#i also cannot explain why i like things beyond 'it good'

[ellecdc]

hii!! i rlly like your writing and was wondering if you could do a request ? remus (or wolfstar ) x reader where its like posthogwarts and she went to a diff wizarding school and the wizard thing was hush hush cuz she was a muggle, but then one day she like accidentally uses magic and they were like “ omg wait what” and like yeah. anyways pls feel free to ignore this its a very odd request LMAO. thank you so so much for taking the time to read this !!! (im sorry if this sounds weird i dk how to talk to ppl) ok bye 🫶

this was a very cute prompt! thank you so much for your request and your patience in my writing it!

poly!wolfstar x fem!reader who they believe to be a muggle [1.8k words]

CW: fear of werewolf prejudice, fear of muggle born prejudice, I also included a line in French and you can find the translation at the bottom of the work

Sirius knew that they were, perhaps, being a little bit selfish by keeping such a big secret from you.

Statute of Secrecy be damned, they were well beyond the point in your relationship where they could have (and likely should have) told you that he and Remus were wizards (oh, and, while we’re at it, Remus turns into a beast once a month so there’s that, too). 

And while their friends all suspected it was Remus who was hesitant to tell you the truth on account of his lycanthropy, it had actually been Sirius who kept procrastinating the long overdue conversation.

But Sirius had to admit that he was very scared to tempt fate, because meeting you had been a complete fluke and he wasn’t willing to muck it up by scaring you off. How many times in one life did someone get the chance to meet a perfect angel?

Sirius had already met Remus which felt like nothing short of destiny, and then they met you, and that felt prophetic. And who was Sirius to mess with the prophecy? 

“You cannot chicken out tonight.” Remus muttered as Sirius rapped on your door, earning him an indignant scoff from his boyfriend. 

“I’ve never once chickened out in my entire life, thank you very much. That’s why I was sorted into Gryffindor.”

Remus merely snorted. “Sure, that’s why this is our seventh attempt at breaking the news, yeah?”

Sirius refused to look at Remus before banging (slightly louder) on your door once more before you finally opened up.

Gods you were so bloody beautiful; smiling like you couldn’t physically be any happier that your two boys were here, eyes excited and bright and so full of love and fuck sakes he couldn’t do it.

“Hey dove.” Remus greeted for the both of them, seeing as Sirius’ brain was short circuiting on account of your beauty and loveliness, pressing a kiss to your hairline and all but shoving Sirius past the threshold of your door. “It smells amazing, what are you making?”

Your smile seemed to grow impossibly brighter at the praise. “A vegetable bake! It’s sort of Mediterranean, and I’m making pasta to go with it.” You explained excitedly, and Sirius honestly felt like he was going to start overflowing with the amount of fondness he had for you.

“You going to say hello to our girl, Siri? Or are you just going to keep staring at her?” Remus taunted as he walked further into your flat to place the flowers he was carrying for you in a vase - the routine of bringing you bouquets every time they visited so practised that he knew where to find your vases. 

“Of course, gorgeous. Sorry for being rude.” He murmured as he pulled you into his chest and breathed you in. “You’ve got to stop answering the door looking so bloody beautiful; I completely forget myself.”

You giggled into his chest and then leaned on your tiptoes to press a chaste kiss to his lips that he - the selfish bastard - didn’t find nearly enough before he pulled you into a second deeper, lingering kiss. 

“It’s good to see you, Sirius.” 

Sirius sighed happily - because really, it was even better to see you - as he shuffled the two of you towards the kitchen Remus was now fussing in. 

“Beautiful!” You cheered as Remus positioned the bouquet in the middle of your kitchen island; and Sirius could see the mischief in Remus’ eyes even if you couldn’t.

“Just like you, dove.”

And, quite possibly one of their favourite sights, they watched you turn bashful as you opted to fuss with the arrangement instead of looking at either of them. 

“Listen, sweetheart, we were wondering if perhaps before we eat, we could chat with you about something?” Remus decided to rip the bandaid, and Sirius wanted to hex him for the way your body tensed and you looked at him with what appeared to be mild horror.

“Oh- uhm, okay, yeah, sure that’s… that’s fine.” You stuttered as you moved to the kitchen table to take a seat, both boys following obediently. 

Sirius watched as Remus moved last week's bouquet - which Sirius had secretly cast a stasis charm over so that they would last longer - out of the centre of the table and closer to Sirius so that they could both have a better view of you. 

“Is…everything okay?” You asked cautiously as you fiddled with the sleeve of your shirt. Sirius wanted to throw up. 

“Of course, dovey.” Remus assured you, though it was Sirius’ thigh he gave a comforting squeeze under the table. “We just know that we’ve been seeing each other for a while now, and we’ve grown to care about you quite a lot- you know that, right?”

Sirius watched as the divot between your brows only deepened as you nodded hesitantly. “So much, gorgeous; we care about you so much.” He insisted when it didn’t look like you truly believed them. 

“But we just, well, we haven’t been completely honest with you, is all. And now that we’re at this point in our relationship, we…we feel like we owe it to you to be honest.” Remus continued, clearly beginning to feel just as out of his depth as Sirius was. 

Your face fell completely blank, though Sirius could tell you were still tugging nervously at your shirt sleeve.

“Baby, I swear this isn’t bad, we- I rather think I’m in love with you, and-”

But as Sirius went to reach his hand over to rub at your arm in a way he hoped to be comforting, he ended up knocking over the vase stationed in front of him.

It didn’t break, thank Merlin, but it did topple over before Sirius could catch it and the water poured over the table.

Remus went to stand quickly to avoid being soaked, but no sooner had he pushed his chair away from the table was the vase floating towards you and the water completely vanished. 

Not looking at the boys in front of you, you righted the vase and repositioned the florals to your liking before looking up at Remus who was now standing and staring at you owlishly, and Sirius who was gaping at you from his seat.

“Did you just-” Sirius started, voice no more than a whisper, but was quickly cut off by the sound of a timer in the kitchen.

You waved your hand in that direction mindlessly before sinking back despondently in your chair and staring down at your lap, the timer silent.

“Y/N.” Remus rasped. “Did- was that…are you a witch?” 

You appeared to flinch as if you’d just realised what you’d done before you looked up; all colour seemingly draining from your face.

“What? I-” You started with a nervous chuckle. “I don’t know what you’re talking about? There’s no such thing as witches…”

But Sirius knew what he saw, the first could have been an accident - a trick of the mind - but the second act of magic was all the confirmation he needed.

Silently, Remus summoned the vase of flowers towards him before charming them to dance to imaginary music, plucking one from its stem and turning it gold before reaching across the table to put it behind your ear as you gaped at him. 

“You’re…a wizard?” You whispered in disbelief. 

At that, Sirius stood and spun, turning into Padfoot and panting excitedly at your feet as his tail whacked against the table leg with every wag.

A wet laugh escaped you before either boy realised you were wiping your eyes.

“Oh my gods?” 

“Awe, dovey.” Remus cooed as he moved over to Sirius’ chair so he could take your hands in his. “Don’t cry.”

“Is this what you guys were going to tell me?” You asked cautiously, hopefully. 

Padfoot melted back into Sirius, but he stayed kneeling at your feet as he rubbed soothing stripes up and down your calf. “Yes, baby; this was it.” He assured you. “I’m sorry we scared you.”

“So, that boarding school you went to in France?” Remus asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Beauxbatons.” You confirmed with a nod of your head. “And your boarding school in Scotland?”

“Hogwarts.” The two boys chorused, and you all let out a chuckle.

“It’s almost embarrassing that didn’t give it away right there.” You laughed breathlessly. 

“Since we’re, uh, being honest about stuff…” Remus continued, trailing off awkwardly as he shared a grimace with Sirius. “I’m also, well, I’m also a werewolf.” 

“Oh.” You breathed quietly. 

Sirius held his breath as he watched you consider this before you nodded your head decisively. 

“I’m muggleborn.” 

Sirius and Remus shared a quick look before Remus let out a disbelieving chuckle. “Is that- …what?”

“Baby, are you trading that information like we might think that’s a negative?” Sirius teased you lightly. 

“I suppose it depends on who you ask…” You whispered, and both boys softened. 

“Not us, dove.” Remus offered. “Good.” You smiled at him. “Then me too.”

“Is that really how you feel about it? About me?” Remus asked quietly. 

“No, it’s not how I feel about you.” You denied. “J'ai l'impression de tomber très amoureux de toi.” You admitted shyly, and Sirius couldn’t be held responsible for the mortifying cooing sound that resonated from the back of his throat. 

He grabbed your face roughly and started peppering you with kisses: “how”, a kiss, “did we”, a kiss, “manage to find”, another kiss, “the most brilliant and beautiful witch”, kiss kiss kiss, “in the whole world?” 

You were giggling and trying - not very hard, mind you - to pull away from Sirius’ ministrations when you stilled and let out a gasp.

“What?” Both boys paused.

“Supper!” You nearly shrieked as you went flying into the kitchen, muttering to yourself in French as you turned off the stove top and fussed with various pots and dishes. 

“I am so unbelievably in love with her.” Remus murmured, eyes glued to your form as you danced through the kitchen. 

Sirius scoffed as he leaned against his boyfriend with his arms crossed, feigning nonchalance. “I can’t believe you were so scared to tell her.”

Sirius didn’t need to look at Remus to know he was glaring at him; he could feel it.

But he also felt his heart grow three sizes when you turned to look at both of them with a beaming smile and a steaming dish in front of you, completely unphased that one of your boyfriends was a werewolf even though as a witch you knew exactly what that meant. And not only were you unphased, but you were still falling in love with them regardless.

Sirius had admittedly been very scared to tempt fate, because meeting you had been a complete fluke and he didn’t want to muck it up by scaring you off. Because really, how many times in one life did someone get the chance to meet a perfect angel?

If meeting Remus had been destiny, meeting you was prophetic; and who was Sirius to mess with the prophecy?

(translation: I feel like I’m very much falling in love with you).

[banana-with-a-bow-tie]

is being gay/trans REALLY a sin? Is being attracted to the same sex/wanting to dress as the gender you feel you should be really all that bad to christians? Why do christians care what people do with their own lives to the point that they tell them it’s “sin”

I'm seeing three questions here. 1. What is sin? 2. How do we know something is a sin? 3. Why do Christians care if people sin?

What is a sin?

In order to understand what sin is you need to understand who God is. God is good. He does not just possess good or desirable qualities. He is good. The word "good" comes directly from the word God because God is the very standard of what it means for something to be good. We can say things like flowers and sunsets and sharing are good because they are based on God who is the source of everything good (James 1:17).

God is also our Creator. He designed us according to His perfect goodness so that we could be like Him and walk in His good ways (Psalm 25:8; Hebrews 12:10). God would be unloving to create the world and not follow His goodness.

Sin, then, is our rebellion against God and His goodness. When Adam and Eve first sinned, they were tempted with the idea that they could be like God and decide what is good and evil for themselves. They wanted to be able to say, "God is not king, I am king. God's ways are not good, my desires are good."

This is a lie from the father of lies. Satan wants us to believe that if I just do whatever I think is best then I will find true goodness and satisfaction, but all it does is lead us further and further away from true goodness which comes from communion with God (Psalm 34:10).

2. How do we know something is a sin?

When Adam and Eve sinned, our communion with God died. We all like sheep went astray and turned aside to our own ways. (Isaiah 53:6). We stopped listening to God's loving care and instead started following our hearts, but our hearts are deceitful and wicked beyond understanding (Jeremiah 17:9).

We cannot listen to our attractions or our feelings because we are attracted to and find pleasure in things that God declares are evil, things that are contrary to His good design. If people did not find pleasure in things like cheating on your spouse or stealing, then they would never do it. They are drawn into wrongdoing by their own wicked desires (James 1:14).

But God is still good. He has not left us without a witness. He has given a conscience to people who are hostile to Him so that even they can recognize when their desires are not good. We all know inherently that lying is bad, that pride is bad, that fighting and anger are bad, because God has hidden His law in our hearts (Romans 2:15).

However, because we have deceitful rebellious hearts, we try to justify ourselves and explain it away and muffle the conscience so it can't bother us any more, like searing your hand with a hot iron so it can't feel anything (1 Timothy 4:2).

The only way we can know something is sinful is by God giving us new life and enabling us to trust in the goodness of His Word again. We can know with certainty that all sexual desire outside of marriage is sin because God told us it defies His character and people do it because they want to rebel against Him, so God gives them what they want (Romans 1:24-25).

3. Why do Christians care if people sin?

Ray Comfort tells a story about a man who hated homosexuals. There was a broken elevator in his building with a sign on it that said "DANGER! OUT OF ORDER!" The hateful man saw two lesbians approaching the elevator so he took the sign down so they would use it and fall to their deaths.

God has given us a clear warning in Scripture that following your heart is dangerous. It's like an addictive drug, numbing your mind with pleasure so you don't realize it's killing you. If someone you loved was overdosing in front of you, you wouldn't say "whatever man, live your truth." You would shake them awake so they could see what is happening to them and try to get them help. If I believe that God's warning is telling the truth, the most unloving and hateful thing I can do is not tell anyone about it. Woe to me if I see judgment coming and don't tell anyone how to be saved (Ezekiel 33:6)!

Christians aren't trying to control you or force you to follow their personal preferences. Some people who profess Christ do that, but mostly we have met a God who loves us, who saw us hurtling in a downward spiral of guilt and shame and earning eternal punishment for our crimes against Him, and choosing to show us forgiveness in an unfathomably kind way.

Every single one of us has disobeyed God and tried to take His place on the throne. We all stand guilty before God not just for things like murder or homosexuality, but for lying and envy and idolatry. We have broken God's laws and because He is good, He cannot leave evil unpunished. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Every single one of us dies because it is what we have earned for ourselves. We deserve for God to give us His wrath and anger for waging war against Him (Romans 1:18).

But God is rich in mercy and abounding in love even to those who hate Him. We owe God a righteous life, but none of us are righteous, so God decided to wipe away our debt by living the perfect life for us. God became a man, Jesus, lived a perfect life, then died on a cross, taking the wrath of God we deserved, then rose again on the third day, proving that the price had been paid, then He ascended to God's right hand to offer Himself as the reason people can stand before God as righteous.

God does not delight in the death of the wicked. He does not want you to keep trying to find your identity in yourself. He wants you to know Him and His love for you. He wants to wipe away your sin and make you white as snow. What you need to do is confess your sin to God, which means to agree that you are guilty of rebellion against Him and that He is truly Lord, and you must believe that He will forgive your sin and give you eternal life because of what Jesus did for you on the cross. God is faithful and just to forgive the sin of anyone who asks Him (1 John 1:9)

I care about what you do with your life because I love you and because God loves you, just like a Father loves His children and wants what is best for them. I don't want you to miss out on the amazing gift of grace God is offering to you. Don't let Satan keep deceiving you. He promises you peace but all he can give you is death. Every promise of God will always come true (Titus 1:2)

[angelnumbing]

whether you like it or not, YES, obsessively reading love/your person/crush/FS/etc. tarot readings is bad for you.

even if you’re just reading them for fun (like i was), you have to really think about it. first, every reading you click on requires some kind of energetic connection with the reader. if you read/watch multiple of these things a day you’ve got a bunch of strangers all up in your energy all the time and that’s just not going to be a good thing. buying personal ones is included in this.

youtube randomly recommended me a video of a woman explaining that we as clients come to these readings because, most likely, our situations are so unfulfilling or confusing so we seek answers through tarot. this is natural imo and isn’t a sign of bad character or anything, but we have to accept that some things are meant to be a mystery to us. beyond that, a tarot reader (especially one doing PACs or collective readings) can only pick up on the energy of the querent. the other person’s energy cannot be picked up on without consent, which means that tarot readers read your energy and the way you interpret your person’s energy. this means that if you see your person as hot-and-cold and are holding onto hope for a connection that clearly isn’t working, the reader is going to tell you exactly what you’re thinking because the only way that 3rd party person’s energy can be accessed is through the footprint it leaves in your aura.

not only does this mean that — if you consume these readings often — you’re consistently getting told a false one-sided narrative, but it also inherently establishes its own reward system that keeps you coming back for me. for example, you tell yourself that your person likes you (and maybe they do!) but they’re scared of their feelings for you which is why they ghost you. when you receive a reading that says this, it affirms to you that you were right, and the reading was “accurate”. worse than that, these readings and your dependency on them can easily be used to justify clinging on to a relationship or connection that isn’t working. your person goes cold and you run to a tarot reading basically to be told that there is some hope, actually, and now instead of dealing with the difficult feelings that come with romantic disappointment and growing through that, you’re stuck in the stagnant state of waiting for reality to match up to the picture in your head. realistically, the healthiest thing for you to do is move on from this person and work on yourself.

this isn’t to say that all tarot readings are terrible, because i don’t think that at all. tarot can definitely be a great tool for self-discovery and just for getting some direction in life. i also don’t think there’s a problem with doing love readings for yourself as long as it’s not constant and obsessive.

if you find yourself looking for affirmation from these readings, you should instead shift your focus to readings about your shadow self, where you need to grow and heal, and other things like that. we cling on to these lackluster connections because of something in our past that makes disappointing people attractive to us. i know a lot of you on here are very defensive about your precious PAC readings, but the fact of the matter is that you read them because either your love life is nonexistent and you have to consume what is essentially self-insert fanfiction to cope (i’m not coming for you bc i’m in that camp) OR you do have some connection with someone but they are falling short or disappointing you in such a way that direct communication is not possible and you have to turn to an outside source for some kind of answer.

at the end of the day, if you actually care about yourself, you’re going to have to do the (very hard) work of finding security in yourself and who you are. these readings and any relationships you have or aspire to have are never going to replace that. and frankly a few of you seem to put too much weight on the meaning of these readings. i remember someone said they don’t bother to put any effort into their current relationships anymore because they “know” their current partner isn’t the one bc it doesn’t match up to what they’ve read in FS readings. at some point you need to use your common sense. the readings get hundreds of notes and thousands of views and there’s no way you can rationally justify making decisions like that based off of something meant to apply to everyone who watches and not just you specifically.

i’m making this post because i’ve stopped consuming readings like this and i actually feel so much better mentally and spiritually. they actually are fully capable of making you completely delusional as well, which in some contexts isn’t exactly a bad thing but it’s not a great state to be in when it comes to your interpersonal relationships. ultimately i hope that i’m able to at least of few other people break their pattern and kickstart a genuine healing journey.

i don’t use this app often, tbh so if you get mad in my replies you might as well take it up with god because i’m not looking and if i am looking i’m not caring at the same time. toodles!!

