#i fundamentally don’t have enough knowledge to do that

[pitconfirm]

i just think glance is perfect for a hockey player/figure skater au and would love to know ur thoughts on the matter

I don’t know anything about hockey or figure skating at all TBH but I can see it… (although I think @lil-shiro is the resident hockey/figure skating fan + glancehead so perhaps she can give better thoughts bahahaha)

my one thought (assuming u mean George is the figure skater) is that there’s something so delicious about like. the subversion of him having the more, idk… stereotypically effeminate career, but in reality being the more assertive/hostile one.

I think that’s true of George generally, that people expect him to be all spineless and submissive because he’s a bit pretty looking, but in reality he’s got wayyyy too much spine. and would die before letting anyone else be in control of anything. so yeah he fucks that hockey twink basically

[defences-down]

Braindump about current events in the tags because i can’t sleep and my brain keeps going and i don’t know what else to do other than write.

[stealthcake]

Touch the Love.

I had a boss that would say that to me. She was a designer that later opened a new age retail store. She was sincere, grounded, and funny. A good person. Idealistic, who believed that intentions affected outcomes.

Maybe they do, but not enough in this case. Channeling energy doesn’t help if there is no foot traffic. And catering to rich hippies wasn’t a great plan even then. Everyone wanted to do it, because it let them dream their dreams while chasing money.

But, you know, if you want to sell stuff, and you don’t want to create a bullshit “need�� with marketing, then you have to look at the needs people already have. My liking something doesn’t guarantee that there is a market for it, especially if I’m not flexible about where I sell. So the store didn’t do so well.

But that’s beside the point.

She would say, “touch the love” because she believed that touching things made you fall in love with them. Or it could.

Now, decades later, I’m learning about how the sensory system is a fundamental part of cognitive development. And, in an era where sapience is being imitated by agents with no access to complex sensation, I am thinking a lot about how all meaning is derived from the senses at some point.

Our senses matter. Very much. As we grow more isolated an deprived of sensation, I worry. I know there is great creativity and kindness in much of the younger generations. And I deeply appreciate the wealth of knowledge available to me in this digital era.

I just would like to remind whoever might read this that sensation is very important. Tangibility is a wonderful thing.

Y’all have a nice night.

[ohholydyke]

See the thing about fundamentalists and trads and Christian nationalists and MAGA evangelicals and ethnocratic bigots is that they render the faith so boring.

I take no issue with the fact that they would look at me and say that I’m not a member of the faithful because their faith is radically, inherently, ontologically distinct from mine. My God is too big and too loving and too esoteric to fit neatly into the gendered understanding of an authoritarian white father disciplining his children for not perfectly falling into lockstep. My Savior is the man who told the religious leaders “Caesar can have his idolatrous blood money, but give God your heart and your faith,” challenging the notion of an earthly ruler. My apostles wrote of the throne of man being empty—there are no masters or kings or governments, there is only Jesus Christ, Basileus Basileōn, king of kings. I believe in radical oneness with God through Christ—one flesh and one body, biblical marriage with the bridegroom whose flesh and blood make up the holy Eucharist. My faith is Queer, ancestral, esoteric, anarchist, insurrectionary, anticolonial, antiracist, unorthodox, disruptive, free. When I encounter the divine, or pray to the saints, or sit in the chapel to pray, I am experiencing communion with the sublime, in every sense of the word, the same presence that made the apostles fall to their faces before the transfiguration, that shaped the world from void, that animates the deep care and rage which boil into every aspect of my being.

When conservatives tell me I am not a Christian it is only because they cannot conceive of a Christ and a faith so big, so all encompassing, so beyond anything our human minds can comprehend, and they cannot conceive being in tune with this divinity and being left senseless by the knowledge that the divine above all else is us and loves us more than we could ever comprehend, such that experiencing this love is enough to leave one fundamentally, ontologically changed down to the fiber of their being. I feel sorrow for them. I pray that Christ may reach into their hearts and open their eyes, that they may see not only the horrors that they commit but also the deep love and freedom that awaits them through abandoning their fundamentalism and their bigotry.

