are now, so nothing you do will ever surprise me. I mean, compared with me, you’re just a simple man with a simple mind, after all.”

See? You wear your heart on your sleeve. You don’t hide how you’re really feeling. It’s nice. You know what else is nice? Just knowing that you’re going to be worrying later to yourself, ‘Am I really that simple?’”

“Why, you—”

But I refrain from arguing. Whatever my response, he’s just going to end up telling me, “I knew you’d say that.”

I suppose that being around Kunikida comforts him since he is predictable, yet kind. On the other hand, someone like Chuuya excites him, because he is wild and challenging enough, but is still a good person when it comes down to it. Basically, Dazai is hypervigilant of pain.

Akutagawa is “off the chain” in comparison to all of them. I am under the impression that Dazai can care about people without treating them well at all, and 2 of the people who are at the top of his list (Chuuya and Aku) are people he “seems” to dislike (In Chuuya’s case rather openly in his profile).

It appears that the more “intense” and “unpolished” parts of Dazai’s personality are strictly reserved for people he cares about, but he is extremely selective about who he shows emotional empathy to as it’s such a rare experience for him. He may capable of "cutting off" empathy to protect himself emotionally. It is quite clear some aspects of empathy miss him broadly in Beast, when he appears shocked that Oda would react so strongly to endangering Akutagawa since “it’s all supposed to end well if he survives”. That sentence itself is totally tone-deaf, yet Dazai is acting as if Oda is supposed to take that normally. It’s quite clear that Dazai doesn’t treat Atsushi all that well in Beast either, as he exploits his fears for Atsushi to be totally obedient to him.

I really like this moment, because it demonstrates that even if Dazai does have some point regarding Akutagawa and the way he goes about things, the way he has treated him is still too much – and Dazai can’t exactly convince Oda, a decent person, why this is ever justifiable under any circumstances. There is an aspect of regular empathy that misses Dazai – it doesn’t cross his mind why his actions are inherently bad. Perhaps it is possible that Dazai was treated with little to no empathy growing up, so he accepted that as a model for acceptable behavior. A lot of the time, cruel actions don't seem to even register to him as bad, in an almost innocent way. It's like it doesn't cross his mind that stuff is out of the ordinary. When talking to Oda about this, he was described as "childlike".

However, Dazai shows a lot of extreme emotional empathy for Oda, which tends to be rare for people with ASPD (obviously, all traits of it are on a spectrum).

Dazai clearly feels as if he himself is being beaten when Oda suffers. Furthermore, “Beast” shows that he is willing to endanger multiple people he cares about so Oda could live and write his book. In his words “the me from other worlds doesn’t care about the world” – showing that even though he may “care” about people, it’s really hard for him to fully emotionally connect with others.

This leads him to severe feelings of loneliness and isolation, but it’s quite clear Oda is the exception to this.

Dazai has multiple anxiety attacks when meeting with Oda in Beast and TIPUD:

“I see.” Oda says after he gives it a moment of thought. “I’ll do so then. That is very kind of you. You are a good guy.”

Dazai’s expression becomes distorted.

He opens his mouth, and closes it again, as if he can no longer breathe.

If he tells him everything now, maybe things will go back to how they were. The two of them will go to the bar together and have a toast. Just like that night.

“Odasa…”

Just as Dazai is about to say that name, a train passes by. The express train passing through that station cuts through the silence of the night, right next to where Dazai and Oda is."

and obviously the whole showdown at the bar. Earlier, Oda mentions that Dazai looks like he is about to cry:

 An interesting part here is that Dazai gets shocked that Oda would even consider that Dazai could hurt him:

It almost sounds absurd that Dazai, who is known for scheming even against people he likes, would be that surprised someone would expect this from him. This, to me, shows that Dazai does have that underdeveloped, childish emotional side to himself, where he doesn’t understand everything he does. It’s quite logical why Oda, or anyone else, would be consistently doubtful of Dazai, yet he is so used to not caring about anyone, that when he does feel things he is remarkably unpolished and just as illogical as anyone else. I’d say his heart is like a knife that went blunt from lack of use. Since he has no experience dealing with people he feels strongly about, it always comes across very messy – and Asagiri himself often describes him as childish at his most vulnerable.

Furthermore, the lyrics of the song for Beast have these words to say: “Loving you to death won’t kill me Because I don’t love this world enough” And in the Beast novel, he mentions all he has to give to the world is love. I think we can certainly see that Dazai is not emotionless.

To me it seems like Dazai is capable of selective emotional empathy. I feel like one of the reasons Oda was “the one” Dazai attached himself to the most, is because Oda was a struggling man who was also depressed (rather clear the more you read), but he was empathetic and accepted Dazai for who he was.

Him and Dazai had difficulties in common (the guy was a killer as a kid too), yet Oda did his best to be a good person – that is one of the reasons, as Asagiri mentions, why he had an “outburst” when Kyouka implied former killers can’t be good people. Oda was a good person in his eyes, and his role model of “empathy”: someone he wished to emulate. I am pretty sure that Oda became the blueprint for the moral compass he strives towards.

Most importantly, Oda didn’t really judge Dazai when he showed his lack of empathy, while he remained firm in what he believed in.

“Odasaku is the type of person who will never lecture anyone. Because he does not consider himself a superior person who can teach and guide others. However, it doesn’t mean that he has nothing he wants to say. The sentiments that he couldn’t convey in these two scenes were finally delivered to Dazai in the last scene through the words “Become a good person.” Very meaningful scenes when read as a set.”

is how Asagiri described Oda during the exhibit. As Asagiri says, one of the reasons he didn’t tell Dazai anything when he provoked the sniper was his modesty. Since Oda didn’t look down on him, yet showed concern and fully understood Dazai wasn’t just a struggling depressed kid, but someone with serious issues who also happened to be a child – Dazai grew to deeply care for him. Oda didn't shame him, likely avoiding Dazai's hypervigilant sensor for pain.

Selective empathy is common for many disorders – and Dazai, after not feeling “seen” his whole life, ended up making a true connection with Oda. I guess, in that sense – Oda was the one who really reached Dazai’s heart, and since he was the only one who came that close, all of Dazai’s emotional empathy is reserved for him.

In my opinion, the reason Dazai was so difficult to “get to” was that even people who had good intentions toward him never truly saw him.

To see Dazai as a depressed woobie who just needs to be saved is to idealize him – which wouldn’t exactly help him. They’re talking about a version of him that doesn’t exist. If the only way he could be seen as worthwhile was someone seeing him as more “traditionally good” than he truly is, it’s not going to work. He needs to be seen for exactly who he is, and still given a chance to be better.

Likewise, it had to be someone who wasn’t helping him in order to get something from him. I would say that one of the main reasons why Dazai got so attached to Oda was because his friend had no reason to save him, he gave him space, and didn’t even force himself into Dazai’s life.