[jeonscatalyst]

Did anything about jikooks (or vminkook if that interests you) dynamic surprise you in are you sure? I think the extent of JK's brattiness and their play-fighting did surprise me a little. I think it's because I haven't been following them beyond the music that much in solo era. Also if I compare vminkooks dynamic from say that joint live in 2021 or the live incl Hobi (in 2022 I think?), I think it's a little bit different from what we're seeing in the show. If I think about it, it does check out in many ways with regards to what they've told us but I don't think it's something we've seen this plainly before

Hey anon,

Nothing about Jikook’ or Vminkook’s dynamic surprised me much, infact I would say the boys haven’t changed at all. Jungkook has always been bratty. Literally all the members have complained about him being bratty and stubborn and as for the play-fighting (I am assuming you are talking about Jikook) that has literally always been their thing. Someone described Jikook’s dynamic as a mix of all the other duo dynamics in BTS and now I really cannot unsee it. They playfight like jinkook, bicker like yoonmin, are soft with each other like Namkook, are besties like taekook and are caring towards each other like Jihope. There is literally a mix of everything in their dynamic and that is one of the reasons why Jikook are so difficult to explain as a duo. I personally don’t have any trouble understanding the other duo dynamics of BTS but Jikook still challenges me sometimes.

It was definitely kinda new to see them bicker so much, I mean we had seen them bicker before but the other members were usually in the mix so just seeing them bicker about parking was kinda new but not really surprising to me.

As for taekook, I didn’t see anything about their dynamic that surprised me at all. They are the duo who know how to have maximum fun when they are together as they have so many things in common when it comes to personal interests so it is extremely easy for them to be in sync but they also have moments where they could come off a bit nonchalant towards each other (but this is very normal) and I have seen so many people say they have a passive aggressive energy about them but I don’t see it personally. I just think that Jungkook sometimes has his moments you know, when he doesn’t really feel like being enthusiastic about anyone (Jimin included) and Tae isn’t like Jimin who will still try to initiate interactions when Jk gets in that mood but instead Tae just kinda ignores as well or throws in some snarky comments and maybe that is why people see some passive aggressiveness but generally I think they have gotten much closer than they were a few years ago and even their emotional bond seems to have deepened a little more than before.

For Vminkook’s dynamic, I think it is pretty much the same to be honest. Like I said before, Jungkook has his bratty and soft moments with both of them and Vmin are still the two hyungs who dote on him but call him out in their own way when he starts going too far. Jungkook has a very different dynamic with both of them and it is seen more when he is with the two of them (or atleast I noticed it more). I had always known but just seeing it in play out in AYS was….interesting. I think with Tae, Jk really enjoys just doing the fun boy stuff. They both look their happiest around each other when they are bringing out the childishness out of each other and I can see why they easily connected when they were rookies. One person starts something and the other very easily goes along with it, no question asked. They are also a good example of dumb and dumber or the blind leading the blind because it seems like between the two of them, no one is the voice of reason and we all crave people who we can just be extremely silly with without overthinking anything and I guess that is what taekook are to each other and that is why Tae can call Jk and ask him to join him in Hawaii and Jk takes a 9 hour flight there, you know just for the fun of it. Unlike what taekookers would like to believe, it isn’t because Jk is in love with tae or none of that. If I had a bestie whom I usually have alot of fun with when we are together and we both like the same things and I had Jungkook money and time, I will do the exact same thing. But, just as I had said before, it just feels like the foundation of their friendship is mostly centered around the fun and shared interests, not much else. They ofcourse really care for each other and are supportive of each other as well. I thought it was extremely sweet how Jungkook immediately climbed that wall to encourage Tae when Tae was scared to jump. Those are some of the moments that show just how they get each other and how much they care about each other. Taekook as bestfriends works so well but I don’t see them working out as romantic partners and I also understand why they don’t seem to be each other’s go to person for comfort. This is because they are way too alike. They both are naturally takers so they need givers for things to balance out. That is why at some point, they both sought out comfort from Jimin who is a a natural giver and not from each other.

Jimin and Jungkook are kinda different here because even though those two also have alot of fun with each other, Jimin is actually very different from Jungkook. He isn’t as spontaneous and he thinks about everything way too much. He also likes to have a schedule or plan things out before he executes them but Jungkook takes everyday as it comes and doesn’t seem to think about things too much so because of this, Jimin is like the voice of reason but sometimes Jungkook doesn’t want a voice of reason, he just wants adventure. A good example of this is that episode from I land where Jungkook stole TXT’s food from the pantry. He was in there with Tae and while he was stealing the food, Tae just went along with it and didn’t say anything but instead just found the whole thing funny but immediately Jk went outside with the food and Jimin saw him, Jimin (as well as the other members) asked him to return the food and they even scolded him (Jimin included lol). This is how Tae and Jk are partners in crime because they both readily go along with each other’s mischief but Jimin is that voice of reason that Jk needs because Jk is very impressionable (he said it himself) so if he doesn’t have some Jimins in his life, he could easily go astray. Even though Jikook are so different, they still are so alike and they click and just get each other so well and I don’t even know how to explain it. It seems to me like they are the definition of opposites attract, ying and yang. Jimin has the light that Jk needs and Jk has the darkness Jimin craves, they balance each other out, they give each other what the other lacks, they complement each other completely. Their bond in my opinion is definitely deeper as the foundation of it much more than the fun they have when they are together. There is an underlying intimacy in their play that isn’t there in taekook’s too. While taekook just play around like 5 year olds without a care in the world, splashing around in pools or shooting at each other with water guns, there is a subtle intimacy and softness in the way Jikook play around and they are definitely more handsy with each other too. This is pretty much everything I already knew about them and it is exactly the same thing I saw so I don’t really think anything was surprising or maybe just how much Jikook can bicker, if I had to pick something lol.

So anon, I have written a ton even though you probably just wanted a shorter answer but I couldn’t help myself lol. I have a problem not expatiating as much as I can. I hope this answers your question though and if u don’t mind, I would love to hear what you thought was different about Vminkook’s dynamic from 2021/2022 and now. I don’t really think we can compare from those moments you mentioned but I’d really love to hear or read your thoughts.

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

The Copollogism Essays - Part 3: Lester's Reaction

This is a short scene, but a powerful one in my opinion. Let's break it down :3

“His name is—” “Don’t, Meg,” Josephine warned. “—Commodus,” Meg continued, then frowned. “Why am I not supposed to say his name?” “He pays attention to such things,” I explained. “There’s no point in letting him know we are talking about—” Meg took a deep breath and yelled, “COMMODUS, COMMODUS, COMMODUS! COMMODE CITY, COMMODIANA. COMMODE DAY, MONTH OF COMMODES! COMMODE MAN!” The great hall shook as if the Waystation itself had taken offense. Emmie blanched. Up in their roost, the griffins clucked nervously. Josephine grumbled, “You shouldn’t have done that, hon.” Leo just shrugged. “Well, if Commode Man wasn’t watching this channel before, I think he is now.” “That’s dumb,” Meg said. “Don’t treat him like he’s so powerful. My stepfather—” Her voice caught. “He—he said Commodus is the weakest of the three. We can take him.” Her words struck me in the gut like one of Artemis’s blunted arrows. (And I can assure you, those hurt.) We can take him. The name of my old friend, shouted over and over. - The Dark Prophecy

Apollo calls Commodus his old friend. And while calling your lover your "friend" is usually gay-speak for significant other, in this case...it is referring to Commodus as a friend.

Because that was what they were- before they were even lovers, Apollo and Commodus were friends. Their relationship was that of friends-to-lovers (-to-enemies), and a tragic one at that.

Something small. But something so gut-wrenching too :')

Also amazing how even Apollo's carwreck of a relationship has platonic undertones. hello fandom of the aspecs we just keep winning <3

I staggered to my feet, gagging, my tongue trying to dislodge itself from my throat. “Whoa, Apollo.” Leo rushed to my side. “You okay?” “I—” Another dry retch. I staggered toward the nearest bathroom as a vision engulfed me…bringing me back to the day I committed murder. - The Dark Prophecy

This final line that ends the chapter has always struck me. It preludes to the assassination scene, but this is actually SO FACSINATING because the next chapter has this:

I KNOW WHAT YOU are thinking. But, Apollo! You are divine! You cannot commit murder. Any death you cause is the will of the gods and entirely beyond reproach. It would be an honor if you killed me! I like the way you think, good reader. It’s true I had laid waste to whole cities with my fiery arrows. I had inflicted countless plagues upon humanity. Once Artemis and I slew a family of twelve because their mama said something bad about our mama. The nerve! - The Dark Prophecy

Wait for it.

None of that did I consider murder.

These two lines combined paint SUCH a scene. Apollo at this point is still trying to convince us, the reader, how terrible of a person he is. That's why he's so blasé about the murder of Niobe's children.

That's why he's so distraught over murdering Commodus.

He tells us, straight-laced, that this act, this one act, was unjustifiable.

That is was more unforgiveable than slaughtering thousands of people.

But that's the kicker- we know it was wrong for Niobe's children to be killed, and we know it was right for Apollo to kill Commodus.

Apollo is trying to throw us off the trail. He's trying to make it look like he's okay with child murder/mass murder, but specifically him assassinating a tyrant is unforgiveable.

(hello, therapy? yeah i have a patient for you. yeah he's a piece of work but i have faith in him and also he's babygirl so. <3)

He's trying to be such a dichotomy we don't know what to do or say or think about him.

To bad for him, for the ToA fandom is quite good at catching his tells and slight of hand ;)

You ain't fooling us Apollo, just like you didn't fool Leo and Meg the very next day ;)

[tobiasdrake]

Fun Fact: There is actually a reason for why Turles looks like Goku. And it's hysterical. I talk shit about Toei a lot but they understood the assignment on this one.

Lord Slug is my #1 Z film but Tree of Might is also conceptually a lot of fun. Even if they did call him "Turles" for some reason, rather than going with "Tullece" which everyone agrees does a better job of conveying the veggie pun.

This is the film's explanation for why Turles looks like an evil Goku. Low-class Saiyans like Goku and Turles all have a mass-produced factory-line uniformity to them. Vegeta is a $10,000 custom-made designer doll with carefully handwoven stitching, and Goku and Turles are $5 Barbies sitting on a shelf in Walmart.

I love this. I love that as a thematic piece of worldbuilding for Saiyans. Tragically, due to the movies being non-canon and having little involvement from Toriyama, this is not an official piece of Saiyan lore.

But I wish it was. Because I love that idea.

What the dub calls the Tree of Might is Shinseiju, made up of the components Shin (Godly) Sei (Sacred or Spiritual) Ju (Tree). It's a sacred bit of fauna meant only for consumption by gods. It's never explained how exactly Turles stole into heaven and made off with this; It's probably a reference to the Peaches of Immortality that Sun Wukong stole in Journey to the West.

(Funnily, to avoid mentioning Kami's divinity, the dub claims the fruit is meant for Shenron.)

This is some Galactus shit. The tree's fruit sustains gods by feeding on worlds. Once planted, the tree begins to cultivate its fruit by absorbing nutrients and water, as well as the genki of the living things on the planet.

You might recognize that word as a component of "Genki-Dama" or the Spirit Bomb. Genki is one of several components of ki. It's basically a person's physical wellness. There are other components like yuuki (bravery) or shouki (being in the right mind) that influence your ki as well.

This is how the film sets up Turles as Goku's evil counterpart. Goku is a heavenly martial artist, who has studied under gods and learned heavenly arts legitimately. Turles is a thief who somehow stole into the heavens and made off with Shinseiju.

The Genki-Dama is a mass of accumulated genki collected from all across the world, which Goku then uses to attack. Shinseiju does something similar, draining genki from across the planet to create a its special fruit.

Goku was born a low-class nobody but has improved himself through personal development physically, mentally, and spiritually. Turles, too, was born a low-class nobody, but he improves himself by looting the heavens and sacrificing worlds on the altar of himself.

Kaio warns Goku early on that the Earth is doomed. There is nothing he can do. Shinseiju cannot be destroyed. The coming apocalypse cannot be thwarted. All things will die and nothing can be done. The end is inevitable.

The rest of the film is an act of seemingly pointless defiance from Goku, who refuses to accept "Your world is doomed, it can't be stopped, there are no options, there is no hope," as an answer. The problem here isn't really Turles. He's the villain, but even if Goku could beat him, Shinseiju would still destroy the Earth.

The problem here is the invulnerable God Tree from a realm far beyond mortal life, that has laid down roots across the entire planet and shrugs off any and all forms of damage.

The movie pits Goku's heavenly arts against Turles's heavenly stolen loot. And Goku comes up short. Turles has Shinseiju's fruit.

And Goku has Kaio's signature art.

And when the two come to blows....

Fruit wins. In a straight arm-wrestling match, Turles's stolen goods have made him too strong for Goku's practiced arts and disciplined study. Even the Genki-Dama fails, because there's so little genki left for Goku to borrow from the Earth.

Get the hell out of here with this amateur hour horseshit. Kaio's greatest arts simply can't win against Turles and Shinseiju. In the battle of heavenly warriors, it genuinely seems as if Turles is superior.

But then Counter-Fighter Goku has an epiphany. The Earth is dying because Shinseiju is draining it of all of its genki, right? And the Genki-Dama works by drawing genki out of things, right? So. Like. Hear me out. What if I....

I genuinely love this moment. The movies have a serious problem with overuse of the Genki-Dama for conflict resolution, and I'll admit that. But. Like.

It's just like how Lord Slug's Solar Genki-Dama made use of a super-obscure piece of Dragon Ball lore for great thematic effect. Goku unmaking Shinseiju by letting the Genki-Dama's genki-accumulation effect drink the whole goddamn tree is a brilliantly clever application of a component of the technique we don't really think much about.

Goku can't draw genki from the Earth because Shinseiju took it all. So Goku uses the Genki-Dama to take it back.

Like. It's far from perfect. None of these movies really rise to the level of "good". But there's a lot of interesting or fun ideas that they have. And I think, in the broad strokes, the ideas put forth by Turles and Shinseiju, as well as Goku's conflict with them, are really interesting.

They needed a lot more polish to really tell a good and compelling story. But there's some diamonds to be found in this rough.

[blood-starved-beast]

But seriously, your posts actually made me realize that oh, the reason Nem reads as so rude (aside from the fact that the overwhelming majority of the ways she chooses to word her grievances ARE, objectively, very hurtful and rude) is that she's the only one actively acknowledging that hey, this is??? kinda fucked up actually? Why is Mel the one expected to do what is, by any currently understood metric, an impossible task with no assistance beyond Thoughts and Prayers from Olympians and a "go get 'em, tiger" from the assorted parental figures in camp? Most of whom then tell her that actually no, I'm not your real parent, your real parents are in time prison and I only took care of you so that you're strong enough to break them out of time prison one day.

Nemesis is the only one pointing at Mel like "you ruined a perfectly good goddess is what you did, Hecate. Look at it! It's got anxiety and imposter syndrome!"

Nemesis isn't the only one to show this concern! The only other person actively trying to do something about Melinoe's maladaptive and self-destructive behaviors is...Eris. Eris who is trying to loosen Mel up in the only way she knows how - doing the House of Hades tradition of trying to bond with someone by fighting to the Death. Unfortunately, Eris is so smarmy in the way she explains that it also comes off as insincere. The sisters are actually quite similar in this respect. It's also giving very strong "Nyx fires Dusa to force her to not overwork herself to the bone". Which is, likely where they both inherited that perspective from actually. Like Nem, Eris is like "why do you care about these people?" even.

I do think Hecate does care about Melinoe genuinely. But as I've hypothesized before, I think Titans being another step removed from humans cannot rationalize emotions and connections the same way gods or even mortals can. That's a thing that's discussed even in one of the nectar convos with Hecate. She mentions not understanding mortal the gods gestures and customs like this, though is quick to assure Melinoe that she appreciates it nonetheless. Interestingly, Nemesis mentions in her fishing(?) convo and another how she understands the mortal concept of justice, evil, etc. and those things is something setting her apart from her family. Which I think is part of the conflict between her and Hecate.