Or, in other words, me every time I see another conservative Christian whining about how people aren’t doing Christianity right because they don’t adhere to a super narrow and watered down version of the faith:

[hunter470]

My 9-1-1 RANT

Ok, I don’t normally do these types of posts, but I can’t move on until I get some things out. These are just my thoughts about the latest episodes of 9-1-1 as well as overall comments on the Buck/Tommy relationship. These opinions are mine and are based on the countless hours of TV I’ve watched in my 54 years on this planet, as well as my knowledge of writing and how Hollywood operates. I’m not confirming that any of this is true or are the real intentions of anyone involved with the show. Just my opinions. So, you can agree with me or not. I’m not trying to persuade anyone in any way. Also, I’m not going to get into endless arguments about my opinions but feel free to comment if you want, I just don’t promise I’ll reply. 

Ok, here we go. Sorry it’s so long. Like I said earlier, I just needed to get it out. So many wasted opportunities.

If you think TM cares what the fans want, you’re seriously kidding yourself. If he did, Buddie would have been canon a long time ago. The only thing he cares about is ratings and his vision for the show, which can change at a moment’s notice with no rhyme or reason as we’ve seen. 

Although I loved Buck and Tommy together, I knew the show wouldn’t do their story justice. So, no matter what TM or OS have said, the bi story was only to garner publicity, draw in new viewers, and increase ratings especially with the show moving to a new network. There was no altruistic reason behind it so don’t kid yourself. They knew there was an audience for the story because of all the Buddie shippers. Just remember, it’s called show business, not show friends for a reason.

Do you think OS really cares about bi representation? Based on his latest comments and non-apology it’s obvious he only cares about getting the stories that garner him the most screen time and press. Seriously, read his latest interviews. He’s excited to get to have fun now. So, congrats OS, Buck gets to F around. Just shows how most, if not all, actors are ego driven no matter what they say. Sorry not sorry.

TM has commented that he doesn’t owe anyone anything. In fact, I recall him saying to Buddie fans if they don’t like it, read fanfiction. If that didn’t clue you in, then you weren’t reading the room. Kinda reminds me of another show runner…for those who watched H50 you know who I’m talking about. That’s why I don’t get heavily invested in these shows. I’ll watch but I never expect anything I like to last…especially if it has to do with gay relationships.

It says a lot that the show remained completely silent about the bullying and death threats Lou received just for playing a role he was happy to play. Again, they really didn’t care because they knew he wasn’t going to be there after episode six. What a great message for all the bullies…just keep bullying and you’ll get what you want. 

Again, reread OS’s interviews. He was doing the Hollywood double speak. Says just enough to keep you hooked with hope to get you to watch even when he knew all along it wasn’t lasting. It really was as clear as day if you go back and read what he said. 

Also, if you thought Buck was going to get into a meaningful long-term relationship, then you didn’t watch the video from the You Tuber “Call Me Chato” that TM posted on his Facebook. The video was all about characters and how they should always stay fundamentally the same with minimal development - I’m paraphrasing. However, Buck is the golden retriever, heart so big it gets broken, character who will remain on a hamster wheel and unlucky in love because that’s who he is. If he changes too much it shifts the dynamic, which only happens if the show was ending. 

If you thought the writers would do justice to a bisexual story, then you haven’t been watching the show closely. There’s been minimal Buck/Tommy relationship development on screen. Taylor got more. Viewers were lucky to get crumbs in the limited screen time Buck and Tommy got. Then, a breakup out of left field? One minute Buck is saying Tommy is it for him and he wants him to move in, and then it’s over? If he truly felt deeply for Tommy, why not fight to keep him? Why give up so easily and let him walk away? What’s the point? Also, to end it on a terrible stereotype is yet another clue. Horrible writing and another sign that TM and OS had zero investment in the relationship. The whole break up was rushed and made no sense. Essentially, it was just used to draw people in and to get Buck single and sleeping around again because that’s who he is. I for one won’t care for any of Buck’s future relationships. I mean, why would I when they never last. 