It was purely altruistic, and for Dazai, who expects the worst from others and seems to fear people’s intentions, this was perfect. One of the main aspects of Dazai's character is his anxious-avoidant attachment style, where he is likely so afraid of potential pain, he pushes others away, or punishes anyone he cares about who might hurt him preemptively. A lot of this is not impulsive, but calculated, which is why he feels a natural resistance to Akutagawa (but relates to him and cares all the more because of it). He understands the self-destructive nature of Akutagawa.

"If I’d left him to his own devices, he would’ve ended up a slave to his own powers until he destroyed himself.”" I believe Dazai likely allows himself to fully empathize with Oda because he feels only Oda is "safe" in this world. The fact that Oda is dead and gone perhaps makes caring for him even safer, as his image of Oda will never change.

Conclusion: I'd say Dazai is someone who is probably extremely traumatized, with a specific emotional profile that doesn't allow him to experience empathy like normal people do - and this is one of the defining traits of the character for me. He is able to isolate himself from normal social pressures and boundaries - and because of this and his extreme intellect, he feels like an alien in this world. A lot of his struggle likely deals with the fact that he dislikes the hurtful person he is, but has difficulty seeing why he should be better - all while he has a distaste for sadism, cruelty and senseless violence in others. In my opinion, a lot of his own cruelty is "reactive": he acts "evil" because he expects the same from others ("evil expects evil from others), and decides he wants to beat them to the punch. He is comforted when he is in the presence of altruistic and empathetic people, because he doesn't have to be what he dislikes (as "enemy" evil will always make him react since he is threatened). In the end, he rationally sees that cruelty is negative, but he still feels it is an effective tool. If Dazai weren't this way, he wouldn't consistently choose empathetic people for his company throughout the story, while acting callous himself most of the time.

A lot of things Dazai does to me feel like he is avoiding hurt, or attempting to "control the pain" he gets in his life. Notably, Dazai mostly lets himself get "bullied" by people he sees as innocent and simple like Kunikida, since "Kunikida will never surprise him" - he knows that Doppo won't cross the line. Ironically, he famously says he "dislikes physical pain", but often gets himself into physically dangerous scenarios.

It's like he doesn't mind pain if he's the one in control (when Fyodor let the sniper shoot him, when that dude from Mimic shot him point blank). Avoidance of pain and control are other keys to Dazai's character. In that sense, I think Dazai was possibly traumatized and learned to almost completely disassociate from empathy early in his life. There are so many theories I could think of here that we'd get nowhere.

It is clear that Dazai is capable of extreme emotional empathy due to his relationship with Oda, and it's possible he doesn't allow himself to feel it in most scenarios due to his avoidant nature regarding pain. However, whatever the reason behind it, it is clear he doesn't feel a ton of emotional empathy in his day-to-day life, and this disassociation from empathy has crafted him into a person who doesn't fully understand "normal humans".

That is why he sees them as fascinating after Oda dies - he reaches Dazai's heart and opens him up to the idea that not all people are unempathetic and cruel - meaning Dazai doesn't always have to be on guard. Does Dazai have ASPD, or is his lack of empathy a result of other things: PTSD, CPTSD, is he perhaps autistic? I can't say for sure, as it could be so many things. Personally, anyone could make an argument for any of these in my eyes. Above, I mostly analyzed his displays of empathy and tried to study which emotional patterns he appears to follow. I think Dazai's character arc has a lot of worth specifically because we see someone for whom emotional empathy may not be natural trying to be good. It's a unique ethical dilemma, and that's one of the reasons I feel in love with the series. Since it isn't natural for him, his efforts mean a lot, and the struggle feels real and genuine.

Thank you all for reading if you made it this far <3 I've taken a lot of posts and translations I've gathered over the years, and I am sure I won't be able to thank everyone, but, I'd like to show appreciation for popopretty, aja154ever and many others for sharing info from exhibitions, databooks and so. Have a nice day !

[avelera]

So I've been watching the new (and old) anime for Sailor Moon because holy shit after a childhood of trying and failing to see the whole story when it was only syndicated at 6:30 am on weekends and it was always the same few episodes with only the occasional glimpse of the epic shit that happened in later seasons, it's a miracle to me that kids these days can just turn on this show and watch it linearly and there's even a version that follows the manga.

*Ahem* Anyway, I just gotta say, maybe I'm biased because I'm the Sailor Moon Generation™️ so of course the story seems like it's genius to me, but man is this story genius like holy shit did Sailor Moon understand the damn assignment.

The Power Fantasy, holy crap, the power fantasy of it all. If you project onto the protagonist you are a normal teen girl who was the magical moon princess in a past life. When your kingdom fell to undeniably evil forces, you were cruelly ripped away from your beautiful soulmate, your amazing powerful friends, your loving magical mother and your ethereal magical kingdom. Now, you're given magical superpowers to help avenge those who wronged you, and you're steadily reunited with your magical beautiful amazing friends and your soulmate, who all adore you even when you're not perfect. Someday you know you will grow up into an ethereally beautiful, powerful demi-goddess who will rule the galaxy in a benign Golden Age

If you don't project onto Usagi, then the show is literally full of other women and girls* (and I mean the term as inclusively as possible), who don't all fit the same feminine ideal, a lot of them aren't even feminine or identify all the time as female, and the whole point is that there's many ways to be a girl, or to be a person, but you can all be magical Sailor Guardians who protect the universe with your celestial magical powers of awesomeness. You can be a mystical priestess, a smart nerd who wants to be a doctor like her mom, a strong fighter who nevertheless loves flowers and wants to find love with a handsome boy, or you can be in a long term steady relationship with your soulmate who is another woman that transcends space and time, a race car driver, a rockstar, a musician, the show just kills it at having a whole cast of different ways you can be a Sailor Scout and they are all valid.

Even when you get into the villains and stuff, they're pretty much all gorgeous and all obsessed with Usagi, either as she is now, or in her magical past life or in her future life as a benevolent demigoddess ruler of the universe. Like. The power fantasy of it all. Throw in just a really pretty art style, all the zodiac and celestial planet imagery, the mythology tie ins not to mention the lore of these beautiful interplanetary kingdoms all centered on the heavenly Moon Kingdom, like...

It just gets the power fantasy thing in a way I think many magical girl stories even within the genre have attempted but never fully replicated. There's a lightning in a bottle aspect to Sailor Moon that when I go back to it, even as an adult watching what is mostly a children's show, I find myself nodding along like "Yeah, yeah, this shit was fucking amazing, no wonder I was obsessed."

[cadejos]

ON NANAMI'S POWER LEVEL, DOMAIN EXPANSIONS, DOMAIN COUNTERS, AND HOW JUJUTSU SOCIETY PLAYS A ROLE.

This analysis originally turned viral on twitter. I'm posting it here for archival.

Nanami treated sorcery like a job and Gojo treated sorcery like a lifestyle. I've thought long and hard about why Nanami does not have certain skills (DE, Simple Domain, etc) that'd easily bump him up in terms of power, as he's already very strong. The reason is two-fold:

He never set out to do more than what he absolutely had to do. ("Moderate effort where moderate effort suffices," etc)

Information about sorcery is very gatekept and compartmentalized, because Jujutsu society sucks.