Odysseus is so interesting to me. He's an uncle/brother figure (per what Mel tells him) and he clearly cares but you can feel the sense that he keeps his distance. And that's his baggage with goddesses speaking there I think. He's a mortal interacting with gods and gods have their own perspectives on things and they have the power to Hurt You if things line up wrong. Which is part of some of the themes of this game of mortals vs gods vs titans.

Anyways you are correct and I'm just elaborating more here.

[cakesmelons]

idk if your still gonna answer asks about the situation but as a fellow trans person i need to explain something that i'm noticing a lot of people are not understanding (don't worry this isnt at you or anyone upset with cal) i'm seeing quite a few people go "she's sticking to her beliefs and being respectful! she's not being transphobic so what's the big deal!?" and i genuinely want the people saying this to read this post and take into consideration on why this doesn't make the situation any better her belief is a very outdated and also dangerous one because believing that there can only be a male and a female invalidates so many people (trans, enby, non-binary, intersex etc) and those beliefs can cause actual harm to people to the point of literal hate crimes, i'm sorry but you guys shouldn't give her a pat on the back for "sticking to her beliefs" because her beliefs are very, very harmful and i've even seen other christens disagree with her and try to explain to her why this is bad

secondly; there's also how she called trans people a label and used the term in quotation marks, we are not a label we are living breathing human beings who want to be happy with ourselves and have a right to exists thirdly and there's the elephant in the room... the twitter likes and follows, it's proven many times that cal has liked straight up horrible transphobic and homophobic tweets and even follows people like matt walsh who want lgbtq+ people dead, if anyone defending her didn't know about the twitter stuff then that's fine but if you did and still defend her then it's clear you guys are beyond help closing statement: the reason why people are very upset with cal is that she lied to so many trans people in the community with a cut and dry example of being two-faced, you simply cannot say you respect trans people and interact with them while also going out of your way to have a low-key transphobic belief, liking transphobic stuff and following transphobic people especially when undertale and deltarune cannonicly have lgbtq+ character (cal even drawing said lgbtq+ characters like undyne for example which i find rich since i've heard she doesn't like mlm and wlw ships) and the community having SO MUCH lgbtq+ people this isn't a "lets agree to disagree" situation, this isn't drama either, this is a very serious situation also i've seen people go "she hasn't said any hate in the past!" as an defense, sorry but that doesn't change anything... i think it just makes the fact that she fooled everyone worse anyway sorry for this lengthy asks, i'm too scared to make a post but also i've been very upset about the situation and wanted to get my thoughts out because the way people are defending her without understanding why this is actually very bad is making me facepalm so hard sincerely, a very emotional trans man

I really don't have anything to add. This is a pretty good summary of this whole thing.

[destinygoldenstar]

'Jax is an NPC'

Hm... ... ...

No.

It's a good theory, don't get me wrong, I see the evidence, I see where you're coming from.

But it's not a theory I agree with. Let me explain.

Caine's line "But if I start losing track of who's a human and who's an NPC who knows what could happen" is very vague as is. This could mean a whole lot of things.

I said this in another post of one of my own theories. I think it's possible that Caine could've killed a human player and his trauma of that was showing.

We know A.I's can shed traumatic emotions. Look at Gummigoo.

Now, yes, Caine couldn't 100% kill a human. Otherwise he would delete the abstractions. And it seems like human players abstract when they die and that's the only way they CAN die.

So therefore Caine having killed a human player should be thrown out as a possibility.

BUT. Hear me out.

Abstractions are shown to be able to glitch several in game objects because of their abstraction. And we actually do NOT see if all the abstractions look exactly the same as Kaufmo's abstraction.

They could very well not.

Going to biblical text, Caine was the first murderer and received a permanent consequence.

Could a permanent consequence be, idk, failing at your programmed job over and over again and be forced to watch these humans abstract and perish forever?

Especially if because of the human player death's abstraction glitch, is WHY the other human players cannot leave the game!

If you look at Pomni's room in one shot, there's a couple of blocks that are stacked from top to bottom 'ABXEL'.

Could it be that the human player Caine killed was named Abel?

But there is also the other possibility that somehow, there is an NPC among the circus. So let me explain my thought on that possibility.

I don't think it's possible.

I think Caine would've noticed, especially if he immediately recognized GummiGoo wasn't supposed to be there.

If one of the circus folks were an NPC, their figure would've appeared with the others in the backrooms.

Now, there is the possibility that it was placed somewhere else, that place is huge after all. So take that with a grain of salt.

I'm not completely eliminating the 'Jax is an NPC' theory.

I get the evidence. He's constantly breaking the fourth wall. But I think that more so has to do with what I’m about to say.

He has keys to people's rooms. I get that one. That is definitely sus as hell and I'm not denying it is sus.

He also ‘lacks human physics.’

So does everyone else in the cast. Pomni can stretch her body out like Elastagirl. Ragatha has stuffing instead of blood. Kinger has his own glitchy moments. Gangle has two faces. Zoobles body can fall apart.

I’m just saying. These are not human physics either. So Jax being able to keep in place whenever he wants being only a Jax thing is not too far fetched compared to all these other examples.

But I also think, and this is my opinion, that he's much more compelling as a character as a sociopathic human player that is beyond saving and MENTALLY cannot be humanized again.

What I mean by that is that while he is TECHNICALLY a human player, MENTALLY, he is so detached from his humanity and moral code often associated with humanity that he acts more NPC-like as a side effect.

Jax is not designed to be a morally grey character. He is written to be the least moral of the entire show.

It would be SO EASY to excuse those moral wrongdoings as 'well they were never human to begin with'.

But I think that's the lazy way out, and I think this show is smarter than that.

Because here is the thing, there ARE some really REALLY terrible humans. Evil humans in fact.

WHY they're so terrible varies, but that doesn't make them less terrible.

And yes while some terrible people can get redeemed if they themselves can, this is NOT absolute. There are people that are just plain beyond saving. So beyond saving that they ditch their moral code, a code drilled into the human mind, that they SEEM inhuman to humans who can't relate.

This is a very real psychological thing.

With how many morally grey characters get thrown around as compelling these days, Jax NOT being written that way and instead being written as the morally worst would naturally make people go 'he must not be human'.

In psychology, behavior like that doesn't physically inhumanize them, but it MENTALLY does, they behave in a set of rules so different from the normal that it's corrupt to the normal.

So I think he is a human player like the others. But his MENTALITY is not, so he ACTS NPC-like as a side effect to that mental loss.

Not every human is morally grey and get cozy redemption arcs. There are some truly awful people in the world with no redeemable qualities whatsoever. I like that he represents that. I like that there's a character on this show that acts as that huge wake-up call of 'Yeah some people just plain suck and you shouldn't have to deal with them.'

But while I don't think Jax being an NPC would be the best route to take. That is just my opinion and I am not the one writing the show. If that IS the route they are taking, I am fine with that so long as it is written with proper care. I could definitely be reading this wrong.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Honestly why even bother making Jason afrolatino if you're not gonna write him as he is in canon when that's what actually'd make him work good rep for us.What i mean by this is

His ego is huge,he's super tough and an edgelord,has anger issues and brutal ass tactics and is a morally gray vigilante but he's ALSO a huge woman respecter to the point he thinks they're better than men,is extremely kind with a huge soft side and his exterior attitude and Red Hood are trauma responses that're framed as valid on his end so he's not the 'Scary Black Man' stereotype and with the exception of the vigilante part this is actually a pretty common personality type for irl black men-Important note that i don't fall under the attitude but i AM a black man(and woman)

He's been a huge nerd since he's debut in both meanings of it-He's a genius who was a star student in school and loves classical literature,theater and speaking articulately and poetically but just happens not to 24/7 since he's a comic book character,not a Shakespearen one

And his soft sunshine boy with hidden depths Robin self is a critical part of making him as black latino work-You can't go with the retcon of him as a mini thug because it's extremely dangerous stereotyping

Duke as his favorite brother-It's erasure with white gringo Jason but even worse and just stupid because both of them being black would it EVEN BETTER writing they're eachother's number one Batboy pick.Ain't no nigga picking Tim when the only other black guy in the factor is Right There and fuck ya aus,keep Jason white in them and leave afrolatino Jason out of your mess

He hasn't expressed a particular preference for girls he likes but HAS for the ones he dosen't and it's preppy perfect judgemental ones who try to 'tame' him so rip all y'all's white X Readers LMFAO.Worth noting that his canon girlfriends have been a half cambodian tomboy(Rose),an edgyptian butch(Artemis)and a darkskin black woman(Dana)and that he's actively rejected a white blonde girl on the basis of her being too normal(Isabel)and Kory post deblackification so i think it's obvious where his tastes lie

You CANNOT make him and Roy or Batcest a thing-I don't think i need to explain why pairing up a white man who knew an afrolatino since he was 14 and him grown with a daughter and putting him in incest is violently antiblack

Poverty is not inherently bad in black or latino characters and there was a point in canon where it was used as simply an element in Jason's story instead of demonization so use that edition.But making him a drunkard,a smoker or a sex fiend is 100% perpetuating stereotypes and he's canonically the opposite of all three so again,sometimes things that are canon are better

Him being tall and super jacked and intimidating looking can actually enchance it-He uses it to his advantage to get people he dosen't like to fuck off because they buy into the propaganda and gives him more deepness with the rest of his personality

This includes him being a real gamer and his neapolitan food addiction and your headcanons on his other tastes should follow their lead-His favorite characters should be black and latino ones(His favorite Marvel hero is Miles Morales,it's canon to ME),he should listen to black and latino artists,he should eat black and latino food and know how to make it for that matter,etc

Back to a Duke situation-You also can't make a white woman instead of Talia his adoptive mom for obvious reasons and imo if you're gonna make him and Stephanie besties,she should be black too for that black best friends and found siblings rep(She works as a black woman as much as he does a black man and i'll make a manifesto of that like i did him if asked).This applies to the Team Dad Jason take too in the sense that he should mentoring Damian and Nell and Tiffany since they're Batgirls instead of white kids

In summary what i'm trying to say is:If you're going to see Jason as an afrolatino man,you need to go beyond just the aesthetic and little bits you feel like including because you think they're appealing and actually write him as an afrolatino man,as Jason Todd and not some random guy

@nogender-onlystars @willieoo @mayameanderings @desi-pluto @insomniac-jay @vulnonapixes-dc-corner

[hopefull-mindset]

A Much Needed Overview

I’ve been brought to a point of feeling the need to discuss the abuse depicted in Bungou Stray Dogs. This isn’t the brightest topic to speak about and I understand why people are reluctant to speak in detail about something as serious as this. It’s not easy, so I’ll be the brave face today because I feel disappointed about the lack of deep discussion beyond the popular topic of “The Abuse Cycle”.

I’m happy that it’s at least brought up amongst everyone as something that exists, I’m happy that people feel as though it’s something to talk about, but I don’t think most understand how to act about it. It’s never as cut and dry as how it’s depicted in most other pieces of media or how people speak about it in general. That is why I am thankful for its depiction here. Not saying that nobody speaks about it with clarity, but it’s not the majority, unfortunately.

I especially felt this was a good time to address this because of the reaction towards Asagiri’s thoughts on Dazai and Akutagawa’s relationship in the recent magazine interview. The outrage is not from nowhere, I was also taken aback at first, but to claim Asagiri “doesn’t even know his own story” is incredibly self-entitled considering the story isn’t done, nor are you the one writing this. If you read the story, no way is Asagiri justifying anything that happened. Please look at the question that is being asked, does it say “Do you think what Dazai did is morally right?” Of course, it isn’t.

Not to be rude but before you start questioning the writer himself if he’s read his own story, have you read it? Please keep in mind the fact this is only a magazine interview and doesn't reflect every nuance. Asagiri doesn't need to go “Oh yeah, this thing that’s bad is bad” every two seconds to explain himself. Asagiri’s writing decisions can be questionable and cannot be uncritiqued, but I’m going to have to defend him on this account.

I’m not sure if any warnings are needed concerning the subject matter considering most BSD fans know what I’m about to go over, but to be clear, please only read this when you’re in a well enough headspace for heavy matters such as this. I am not going to be talking lightly in any of this or dance around what’s happened between any of the characters, abuse is harder to talk about compared to other acts of violence that are objectively worse because it’s a more personal act that too many can find themselves in.

Finally, I do not want to speak about my own experiences online because I’ve only come to terms recently with it and they do not reflect everyone’s response to depictions of abuse in all media. Some things are very uncomfortable to admit about me that I haven’t told anyone, that no one would be able to take well even if they were my closest friend. This isn’t about me at all and there is no point in saying more about my reality, but I think my perspective might help people enlighten themselves on how truly complicated situations like this are.

What is Abuse?

Surprise, we need to go over this before any discussion about BSD happens because a lot misunderstand what abuse is. It's disheartening that the term has been so simplified that nobody knows what it means anymore. Don't substitute words for abuse or use abuse as a substitute for other terms. Abuse as a concept is quite hard to pin down with words and there are many ways to describe it, but by definition in the context that it’s directed to another person, abuse is:

To target and mistreat someone, causing them harm or distress in a repetitive manner

This by itself does not describe the grand scope of everything and probably might make you more confused, but it’s a great place to start and does describe what is directed to the victim. Many sources will use varied wording, but it’s the general knowledge that someone is being hurt to a fundamental level that makes it abuse.

Does the abuser need to intentionally hurt someone for it to be abused? Yes, but not in the way you think. Most abusers are not hurting their victims for the sake of just hurting them, that’s illogical, they’re doing it for something. Some examples include either for themselves in some way or what they think is for their victim’s “own benefit”. Even worse is when they genuinely believe it because they’ve also grown up in an environment that has that same mentality and reflects on themselves.

So yes, it’s intentional in that they’re doing it for a purpose. No matter their intention though, “selfless” or not, it’s still a selfish act in itself that they think that imposing their own will through harmful methods is what the victim needs. The abuse doesn’t need to be physically harming another for it to be abuse. As long as it’s harming you emotionally or otherwise and making you raise flags in your head, it’s abuse.

It sounds strange, but I'm saying it’s intentional because you’re still an intended target of their abuse whether they realize it themself or not. Abuse needs to repeat a form of distress in you to be abuse. For example, does one instance of physical violence against you count as abuse when it never happens again? Well, you need to think about the context. Usually, this would just be assault and that’s it, but is it left hanging in the air to happen again when you interact with them? Do you feel afraid for your well-being, even though it doesn’t happen again?

That’s still abuse, the psychological kind. Typically when abusers resort to physical means, it’s gonna happen again eventually. In this hypothetical instance, however, the point is that repeated distress does not mean repeated actions. It does not need to happen the same way for you to feel unsafe, it just needs to have power over you. Manipulation does not always equal abuse either. It’s a tactic used by abusers, but unless paired up with other actions, it doesn’t fit the criteria of abuse. Context matters when you examine what abuse is.

Here comes the tricky parts that are acknowledged less: When the abuser is someone you’ve relied on in your childhood, in a detrimental part of your life, or someone you care about that you put importance in, and it makes it hard to fully hate that person. What the abuser has done to the victim does not entirely reflect them as people, even if it’s still an important part of them that needs to be addressed.

Abusive people are not only defined by their awful actions, they’re not pure monsters like most love to pretend they are. It’s just easier to think that because accepting that they’re just a multifaceted human being hurts too much when you’re on the receiving end of their worse behavior. But what happens when you’re on the receiving end of both? You try to justify it the way the abuser is because you can’t accept that what’s happening is bad and not something everyone goes through. After all, they treat you decent enough sometimes.

Something so many people need to get into their heads already is that abusers can be victims and vice versa, but just because your abuser went through something themselves or is important to you, doesn’t mean you have to forgive them. Abuse is not forgivable just like that, you can rebuild a relationship beyond that if you’re able to, It’s not a “forgive-and-forget” thing.

Not everyone experiences and responds to abuse the same way, some hate their abusers fully, some can’t bring themselves to, and some don’t even know what to think, but there are so many who don’t feel one way that regarding all abusers as heartless monsters completely invalidates so many stories and their difficult experiences. I have a huge grudge against people like this who restrict abusive situations to just looking like one thing, this is why so many don’t even know that their situations are abusive.

Portrait of a Father

Chapter 39 reflects my points the most, and at the same time, it also turns out to be one of the most controversial chapters. It surprised me that it is, but maybe I shouldn’t be considering how most people on the internet act about abuse. It’s a lovely chapter to me personally and one of my favorites.

If you need a refresher, this is the chapter the Orphanage Director died in and leaves Atsushi in an emotional frenzy about what to think and believe. I know that the underlying message of this chapter is confusing to some, but it hit me in the face point blank on how this is about facing your abuser’s death without any personal conclusion with them.

Being sent on an investigation, Atsushi, after finding out the body was the Director, is stunned and scared because he knows nothing of the director other than his cruelty. He immediately assumes the worst and that he was coming after him again. Atsushi’s thoughts against him are entirely… on purpose in the director’s intentions because we find out that he has gone through so much violence and loss himself that he’s projecting his own will onto Atsushi and making sure he’d “survive in the real world”. So he became his first figure of hate and violence earlier in his life so he’d be “prepared for what comes next”.

I know so many take the backstory for the director as a way to justify what he did to Atsushi in the narrative, but it was just to put into context why he was so cruel. Abusers are never cruel for no reason, that never makes it right, but it’s reality. Atsushi was not the only one in the orphanage who was treated badly, he was singled out by the director most likely for an ability he couldn't control because the headmaster knew he’d get the most trouble for it, and unfortunately… he was right.