Also, writers that give you a 66-year-old police sergeant and a 10 y/o boy landing a heavily damaged plane on an active freeway in LA with no prior training, and sorry playing video game flight simulators is not training, is some Sharknado level writing, which is not a compliment. Oh, and that whole story was truly the shows “jumping the shark” moment. If you don’t know what the term “jumping the shark” means, look it up and try to tell me I’m wrong. 

Not having Tommy involved in the three part premier episodes, other than a few minutes at a birthday party, was so obvious as to the show’s intent. I mean, the fake captain from Hotshots got more screen time. 

They claim they wanted someone for Buck that was connected to him and the 118 and then you don’t use the character at all. You wanted Buck off the hamster wheel? What a crock! Such a wasted opportunity.

Since it’s been confirmed episode 6 was filmed before 5, Tim’s just playing god with peoples’ feelings and crushing their hearts at this point. I mean, how do you have such a great episode (5) and a wonderful speech by Josh (6) just to break them up? Plus, having Tommy break up after six months? That man was all in, which was obvious in episode 5.

Guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that’s how TM would handle things after that horrible Tarlos breakup. At least on Lone Star we knew Rafa (Carlos) was a main cast member so there was hope. Lou was a guest star so it seems kinda final based on his interviews. Again, what was the point? They could have had Buck's bi revelation be with a random character. So, building up the Buck/Tommy relationship just to take it away was to inflict the most pain. Good job. 

Do I think the show will make Buddie canon? Who knows…one thing I do know is I wouldn’t trust them if they did. Also, even if Tommy somehow returns, I don’t trust TM with anything related to this story. Sure, hope he’s happy with ruining the show for so many people. Again, like another show runner I mentioned in item 4 above. Honestly, I can’t believe the Buddie fans have stayed for so long. That’s commitment, I guess. 

Do I think Lou should go back to 9-1-1? Hell no! He was screwed over by both TM and OS. Prove it to me otherwise. However, it’s up to him and of course, he loves acting so I wouldn’t blame him.

Finally, even though I’ve watched the show since the beginning, it no longer brings me joy. There are too many other TV shows to stick with one I no longer enjoy. So yes, I’m announcing my departure, and I don’t give an F what OS, you, or anyone else thinks about it. Not that any of this matters any way…

[slutforpringles]

“I think for Daniel, I struggle with the results he’s had lately, because he’s an exceptional talent. He really is. To jump in the Red Bull when he did [2014] and go up against Sebastian Vettel, to go up against Max and be as competitive as he was, it was unbelievable. It really was. And then we saw glimpses of it at Renault as well, you know, before it was Alpine. Took some time to find his feet, but then he was extremely quick against the Hulk [Nico Hulkenberg], who we all rate very highly. It just didn’t materialise at McLaren and Alpha Tauri, which is such a shame. And why is that? I don’t know. It’s not his age. He’s not old. Look at Fernando Alonso, what he can do. So the only person that knows is probably Daniel, and I feel for him, because to be on such a high for a lot of your career, and then it fall away for the last few years, it’s tough. But I think, from what I’ve heard, he’s made peace with it, and he’s got his whole life in front of him."

I really, really dislike some of the framing I've seen of Jenson Button's interview on the Sky Sports podcast that he's paying Daniel some lovely compliment about his career. While I think his intentions were probably in the right place, his comments scream of someone who hasn't actually paid attention to the last year/eighteen months of Daniel's career and only reinforce Red Bull's narrative that Daniel was dropped because of his own under-performance this season.

First of all I think comparing Daniel's performance at McLaren and Alpha Tauri/VCarb is just a complete false equivalence - the situations genuinely could not have been more night and day different. The fundamental mismatch between driver and car at McLaren and the futile mission McLaren went on to try to mitigate it - by trying to fundamentally change Daniel's driving - was a unique set of circumstances that was unsustainable for both driver and team.

This just didn't exist at AT/VCarb, which was pretty evident from the fact that Daniel hopped straight into a completely unfamiliar car and outqualified Yuki on his first attempt. Sure there were some races that were more tricky than others due to certain car characteristics introduced by various upgrades, particularly given the propensity for this generation of F1 car to have such a weak front end. But to try and compare the McL and AT/VCarb stints just demonstrates a fundamental lack of knowledge and understanding by Jenson Button.