For point number 1, we are to keep in mind that Nanami is a grade one sorcerer, very much the peak of what sorcery is supposed to be outside of Special Grade work. The purpose of sorcery, up until very recently, has been about killing curses, most of which are not special grade or intelligent. The disaster curses are anomalies, and battles with Domain users were very rare until they showed up. They vastly skewed the power system. Remember that not even Naobito Zenin, the head of one of the great clans, had a Domain expansion either, and it took the work of a Domain user (Megumi) and an experienced sorcerer killer (Toji) to properly counter Dagon in his domain.

If domain battles are truly so rare, I don't really blame Nanami for not going out of his way to work on developing one, especially since Domains require an element of self-assurance that Nanami, due to trauma and disposition, was never geared toward developing.

His soul was strong enough to protect against a novice Mahito subconsciously, which is a promising start, but once Mahito grew too strong he was way out of Nanami's scope (not to mention Gege deliberately tired him over the course of Shibuya) and Nanami was more inclined to take his loss gracefully than to force himself to craft an spontaneous Domain Expansion. It's not like he really had the energy to try, either.

Overall, developing a DE for the off chance that he stumbled upon a Domain user just doesn't sound like his style. And he wouldn't do it for fun, either, because jujutsu is not fun for him, and it never has been. It's just work.

Let's say he would want to at least develop a domain counter, though. That's where point number 2 steps in. The whole reason something as fundamental as a domain counter is so rare in jujutsu is purely because jujutsu society is inherently selfish and self-serving.

If I recall correctly, SD is not something you can teach due to a binding vow tied to the technique. It has to be something you learn on your own through observation and intuition, or by joining New Shadow Style. Up until UiUi's soul swapping, there wasn't a reliable work around for this conundrum. And the other domain counters? Old, not very well known, and gatekept by the clans.

Sometimes I'm inclined to believe jujutsu sorcerers learn sorcery not because of the school system but in spite of it. Unless you're already a genius, born gifted, or willing to go an extra -- ambiguously illicit -- mile (like Kusakabe), there's not much the average sorcerer can do, and not many tools for them to learn to begin with. Nanami is presented as the baseline of what modern day good sorcery looks like; what you can achieve if you're competent, and don't have the privilege of relying on very good mentors, obscure knowledge, or ancient techniques. Even then he had an expansion technique, not something every sorcerer has, and he was capable of achieving one of the pinnacles of Jujutsu, which is the black flash; precisely because of his attitude toward jujutsu and his ability to focus when things get serious.

Maybe if given enough time to heal from his psychological wounds, and given opportunities for more black flashes, as well as a strong enough incentive, he could have circumvented a lot of problems and enlightened his way toward a DE or other such jujutsu-relevelations.

But that's speculation and not really the point of his character.

Had he been a villain though? Gege probably would've made him stronger, if his Culling Games score in JJK's draft Jujutsu Sousen is anything to go by, which is amusing.

Supplementary reading:

In regards to black flashes: a post where I go over why I think Yuuji and Nanami are especially good at them, and why I think they require conditions that are in opposition to Domain expansions.

Measuring Nanami's critical hit power: where I use a statement to further analyze and evaluate the capabilities of the Ratio Technique.

[genericpuff]

You probably don't want to talk about 'Kaos' anymore so you don't need to respond to this, I just want to tell my thoughts

At first I thought that "Hades and Persephone love each other", "Demeter is a helicopter mom" and the famous "Hades is misunderstood and the least bad of his brothers" 🙄 good thing I was too shy to say those thoughts on the internet

Ironically, thanks to "Lore Olympus" I realized the altered perception that almost everyone has about this couple and poor Demeter (now she is my favorite goddess ♥️). The clearest example is that pretentious webcomic.

When I saw the HxP version of 'Kaos'... I liked it

I feel like it's because I don't really see them as Hades and Persephone, I just see an old couple who genuinely love, respect and support each other and not a bastardization that only exists to fulfill a twisted fantasy (*Cough* LO *cough*)

I've only seen up to the beginning of chapter 6, but so far I like this version of Hades, he's not a hypocrite who feels superior to Zeus, he genuinely cares about his family, he doesn't want Zeus' pride to destroy it and tries to warn him and that went very wrong 😞

Well, that's all I wanted to say, bye 👋

I actually don't mind talking about Kaos at all, it was a great watch!!!

I was a little sigh when Persephone was like "ACTUALLY I went down WILLINGLY" but I'm glad at least that so far that it was more so just a brief, inconsequential mention and nothing that seemed to imply toxicity between her and Demeter. That said, there's still clearly meant to be a second season (whether it gets renewed is a whole other issue) so I'm reeeeallly hoping it doesn't go "haha psych!" and pull the rug out from under me with Demeter slander, but we'll see.

Again, thankfully it wasn't too major of an inclusion that it doesn't ruin the overall presentation of H x P in the show, the casting is genius (I hadn't even realized at first the actor portraying Hades was David Thewlis until my husband pointed it out and that made me love him even more hahaha) and the dynamic between Persephone and Hades is very fun as they're both clearly on the same playing field in terms of age and life experience, Persephone never seems like she's just an accessory to Hades and if anything it's Persephone who's often having to run the show (but it doesn't ever put Hades down either, he's just overworked and tired and his wife is trying to make him do self-care aahah)

And yeah, I mentioned this in a previous unrelated ask but I really feel like there's too much focus around teenagers / young couples / May-December couples (i.e. "old guy x young girl") in a lot of romance these days so seeing Kaos' depiction of H x P as a middle-aged couple who are clearly in love but also have a lot of burdens between themselves and their responsibilities was very refreshing and needed. I know a lot of romances are centered around younger couples because then they can play on the whole dramatic, "whirlwind romance" trope, but people older than 40 can have great romance stories too! And frankly considering how many romances are centered around the "first love" couples who are just constantly making out / flirting / having sex / etc., it's weirdly fun to watch a couple who are clearly past that puppy love stage and are now just working together as a unit the way experienced couples would. The love has moved past the short-term excitement of kissing and sex and moved into the long-term strength of simply committing yourself to another person and tackling life's problems together.

That's not to say that young couples can't be depicted in that way, either, but again, a lot of it often gets thrown to the wayside in favor of the more "exciting" stuff like the "will they won't they" trope and the love triangles and moments of "firsts". Ironically, those moments of "firsts" aren't so special when every romantic couple in media is having them 💀😆

Sooo yeah! Hades and Persephone in Kaos are very fun and endearing to watch, they genuinely feel like two people committed to both each other and their responsibilities as rulers of the Underworld and it shows in both their actions and how they behave together while standing against Zeus. I really hope that it gets a second season, and that whatever is contained within doesn't fall into the same "Demeter was the villain" shtick. I don't see what's so difficult about having Persephone choose to go to the Underworld without it being at the expense of her mother, it's wild how so many stories can't seem to play to both sides of the myths.