Akutagawa being his informant in this chapter makes perfect sense. He can see that what the director was for Atsushi is what Dazai is for him. No matter how terrible their actions were, it’s what kept them alive for so long. It’s not pleasant to confront, is it? Atsushi agrees because when he gets the information that the Director was going to congratulate him with the flowers he was going to buy by selling the gun he had on him, he freaks out. No way the guy he was raised so long to hate, the guy who put him through so much suffering, was going to congratulate him.

I know to some, Dazai’s talk with Atsushi sounded like he was justifying what happened because “it made him a good person in the end”, but that’s not what’s being said. This conclusion I’ve seen some people come to about this conversation confuses me. Dazai is just saying the obvious, you guys get all shocked and it weirds me out how easily it’s been glossed over that the reason Atsushi is so self-sacrificial and trying to do the good thing is because of the director. The reason he puts himself so much on the front lines is because he needs that worth in being good to live and prove the director wrong, he was raised to see that type of person is the most ideal person to live in this world.

After everything that’s been dumped onto him in such a short time, so much inner conflict of what to think of a dead man he no longer can have any personal closure with, he asks Dazai what face he should make, what he should think at this moment. Dazai tells him that they’re his emotions and he can think however he’d like, but commonly someone cries when their father dies. So he cries, because ultimately no matter his treatment, no matter the intent and its effects, it’s still the man who raised him. It’s flawed, but that’s what a father is stripped bare at its core definition and that won’t change no matter your feelings.

Now that I’m done summarizing this chapter and making sure you guys understood the point and how it spells out their relationship, I can finally talk freely about what was happening between them. When it comes to familial abuse, generational trauma is so prevalent it’s hard not to talk about. The director is quite reflective of so many parents who were raised to grow up too early in harsh environments, that they think they need to prepare their children for it too, even though it’s no longer needed.

You don’t need to like someone for them to be important to you, especially if it’s a parent in your life or someone close to that. That’s why Atsushi cries. He cries for the director, he cries for himself, he cries that it’s finally over, he cries for the kindness he could’ve gotten even if it wouldn’t have fixed anything, he cries for the father that never was, he cries because his father is dead. It’s perfectly normal to keep someone close in your heart that wasn’t perfect and to grieve their death.

Was the director successful in what he was aiming for? I want to say no, but he did. He succeeded in making Atsushi think of others in a good light and do good for them, making Atsushi resent him, and giving him the ability to keep going. Hell raised him right, but it was still hell. The problem is that his teachings were based on degrading Atsushi into being nothing but a life he should put aside in favor of others. Even if he continued hating the director like he wanted, he would still degrade himself for being a coward who didn’t hold himself to those standards. The result is not perfect because the director is not perfect, but in his position, this is a success.

The director for a while was his shadow of negative encouragement when he joined the agency, what kept him going in those moments, because he was what defined good, bad, and justice for him in his entire childhood. Even if he was dead, he’d still linger in his mind. I can’t parse out what to think about these hallucinations forming Akutagawa and Dazai to guide him later on, all it tells me is that he still can’t rely on or trust himself and he needs more development in his self-image issues.

I see why fans are confused, hell raising us right is a bizarre thing to say to a victim, so let me show you a perspective you're not seeing. Let's imagine you have an abusive mother who only wants you to be prepared for the things you're undoubtedly going to experience because of what you can't control. What she did does help you, but all that goes through your head is “Why couldn't she have done it differently without my own suffering?” The only thoughts that come rushing back when you think of those memories are the unnecessary pains. It takes a lot for a victim to acknowledge this on their own, they want to push back at the past so they don't have to see this plain reality.

Like anyone else that I’m going to bring up in this post, just because the abuse made them who they are or affected who they became, even when it keeps us going through life and benefits us in some way, does not make the abuse justified. Abuse is still abuse, I addressed this already and I hope not to address this again. I needed to detail an explanation because it’s quite easy to hate a man you know nothing about and has been painted in nothing but a bad light. The anger against the director is undebatable because abuse is not debatable, but to pretend the cruelty was nothing but for cruelty’s sake is mischaracterizing both him and Atsushi.

You can’t pick and choose what’s been told to you in the text just because you don’t like a character and lack the maturity for it. It gets quite hard to do that sort of thing when it’s a character you‘ve grown to care about, it’s no wonder Dazai is divided between so many. Speaking of Dazai, his involvement in this makes as much sense as Akutagawa’s. He’s currently in a mentor position for Atsushi, no matter what Akutagawa says, and shows interest in his development. So of course he’s going to purposely stick his head into something that would affect Atsushi greatly. Both Akutagawa and Dazai are viewing this through their lenses as people who grew up in the darkness of society, and it’s not that Dazai thinks what happened to him wasn’t terrible, you should have eyes to read the panels provided, but he’s generally unfazed and able to sound neutral because he’s used to that cruelty.

The Port Mafia’s Environment

(Aka: is it really “all Mori’s fault” or is it just the product of being literally in The Mafia™?)

I’ll go over the “Cycle of Abuse” in a second, but please keep in mind that you can’t just blame everything on Mori. Just like the Director, it’s so easy to pin the guy who’s just been the worst for every problem there, but it decimates the other characters involved as well and makes what they’ve gone through go flat because you’re restricting it to a misinformed presumption.

To make a bold statement, I need you to completely throw away your idea of what the abuse cycle is. The Mori to Kyouka pipeline being the singular “Abuse Cycle”? Garbage, needs to go away too. I've seen many fans use the term “Cycle of Abuse” too carelessly, and while from afar the way they're using it is not technically wrong, they have the wrong thought process behind it.

The Cycle of Abuse is simply the patterns of what keeps us in an abusive dynamic and negative mental state, either with an individual or environment, and makes it incredibly hard for anyone to leave. It’s not the actions you take that make it the Cycle of Abuse, and it's not just one straight line of people going through similar motions. You don’t have to be someone’s abuser to be the one who keeps them there, if you feed into it you’re still a problem. Even if you don't actively add to it yourself, just staying there as a bystander and not trying to do anything to change it or speak up for the victim when you clearly could also still make you responsible. Just with your presence, it validates what they've gone through as normal.

If you need more of an explanation, two opposite examples include Higuchi & Akutagawa and Beast Kyouka & Atsushi. Higuchi is a traditional example in that she stays in the mafia because of her relationship with Akutagawa, and stays by his side for reasons unknown. What we do know is that she’s incredibly indebted to him enough to care for him to an extreme extent, but their relationship is abusive all the same. Beast Atsushi and Kyouka sounds strange for me to bring up, but this is an example of a non-abusive person contributing to the Cycle of Abuse. Instead of taking her out of an abusive situation, he brings her back in.

Many characters are a part of this main narrative of abuse in BSD, so it's not inaccurate to say Mori, Dazai, Akutagawa, and Kyouka are a part of it as well using this definition as all of them are the reason or contributed to why someone was stuck in a negative, abusive situation or the victim themselves. I’m guessing none of you are genuinely referring to this though and are referring to intergenerational abuse, a repeating cycle of younger generations taking after their abusers when they're older, which is a completely different phenomenon. Both are referred to as cycles and have many commonalities, but it’s not the same. Not to sound like a total dick, but this barely even applies to them.

Not because the concept is based on familial relationships, it can happen with older figures in your life too, but because our oh-so-famous Abuse Cycle gang does not have that commonality to make that claim. They have narrative parallels, but that’s pretty much it. I will save what I have to say in their sections, but Mori and Akutagawa did not abuse Dazai and Kyouka respectively for this type of claim to have any legitimacy. Kyouka certainly broke a cycle, but not that kind since that would need her to continue it in the first place and then prevent her own experiences from even affecting the next child.

What do all Mori, Dazai, Akutagawa, and Kyouka actually have in common? They are/were in the mafia, using their natural talents of cruelty for the underworld.

The Port Mafia resembles something of an abusive household or community that sees so much of what’s done to others there as normal, and constantly compares it to how it was with their old boss and thinks, “At least it wasn’t as bad as that.” It’s quite like the Orphanage Director’s thinking but on a larger scale. Does that make everyone in the Port Mafia abused? Nope, unlike most abusive communities, the Port Mafia is quite literally the mafia. Everyone is there for different reasons, at different ages, and different experiences. Everyone is taken advantage of in these situations, no matter the circumstances, but it doesn’t make them abused automatically.

So it’s hard to have a stance on anything about them being abusive other than the mentor situations in the Port Mafia don’t see abuse as abuse and just another way to teach their subordinates to survive in their world if they deem it necessary. Was Chuuya abused, either by Mori or Kouyou then? I’m going to have to say I can’t tell you that. We don’t have enough information on either of his dynamics with them to say that they’ve directly had any repetitive behaviors of direct harm against him specifically, and there's no reason for them to do so either. I’m not going to use the argument that “Chuuya doesn’t hate or fear them, so that must mean he wasn’t” because again, that type of response does not reflect so many situations.

Chuuya was still harmed by being in the Port Mafia as a teenager because nobody should have been surrounded by this much cruelty at that age. It doesn’t matter if he shows visible distress or not about the Port Mafia, he was just desensitized to it since his sheep days. So was he an abuse victim under the idea that being a child in the Port Mafia is abuse? That depends on who we’re speaking of, but in Chuuya’s situation, I'm going to have to say no as he's already internalized their mindset from his own experiences separate from the mafia. Keep in mind that it also still holds true that you can find family in situations like this, it’s not mutually exclusive. Some just find more comfort in what they’re used to than what would be better for them. Kyouka is a better example of someone being a victim of an abusive community.

A false claim I've seen made many times are the ones where they have it as if Mori is the mafia itself or that he made the mafia what it was. It shouldn’t be too surprising, but it’s the opposite. Mori already held flawed, heartless, calculative methods when in situations he thought required them. We’ve seen him as a soldier and an underground doctor, but we know nothing else about him outside of his cruelty, just like the headmaster. What he does is never for what he thinks is for his benefit, but for the sake of something larger. Whether it’s for the city, the country, or eventually, the Port Mafia.

The mafia is the first time he’s been put into a position of absolute leadership and is not yet accustomed to that at the beginning of Dazai, Chuuya, Age Fifteen. He’s able to quickly fit the mold of a mafia boss, but there’s that bit of honesty that peaks through in this light novel in the first and last sections that’s ignored too quickly. First Mori complains about nothing going immediately right, questions himself about Dazai, and becomes genuinely stressed if it was the right decision to involve him, then confesses that he sees himself in Dazai to him (and him and Fukuzawa in Soukoku in private), and finally gives his honest take of leadership to Chuuya.

I already go over Mori as a character in one of my other posts and will speak more of him later on, so I don’t want to reiterate the same points, but here we have proof he has (albeit poor) humanity. He did not become the Port Mafia boss for his own selfish gain of power if you’ve forgotten, but because Natsume introduced him to becoming part of the Tripartite Framework to protect the city he loves, it’s where he’d excel best in this plan. The Port Mafia was already a shithole, Mori just made it livable again by becoming what an organized crime group needs.

It’s what makes the dynamic between Kouyou and him so intriguing because you have an abuse victim who has embraced the environment she was forced back into, but won’t let go of someone who’s proven to be more of a decent leader than her tormentor and can be relied on. For victims who couldn’t get help or realize they needed help, the easier path is to accept this is your life through some justification. While I said the Port Mafia resembles an abusive community, communities as such aren’t purely terrible and that’s what keeps them justifying it in their head. The family you have for yourself, whether it's a made one or the one you're born with, is what sticks for you.

Like it or not, Mori isn’t stupid. He takes risky gambles that backfire on him sometimes, but he’s good at his job. He’s brutal enough to prove his own against the people who didn’t think he should’ve been boss and outsiders who want to go against the Port Mafia, but he’s considerate enough towards his people and shows enough competency to be perfect for the job. He’s not a great human being, but what did you expect? He no longer had any room to express that humanity, he never had; there was no benefit from being a good person in his line of work.

The Heartless Cur

That looked like a great segue to talk about Dazai and Mori’s dynamic, but it’d benefit to go over Akutagawa first. For those who do acknowledge it as an abusive situation, Thank you for at least taking that step. Numerous don’t and it worries me at the state of what’s considered abuse vs. training. It may be both at times but don't excuse one for the other. Training needs formal consent and communication at some point during a session. Akutagawa is learning, but it’s the same as getting yelled at as a child for not doing your homework right, when again, you’re still just learning.

It might’ve been easier to see for those who do acknowledge it because of the visible physical abuse that happens, but let's not undermine the psychological abuse happening as well. Dazai has messed with his psyche on an abhorrent level through his degrading and threats, making him reliant to hear a single word of acknowledgment from his mouth. What happened to Akutagawa is beyond the mafia’s environment.

Akutagawa does not hate or want Dazai dead for what he’s done to him, but he does hold anger at the seeming abandonment he’s been put through… and at himself as well. Anger that he couldn't get to what Dazai wanted him to be before he suddenly left. So he proves himself by climbing the ranks and becoming someone feared. Spectacles of violence not because he enjoys the feeling of other’s suffering or the power over them, but to show Dazai that see? He's still worth looking at!

He stays in the mafia because he’s found a place there. Even if he could, there was no point in leaving the mafia after he disappeared because what would be left for him if he did? He will always be an unchangeable, horrific hound of the dark and there's no changing that in his mind. From an inference of his actions in the dungeon when they finally reunite one-on-one, he wanted to believe that he was above Dazai after all those years, but Dazai doesn't act impressed or scared or anything. After all that effort, he gets nothing but ridicule and mockery like he's back to being that little kid with an oversized coat too big for his body.

Worse is that he gets told that some new kid Dazai picked up, who didn't train to the extent he did to refine his abilities, is better than him somehow. He gets riled up and at first, takes out on Dazai, but all those threats about killing him and how he went against the mafia were empty. Even now he can't bring himself to hate Dazai, he needs his mentor to acknowledge him no matter what side he's on. He never let go of Dazai, his coat is proof enough of that. So he takes it out on the party that isn't responsible and is convinced he needs to overcome Atsushi to prove something to Dazai.

He doesn't hate Atsushi, not genuinely. He does the same when he’s told he’ll never compare to Odasaku, someone who objectively should’ve been the weakest member due to his status. He gets angry at Dazai’s words, gets angry at himself, then takes it out on the person mentioned, rinse and repeat. I’m not sure if I’m the only one to notice, but he genuinely believed that the meaningful life Dazai gave him laid in the mafia and being useful to its cause. He has no reason to be as loyal to the mafia if he didn't think this.

Dazai’s acknowledgment means more than just appreciation for his skills and strength, it means his life meant something by striving for being the strongest. It’s not about the acknowledgment at all. Whenever he critiques and shames Atsushi for how he lives his life, it just feels like he’s unknowingly shaming himself through him without having to acknowledge his wrongs. It makes me curious about how much the acknowledgment itself even matters to him and the validation it gives him to strive for this is an excuse to keep living so what he’s doing in the mafia even matters in the end. What counts as acknowledgment to him?

He's convinced his faults are what made Dazai turn away, he just doesn’t know how to do anything to fix it and can't fix it this late into the game. What does Dazai want from him other than being stronger? When Dazai directly asks him to do something important involving Atsushi, he’s confused. He has no reason to trust him to do these missions. He’ll take the chance to prove himself once and for all, but to be included means he's being acknowledged, so what gives? The number of times he visibly self-reflects can be counted on one hand because as soon as it shows, he goes back to justify his violence and ignores his faults.

As someone whose favorite character is Akutagawa, I’m disgusted that all people can take away from him is “Akutagawa is an obsessive fanboy that deserves no sympathy because of what he did to Kyouka” or “Akutagawa is a poor, miserable man that didn’t deserve what Dazai made him into and should be absolved of responsibility because it’s all Dazai’s fault”. Both are very shallow and very harmful to perpetrate as they continue the idea that a person can only be the abused or abuser. He's both and it's okay to admit that.

Quickly let’s clear up this: He is not the way he is because of Dazai.

What Dazai IS responsible for:

Akutagawa’s need for his constant approval and recognition

Akutagawa learning to hone his ability

Akutagawa’s toxic views of being useful

The reason Akutagawa’s still alive

The reason Akutagawa is the Mafia’s dog

What Dazai is NOT responsible for:

Everything else

Akutagawa’s lean toward violence, his one-track stubborn mindset, and his lone-wolf attitude are not a product of Dazai’s treatment, he’s always been that way because of his time in the slums. He got beaten down by adults frightened of his empty gaze, had to learn to protect himself and find something to eat to survive, helped take care of his sister Gin and his friends by himself, and everyone constantly dying around him. That’s the real reason his personality is like that. He is a victim of his circumstances in a society that deemed him worthless, so he also thinks of his life as worthless. That’s why Dazai means so much to him.

Dazai did not trick him into joining the mafia, Dazai expressed what he was going to go through was worse than what happened in the slums and gave Akutagawa an out that he could live a normal life with enough money, but he knew Akutagawa would not refuse because he still needed meaning in living, just like him. Gaining enough money to get by so he and his sister could get out of the slums would do nothing for him, he already felt that his life was worthless. He has no problem throwing it away at any time, he was gonna die young regardless because of his lung disease. It has manipulative undertones, but that's how Dazai usually is with even the people he cares about.