Takes like this also reinforce rhetoric from Marko that Daniel just didn't achieve high enough level results, which given the actual machinery he was driving is laughable. Sure it's fair to criticise Daniel's slow start to the season this year, or his inconsistency in qualifying, but Daniel also turned his season around and after a difficult start put his head down and put in the work - Scott Mitchell-Malm summed it up well on the The Race podcast.

"A few races before the summer break my understanding was that Ricciardo and Perez had basically been told up your game before the summer break because that's when we're going to revisit things. It wasn't a promise or a threat either way, but it was a give us your best so that when we sit down we've got absolutely everything we have. One of the drivers pretty much rose to the occasion; has Ricciardo been stunningly good in the midfield? No. Has he been good, effective and doing pretty much what you can with that car? Yeah I think he has, actually. [Ed Straw: Yeah he's been pretty decent.] So I don't really see that he has floundered in that situation whereas Perez has, he hasn't risen to it."

Ultimately Daniel was punished by VCarb's complete inability to upgrade their car this season. Had the VCarb continued to improve over the season in line with Daniel then we wouldn't be in this situation, and people wouldn't be making ridiculous, inaccurate and unfair comments on Daniel's performance like Button has here.

[omnipah]

Patho Quarantine let's go let's go

Many thoughts head full about the new dankovsky specific mechanics, partly cus they’re really good on their own but also partly cus in my mind, they kind of reframe artemy’s mechanics. Since artemy’s route in patho2 is based around tightening up the bulk of the existing mechanics from classic HD, until now I’ve mostly been engaging with them that way, ie as just a better way of doing what they were always doing. But now that dankovsky has these new mechanics that break that mold, I’m suddenly thinking about artemy’s mechanics in terms of his characterisation. And it helps that in most of these cases there’s a direct foiling happening.

(Goes without saying this contains spoilers, just a heads up)

The main one is obviously the investigation mechanic: both of them have one, but artemy’s is crucially based in his father’s culture and his own inherited knowledge of how to diagnose using local unique flora. His also involves a degree of ‘vibes’, in the sense that you have to kinda guess where to start but the more you do it the better of a ��feel’ you get for how it’s gonna go, cus you tend to see the disease settle in a relatively consistent layer each day. You start to know what to check for. Whereas dankovsky, as always, is based in hard evidence, and specifically a form of evidence that is recognised by a larger scientific community. His work is peer reviewed, but both of their diagnostic methods demonstrably work.

Then we have the ‘regulation’ mechanics: artemy’s behaviour is regulated, outside of his control, by people’s opinion of him, as well has his own bodily state; dankovsky’s behaviour is regulated, outside of his control, by his mental state. This is one of the key places we see the difference in their ideologies, where artemy is a collectivist not just in the sense that he believes in collectivist policies but that he believes the world works in a collectivist framework, as a logical conclusion of his lived experiences. He is, from the beginning of the game and whether he likes it or not, beholden to others’ opinions of him and so he must massage his intentions into a methodology that doesn’t get him shunned and killed. In the same way, he’s a fundamentally grounded and very literally down-to-earth person, whose main difficulty (and main triumph) is in finding ways to act within the limits his body sets for him. He must eat, he must sleep, he must not catch the plague, he must not be hated.

The interesting thing here is, I say this is an issue of ideology because the bachelor does have bodily mechanics – he loses stamina and can’t run indefinitely, he dies if he gets hit too many times, he can seemingly catch the plague – but we don’t see any UI for those things. Those are things that explicitly control him, but they’re not what he’s concerned with. They’re not part of how he thinks about his experience. Instead all of that is secondary to his brain: his mind, in observation, logic and connecting the dots, is his main strength and his main tool, but it’s also the thing that is most precarious about him. Where artemy is very matter-of-fact about what happens to him and is unhindered by his own worries (though we mustn’t trivialise the fact that he very much does have them and is stressed out all the time), dankovsky is in a constant battle to essentially be able to use that tool of his at all.