[forgeofthenine]

Is it the holiday season, or are you just a genius cause my yearning heart is being well fed by your tiefling headcanons. I hope this ask inspires :)

I’d go feral for some good pining headcanons; what are they like in the gray space between flirting and relationship? Especially if there’s mutual understanding that this might not be the best time (i.e. there may or may not be a mindflayer invasion in progress) and so they hold off on initiating anything, but have to watch as their crush dives headlong into danger? I love imagining ill-timed interruptions punctuated by longing looks.

Alternatively, how good are our darling tiefling bachelors at dancing? Would they learn a jig or two if their SO loved dancing?

Here's a lil' something something for you about pining, Anon. I didn't decide to write a full set of dance headcanons (despite it being on my to do list right from when I started the blog) but I am going to post something similar 👀

What the bachelors are like while pining for you

Dammon

This man pines so hard

He's touch starved to hell, quite literally, but has no clue about it

Dammon was sure he was fine right up until he met you and was hit with the realisation that he wanted more

The way he shows his affection is also anything but subtle, expect to know right away

It's never the type of affection that makes you feel guilty if you don't return it or makes you feel like you feel pressured

He's very easy going and good at reading people, he slowly increases how much affection he gives you until you both find a comfortable balance

Soon you'll find all your weapons and armour is repaired or replaced to the highest quality

Dammon is overjoyed if you return the same affection, even if you both know dating is off the cards for now

Bring this man some home cooking and he'll want to marry you right then and there

It's a grey area you both find yourself in for quite some time, to the point you both often get asked if you're together

The way he blushes when people ask is absolutely adorable, even more so when he hesitates to correct them

Towards the end you both basically already live together, both slowly easing into a romantic relationship without realising it

Dammon is more than happy once the ilithids are dealt with to make things official, finally not needing to correct people anymore

Zevlor

This man is the king of pining, absolute reigning champion

He knew he was in deep right from the moment he first saw you

It's something he keeps under wraps very well, to the point that you probably won't realise for a while

He tends to sneak peaks at you when you aren't looking, or he comes up with mostly reasonable excuses to come and speak with you

If you call him out on either thing then he'll heavily deny doing any of it, despite the blush on his face giving him away

Even if there wasn't an ilithid invasion happening Zevlor would still be cautiously optimistic about ever having a relationship with you

He's wary of a potential age gap or coming across too strong and scaring you away

A part of him also reminds him that you'd likely want a suitor your own age

The best way to quell those worries is to simply return his advances with some of your own

It could be anything, so long as he thinks you're interested he'll keep up his very subtle flirting

Soon, the two of you are already regularly having meals with each other and finding ways to spend hours together

Zevlor is absolutely already thinking of the life he'll have with you after this

Rolan

Rolan is a dick at first, he honestly is so out of touch with his own feelings that he doesn't realise he's into you

He's completely oblivious to anything that isn't directly spelled out for him, including how much he actually enjoys your company

It takes Cal and Lia teasing him relentlessly before he finally comes to terms with it

Once he does it hits him like a brick to the face

And after that, it's like a switch flips

He can barely speak to you now without second-guessing himself or tripping over words

It's enough to make you wonder what's going on until the siblings start teasing you both, much to Rolans embarrassment

He's always quick to shoo them away and apologise but his feelings are already clear

You're both smart people, it's easy to know now isn't the time to start a romantic relationship, but it's harder to listen to reason when your feelings get involved

After weeks of you both tiptoeing around each other, feelings clearly returned, he finally has enough

Rolans the fastest to take action on his pining, impatient and hating the uncertainty

You'll find yourself in Ramaziths Tower and kissing the tiefling that runs it in no time

Rolan is quick to pull you into him, kissing you passionately before making you promise you'll stay safe

[punkeropercyjackson]

The way Percy Jackson in the Pjo/Hoo books is like........legitimately black-coded.Stay with me on this,the leadup to this post is what made decide to make it

He's a New Yorker from El Barrio.He's seen as a troublemaker on sight because 'he looks like it' and that's kinda the whole point of his character-He never means to do anything wrong,everybody just judges him his whole life because he looks 'scary' but in the pov chapters by others,there's nothing about him that's actually intimidating or would cause alarm unless you count the rbf and itself is a phenomenom i also deal with as an audhd black person who never learned how to mask because i don't fall under any autistic stereotypes on top of the blackness so i had to self-diagnose(with proper research).This happens to other Half-Bloods but Percy is emphasized as a special case,he gets it even worse and we're TOLD it's because of his looks multiple times.His looks include 'a mediterrean complexion',an umbrella term for brown skin and his shade is never stated and his hair is longer than average for a guy explicitly too and the texture isn't given either.Hazel Levesque,the first monoracial darkskin black fem mc in the franchise,said Percy has 'the good looks of a roman god' and that's an unrealistic description from a 40s New Orleans girl to give a white boy fullstop but she described Nico di Angelo as 'a scrawny white boy' and Jason Grace's,Annabeth's Chase's and other explicitly white characters' races are stated by her too but never Percy's.By ANY character,in a whole SAGA he started!And Percy used white as a descriptor too,in Sea of Monsters when he said he hates rich white boys.Again,white characters in the franchise don't use that descriptor unless it's for irony comedy!!

The SECOND Percy met Hazel,he rode for her harder than anyone else ever,including her so called boyfriend who is nonblack.When Octavian was being a creepy misogynoirist and picking on her for being a younger black girl,Percy scared him into leaving her alone with his 'natural intimidation' and is extremely caring towards and tender to her throught all their interactions.This is because Percy is canonically punk and no,i don't mean a sk*ter,i mean he lives it up to all the requirements for being a part of punk culture and i did the downlow on that(linked in the notes)and that only adds to it because of course a black punk dude would instantly and nonstop back up a lil darkskin black girl in trouble no matter what.He looks exactly like Poseidon,the god of the sea,the caribbean and Sally raised him in the ways of the sea because she grew up the same way and was passing it down to him,not because of Poseidon

Percy as a character was created to defy stereotypes,he's the og troubled but good kid rep.He's poor but because his mom had so many relatives die at such a young age she couldn't end up any other way and he already feels guilt over his dad being a deadbeat because he's 'playing into the stereotype'.He has a way better understanding of gender and racial dynamics than the stated white boys do and certain very pick me-ish white girls in the verse too and is commented and proven to not be traditionally masculine or to quote my little sister figure 'not in the white way if that makes sense'.He's also a genius but constantly called stupid by everyone and just takes it as opposed to Annabeth,who is objectively less smart than him and the whitest girl in the whole books by a longshot and was realistically treated as a gift for it due to the more extreme ableism of neurodivergents who aren't 'good enough'