Akutagawa knows too well that a person needs a sign, someone to tell them it’s okay to keep going, and so does Dazai. Part of Dazai’s goal is to save Akutagawa from dying and give him a reason to live like he promised that day because he sees the potential that could come from his development. I don't want to sound like a dick again, but you’d have to be dense to think Akutagawa would still be dead by the end of this arc. He isn’t sending him off to his death, Dazai doesn’t know everything.

Even if he knew Akutagawa might die there, it's better than both Atsushi and Akutagawa dying at that moment. If Akutagawa didn’t want to die for him, he wouldn’t have, he chose to save Atsushi’s life. This is why I have to defend Asagiri. Let’s reread the interview together, to make it get across already.

(Twt link)

Q: Just like how Akutagawa and Atsushi's relationship has changed, I could feel the relationship between Dazai and Akutagawa moving forward too. Is it like what Akutagawa has said in Episode 3 of Season 5, that every order he has received from Dazai so far has been "a trial", "a part of a meaningfull life"?

First, the question being asked. They’re asking Asagiri about their relationship in the present, and how it’s developed. Akutagawa is no longer thinking he was abandoned by Dazai for a new, better student like he was made him believe, that was just to rile him up and interact with Atsushi more. Instead, he realizes that he’s not supposed to work against Atsushi, he’s supposed to work with him. How he decides to go about that battle with Fukuchi and whether or not he works with Atsushi like a partner is his trial. If this was Akutagawa before he met Atsushi, he would’ve no doubt escaped or might’ve thought defeating Fukuchi would prove himself to Dazai. He's not an obstacle to his meaningful life, his quest for a meaningful life lies with Atsushi.

Asagiri responds with:

Asagiri: Needless to say, Dazai is the most qualified person in this world to help Akutagawa grow. Dazai has a vision for Akutagawa's development, and he completely understands what it takes to achieve it. We, as obsevers, can only see bits and pieces of that vision. But I can at least say that Dazai's training plan has never been wrong.

Many find this answer questionable, I was stunned reading it myself. Asagiri is not wrong at all here though, Dazai is objectively the only person in this series who can find a way to help him. Atsushi is the endpoint, but Dazai has been guiding him to this point. Dazai himself said that he was planning to team them up the moment he met Atsushi, he was still thinking of him even after all these years. There are much scarier implications than thinking that Asagiri was wrong. It's that Dazai was doing everything intentionally to get Akutagawa’s mindset where it was. He didn't mess up with Akutagawa, he just couldn't personally teach him the skills he needed and chose a different route until he found something that could.

Asagiri is not saying the abuse was morally justified, but the intention behind it was not wrong in an objective stance. Dazai would know what to do the most because of his understanding of wanting to find meaning in living. Teenage Dazai couldn’t have achieved much by himself, even if he could understand since he also could not find meaning in life. That’s why he made him hang on to his every breath of validation so he would keep his faith in Dazai long enough for him to find a solution to this dilemma. The moment in life when he found Akutagawa was not ideal and he still did what he thought he had to do for him to survive in the mafia. Without his ability, he's incredibly weak and needs to be able to defend himself. A violent person could not have made another violent person unlearn their violence.

You could say he just wanted a weapon, but that’s not it, not even close. Many of you are stuck on the part that it was a suicidal teenager that picked Akutagawa up from the slums and that no way someone like that could teach another suicidal teenager anything, so it’s “comical that Asagiri thinks as though he’s the most qualified”. You’re not wrong in some sense, but this is still incredibly intelligent, “Black Wrath of the Port Mafia”, Osamu Dazai, and not just some suicidal teenager.

He’s also no longer a teenager. Right now we’re talking of Dazai in the present who’s grown and no longer needs to be how he was in the mafia, he has Atsushi now, someone who can help Akutagawa see what’s wrong in his outlook. The only thing he could’ve done back then was to shelter Akutagawa so he wouldn’t kill himself. It's horrible, but Dazai validating where he is now would do no good for either of them and fix nothing.

Q: What kind of person is Dazai to Akutagawa?

Asagiri: Actually, at the time of "The Dark Era", Dazai already spoke very highly of Akutagawa, as someone who would "become the Mafia's strongest skill user in the not-so-distant future". He just doesn't say that in front of Akutagawa himself. The reason he doesn't say it is that Dazai has to be "the presence that continues to give meaning to life" to Akutagawa. So far, that trial has been completely successful.

None of what Asagiri brings up is new information. He doesn’t say it in front of Akutagawa not to spite him, but if he gives these praises out too freely, he loses his distant, almost god-like presence in Akutagawa and will go back to being just a lone wolf with no exceptions that will carelessly get himself killed. Without any goal, he’s lost. Just like Atsushi and the headmaster and how Atsushi hinges on proving he can do a good thing to motivate his life, Akutagawa similarly hinges on the fact that if he fails, he won’t get Dazai’s approval.

However, his death was not fully about Dazai’s approval in the way he's been preaching. In chapter 87, he mentions Dazai’s approval like always, and when they fail the first time even after trusting and working with each other as Shin Soukoku should, It hits him. What came into his head I cannot parse out at the moment, but his actions speak so much louder than any explanation we could've gotten. Of course, he's helping Atsushi escape, but what does he do for that? He used his ability on his shirt, and not just on the coat like he typically does.

It doesn't seem like a big deal at first, he could've always done that, but when was the last time he used it on something that wasn't the coat Dazai gave him? The coat means many things. His new beginning, his path in being Dazai’s student and successor (as that was also Mori’s coat), but it also conveys Dazai’s will that keeps him alive and that he's only strong with his coat. Without it, he's defenseless, so he clings to this coat the exact way he clings to those orders. It's his encouragement to keep going when Dazai isn't there. This overwhelming, suffocating responsibility, an oversized coat, is a lot to give to a kid but it's comfortable and he’ll grow into it eventually.

It was already a huge step in his development that he gave Atsushi his coat, but to use his ability not on his coat means he's making an effort to overcome his fixation and do an action unrelated to Dazai for the sake of Atsushi’s life. His whole life after the slums, everything he's ever done was with Dazai in mind. Him saving Atsushi’s life was not because he was doing what Dazai wanted him to do, that he'd finally get approval for doing It, and in turn give his life meaning before he died. When he saved Atsushi, it would give his life meaning in just that. He shouldn't let himself be defined by the past the way he criticizes Atsushi for, so he’s going to choose his meaning. I wouldn't say he's moved past Dazai yet, but he's getting there.

Dazai and Akutagawa’s relationship is not healthy in the slightest, and Dazai’s crueler actions and words against him are not right, but they’re still growing and not stagnant characters. Atsushi and Akutagawa learn from each other and that's what's pushing them to change. Nobody will pretend those past means weren’t just abuse, they were, but there's so much more to it. Like I asked with the director, was he successful? Well from what I’ve said, yes it so far has gone the way Dazai hoped for in the best-case scenario.

In the main universe at least, this is one of the better ways it could’ve gone. Beast is a different story. Teenage Dazai of the main universe was unsure of Akutagawa’s future and did only what he could’ve done at that time, but Beast Dazai does have that knowledge and he decided that it would be best for Akutagawa to not be in the mafia, instead bringing in Atsushi. It wouldn’t have been good to let him pursue his violent tendencies more than necessary in the mafia in this universe when he knew there was a better option, especially with someone like Oda, who would take the time to care for him properly.

Even if he didn’t bring him in, he still gave him the motivation to keep living for something. The prologue of Beast is a mirror to The Heartless Cur, with instead it’s a distant relationship of hate Akutagawa has for him for taking his sister. For those who argue that since Beast exists, that means Asagiri was somehow “wrong about Dazai”, but it’s still Dazai from the beginning that’s the source of this motivation. Dazai, who's still guiding him. If we’re gonna be honest, Dazai was putting their development/capabilities in speed run mode with the logic and future information he had access to prepare them for a timeline he won’t be alive for. There are many factors for what he did in Besst, but that’s not the conversation.

What does he get from helping him? Who knows, Asagiri wasn’t being cheeky when he said we only see bits and pieces of his vision. We barely have any clue what’s going through that man’s head, so don’t act like you do. He wasn’t always planning for the next Soukoku. Maybe it was a thought that came up sometimes, but he’s only met Atsushi recently. What about Akutagawa was so different from any other powerful ability-wielding orphan? Well, we’re not gonna know any time soon.

The point is that Dazai is thinking about their future, even if the abuse or manipulation makes that hard to see. Please do remember that abuse is still selfish no matter the intention, but non-selfish intentions make it all the more complicated to process. Their relationship is not misunderstood by Asagiri himself, it’s just clear to me most don’t want to face the unpleasant truth that there is more to their dynamic. When I first realized what was going on, I couldn’t help but get unnerved and awkward when someone would ask me about these two. These are both characters in the spotlight that you’re supposed to care about, but what happened between them is rotten.

You’re not supposed to pretend it didn’t happen because Dazai still contributed to who he is and it shows whenever it’s on screen. Abuse doesn’t make us stronger, don’t make it as if that’s a message that Asagiri is spreading. What happened to him motivated his development, but with Atsushi, that’s the opposite. Their circumstances are different and victims process what's happened to them in various ways. Depicting it in a form less common than usual doesn't mean the author thinks in the same way the victim does, it's just nuance at work.

I did not add Akutagawa’s attitude towards his subordinates and newer members as Dazai’s responsibility because Dazai is not the one controlling his hands when he hits Higuchi. Dazai’s mentoring contributed to his toxic views of being useful, but it’s only Akutagawa’s responsibility once he raises his hand. Instead of thinking of this in the context of the most typical abusive situation you can think of, how about this:

Your parent was raised in an abusive household, but they think they came out of it just fine and that there was nothing wrong with how they were treated. They treat you almost the same way, and all you can take away from that when you find out is, “At least it’s not as bad as it could’ve been”. You still hold anger at the standards they’re forcing you to reach, but if that’s what it takes to get that approval, then you’ll keep going anyway. Even if you get yelled at and you know you shouldn’t be treated like this, it’ll feel nice when you finally get on their good graces, right?

Then you get a new sibling, and all of that comes crumbling down. They don’t treat your sibling anywhere near the same when you were that age. Years go by and you get angrier and angrier. Why is it only you that was put to that standard? Even worse is that they treat you differently now too. You finally got to those standards, but now what is it worth? They’re so much nicer now and you want to curse them out for only changing now. Why couldn’t have had that parent from the beginning? It’s so unfair, but you can’t take it out on them because you still need them, they mean so much to you. As angry as you were, they were doing it because they cared about you in their way, you think. It was what your grandparents did to them at least. So you start treating your sibling similarly to how you were treated because you can’t take it that they didn’t experience that hardship without destroying yourself first.

Question: Are you right in what you did? Was the parent responsible for what you did to your sibling?

Nobody in their right mind would say yes to that first question. It makes sense why it happened, but continuing abuse will never be the correct answer. You’re doing the same thing your parent did. The second question needs more exposition to answer, however. How responsible is responsible?

In the end, even if it was the parent who influenced it, you’re only responsible for what you’ve done on your own accord. The parent did not tell you to take it out on your sibling, you decided that yourself. The parent is still responsible for what they’ve done to you, never get that wrong, but if you say that your guilt is absolved because it’s all their fault, you sound no different from any other abuser in denial. Are you saying now that the parent is also absolved from guilt because it’s all their parent’s fault too? Listen to yourself, You hurt someone but it’s not your fault, but the person who hurt you is also somehow not at fault? If someone came up to you and said that, you’d be fed up.

For those who do the same thing with Mori, rethink what you’re saying. Is it that painful to admit your favorite characters are at fault and that they’re changing? This comparison isn’t perfect and ignores some key factors: Dazai isn’t Akutagawa’s or Atsushi’s father and is not much older than them, the Port Mafia is a violent workplace environment and requires you to be able to navigate it a certain way, and all three of them at adults in present time. I used this comparison to be more real to earth and something a larger audience could process themselves to truly get that the emotions here are not straightforward even in a realistic situation.

Re: Portrait of a Father

Just like the prologue, in chapter 3 of the Beast light novel, Portrait of a Father is mirrored and retold in brutal upset that does not hold the hopeful bittersweetness at the end of it unlike its original. Before the present day, against all orders Dazai gave him, Atsushi attacked the orphanage on the day of his birthday. On his birthday, he would be reborn from the ashes of his past being burnt away, and kill the director inside to release himself from the fear of those memories.

It’s what he says at least.

Playing out, the director was expecting him. There might have only been one person in his mind who would’ve attacked a rundown orphanage on this scale. It frightens Atsushi after all that planning and fear of losing to the director, he could still see through him, but confusion takes hold when he’s told that he was late for his graduation.

Graduation? Atsushi is in fight or flight mode, why is he approaching him with this box? He can’t imagine it being anything other than a weapon, nothing else would make sense for this cruel monster. The director won’t give him any straight answer, just repeating words he’s heard over and over growing up here. He uses his tiger hearing to glean what could be inside.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

There’s the proof, it had to be a bomb. He needs to protect himself before anything happens or he’ll die. He’s scared, he can’t move, but he has to fight. The director opens his arms for the embrace of his child… and death, plummeted into a bloody mess on the floor. Only out of the corner of his eye, only when Atsushi stopped, he saw what was in the box. It was a watch, brand new and high-end. Happy Birthday was what was written on a sheet of paper next to it.

His last words, whispered into his ear, were words of encouragement: “Yes… just like that.”

I was not kidding when I said this was brutal. Just like in the main universe, Atsushi learns why he did what he did and can’t place any of his feelings, but overwhelmingly guilt crushes him to keep protecting people with his life rather than just fear because he killed him. He finds out much earlier about what happened with Shibusawa, and how the director protected his identity as the tiger.

The director’s intentions are draining when you let your mind wander. As we’ve established, the headmaster as a figure of hate for Atsushi is intentional on his part. He doesn’t explain anything on purpose here to probe him into killing him. He bought that watch for Atsushi as a congratulations for growing up and becoming a new independent individual.

In the split minute before Atsushi took the first swing, he said his usual, “Those who fail to protect others do not deserve to live.” I have to question now if he was so willing to die there, even encouraging him to kill him, then has it been this whole time he still can’t live with himself for what happened to his friends… or is it because he couldn’t protect Atsushi anymore? Maybe I’m overthinking it and it was just that the headmaster thought Atsushi needed to kill him to remove an obstacle in his growth as an individual, to be a necessary sacrifice for his benefit.

It's too flawed though. The director will never leave him, not after all that he's engraved into Atsushi. The watch has become not a symbol of a person who's found himself, but a child that's latched himself onto his father's cold corpse that won't ever respond, but that child would do anything to have him wake up and say "Good job, Atsushi". The director also has a clock, but can he call himself a strong individual when he hasn't let go of the past either?

Time stopped for Beast Atsushi when he picked up that watch. If he had just followed orders, none of this would’ve happened. If he isn’t his father’s child, if he doesn’t uphold his last wish, then who is he? When he’s no longer in the mafia and has time for himself to think, he wanders.

He failed in becoming someone he could be proud of, he deserved to die for that but doesn't want to be dead… because It wasn't truly about the Director, just like how it wasn't truly about Dazai’s acknowledgment or saving his sister for Akutagawa. At first, that was the motivation, it's the reasoning they keep going with, but in the end, it was to save their own life and give it purpose to validate why they're still around. If they can die like this, then it's all the same. If they have their own life in someone else’s hands, then they no longer have to be responsible for their own heavy-hearted weight.

Beast Atsushi is given neither and is taken of his reasoning, but he keeps going. Aimlessly.

Luckily, it’s not where his story ends.

He wakes up in his old orphanage, and it’s no longer the dreary place it was when he was younger. Kids laughing outside, no chains on the walls or bars blocking off the windows, and the new Orphanage Director greets him. He tells him that he will go back to being a student of the orphanage until he can become independent again, under one of Dazai’s last requests before he died.

Still, there’s one thing he needs to do. The new director takes out the watch and tells him to break it. Atsushi is distraught by this notion, but he won’t let Atsushi leave if he doesn’t. The new director has good reason, there is no point in becoming someone the past director was proud of and this is what’s holding him back. Atsushi, eventually, tells him he will not break the watch. He can’t move on just yet and this watch is still proof he’s himself, yet…

He’ll keep going and move forward, just like Akutagawa told him after he spared his life. The new director finds those words to be enough, saying he can’t leave until he finds something else to define himself with, but he can keep living here as his son. He went there to burn away his past and came out of it not able to let go of the past, but now he can redo and process it healthily with someone willing to hold him like a father should.

The Man Who Raised Dazai

Everyone who’s read Beast has questioned it: Why did Dazai in his right mind have Mori take care of an orphanage? Why did he save his life? Better yet, why is he so nice?! I have come up with some speculation on why Dazai would.

“Beast Dazai recognized this potential of change either from the multitude of universes he was able to witness or recognized it in his own considering canonverse Dazai never does anything against Mori (even if he visibly dislikes him).”

“Possibility is one thing, the why is another. It was either that he saw potential and good that could come out of this in the long run, Mori’s intelligence and expertise still proves usefulness, less dangerous for Oda in the long run if he let Mori stay there instead of the Mafia, or all three.”