I see many people engaging with this as a representation of being bipolar for obvious reasons, and I’m not trying to tell those people they’re wrong at all, but my main takeaway from his brain mechanics are more ‘living through trauma that you see as your personal responsibility to fix’ mechanics. Think about how you feel when you’re doomscrolling: you’re always striking a balance between becoming so angry and panicked you can’t function, and becoming so depressed you can’t function. The ideal middle, being calm enough to work but motivated enough to do so, is very difficult to achieve. That’s the main thing I see his stress meter as representing here, and I think it’s especially clear in the way that he talks about his own perception of his responsibility here: he knows he’s approaching an impossible task, but feels like he’s been forced into it, sometimes going so far as to speculate it was a deliberate play by his enemies, but crucially he also repeatedly says he’s “the only doctor” in the town. This is news to us, being used to artemy’s way of thinking in patho2 saying there’s 3 – himself, dankovsky, and rubin – and jarring for being so. But dankovsky explicitly doesn’t think of any of them as his equals or even his colleagues. The most he gives either of them is that rubin is ‘the last person to see simon’ and artemy is ‘the local sawbones’, and even less flatteringly, a ‘dropout’. He sees himself as the protagonist in a way that artemy simply doesn’t, but it’s not a strength, it’s a self-imposed stressor.

This individualism vs collectivism even comes up with the townsfolk. Yes dankovsky doesn’t have a trade mechanic (except that one time he did? We’ll see how that develops in the full release) but we even see it in the way the crowd is named. Artemy conceives of them as a flock – a single unit made of many parts, much like how he sees the physical town – and names them in his head accordingly, giving differentiation only to different character models. There’s no individuality here, and his endings take that to the logical conclusion: diurnal represents collectivist policy that’s trying to do right by everyone and struggling to meet the needs of a collective of very varied and diverse people, nocturnal represents the extreme version of the racism faced by the kin in how they are treated as ‘beasts’ to the point of losing even the ability to speak and make choices as individuals.

Dankovsky however refers to every character either by their name, or by a unique identifier (“filat’s neighbor”), which is normal out of context, but with the added context of the investigative elements it gives the impression of someone needing to fit the world into a spreadsheet. No stranger can be defined by generalisations that together triangulate an individual, he’s focused on specifics. And this is a strength for him! Using both his knowledge of how symptoms interact to narrow down diseases, and his ability to draw conclusions based on the wider context of a person’s life, he’s able to avoid making mistakes that I, as a player, probably would have done if dankovsky wasn’t there to ask the right questions and insist on more detail.

The interesting thing about that is, again, while it’s a good thing for him, it’s also something he resents. He makes repeated comments about people being the worst part of the job for him, in the sense of potentially lying but also their outlook and unique experiences leading them to a set of opinions that makes it hard for them to communicate forthrightly. While his concern is allegedly saving people, he seems very conflicted on the matter of whether people are worth his effort; he consistently makes the effort, he wants to avoid death to the point of being willing to be seen as a pseudoscientist to do it, but he also resents the fact he can’t fit people into neat little boxes and he can’t get them to communicate like impartial diagnostic robots, and is VERY conflicted on the matter of personal autonomy.

This ends up being the main tension of the demo, with him regularly getting contradictory dialogue options about how acceptable it is to take people’s choice away and under what circumstances, some of them rationalising it as needing to to stop the plague (true) but others coming out as outbursts that essentially boil down to ‘if everyone would just act completely predictably and rationally by my reckoning my life would be so much less stressful’. And this is of course brought to a head with the final ‘breakthrough’ he has. Eurika, he says, let’s stop pissing people off and lift the quarantine! Great idea. Of course this makes everything worse for everyone, but having just died multiple times in the rioters’ district, you can see why he thought it might be necessary. And here we come back to the central theme of pathologic as a series: multiple conflicting courses of action, all of which are necessary and non-negotiable, and all of which are mutually exclusive, thereby leaving you with only wrong choices on how to proceed.