Percy is a mama's boy who respects women and disrespects men,was a bully beater and never stopped until he became an adult no matter how many schools he got kicked out of-6 at 12 alone,takes on the Team Dad role to make up for Poseidon's abandonment and for every kid he meets who dosen't have a dad either,has the cocky asf and audacious attitude literally only black men can pull off,his sense of humor strikes very familiarly and dinstictively to me as a homecountry raised afro-dominicana and this is free liscense on my part but i can't help but make the connections of Hazel's dad being a roman god,Percy pseudo-adopting Hazel and Hazel saying Percy looks like a roman god.Percy's foil in every way down to their looks(*hint hint*)is Luke Castellan

Luke's a cishet allistic blue eyed blonde white older man who's constantly described as conventionally attractive who grew up in a fantasy world to shelter him where he was worshipped yet humanized and didn't have any overly bad experiences by demigod standards but went on one bad quest and turned into a fullblown fascist as he groomed the demigods he'd nurtured beforehand into his child army with propaganda he NEVER made due on in FOUR WHOLE YEARS of doing a war and bringing about the end of the world for self-vindication only,including an irl cryptofash dogwhistle('destroying society to build it from the ground up')and is also racist(targeted boys of color as seen with Chris Rodriguez and Ethan Nakamura but left Travis and Connor Stoll alone despite being closer to them)and a serial pedophile(had shippy undertones with Annabeth,Silena Beauregard,Thalia Grace and Kelli only and Kelli has no canon age but she passes as a 14 year old Percy's classmate with no mentions of age apperance changing).A key part to all this is that Luke thinks he was martyrd by the gods the way Percy actually was and it's all Luke's fault yet he calls PERCY too naive the same he's literally doing it to him

And finally,the leadup:In The Kane Chronicles,a spinoff,short story crossovering with Pjo Percy says Sadie Kane looks like if he had a daughter with Annabeth.Sadie Kane is canonically a black dad white mom kid.Yeah i know it's Rick being racist and she was whitewashed in all her official arts but in the books,the kids at her school are misogynoiristic against her and bully her due to clocking as 'the mixed race girl' on sight.Sadie is canonically not white passing,just lightfeatured and looks black enough that you can easily tell her heritage.This implies Percy is black,specifically afrolatino with the El Barrio upbringing and sea/caribbean heritage.It has no contradiction in canon and the covers and graphic novels can't be counted on since they lightwash Hazel big time.Wether you like it or not,Percy Jackson was written as black-coded.And completely accidentally made way more respectfully written than the intentional black characters because Rick Riordan should be hunted for sport.It's giving that post about autistic-coded characters.I think Percy's full name is actually Perseo Isadore Jackson

[withlove-xixi]

Hello, this is the beastman reader anon, I loved your thoughts on that, and gotta agree all the girls of dungeon meshi don't get enough fics. 🤝

Laios and Chil have tons, heck even Senshi

So in light of that, and you now being my favorite writer, what do you think of poly farcille x reader? Because these girls need a lot of love, and definitely someone to love and protect because holy fu how are these mages so accident and injury prone??? They're living their childhood friends to lovers and fall in love with their new party member? Yoink, they're a throuple now

Plus, Marcille needs someone to comfort her and hold her when Falin gets turned into a Chimera. Someone else who can't bear to see their love hurt and wants to try and see if she's still in there. Cue monsterfucker era for them, they guess? and possible shenanigans where the dragon part of Falin sees them as her mate

Plus someone else to hate Chilchuck using Shuro falling in love with Falin as an example of healers doing their job causing feelings to sprout, and someone to carry Marcille around when she gets injured which is sadly often

-💪🐺 anon

— MARCILLE + FALIN THOUGHTS: marcille x reader x falin

ᥫ cw: kind of angst ★ HELLO SORRY FOR GETTING TO THIS SO LATE (TAKING A SHORT BREAK FROM MY KINKTOBER WRITINGS) BUT HOLYYY FUCK !@?#!@ FIRST OF ALL, GENIUS. FARCILLE AND THEIR SILLY LITTLE S/O?? BRILLIANT I LOVE IT!! SECOND ... ME BEING YOUR FAVORITE WRITER ... I AM IN TEARS ANONIE!! ILY

marcille and falin had some strange thing going on in the sense you couldn't quite tell if they were friends or lovers. turns out, it was a secret third thing that you had no idea involved you.

see, falin was a quiet girl. she didnt usually voice out her feelings and emotions. in fact, she preferred to keep things like that private, show her affections in quieter, simpler ways.

that was until she noticed marcille being strangely affectionate and close with you. only then did she start being a bit more around you especially.

and really that was the only time you started noticing. at first you thought your bonds as friends and colleagues were jst improving, finally getting the attention and appreciation from the other party members. marcille started offering to help you pack up your things or would offer to heal your minor wounds and stuff. but then falin started coming to sit next to you every meal time, she starts walking faster to be beside you, she even starts offering you some of her snacks.

it was nice, really it was. well, before things started getting a bit out of hand. it started as subtle glances at each other, ones you first thought to be some secret code between them. then it evolved to small things like racing to sit next to you or walk next to you. then it turned into quiet bickering. then it turned into out-right trying to one up each other. and by then you couldn't take it anymore, confused and worried all this was putting a strain on their friendship. that was until they both, in a fit of frustration, had admitted to you that they both liked you.

you realize the solution is simple and right in your face; why dont date both of them?

and so you do! thus begins the sweetly awkward first few steps into your polycule, one where falin seemed unfazed by the idea (in fact she seemed more than happy with the compromise) and where marcille would flush bright red and every small thing. it was adorable, both of the were.

among the three of you, marcille definitely was taking the longest to get used to things. the first few weeks were when her pride got in the way the most, either refusing to share falin with you or you with falin. it took a while for her to start being more open, for the lack of a better term. and it took you and falin a lot of very gently prying her off one another and spending time as a trio. though it hasn't stopped her from being envious every time she sees you and falin snuggled together near the campfire or sat next to each other at a pub, because the instant she sees you two, she pouts and slides herself between you two. she's a jealous girl, having two partners was NOT going to help lol.

falin's the opposite, as much as she was admittedly somewhat jealous before you all started dating. she's just happy she gets to be with her favorite people because she's literally living the dream life.

well, until her chimerafication and sudden it's just you and marcille. it was .. definitely something terribly difficult you two had to go through, but at least you were there for each other. and being for each other lead to the unspoken promise of being there for falin. while you two never really spoke too much about it (mainly because it'd upset marcille and leave her inconsolable for a few days), it was always in the back of your heads. there was always that part of you that felt incomplete because of it, and it was a part you were determined to get back.

marcille definitely got more clingy when the venture back down the dungeon for falin began, and all the more so when you had learned the fate of falin. she'd fuss way more about you, your health and your injuries. she was always ready to expend her mana just to heal you, even the tiniest of scratches. so you try not to get hurt, because it's something easier to do that to break marcille's heart even more. you have to be brave, for her and falin.