(Didn’t feel like rephrase them)

We can’t know anything for sure about his decision, but I do know Mori is the type of character to sacrifice his feelings for what he thinks would logically benefit the sum, and there’s no better way to release yourself from that too-calculative responsibility than to remove yourself from it and to be in a place where you’re allowed to care for others and express yourself when there is no greater purpose than to just grow.

What happened with Yosano is undoubtedly wrong, but Mori had put away any sympathy in those situations because he needed her to do what he brought her in for. I was confused by his declaration that violence should never be used to educate children when I read it, especially out of his mouth, but now I understand. He would know with certainty that it’s not the right way to educate children, particularly because this is a Mori that hasn’t been in the dark for these past years and has grown to care for these children at the orphanage without any greater intention for them.

He’s not like the Old Director because he has no reason to think these kids would end up the way he did. They’re just kids that need someone to raise them with kindness, kindness will be what gets them through life as functional adults. Abuse has too many drawbacks to be called an optimal solution here. Is it surprising that all it took to change Mori was the kindness and salvation Dazai offered to him when he took over? Can you believe it was that simple to treat someone like a human being instead of a figure of hate?

What sticks out to me like a sore thumb is that when he’s introduced in Beast, he’s referred to as the man who raised Dazai. He is, regardless of what you think, the closest thing Dazai has to a father figure. In regards to how the fanbase speaks of their relationship, it’s hard to think that he cared about Dazai, but he did and the extent of how bad it got between them is grossly exaggerated.

As many comparisons Dazai gets with Yosano, their relationship with Mori is very different. Unlike Yosano, he did not need to be forced to do anything with psychological abuse and he did not need to be torn down to do what Mori asked him to. We don’t know what happened to him to become like this, but it wasn’t because of Mori. Yosano had light in her and a motivation to do the right thing, but Dazai didn’t. Dazai is no stranger to any violence or using violence himself even before Mori if he's this desensitized.

It’s useful that Dazai is like that when he meets him, up until it isn’t. He’s moody and actively looking to die. Mori can’t predict him that easily and Dazai can see right through him. There’s another huge difference between them though: Mori sees himself in Dazai. We don’t have enough insight in his head to make conclusive statements, but I think this is why he cared for Dazai. It’s not because he saw a child struggling that he cared, but grew some fondness because he saw a little mini-him. When he drove Dazai out of the Port Mafia, he expected him to come back and take back his vacant seat.

Eventually, Dazai will come back and realize that petty anger about someone dying is illogical in somewhere like the mafia. But because of him not being able to see through Dazai and seeing himself in him, he also expected him to eventually usurp his seat if he stayed any longer. That is why he had invited Mimic at the time he did and manipulated the situation so Oda, someone he knew Dazai cared for, would go and take care of the situation flawlessly. He’d be sacrificed and Mori could get something out of it, a Skilled Business Permit. A perfect plan… in theory, but Mori was wrong and miscalculated on many levels because of how many assumptions he made about Dazai.

First, he wouldn’t have known that it was Oda who held the words that would convince him to leave the mafia and go into the world of light. Dazai will never come back to his own volition. Second, as those panels quite literally tell you, Dazai was never planning on killing him. He saw his place in the mafia and saw that he was needed there. When Mori finally realizes his mistake with Dazai 4 years later during the Guild Arc, he can’t go back. His plan was still perfectly sound and he still got what he wanted out of it. He shouldn’t regret it, but…

Now that’s been paved out, where does wanting to save Dazai fit into this? If I had to assume, it’s the same reason he didn’t shoot Dazai for leaving his office during Dark Era. He cared about that boy, for 4 whole years he left him and his seat alone when the logical thing he should be doing was replacing him, but as much as he might’ve cared, he needed to put the mafia first. He didn’t let him die because of his use, but also because of their so-called “common destiny” in his eyes, a diamond in a rough he might’ve disposed of otherwise if he didn’t see his potential. There’s not much he could’ve done for Dazai here except keep him healthy and alive. Mori gets tons of flack for not trying to help him, but there's nothing he could've done, not in their position.

He can't cultivate his potential if there is abuse involved because there is no logical reason for him to do anything to Dazai. You guys have to stop assuming the worst when it comes to Mori, you’re missing huge character details that are right in front of you. The difference between Mori, the Boss of the Port Mafia, and Mori, the Orphanage Director is that he had time to rekindle his humanity so he’s able to care about him like a normal human being, feel guilt, and admit regret after Beast Dazai has died. Mori at most was responsible for ingraining tactical strategies and theories and molding him into the perfect Mafioso and right-hand man.

Not to say any of those aren’t a bad thing. He’s still a child and having him use his desensitized, intelligent mind to build the potential in what he could do for the mafia, it’s just that he’s responsible for very little in Dazai’s personality. The only answer I could give about Dazai being abused by Mori or being abused under the credentials that he’s a child in a violent, unsafe place is the same answer given earlier for Chuuya: in his case, not really.

Regarding this, I retract my statement about anything I’ve said about Beast Atsushi not being a victim in his time in the mafia, but I still hold my stance that he’s not the victim of the port mafia. I want to say the same thing about Beast Dazai and Atsushi that I do here, but considering he picked him up and trained him like how he trained Akutagawa, there’s a great chance Dazai emotionally abused him when you read their interactions. Not physically as that would make him too much like the headmaster, but just enough emotional distress in bringing up traumatic moments to manipulate him into doing what he needs of him.

It’s not a good relationship, but Mori wasn’t targeting Dazai in any real way like the Director and Atsushi or Dazai and Akutagawa. Unlike every other section, I have to conclude that he didn’t do anything to Dazai in that regard other than treating him like another adult when he shouldn't have. I don’t have much to say negatively about their dynamic otherwise. Just a weird, terrible son with his weird, terrible father. It’s more like someone who's taking after their mentor’s teaching and methods rather than an abuse victim echoing their abuser. This is why I don't accept the “Cycle of Abuse” as how the fandom understands it. It tells me a lot that people resort to the blame game.

I wonder what Dazai and Mori’s relationship would've looked like without any of this in the middle. Maybe something in cadence with Ranpo and Fukuzawa, but I can't help thinking that accepting Atsushi as his son in Beast instead of a student wasn't just for Atsushi’s sake. He was about to call him his student too, but immediately changed his mind. He already admitted he was helping him because of what happened to Dazai, so it can’t be a huge jump to think that in the same way this is Atsushi’s redo in building a relationship with a father figure, this is Mori’s redo to give him some atonement for the boy he failed.

A Mother’s Love

Kyouka, when we first meet her, appears as a force to be reckoned with. With skills a young girl shouldn’t have, and a demon shadowing behind, she’s a terrifying opponent. Quickly though, that appearance falls short in tragedy when the bomb Atsushi’s after is found on her own body and when he asks if she truly wants to kill... She has no answer, but her actions speak clearly. She gives him the defuser because she doesn’t want any more people to die, but the man behind the phone will not let it defuse.

So Kyouka does the next best thing to save more from dying: falling off the train with the bomb that’s about to go off. As long as she dies with it, nobody can use her and her abilities to massacre the people on the train when the bomb eventually fails to do what is necessary. Because that’s when Atsushi realizes that she cannot control her ability herself. No matter what she genuinely wants, she will never have the ability to obtain it because of this one fact. She can only be what people tell her she is.

We all know this story well, she gets saved by Atsushi and the man behind the phone is Akutagawa. Atsushi offers her the same kindness Dazai extended to him regardless of his reputation and destruction because it’d only be the right thing to do. He knows her incoming fate of eventual death for her crimes, he can’t do much, but she should at least experience normalcy this one time.

When she’s about to turn herself in, Akutagawa stops her and tells her she did her job well as a decoy for him to capture Atsushi. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a peculiar oddness about Akutagawa here in his attitude towards Kyouka. In all logic, even though she is a strong tool to the mafia, she’s a low-level member, a disobedient one at that, and should’ve been killed on sight for her betrayal considering how quick he is to violence, but he talks as if nothing even happened. He brushes off any thought of her dying as she’s spouting nonsense and that she’s going to go back to the mafia as normal.

But then he spouts off about how she’s better off dead on the ship if she stops killing. What’s up with that? It’s not completely obvious at first, but he’s projecting his own experiences in the slums and beliefs formed from Dazai’s mentoring onto her. From his time when he wasn’t in the mafia, he tells her there’s nothing left out there for people like them, there’s only rock bottom. He can confidently say that there is nowhere that would accept her for her ability, demon snow, because it’s the same for him.

The only way her life can have value is to kill to be useful, just like any good mafia member. It’s exactly why that flashback with Dazai happens here. He’s the one who fed him these thoughts he’s lived with for these past 6 years, and what she’s been believing for 6 months. He doesn’t loathe her, he sees it as doing a favor for her. What else can a little girl who can kill be use of except to kill in her circumstances?

Contrary to popular belief, he is not her abuser and is not the same thing Dazai was to him. He neither trained her nor did we have information on their relationship to come to that conclusion. The only thing we know is that he was the one sent to pick her up by the Port Mafia. We can prove she is not the way she is because Akutagawa since Beast, well, exists. She is one of the few characters I can confidently say was a victim of the Port Mafia itself and not just a person of the Port Mafia specifically.

Akutagawa was trying to be what Dazai was to him, but he is selling a bastardized version of it to her. The person who was her Dazai was Atsushi, the same person who was given Dazai’s act of kindness. Someone who has experienced the same things Akutagawa has and is living proof that she can hope for something better.

He could see that the same revenge and lack of regard for her life in her eye was the same kind he met Dazai with. Despite that, these lessons he’s internalized have helped no one, not even himself. She can’t find meaning in something that is the root cause of her suicidal ideation. This life is unfulfilling for people like them who need meaning in life. Akutagawa doesn't realize this because he still has Dazai to be his motivational goal. That’s why he failed to help Kyouka, Dazai’s efforts would’ve been considered an utmost failure too if he wasn’t actively trying to fix that misunderstanding. Kindness is what actively saves us and helps us grow, the harm in abusive environments will only stunt us. But what happens when kindness is offered to us, but nothing comes out of it except proving us right that we’re unsavable? Then you have Kouyou.

Kouyou is the second person I could say was a victim of the Port Mafia. She has the same belief Akutagawa had about people like them being unable to be saved, so the only thing they can do is embrace it. I can’t claim she was Kyouka’s abuser either as we again don’t know enough, but that doesn’t change that her behavior is emotionally abusive, and is a much better contender than he is.

She’s doing the same thing Akutagawa was doing himself. Seeing themselves in this child and doing what she “needs” instead of what she wants. Just like him, she views this as saving her from the hands of light that will never make room for them and will ignore everything else she says. When Akutagawa is faced with her “disillusionment”, he… accepts it when she refuses his will and chooses another path, but almost kills her to spare her from that decision that would “doom” her.

Kouyou is much less accepting, opting to kill the root source of this hope itself, Atsushi, because her fondness for Kyouka prevents her from leaving her for dead. In contrast to Akutagawa’s attempt at being what gives her life meaning, Kouyou wants to stop Atsushi from being like the same man who also gave her hope that they could escape to the world of light. She can’t bear to see Kyouka go through the same realization she did far too late.

I can see what you're thinking, why am I reluctant to call either of them Kyouka’s abuser? Even if Akutagawa doesn't count, shouldn't Kouyou count because she seems to have an actual relationship with her and her effects are prevalent in Beast, the same points I mentioned to debunk accusations against him? Sure actually, but think about it like this. What the Port Mafia does have in common with real situations is that this is a community that is full of victims who refuse to process their traumatic experiences for any reason, and bring down others to their level when they don’t fit in their narrative to justify what’s happened to them.

There isn’t just one abuser weighing over you, there's this collective pressure from so many who aren't your abuser but they still contribute to your abuse with their presence itself. If Dazai wasn’t there in the mafia, would Akutagawa's situation have changed? Yes. Now if Akutagawa or Kouyou weren’t in the mafia, would Kyouka's situation have changed? Not at all. She’d have fewer examples to refer to, but she’d still be abused. If it’s easier to imagine, think of it similarly to cult mentality and how they keep you in cults. That is the reason I emphasized being a victim of the Port Mafia instead of an individual. Kouyou, Q, and Kyouka, while you can pin their main perpetrators on certain people, their overall situation doesn't change.

Now why doesn’t she just use the phone herself instead of letting people call Demon Snow for her? Wouldn’t she have more agency that way? Atsushi proposes this, but she rejects it instantly. It’s a very simple answer, it’s the same reason she can’t bear to look at it outside of when she’s forced to use it in combat. It’s her ability that killed her parents and why she was forced into this position.

It’s not hard for a little girl to believe she’s nothing more than a killing machine when she sees that night her ability would mercilessly kill her parents. She eventually caves when Kouyou points out how quick she is to vindicate violence to protect that hope she desperately wants a part of, and how she will never change. Her first mission with the Armed Detective Agency is proof in itself. Was Atsushi going to keep extending his kindness after hearing what she could only blame herself for?

Kouyou is a character I’ve seen that gets a lot of double standards compared to all of the other characters I’ve mentioned with abusive tendencies and is almost purely liked. She’s not seen as an absolute monster (The director, Mori) or controversial with one side containing pure dislike and another pure love (Akutagawa, Dazai), it’s only that she’s a well-written, sympathetic badass girl boss. It’s either because she’s a woman, that she doesn’t use an overt intimidation style, that her motives are more obvious in their emotional influences, or all of the above that she’s not treated the same.

Kouyou’s motivations are not special, as I’ve said. The only thing that differentiates them from the others is that they’re not covered by a mask of indifference. As fond as she is for her, she’s not much different from anyone else who holds the mafia up in high regard. She weaponizes her words in where they’d hurt the most so Kyouka would come with her. The entire last section of their battle sums up with her saying, “Kyouka come with me, they’ll only use you for your Ability when they get a hold of it. Even if the mafia did the same thing, at least they’ll accept you for who you truly are: a natural-born killer. You don’t have to fight anymore, I’ll protect you.”

When Atsushi finds Kyouka once again subsequently in her disappearance, she chooses to embrace her violence to help the Armed Detective Agency in this fight with the Guild. After her walk in where she used to reside, she comes the the conclusion she no longer belongs there. Against Kouyou’s wishes, she will brandish her blade for a home. That blows up in her face the moment she starts. Atsushi gets taken, and it’s just as Kouyou said would happen. If even her violence doesn’t get her wish, then what can she do besides leave herself to her fate?

As someone who’s seen another with a talent for killing walk the path of good and is on that same path himself, Dazai talks to her. He tells her about how she hasn’t gone through her entrance exam yet, how she isn’t an official member because she hasn’t proven her will or life on the line to help people she doesn’t necessarily know. Kyouka doesn’t believe she could’ve passed if that’s what it takes, but Dazai doesn’t agree with the points she’s brought up. So what if she’s killed or considered dangerous? That doesn’t make her less qualified to be a part of the Detective Agency, everyone there is from different backgrounds.

She can’t know everything, not even about herself. Nobody does, but it takes others to see more of yourself. Excelling in one area doesn’t prevent you from nurturing your potential in another. What would that make someone like Atsushi, a person who’s been her guiding figure throughout—but was never seen as anything more than a threat or a beast because of his ability before he joined them? The truth is, our lives aren’t defined by one purpose the moment we’re born, it’s only something you can make for yourself. We’re not the places we’ve been raised in, not the ideas people apply to us, and we’re especially not defined by the traumatic experiences we had no control over.

All of it accumulates the person we are today, and we can’t change that no matter how much we resent parts of our image that don’t hold up to what society deems as right, but it shouldn’t take control over what we want for ourselves. It isn’t fair for the victims who were forced into a life where they had to fend for themselves, the children who had to navigate an adult’s messed up world that didn’t have room for them to grow as kids should. Forced into a box where they stay unaware that they’ve ever left their mother’s womb, break out in fury with eyes that grew up too early—only to become lost and thrown away, or rot in that box without a single person knowing they were a breathing, living human being.

I deem abuse selfish for this very reason. Kouyou is wrong for this very reason. If she finds comfort in her reasoning, then I can’t critique her for her own choices and will have to respect her for choosing to stay in the mafia even when the old boss is dead, every abuse victim is different, but not a single person is born evil or good, in the dark or light. Not a soul has to stay in one place because they started there. It’s going to be a hard journey to truly achieve what you long for, results aren’t immediate and not everyone gets there no matter their effort, but still try. Try because it’s still worth trying, because you’re still worth more than you think.

In parallel, you can only get there as long as you’re seeking it. Too many see the Armed Detective Agency as something that will automatically save characters just by working there, but the only way it can help them is if they seek out their help themselves. The ADA is not the right place for every character, but Kyouka does want a place there. After her conversation with Dazai, she knows what she wants to do now. She will smash the drone she’s in into Moby Dick so nobody will have to die, but sacrifice her own life in the process. She’s chained to this place, but her choices aren’t.

She doesn’t have to die with regret, with this she can pass the entrance exam and become an agency member like she wanted. She made a difference for herself just by this act. It’d be a pretty melancholy arc if it ended like that, thank god we know it doesn’t end like this. When you become a full agency member, you gain more control over your ability, meaning—

She’s fine.

The exposition is over, let’s talk about Kyouka. Her arc is beautiful and the neglect to talk about her when it comes to her abuse story besides saying, “She’s the one who stopped the abuse cycle” and then nothing else is heartbreakingly superficial. She didn’t stop it, it’s impossible to, but she did break out of it. Kyouka’s section has more exposition than the others but I expected that. I wanted to save her for last because she’s the only one whose arc has come to a peaceful conclusion and not unfinished, and the lighter message felt nice to leave off on.