[tonydaddingham]

still near catatonic about the show and the direction in which it was taken. ive seen macbeth on stage once before, and then on screen a few more times, and yet this one is probably the most sensitive, clever, and plain interesting version ive seen out of all of them?

you have david portraying macbeth as this really formidable, brave and lauded general, initially curious but otherwise sceptical at The Prophecy. that's a given. but then he gradually succumbs to ambition and greed; but what i didn't expect is the choice to emphasise how pitiful his wavering resolve would be? how he oscillates so heavily between heeding that greed, but initially clings to the last vestiges of his honour and morality. it's not just that he's a dick with sudden flashes of morality; you can feel that there's a war going on in there, and a constant underlying fear and terror. with macbeth in general i think it's tempting to immediately make macbeth either a mindless and easily-swayed tool of his wife or to make him outright bloodthirsty and tyrannical from the onset, but you don't... get that in this? at all? and it pleasantly surprised me. instead you get a deliciously insidious and creeping mania, steadily suffocating him (beautifully portrayed by a combination of the rest of the company, the score, and the lighting) and get to watch how it just ousts every last good and decent part of him, done so perfectly that i genuinely felt terrified and tense the whole time.

and then LADY MACBETH oh my GOD SO. so. from the first moment that she was on stage, cush was just utterly captivating. i didn't ever want to look away from her, even as she lingers in the background??? her madness, such as it is (and for lack of a better term), is so apparent from the very first moment that she's on stage; jittery hand movements, darting eyes, and a sweet, almost childlike voice? for me, the fact that this is not a wholly scheming, cruel, and demonised version of her, and instead is a lady macbeth that is achingly vulnerable, was so refreshing. like yeah she's visually marked with this sort of innocence, but it carries into cush's mannerisms and delivery too. despite her plotting and what she goads macbeth into doing - almost to a point that it seems like he deliberately uses her ambition as a scapegoat for his own - you end up seeing her as a lost soul, of sorts, and want to protect her from her own mind. the fact that you don't see a manifestation of her 'madness', only macbeth's, makes it all the more intriguing. and the language and imagery of rejecting her femininity and womanhood not only provides a contrast to macbeth re: perceived weakness/lack of conviction, but also further elucidates on how haunted of a person she seems to be? idk if that makes any sense but at times it felt like i was watching a play composed of ghosts right from the beginning. favourite portrayal of lady macbeth ever, hands down.

and then god im going to dream about the blocking and the choreography for bloody ages; not just the ceilidh (which was awesome, loved that sm) and the fight scene, but the choices in how each character moves around and uses the stage, and how they interact with each other (in this, lady macduff was particularly mesmerising goddamn). epitome of this however is a) the opening of the whole play because 🙃🫣🫠, and b) act 4 with the song of the witches (i don't want to spoil it or any of the other more horror-like scenes but im now intrigued that max webster also did king lear 👀 and would be very interested if he did something like othello, too). last thing was the sound; i didn't read much up on the first run before seeing it, so the only feature that i really knew about was the sound design- i was initially worried that it might be a bit gimmicky? but fuck it was complete genius.

anyway so this was a complete ramble but if anyone is still unsure whether to try getting on the day tickets just. do it. it's an incredible version of macbeth, and im fucking pumped that i get to see it twice more, because there is just so much that im sure i didn't pay enough attention to, and absolutely deserves it. amazing company, amazing play, and whilst - don't get me wrong - i feel this is one of his most defining (if not The defining) shakespeare role for david, i truly didn't expect to be so blown away by literally everything else.

[murdockhawkeye]

this is *maybe* a bit of a stretch but i still find interesting to think about? don't know if i have everything right

but

i feel like with the elemental opposite duos - emma & rikki, cleo & bella - you could reasonably say their arcs'd mirror each other in a way

like

emma and rikki have issues with responsibility/expectations but on opposite ends of the spectrum

emma was a gifted child, everyone had high expectations for her and she tried to meet those expectations the best she could. she’s responsible emma, who makes sure everyone is looked after, and everyone “knew” was going to become a top athlete, because look at all those trophies on her shelf

and then rikki on the other hand, was alone for “her own good.” she admitted to elliot that no one really liked her growing up, so when somebody did, it made her feel weird and she pushed them away. she stayed away from other people, made sure they never had any expectations of her

they both avoided disappointing others, by going to opposite extreme lengths

and then they overcame these issues, with emma facing a sudden change in her life (becoming a mermaid) that meant she had to give up her swimming dreams and disappoint the people in her life (that had to suck for her, honestly.) she had to come to terms with that - but then, she also found a whole new world that she’d never have been a part of, if things had gone the way she planned

and as for rikki - her biggest change wasn't the tail, but becoming friends with emma and cleo. had she'd her way and zane’d never gotten cleo stuck on that boat, she’d never become friends with them. rikki had to learn the hurdles of friendship and of keeping them, like when she mistook the different kinds of fish, when cleo and emma didn't support her relationship with zane, etc. they had their issues - but in the end, they were there for rikki, and rikki was there for them back. she'd have never gotten that kind of solidarity, had things gone the way she thought it would

and then there’s cleo and bella

bella - unfortunately, didn’t have much in terms of development, since the writers prioritized will’s relationship with her over expanding her character background+ for some reason ??

so i'm just mostly going to talk about cleo here first - but i'll get to bella in a second

cleo by s3 is a very confident and self-assured person; but she didn't start out that way. she was insecure, somewhat naive. she grew up overshadowed by her two best friends, the both of them being gifted in their own rights - emma, the young up and rising athlete, and lewis the science genius, they were sure to go places. cleo, on the other hand, was overlooked. she didn't have much going for her - except for adequate grades and a love of the marine life that was hindered by her fear of water

and then cleo became a *literal* mermaid. either she was going to avoid it or overcome it. in the end, she didn't just overcome her fear of water, but she also took a risk by taking that job at the marine park, where she'd be working right by the marine animals. she let her fear control her before, and she wasn't going to let it stop her from wanting to pursue things anymore

(funny, she started out with a fear of water, then became a mermaid. she struggled with her grades, then became a science genius)

bella, much like cleo - had her own issues when it came to the kind of attention she got, but the other way around. her first appearance, she was being catcalled. same ep, nate is drooling over her. they've made her beauty a point throughout s3. even cleo and rikki's brought it up. it. could not have been easy for her to deal with that, especially with her secret in mind

seeing that, even with the different issues when it came to attention, i think they'd still have had the same feelings about it. a younger bella, probably would've been similarly insecure/anxious as cleo had been - until she learned to be more sure about herself and grew into the bella we know and love today

(we should've gotten way more lore and background about bella, agh)

tldr; emma and rikki have same feelings but opposite reactions (people pleasing and people avoiding.) cleo and bella opposite situations but same feelings (overshadowed and center of attention)

yk, rikki was right in a way i think about the "universal law," but like, more about keeping in balance and not about trios. emma and rikki balance each other out, cleo and bella were *meant* to balance each other out. but in s2, bella wasn't there - charlotte was

do i blame the antagonizing of charlotte and cleo's out of characterness on the writers, or do i blame it on some magical semi-canon mermaid universal law about balance

blaming it on a mermaid universal law sounds more fun, and could have interesting implications. (though the writing grates me, still)

[werewolfsister]

Castov Reference Sheet

CASTOV

Name: Play on the term CAST OFF– from square dancing (related to Dosi and his name origin). How do you pronounce this? I say CAS-tov.

Species: Pacific Sleeper Shark

Castov is aiding Esis, Bazz, Ess, and Viri in their secret attempt to rescue Kenne. He’s based on the Pacific Sleeper Shark, a relative of the Greenland Shark that Dosi is based off of. What can I say. He’s a dull boring color just like all my OCs.

Castov is a go-with-the-flow kind of guy, literally. He lets ocean currents carry him up and down the coast of Hyrule, spending winter months down past Lurelin and summer months up past the Akkala Highlands. He basically never comes on shore, and never stays in one place too long.

He’s one of Dosi’s sons by a Basking Shark named Orgulla. Castov will amend his itinerary to check in on Dosi every once in a while; he's outlived her. He’s about as old as King Dorephan (not that he’s ever met him!), but looks a lot younger.

The guy is inscrutable, a bit unnerving. He has unexpected reactions to things and unusual responses– the few who have met him long enough to talk to him are divided on whether he’s insane or a secret genius. Either way, he sees things very differently than most folks. Kind of weirdly touchy, but he now knows better than to randomly touch people

Like his father, Castov has the ability to get past other animals’ electromagnetic and water pressure sense, so he can creep up on the fastest zora or monster despite his big size. He’s a low stamina, high health, low speed kind of guy; though he can manage a couple uncharacteristically sudden bursts of speed when needed.

He’s double the height of the average zora, so he can overwhelm most anything smaller than he is, in water. On land, he’s clumsy and needs help getting around. Castov’s got a couple rows of razor sharp teeth that can turn anything into ribbons, that’s unlucky enough to have gotten caught in his mouth.

He’s extremely long lived, and blind, like his dad. His own electromagnetic sense lets him “see” things underwater in great detail, but he likes to get his hands on those things to understand them as well.

And gotdamn if that's not a wall of text I don't know what is!

[bekolxeram]

The accidental genius of the S8 plane disaster design

Over all, I'm really happy with how 9-1-1 took inspiration from Airport 1975, but instead of closely recreating the original, extremely dated plot, they modernized and improved it. I understand why those of you who watch the show for the main characters might feel let down by their lack of screen time, but just looking at the story itself, I really love how they turned a campy 70s disaster movie about eccentric passengers, damsels in distress and brave capable man swooping in to save the day (so cool that his ex girlfriend undumped him), into a heartwarming tale about strangers putting their differences aside to help each other avoid certain death.

Sure, the writers have taken some artistic license for the sake of storytelling, but in terms of accuracy, it's actually miles better than a lot of Hollywood blockbusters. I've noticed a few details that accidentally made the plot more believable.

The rudder

I referenced the American Airlines Flight 587 crash when I saw half of the rudder got knocked off. AA587 crashed because the pilots overused and overstressed the rudder when the plane encountered wake turbulence, resulting in the whole vertical stabilizer being ripped clean off, rendering the aircraft uncontrollable.

What you may not know, is that if the rudder falls off, but the rest of the vertical stabilizer is more or less intact, you can absolutely still fly the plane. Air Transat Flight 961 did it. Yeah, it'll be harder to control, and the plane will be pretty unstable, but it'll stay airborne, no problem.

The radio

I've said before, learning to use the radio communication system was crucial for Nancy in the 70s, but now every has at least one smartphone. As long as you have wifi/cell service, you don't need radio.

I'm still not convinced the radio was totally busted, the panel and the nose of the plane seemed fine. It's possible that Athena just didn't know you have to press a button to talk to ATC through radio. It's not a problem though, they had phones.

That coincidentally explains why no one knew who landed the plane at the end of the episode. Major hubs like LAX have their radio frequency constantly monitored and live streamed by enthusiasts. That's why you can watch how particular aviation incidents unfolded on Youtube with satellite tracking, radar view and full ATC communication recording with in a day or two.

Since the communication happened over cell phones in this case, no one else has live access to the conversation, hence maintaining the suspense on the ground, keeping Athena and Jem incognito.

The evacuation

The biggest problem I have with 8x03 is the lack of "brace!" instruction and evacuation order by the cabin crew. To be fair, the chief flight attendant (Renée) had blood dripping down her forehead, she probably had a concussion, so I'll cut her some slack. In a real emergency though, all flight attendants are trained to yell "brace! brace! brace!" and "heads down! stay down!" throughout an emergency landing.

Once an evacuation order is given, either by the flight crew or by the cabin crew, the cabin has to be vacated within 90 seconds. Leave your belongings behind, the airline will pay you back, just head to the nearest exit and jump down the slide. Otherwise, you'll end up like this:

This counts as accidental PSA, I guees.

The cockpit door

I'm super impressed by this, but I don't think they did it intentionally.

Post 9/11 airliners all have bullet proof armored cockpit doors that stay locked mid-flight. The only occasion where a cockpit door would unlock by itself, is when there's a rapid decompression event in the cabin, behind the cockpit. Like in the Alaska Airlines door plug blowout incident, the cockpit door suddenly flew open and slammed into the bathroom door in order to balance out the difference in pressure between the cabin and the flight deck.

If the decompression originates from the cockpit, decompression panels on the cockpit door will be blown away instead, and the door remains locked.

In Athena's case, the Beechcraft did initially collided with the cockpit, making a small hole in the windshield and a bigger one on top that sucked Captain Dominguez out, but it was soon plugged up by a jump seat, so the cockpit pressure slowly seeped out instead of being blown out.

Since there was a bigger hole at the back of the plane, it made sense that the pressure was higher in the cockpit, so the cockpit door unlocked on its own and slammed open outward.

I was inspired to make this post by the recent Boeing 787 airworthiness directive. It's all about the pilot seats.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a state of the art engineering marvel, designed to maximize fuel efficiency and comfort, for both passengers and flight crew. At least that was what Boeing told themselves. While the 787 is a fascinating airframe, it has been marred by countless issues ever since its introduction, including a fleet-wide grounding the second year it entered service, due to its lithium batteries catching fire out of nowhere.

A LATAM 787 suffered an inflight upset event (it dove suddenly, throwing many passengers into the celling) earlier this year, because the cover for a switch responsible for moving the pilot seat back and forth was damaged, and a flight attendant accidentally nudged the button, pushing the pilot's crossed legs into the control column, hence pushing the plane's nose downward.

But this time, the issue is with the reline mechanism of the pilot seat. Yes, modern airliners are so automated that at cruise, they only require one pilot to monitor the systems, the other one can take a nap, oops sorry, "controlled rest". Basically the pilots can take turns having some shut eye, 40 minutes at a time, to avoid sleep inertia, while the plane is flying on autopilot. The 787 has pilot seats that can recline just like the passenger seats, so that the flight crew can take full advantage of their rest.