I shouldn’t berate Kouyou too much, the only reason she stayed in that room after being captured by the ADA is because she did want Kyouka to experience what she never had, and speaking with Dazai helped reassure her that Kyouka would be able to achieve her dreams. It’s no longer the age of the old boss. As well as her shedding the truth about her parent’s death so she wouldn’t have to resent her ability as not an avatar of massacre, but a product of her parents’ love that will always stay with her. She didn’t let go of the phone she’s had this entire time because her mother told her not to let it go.

Me going over Kouyou in this fashion is not me saying you shouldn’t love her character, I like her too. It’s just that it’s passed over so fast what she did, but somehow Akutagawa is more at fault here is mind-boggling. I’d get it a little more if this is because she redeemed herself by wanting the best for Kyouka over what was best for the mafia, but I doubt that’s the case when that moment is talked about so little as well.

I genuinely need you all to understand that not every character is going to have a satisfying, clean conclusion like this. Akutagawa’s story is most likely not going to have a conclusion that satisfies everyone and you should respect it when it comes. There’s no perfect way of writing abuse, but there’s no correct way of doing it either. I don’t think Dazai is going to have the repercussions you want him to have any time soon. If you got the message from Beast, getting revenge on an abuser doesn’t make us feel better or let us process what happened to us. Total resentment keeps us stuck.

The only thing that will heal us is the kindness so many offer in this series. You in no way need to extend that kindness to an abuser, you don’t need to forgive them or let them into your life again, but be kind to yourself and don’t let resentment prevent you from focusing on yourself. Forgiveness and reconnection are not the same thing. Don’t be angry when a victim does want those things. Unless it’s character inconsistent, that’s not something we shouldn’t have any opinion on as the right or wrong way to go about their lives. What if later they do change their mind and want something different from what they originally planned? That’s fine too. Everyone is different. Don’t give unsolicited advice to people who do not want it, let them decide for themselves. It is the best thing you can do.

The worst abusers are the ones who refuse to change and see wrong in what they’re doing, but what about the ones who do want that? Then also let them heal. They did something awful, why isn’t it a good thing they want to stop it now? You don’t have to let them in just because they changed though. Apologies don’t fix the damage already done, but to some victims, it feels nice to feel that what’s been done to them is acknowledged. You don’t want them to hurt others the way they’ve done to you, and neither do they. It hurts to let them forgive themselves when you haven’t and never will, you want to see them suffer, but that’s the only way things can change.

Dazai has changed, is he a good person even after what he’s done? I despise this question for any character of this series. He’s grown so much, and if you don’t think so, reread his conversation with Kyouka I beg of you. It is a far cry from his mindset in the mafia. A better person for sure, but a good person is hard to define for anyone in this series. The mafia is still the mafia, do any of them qualify as good people? The government, even if it’s the position of the right in society, is still an unjust system.

What a good person is cannot be an objective answer, people think there is but it’s not. A good person is how much we know about them and where our position in life affects our viewpoint. Prejudice values don’t make you correct in what you think a good person is, being convicted of a crime, one you might not even have committed, doesn’t automatically make you a bad person, being associated with a group doesn’t mean anything about who you are, etc. It’s all subjective in the end.

Meaning someone like Odasaku is essential in a story like this. He still has a presence in this narrative, even if he died in a light novel, because his existence pushes the boundaries of a “good person” in the fact his contradictory existence establishes itself. He failed in walking the path he wanted, but he doesn’t regret it even in his dying moments trying to.

Afterthoughts

The themes of morality and humanity go hand in hand with the abuse present in Bungou Stray Dogs, so it was hard avoiding talking about this when it was necessary. I don’t think it’s right of us to judge a character’s path that isn’t finished, in a story that’s nowhere near done. Ultimately, I’m only talking in a place of experience but never will it make me exempt from any personal bias. I tried to be as objective and nuanced as I could about this, and I hope it shows.

Abuse isn’t one of those things that I can analyze from any logical stand point or take resources to back my statements up about abuse. Of course everything I say can be backed up, but abuse is a personal, human matter and we’re just human being trying to figure out more than we can handle. I just couldn’t be comfortable with how people are now choosing to talk about Asagiri and needed to shed some light in what you’re missing.

Now I could’ve gone over Higuchi or Lucy because their stories also involve abuse, but I don’t think I could say anything new about them without repeating points I’ve already said. We know very little about Higuchi and what made her so devoted to Akutagawa, and Lucy is pretty quick to summarize considering her story is just like Atsushi’s. Q is also a character to be brought up but I don’t have enough information on them to say much about any abuse itself that happened.

Yosano was also an option but I don���t think anyone had any trouble understanding her backstory. Well I was only really aiming to speak about what’s not been spoken enough. Thank you for reading haha, god this thing is monstrous. Already got to 14k words by the time I was officially done…. I didn’t know if I wanted to lean into character analysis or just exposition, I hope it’s a good enough mix of both. This took way longer than the 4 days I was planning to write this in.

I was later reminded that I could do a post on how their abilities functioned and reflect on their abuse/traumatic events, but I didn’t think I’d have enough room for that here. It could be a bonus post eventually? I don’t think I did Kyouka enough justice in that aspect, but i’d just be beating myself up again about not making this perfect.

I hope I don’t come off scary or a very serious person? I’m very open to requests or discussions people want to engage in. Oh jeez, I’ll just embarrass myself if I keep talking. Writing this was a bit much, never really liked writing stuff myself. Sorry if glossed over anything, I wanted to stay on topic and not detail into something unnecessary.

The message BSD has is a pretty normal one, but there’s something very special about how it’s written here and I’m happy it exists. Maybe I shouldn’t have made this so long? But there’s so much to express sigh……

[wajjs]

i hate batstans who spamming hal jordan tag ughh

I know this is related to the now deleted poorly written post about Hal/Arisia, in which Jason chases Hal threatening to murder him for being a "pedo freak" and Hal is somehow scared of Jason when in reality Hal has no reason to be afraid of him since they're not on the same power scale.

I was saving this ask to post a good answer, but I'm very sick and ultimately it boils down to this:

The infamous "not a child molester" panel is purposefully shared out of context because it has inflammatory language and it's the best way to rage bait people + it prolongs ignorance in fandom circles (already known for never looking at the source material) by not explaining the whole situation like it should be explained.

It is an incredibly scummy thing to do considering how sensitive and delicate the topic is. It is also incredibly telling that it's mostly antis the ones who share this panel out of context and without nuance. Antis LOVE to use words like "child molester" and "pedophile" like they're candy and like these words have no real weight behind them.

I have seen antis pile on a survivor of child molestation for saying they do not agree with calling Hal a pedophile, because in context he's not, and using that accusation as a blanket statement "gotcha!" only helps to water down the complex terms and alienates survivors. I've witnessed antis tell survivors to "get over it" and that "maybe they (the survivors) are the real pedos" for "defending Hal Jordan".

I'm gonna break down the context in simple terms so that it can be understood:

Arisia joins the Green Lantern corps as a preteen/young teenager

Hal consistently, repeatedly, explicitly, calls her "little sister" across multiple issues and treats her like family

Arisia develops a crush on Hal that starts off Innocent and turns into an Obsession

Hal explicitly, repeatedly, consistently, turns her down

When they're trapped in a cave, Arisia cannot take Hal's "no" as valid answer and uses her willpower to age herself up into a full-fledged adult. She must have Hal

I repeat, she's NOT a child. In text, in canon, she's now drawn and written like an adult — a very precocious young adult, yes, but an adult nonetheless.

ONLY AFTER she turns into an adult does Hal show interest in her, and they make out in that cave to then develop their relationship

What's the REAL issue?

I am aware that the context is far from good, but what is most important from it is that the relationship is very clearly out of character within the same run it develops from. Before Steve Englehart, the writers consistently kept an older brother/little sister dynamic between them. Englehart was the one to add the ""romantic"" twist to it and directly contradict not other writers, but even himself. Moments before making out with Arisia, Hal is written turning her down. Again.

This is clearly not a character trait of Hal. This is a self insert situation in which the writer, and with support of the editors, decided to put his fantasy on page. It's not the first time this ever happened in comics, it will not be the last — it just is, unfortunately, infamous all around the internet.

To sum things up before I pass out again from the amount of meds in me:

Hal is not a pedophile. He only develops a romantic relationship with Arisia AFTER she's grown into an adult (in the blink of an eye, yeah). He is not a child molester. Nowhere in the run before or after was that ever a thing. It is beyond me why Englehart wrote that dialogue. Who knows.

His relationship with Arisia has its surprisingly sweet and stable moments, though it quickly deteriorates because Arisia and Hal are at different life stages. They break it off. It was retconned. I repeat, IT WAS RETCONNED. IT'S NO LONGER CANON. And for good reason.

I am TIRED of Batstans, mostly Jason Todd stans, using a clear example of bad writing to bash on a well beloved character. As if Jason hasn't suffered from atrocious writing as well.

Now can we stop with the obvious rage baiting and blatant spreading of misinformation?

short cbr article with a breakdown of events for those interested

[lakesbian]

it's the moment like 4 of you have been waiting for:

i finally rotated pact creature design in my brain enough to post about it. to all the people who sent me asks wanting to hear my thoughts explaining Why Pact Creatures Are So Good this ones for you.

the core of pact's monster design boils down to one very good fact about pact's worldbuilding: in the world of pact, the universe canonically loves a good story. magic literally runs on themes and ideas. subsequently, strong themes aren't the end result of pact's monster design so much as they are the most fundamental aspect of it--meaningful themes and narratives are such a textually important part of how pact monsters work that one bogeyman outright tries to start a conversation with blake by, upon noticing the birdhouse in his soul (tm), asking if birds are important to him.

what really seals the deal on this being fascinating is that pact monsters aren't invented wholesale--a lot of the book hinges on offering its own explanations for preexisting folklore or urban legend. pact takes a variety of common threads in the way cultural myths & monsters are presented, picks out the conceptions with compelling implications, and distills them into one design so thematically coherent and clarifying that it makes you go "ohhh, why aren't All ghosts/dragons/fae like this? this is Exactly What They're Supposed To Be."

like, we all know that ghosts are dead people, and oftentimes the appearance and/or behavior they're written as having is either implicitly or explicitly based on reenactments of their past life/how they died, and sometimes they're depicted as lucid but more often than not they're depicted more like broken or warped remnants of a person, and sometimes they make things colder/give off Bad Emotional Vibes/etc. those are generally true assertions about how ghosts are often culturally presented.

pact takes that and explicitly declares that ghosts are what happens when something so bad happens that an imprint of the resultant misery is left on the fabric of the universe. some ghosts appear horrifying because their appearance is warped and exaggerated beyond what's realistically possible to match how awful whatever happened to them felt. some ghosts are more lucid because their imprint is more recent, or has been strengthened and fed by human attention instead of left to decay. some ghosts are less lucid because they were forgotten. when ghosts make the atmosphere feel awful to be in, that's because the ghost isn't just the imprint of the person, it's an imprint of the awful thing itself. incredibly interesting! it feels so very much like the absolute heart of what ghost stories are about--about the grief and horror of being impacted by the ever-present echo of something terrible, about something so viscerally wretched happening that reality itself cannot forget it, about the emotionally powerful interactions between someone still-living and the memory of someone already long gone.

(pact also gives an aside that, in very rare scenarios, neutral or arguably even positive occasions which leave a sufficiently strong enough impression can also become ghosts. genuinely fascinating expansion.)

& the thing here is that pact does this for creatures like ghosts that are already richly thematic and iconic, but it Also does it for creatures with less obvious theming. how do dragons work? what's pact's underlying explanation for their position as immortal, powerful, regal, fire-breathing* fantasy monsters?

*&, depending on the media, sometimes ice-breathing or poisonous or whatever else

well, you see, dragons are recursive loops. "dragons are recursive loops" is perhaps one of the Top All Time sentences in the entire book, and the delightful thing is that, in addition to sounding excellent, it makes sense.

that's how they generate and spit out so much of whatever their element is. they're snarls. they're ouroboroses. they're something feeding into itself, self-sustaining for thousands of years, drowning anything which threatens it in torrents of whatever the self-feeding element is--fire, sometimes, but it could be poison, or ice, or whatever else, and that's why you've probably heard of ice dragons in addition to classic fire dragons. Dragons Are Recursive Loops. recursiveness is, after all, a form of immortality.

or, like, fae? we all know that faeries are incomprehensibly old/outright immortal Tricky Little Bitches who like to manipulate people while posing in an inhumanly/horrifically beautiful fashion and going "teehee." pact takes that to a fantastically surreal level of extreme artifice, one that's almost grotesque in its dreamlike nature--they have all lived for so very long that, to them, boredom is worse than death, and so they have complicated social games spanning centuries, and speak in the most practiced of misleading wordplay, and perfectly curate their forests so that even the smallest pebble is an intentionally-chosen setpiece for their play. they graduated from handjobs a couple dozens of millennia ago--now they're more into erotic-poetic descriptions of full-body degloving. you will not notice when a faerie steals and replaces your child, because you are very young and stupid compared to them, and playing-pretend at being your child is only the briefest of trifles in their unfathomably long lifespan.

the other good bit is that pact explicitly acknowledges that faeries run on what is colloquially deemed Bullshit--the universe likes a good story, and faeries have gotten very good at telling it a moving story. if a faerie tells a good enough story about having a sword that breaks the laws of physics, then that is what their sword will do. and so the way to combat faeries is not to out-bullshit them--because no one is out-bullshitting a being with thousands of years of bullshitting practice--but to say "no, that's fucking stupid and made up" until their implausibly long sword acts like a sword of that size actually should and shatters on the spot.

& all of these writing decisions feel so naturally truthful to what these creatures are Supposed to be--they're really not wholly new takes, they're a presentation of preexisting ideas in a way that gets why those ideas appeal to people and goes full-throttle on all the most thematically rich or otherwise narratively interesting parts. It's Good Writing. I Like It. you could spend an entire essay breaking down the presentation of literally any single one of pact's creatures, it's that compelling in its reflection and organization of Ideas About Creatures.

[marinetteplztakeabreak]

Im so in love with the narrative use of sentimonsters in ml???? And how it serves as a metaphor for parents who are Wrong??

You have Félix, who’s the most direct case of “parent thinks that having a child is like a little trophy and checkmark on the list and doesn’t want the child to actually be a person or exist or cause inconvenience.” His father literally didn’t see him as a person and based on the fact that he literally broke Félix’s miraculous he seemed to see Félix as either disposable or unbreakable. There was no sense that he needed to be loved or protected.

But then you also have Adrien, who Gabriel *theoretically* loves. I think Gabriel actually thinks that he loves Adrien as a person. But he has this idea that he can make Adrien happy through obedience alone. He thinks he can just order Adrien to be content or to have the same priorities as him. He calls Adrien melodramatic a few times even and it’s like???

Gabriel *theoretically* wants Adrien to be happy but it doesn’t cross his mind that it’s going to take more than him yelling “hey Adrien i order you to be calm and content.” And ordering Adrien to love the career Gabriel Chooses and love the girl Gabriel Chooses for him and the hobbies that Gabriel Chooses for him. And when that doesn’t work he decides that Adrien is just Beyond His Help and will be better only with his mom there.

And it’s like???? Very fun nuance with this idea of,,, you cannot yell or force someone into being happy,,, it doesn’t matter if you have their best interest in mind,,, if you never listen to what they actually want or see them as a human person then you’ll still be the villian in their story

And THEN!!!!! You have Kagami who’s a completely different case even though she starts with the same circumstance. Because Kagami IS treated like a person and has a good amount of autonomy. It’s just all Conditional. She can do whatever she wants with her life as long as its also exactly what her mother wants. And her mother doesn’t always explain why. And the thing with that is!!! It DOES work for a while!!!! She does trust her mother and actually talk to her about things. And she will defend her mother to the ends of the earth.

But all it takes is that One argument where kagami says “hey . please stop making me date adrien. i dont want to . its hurting me” and tomoe TAKES HER RING instead of listening. And its like. Thats IT.

It doesnt matter if you spent years making a foundation of trust in a relationship because Eventually your kid is Going to grow up and theyre Going to disagree with you on Something Eventually. Kagami was so ready to listen to whatever her mother had to say but her mom didn’t elaborate on anything she just basically said “okay if you wont listen without question you dont get to have autonomy” and of COURSE kagami’s gonna be like. Okay. Bye then.

And i just think it’s soooo cool how there’s these different Layers of “parents forgetting that their child is a person and not a tool for your own personal gain” and that ml shows how it can manifest in so many different ways and it shows that it messes ,up trust and relationships and then it also shows that the kids are all okay once they have love and support and someone who treats them as a person with autonomy

and theres this theme of “it is not too much to ask that you be treated like a human person . no matter how broken or how much of a disappointment you think you are. you are still in the right for demanding to be seen as a person.” And i just. I really love my senti kids i love them soooo much

this show really said “it doesnt matter what sacrifices your parents made for you, youll never be an object that they own” and i just,,, yessssss

[respectthepetty]

Pit Babe Colors Ep. 10

I'm challenging myself with this show and seeing how good my color skills really are, so I'm doing my normal thing of watching it double-speed on mute, but now, the captions are off also. It's just colors and vibes here. Also, people stay spoiling this show for me in their reblog tags on my posts, so I know Charles and Jeffrey made a dumb plan but I have no idea what it includes beyond Jeffrey going to Big Red's.