The latest airworthiness directive suggests that the pilot seat in full recline position may put the head of the pilot in the trajectory of the decompression panel, in the case of rapid decompression. Namely, if the windshields are broken or there's some kind of damage to the cockpit, and one of the pilots is taking a controlled rest, the decompression panel might strike the pilot's head and cause life threatening injury.

Boeing thinks it's not a big deal, this scenario is too rare. But many airlines like Air France-KLM, have implemented measures to limit recline in pilot seats. And now they're complaining about the possible effect on pilot fatigue.

I know some of you think I'm a nitpicker, but I want to think I'm just thorough, at least in terms of aviation. As you can see, simply the way a pilot seat moves can deeply affect aviation safety.

[dranosh-haran-of-paleoworld]

I just saw on Twitter a bunch of people praising Sakura for not being a nepobaby and supposedly being the only person in the written portion of the Chunin Exams to answer the questions on it.

I want to clarify that none of the K13 with the exclusion of Naruto and Hinata are nepobabies, especially Sasuke and Neji, who, despite coming from prestigious families had to bust their asses off to get where they're at in terms of strength and power, those two dealt with some serious shit that Sakura could never dream of. Sasuke had self-taught himself everything he knew, and the ONLY new thing he got during his time within Konoha was chidori, and even then, Kakashi only taught him that for his fight with Gaara and overall was an ass to Sasuke. Hiruzen and everyone else in Konoha did jackshit for Sasuke before he defected to Orochimaru, who himself for all his faults actually cared and did more for Sasuke than any other adult outside of his clan.

Neji, meanwhile, was literally a branded child-slave, and correct me if I'm wrong, he like Sasuke, was mainly self-taught. The Caged-Bird Seal prevented him from fully utilizing the Byakugan's full strength, but as noted by Hizashi, he was a once in a lifetime genius and was insanely talented and skilled.

Both Sasuke and Neji, despite being prodigies, still busted their asses off to get to where they were at. Both young men trained regularly on a daily, both before and after the tragedies in their lives. Even when they awakened their clans kekkei genkai, they still had to not only get adjusted to them but also incorporate the powers and abilities of them into their fighting styles.

A quick reminder: Sasuke from the end of the Wave Arc to his first battle with Naruto at Final Valley had a 1 or 2-Tomoe sharingan and unlocked the full 3-Tomoe towards the end of the battle so for much of Part 1 his sharingan wasn't fully developed and as I said above Neji couldn't tap into the Byakugan's full power because of the slave seal on his forehead.

Sakura herself, unlike literally everyone else in the K13 didn't fucking train and her so-called book smarts were laughable when she implemented or applied them to the field. She brought nothing to the table, unlike everyone else in her class, which in part is because of her tiny reserves of chakra, and the other reason is because she again canonically doesn't train instead wasting her time trying to look good and impress Sasuke, she's called out on this by Sasuke and Team Dosu. She only started training after Sasuke left Konoha and defected to Orochimaru.

More importantly, Sakura was never confirmed to have answered a single one of those questions correctly. Ibiki himself made it extremely apparent that NO ONE could've answered them correctly, and there's no way he'd backtrack on what he said. Hell, he noted that the only unusual thing about that years exams was Naruto's blank sheet of paper. Nothing indicates Sakura or Hinata got a single question right.

Additionally, Sakura got every single portion of the exams wrong. The purpose of the written portion was to gather information from enemy lines WITHOUT being caught. Cheating was the whole point, and yet Sakura didn't figure this out, and predictably Naruto didn't either, Sasuke was the only member of his cell to do so and got both idiots through. The FoD portion of the exams was also carried by Sasuke. He correctly figured out the test function, he came up with the password for his team, and he saw through the henge Orochimaru used, and if I recall correctly he also saw through the one used by that Ame shinobi and had save both Sakura and Naruto throughout the whole ordeal which cost him dearly. Seriously, Sakura did jackshit throughout the Chunin Exams arc and was deadweight all around.

Look, I get it, you Sakura stans don't like Sasuke and that's fine but stop making up bullshit because it doesn't do you guys any favors other than making you look like bigger idiots than you already are.

[cephalog0d]

Yeah I'm not done yet.

The thing I keep coming back to is that as much as I'm down to nit-pick things like how characters are written and plot details (and boy are there a whole infestation of nits to pick), what it boils down to is that the basic premise here shouldn't even be happening.

I get they're doing a Thing with Bruce and the after effects of Failsafe and Zur and Insomnia so sure I guess it makes sense to have him acting totally unreasonably. I'm not saying it's a plotline I'm thrilled with, but whatever. This is about everyone else.

You have half a dozen people routinely patrolling in Gotham, who've been doing it for years, who know the city and how it works, who have at least two people who are particularly inclined towards collecting and parsing data for patterns for crime fighting purposes, and none of you noticed anything amiss until Selina called and was like "Hey did you notice my neat new plan I've been doing?"

To that point, in a room full of literal canonical geniuses not a single person has thought to ask any of a dozen very practical questions that occurred to me, a non-genius reader, roughly 10 seconds after reading what The Plan was. Things like, oh, I don't know

How is this going to be a sustainable long-term effort?

For example, what happens when Gotham's wealthiest realize what you're doing and dramatically beef up their security (with tech or with actual people), making it much harder and more dangerous?

Like iirc you, Selina, have definitely had some real dicey situations as a result of your profession, and you're a lot more experienced than these people.

(Hey speaking of which isn't there a whole secret society of Gotham's wealthiest and most powerful who have access to nearly unkillable assassins? Who keeps coming back even though they keep being taken down? You think any of these people might belong to that?)

What happens when the rich folks get pissed and sic the heavily militarized GCPD on you? Don't act like they won't, I'm sure someone's squirreled away stuff from that whole Fear State fiasco.

For that matter, what happens when the costumed villainry figure out who swiped all their henchpeople and decide to object to it, presumably violently?

How many people are we talking here anyway that you're training? How many ultra-wealthy people live in Gotham? How many easily stealable things do they have sitting around to take? (As opposed to, like, other non-liquid fake assets like stocks)

How are you fencing all this anyway? Isn't that a great way to get caught? Or is everyone just stealing cash? (Or did nobody think about the part between "got the valuable thing" and "have usable money from it"?)

How on god's green earth did you ever assume this was going to end in anything other than violence?

Like of course one of your guys got killed. It doesn't matter that you told them no violence, even if they fully buy into that it only takes one panicked reaction when someone's home who shouldn't be, on either side, and there you go.

Look I get what they're trying to do. It's supposed to be a big moral quandary about whether it's right to allow some crime if it decreases other crime, the struggle between Batman being unreasonably violent and unwilling to listen and this new plan of Selina's. First of all that's a weird debate to have when everyone having it is technically a criminal to some degree. And second of all, it doesn't matter, this isn't about the morality, this is about how this plan is fucking dumb and was destined to fall apart even if Batman was still asleep and the fact that any of you are buying it just means there's a gas leak in Gotham somewhere.