Hand over heart, I think Sonic is really pretty, which is why I haven't fully thought he is a baddie, but I need a reason for him refusing to wear blue! North gets it together every now and then, but Sonic? Boy, quit relying on that face and follow the damn color assignment!

I'm missing something but I thought Charles and Barbara were fine yet here they are fighting, but Charles spidey sense is tingling, so something bad is gonna happen or will he have sex with Barbara like they did last week? And now the glasses are off! They better not have sex on this track.

Barbara is racing?! Dean was racing last week! Was Dean informed of this plot twist? Did Barbara get healed having sex with Charles last week?

You can take the red off the boy but you can't take the red out of the boy. You are acting so sus, Jeffrey! You had a full conversation with Charles and now you are just lurking in the background. Someone spoiled that he and Charles made a plan, but if the plan is murder, he is already failing at not being suspicious.

Another hand-over-heart moment, I have no effin' idea what happened on that race track because there was so many blues then a car went off the track, and I had no real idea who it was, but I do know JEFFREY HAS SOME EXPLAINING TO DO with his suspicious ass!

Big Red lives in the same place he has his cult meetings to show off his superpowered kids? Isn't there a rule of not having cult meetings where you spray your EIGHTY MILLION BONSAI TREES! That seems dumb and contradictory, but I'm not a mega villain so what do I know?

Red is usually an emergency room color, but the red yelling at me as Barbie feels all the bad things that happen in an emergency room is a lot. Charles isn't dead because color-coded boys in love get happy endings, but Barbie is probably feeling everything right now and it probably sucks.

"Don't be suspicious. Don't be suspicious." Jeffrey, you need to make out with Alan quickly to prove you're gay, because you canNOT do crimes, and are about to be in Kentana territory again. Whatever you and Charles planned, it was dumb and Barbie is now crying.

KENTANA! Are you in on this too?!

*Record scratch* Jeffrey went back to Big Red's with the dumb plan he and Charles cooked up involving Charles dying, yes? Yes! Kentana, as Big Red's whatever-he-is, knows of the plan, SO WHY IS HE BEING BEAT UP?! Kentana, break Kimberly out and run away to the beach together. Big Red doesn't even wear red! HE SUCKS! Leave!

Stuck between the blue and the red, I see. A choice has gotta be made, Kentucky Fried Chicken. Wings or Thighs? Legs are not an option. Legs are reserved for the elite squad of Peter, Alan, and Kimberly. You don't get legs! (WHERE IS KIMBERLY?!)

Barbie woke up in black. He has no man, but he has his powers, so either he is about to enter his rich widow era or he is going to go Kill Bill on these bitches.

Horrible take. Awful take. The WORST take, but . . . if Waymond didn't decide to be bad, he would have been the perfect person to comfort Babe and ease Barbie's pain, pero . . . he had to be a little bitch instead.

Oh, NOW you wanna follow the color assignment, Sonic. NOW?!

Well, Jeffrey picked up your mantle with his not-all-black outfit and bright ass white-wrapped flowers. This isn't a wedding, Jeffrey! IT'S A FUNERAL! Jeffrey, a note from The Sign's Dr. Chalothon - FAKE IT! Sir, that empty grave is supposed to be your roommate and partner-in-dumb-crime, yet I haven't seen one single tear from someone who just lost their buddy. You're more sus than the entire cast of Dead Friend Forever. How does Barbara not suspect your ass with his spidey senses?!

Damn you, Saltburn!

KIMBERLY! AND HE'S IN BLUE! *sliding down the wall and sobbing on the floor* MY BABY HAS RETURNED!

Wait! Pause! *squints* Why did Jeffrey bring Kim? And why to Alan's house? What in the Chuck E. Cheese is happening?!

Alan, Jeffrey's roommate is quote-unquote "dead" yet you are living your best life. Can you try to be sad too or are you in on this plan and this is why Kimberly is now looking beautiful on your couch?

The blue is between y'all, but just like Charles and Barbara having sex on every surface when Kimberly was being held hostage, do y'all have no shame? Making heart eyes at each other immediately after burying an empty coffin that was supposed to be Charles. Shame! At least pretend that Charles is dead! Or fill Barbie in on this dumb plan.

Vegas' Hedgehog, you pretty bitch. I hate you.

Barbie is watching the crash, and Jeffrey and Alan are playing footsie over Charles' quote-unquote "grave." But I already know I'm more upset for Barbie than he will be for himself because he'll forgive everyone for this bullshit lie in less than two minutes.

Does Barbara think Waymond killed Charles?! He might be shitty, but he is backed by the blue. He ain't guilty! Go speak to your boyfriend's roommate and his new boyfriend, Barbie!

Oh shit! I wasn't expecting you to actually go talk to them! Hold up! Is that blue on Jeffrey?! Does he actually not have anything to do with Charlie's quote-unquote "death"?

SONIC IS WEARING BLUE IN THE BACKGROUND!

Like I know shit is going down right now because Decanus sabotaged ANOTHER car *Pikachu face* but I don't think he is in on the dumb plan to "kill" Charles so . . . Kimberly wore blue this episode and Sonic is wearing blue (even though I think there is a shimmer of red there), and I'm crying in the club because this is all I wanted, and sorry to all of y'all, but the show could end right here, and I'd be happy.

Oh no. My man is crying. I am no longer happy. I am in pain. Why is he crying so hard? Was Dean his best friend? His brother? This feels personal. Jeffrey, come give our man a hug! Right now! RIGHT FUCKING NOW, JEFFREY!

Seeing Alan cry hurt way worse than anything else that happened. Charles isn't dead, so I'm just upset that Barbie has to cry and more upset that Barbara is going to be cool with whatever dumb plan Charles made without telling him, but Alan's tears were unexpected.

However, Sonic is back on his bullshit next week, so I can't stay in my feels too long.

And I get to see Peter while someone fully commits to the blue.

Oh, and we get to see the dumb-plan-that-made-Barbie-cry in more detail. *Arthur fist* Be upset at Charles for just one episode, Barbara. Just one damn episode, please. He didn't try to assault you like Waymond, but Charles has played with your emotions several times, and I just need you to knock 👏🏾 his 👏🏾 ass 👏🏾 out 👏🏾 too 👏🏾.

[luvfy0dor]

Hiii can I request teen reader who didn’t know their dad (fyodor) was a terrorist so now they avoid him like the plague with no explanation

“Beyond Terror in the Nightfall ♡” Fyodor Dostoevsky w/ Child!Reader ੈ✩‧₊˚

Warnings; mentions of blood, murder, and terrorism, loosely proofread

Description; Fyodor decides you're old enough to learn about his job, and your reaction certainly isn't ideal

A/n; There's explanation here because I forgor that you said you wanted none so I'm so sorry 😭 I hope it's still good, I got really sad writing this for whatever reason. Also, f/n is friends name

• Fyodor would go through extreme lengths to keep his occupation to himself and out of your knowledge, so if you're finding out you're gonna find out because he wants you too.

• I think the most likely way is spotting blood on his usually pristine white outfit and being prompted to further investigate.

ೃ⁀➷

The only thing your father would ever tell you about his job was that he worked with tech and computers, which you didn't doubt because of his home-office space that he spent a solid amount of time in. It never explained the long trips away, though. It made you sad to see your father always away, but he did call you every night to remind you that he loves you no matter how far away he is, and it would turn your frown momentarily upside down.

One evening, you ate dinner at the dining table with your dad. Your conversation revolved around the usual things, school, upcoming events, your interests, etc. Fyodor had his usual soft and small smile on his face while listening to you talk. His head rested on his hands while his raven colored bangs fell in his face. Upon concluding the dinner, Fyodor took your dishes and brought them to the sink. "Ah, malyshka, could you start my laundry for me?" He calls over his shoulder. "Yeah, I'll do it right now." You respond, heading to his room to grab his laundry basket, immediately spotting his bloodied and previously completely white pants. You immediately felt worried for your father, taking the pants and bringing them back upstairs. "Papa, are you alright? What happened to your pants? Should I bleach them?" You asked with concern.

Fyodor sighed and paused his task of doing the dishes, turning to you after turning off the sink. "You should bleach them, but do not worry, it's not my blood." He says, his eyes flickering from the pants to your face. Your eyebrows furrowed and you just stared at the pants for a minute before dropping them. Fyodor sighed and watched the pants fall to the ground. "Sweetheart, you're only going to get them dirtier." He said with a chuckle, trying to lighten your mood a little bit. "Who's blood is it then?" You questioned him, your eyes wide with inquiry. He exhales and puts a hand on your shoulder. "Y/n, it's the blood of a man I've killed. You're old enough to know about my real occupation now, and I'd rather not leave you in the dark. You cannot tell anyone about this." He says, looking at you with a serious face. You felt as though you were in shock, trying to tear yourself out of your dissociation that had occured the moment you heard his words. You were successful enough to utter "No, Papa, that's not a funny joke."

You knew just as well as the next person that he wasn't joking, he was far too serious to joke with you about such a horrible thing. The disbelief made it seem that way- as a child he always taught you that violence was never the answer, so why was he partaking in it for a living? He was so smart, he could have gotten a job in ANY field he desired yet he chose to go against his own words that were spoken to his child. You could feel tears of frustration forming in your eyes and your fists balling up. "It's not a joke. Please don't cry, sweetheart." He tried to comfort you by pulling you into a hug, only to be pushed away by you. His mouth hung agape while you stormed off to your bedroom. In any other situation, he would have scolded you for pushing him away, but he understood your sudden aggression in the moment. He closed his eyes for a moment and let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. He proceeded to do the dishes after being snapped out of his moment by the sound of your door slamming behind your heavy and angry footsteps.

He reflected for a moment and though that maybe he shouldn't have told you at all, but then he thought about how much worse it would be to hear about his job from someone else. He knew you would feel betrayed, but your trust would be more likely to be fixed the sooner he told you. He was your father, after all.

♡

Fyodor let you sleep with your feelings for the night, walking to your bedroom door next morning. He gently knocked on the hard wood surface only to be met with silence from your side. "Y/n? It's time to wake up, you have to go to school." He spoke. When met with silence once again, he opened the door slowly. He was met with your body facing away from him. His eyebrows furrowed and he walked to the bed, gently shaking your shoulder. Your hand abruptly shoved his off of you before retracting back to it's spot curled up against your chest. "Go away. I'll get up as soon as you leave." His eyes widened as he backed up a step.

"Very well, but dont speak so harshly to me next time." He says, his annoyance and disappointment clear in his voice. You could hear his footsteps walking away, followed by the gentle click of the door. You took a deep, shaky breath. Slowly but surely, you rose from your safe haven under the blankets. The cool air immediately collided with your skin and made you shiver, but you held up and didn't retreat back beneath the covers. You tried to suppress the memories of your father's confession, not wanting to believe it as you stood up and picked out an outfit for the day. You fulfilled your morning routine and walked out to the kitchen, headphones in your ears as an attempt to discourage Fyodor from talking to you. He only frowned when he looked at you, gently placing a hand on your shoulder to get your attention.

"Y/n, do you have any extra curriculars after school today?" He asked you. You shook your head and scavenged through the cabinets for something to eat. "My friends mom will bring me home." Fyodors eyebrows knitted together as he leaned against the counter. "Why would she do that? I can get you like I always do, that way you can tell me about your day." He says, kind of upset that you're going out of your way to be as far from him as possible. You gave a short and simple yet insufficient answer. "Because."

"Because, what?" He asked, crossing his arms. "Because I don't want to go for a car ride with a murderer! She would have brought me to school too, but she was busy!" You shout, angrily walking out of the kitchen and the house, sitting in the car in the back seat instead of your usual spot in the passenger seat. It didn't take long for Fyodor to follow, locking the door behind him while you waited in the car, scrolling through your phone. He settled into the driver's seat and looked at you in the mirror, huffing and buckling his seatbelt. "You get upset with me for my work, but you don't seem too upset about having that phone, and my job pays for that, Malyshka." He says bluntly. You take a moment to breathe instead of yelling at your father because you know that would only make it worse. "Any other job could pay for it just the same. Why do you kill people? What are you, an assassin?" You inquire while making eye contact with him from the back seat. "I'm a terrorist." He says with a sigh.

"Even worse then." You turn the volume on your phone up and listen to music to drown his voice out. You had to bite back your tears of betrayal and disappointment, small whimpers escaping from your throat every now and again. Fyodor felt a bit remorseful upon hearing that. He never had felt any sort of guilt when he killed and injured, but because you were his child, hurting your feelings was enough to make him feel penitence. He didn't show it in his face, though. He wore the same flat and neutral expression he always had.

The rest of the ride was inordinately quiet. He let you out of the car and wished you a good day at school and told you he loved you, but you didn't care to reply. You didn't turn around to watch his car drive off either. Walking into the school, you met your friend and decided to keep silent about the situation. You didn't want to be known as the kid with the terrorist dad, and you REALLY didn't want him to be persecuted. You just sucked it up and went on with your day. A few periods before dismissal, you asked your friend to sleep over instead of being brought home. Their mom agreed because it was a Friday, but said you would have to return home early in the morning because they had stuff to do. You didn't mind and went along with it, hopping into the backseat of the car with your friend.

"How was school for the two of you? Good?" Their mom asked while pulling out of the parking lot. "It was good, I turned in some late work." F/n says. "Good. And how about you, y/n?" She asks with a welcoming smile. "It was good."

The car ride back was mostly just you and your friend talking to eachother with the occasional comment from their mother. They lived pretty close to the school, only two miles away. The older woman pulled into the driveway and your friend immediately got out of the car, urging you to do the same and follow them up to their room. You did with some shared laughter and playful banter, plopping on their bed when you make it up the staircase and through the door frame. Your school bag with your phone in it gets tossed somewhere while the two of you decide on a movie to watch. Unbeknownst to you, your phone was ringing with calls from your father and hour into the movie. He was also texting you, the notifications making your screen glow in the confines of your bookbag. The device didn't cross your mind until the end of the movie, fishing it out of the bag. When you turned it on, you had a solid 10 messages from your father and five missed calls. Suddenly, your friend's mom's footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs. She gently opened the door and locked eyes with you.

"Did you seriously not tell your father that you were sleeping over? He's worried sick over you!" She softly says. "He's going to come get you right now, so gather your stuff and come wait down stairs." She says, waving you along with her. You could almost feel your heart in your throat with anxiety of facing him again. You reluctantly gathered your stuff and bid your friend goodbye and gave a brief explanation on the situation. You only let on that you were in an argument with your papa but never mentioned why. They frowned and walked downstairs with you, their shoulders slumped and spirits seemingly broken. "I still don't get why you wouldn't just ask him first." F/n said exasperatedly. "Don't worry about it, we'll have a sleepover at some point. I'm sorry." You say, just as upset as your friend. Only a few more words are exchanged before you see your father's car in the driveway. You sighed and made your way outside, waving to your friends family before walking to the driveway. You looked only at your feet, refusing to make eye contact with Fyodor through the windshield.

You opened the door to the back seat and tossed your stuff in, going to sit down before Fyodor stopped you. "Sit in the passenger seat, I think we should talk about this." He says calmly yet sternly. You didn't have the energy to argue back, so you did as told. You begrudgingly sat yourself in the passengers seat and looked at your hands in your lap instead of him. It was quiet until he pulled out of the driveway and onto the road. "I'm aware of your disapproval of my job, but you cannot ignore my phone calls and messages when I don't know where you are. If I hadn't called f/n's mother, God knows when you would have gotten back to me." He strictly tells you, subtly distressed over your sudden rebellion. You silently collected your thoughts and then opened your mouth. "It's more excusable than killing people, papa." Your voice was soft and quiet. "Malyshka, I do it for the greater good of the world, you don't understand because you are just a teenager. You do not get to criticize my job until you've lived in the real world instead of in the comfort of your adolescence." He says, his voice rising a bit.

"Yeah, but-" you started, but he cut you off. "No, you need to put an end to this behavior right now. My job does not need to align with your personal morals." You felt your throat tighten, keeping more words from escaping your mouth. You say silently for the rest of the ride, swiftly exiting the car when he parked it in front of the house. He followed after a moment, unlocking the door for you and closing it behind him. "I understand that you're upset, but please do not avoid me like that, y/n." He pleads with you. If you looked closely, you could almost see it in his face. You sighed and relaxed your shoulders. "I'm sorry, Papa. I'm still mad at you, but I'm sorry for what I did today. That was a little uncalled for." You admitted. A small smile appeared on his face and he pulled you into a loose hug. "I love you, papa, just dont make me wash your bloody clothes ever." You demand. He hums and kisses your head affectionately. "Alright, I think that's fair." He agrees. He released you from his hold and started towards the kitchen. "I'm going to make dinner, is there anything specific you want? If we have the ingredients I'll make it for you." You contemplated your options for a moment before settling for a meal that you used to make with him when you were little. "Can we make beef stroganoff?" He hummed, content with your choice. "Yes, start getting the stuff out." Your frown finally left your face and you also entered the kitchen, happier to help your dad make dinner than to avoid him.

A/n; Hey y'all this got kinda long but ykw it's okay. I think I made the reader get over it a little too quickly, but for the purpose of happy ending it's also okay.