And again, we see this especially pertinently in dankovsky finally deciding to do time travel about it. Just like his railing against death, he resents the restrictions that being temporally and spatially bound inherently impose on him, and wishes for ultimate control over all outcomes. And this is something that dates all the way back to marble nest too: the final moments of his life are spent desperately grasping at straws trying to find the puzzle piece that will make everything perfect and put him back in control of the outcome. Patho3 seems to be shaping up to be a much larger, more stressful and complex version of this where you have to manage not one day on a loop, but 12 days each with interlocking consequences on each other. In this way, the more control he has, the less he has, ironically.

This also brings me to dankovsky’s time mechanic, cus it’s just as rigid as artemy’s but again, is rigid in the ways that dankovsky conceptualises it. Artemy, like most of us, is bound by time going forward, and it never stops. This is something that is always a restriction on him, and is another way in which his mechanics, like in classic HD, draw your attention to human weakness and need for community as no one person can do everything and everyone must first and foremost listen to their body if they want to survive long enough to do anything helpful. The only things that give artemy essentially free infinite time are the community signifiers: the conversations and the trade.

Dankovsky however has much more temporal abstraction (you don’t have to personally physically walk everywhere) but time is also a currency for him. This is most obvious when you realise at the end of the demo you need that ‘borrowed time’ from the person you euthanised in order to time travel, but it’s also true in diagnostics and conversation. Every two dialogue lines takes one minute. Every body part you examine takes one minute. Every action you have is rationed out, and you’ll likely waste a lot of time doing mood-regulating things as well so you don’t rapidly devalue all the substances you could use to self-medicate (which, oof. Many disco elysium adjacent thoughts about that). Once again time is something you must economise, but where artemy must be frugal with his movements and his engagement with the physicality of the town, dankovsky must be frugal with his brain and how time feels to him.

The other thing I wanted to talk about re collectivism vs individualism is the framing devices. Artemy is constantly having to embed himself in the town, in its politics, its emotions, its earth and blood, in order to progress. He does have the theatre every night like in classic HD, but he doesn’t have the opening dialectic in the theatre, which I think is a deliberate choice both to make the game feel more natural without all three characters’ routes already in it, as well as a way to step away from abstraction. Classic HD and patho2 have always been about subverting video game abstraction; you’re used to being able to run everywhere, go without food, heal almost instantly, and artemy reminds you of your flesh and your duty to it. Artemy shies away from abstraction because he doesn’t deal in loftiness, he’s in the moment and in the place.

Dankovsky on the other hand, isn’t just an academic who is primarily concerned with making a red string conspiracy board out of his own memories, he’s also crucially coming at this through the framing device of his after-the-fact interrogation. There is nothing to make you feel quite as much like an outsider as the constant reminder that dankovsky’s concerns are, first and foremost, outside the town. He isn’t aware of 90% of what is going on in artemy’s route, and artemy says as much with his comment about his own “storyline”, and dankovsky isn’t even aware of how much he isn’t aware of. Even his need to contain the plague, at the end of the day, comes down to either his on-principal fight against death, or his need to survive long enough to return to his lab. As far as he is concerned, through this framing device, he’s never physically in the town. This is of course the reverse of artemy: in his case we’re constantly told that he left the town, but all we experience as players is in the town and so we see him as fundamentally of the town; dankovsky’s presence in the town is told through dreamlike memories whose reliability is always in question with how he intends to restructure and change them, and so he always feels like an outsider looking in.

There are probably other things I’ve missed. Like the combat mechanic is something I think is interesting. But this is like. My main set of thoughts on first playthrough of Quarantine.

[raayllum]

Anyway borrowing from the Rayllum relevant sections of my "arc 2 is about the pursuit of knowledge / knowledge as a burden" meta for s4 and s5 (minimized/condensed text is from previous meta) let's talk about S6

Season four in a lot of ways was the journey of

Mutual Love as Self Actualization: Part 1 — Uncertainty to Certainty (S4)

As previously noted, Callum starts out S4 at both a loss with the mirror, and still coping with the uncertainty and stagnation of his loss of Rayla. When Ezran reaffirms that Callum still loves her, all Callum can helplessly rely that he doesn’t “even know if she’s alive.” Things don’t really improve once Rayla shows up, either, even if we see the persistent thread of not knowing vs knowing being knit throughout their arc with one another.

When Ezran is trying to get Callum and Rayla to work together, he doesn’t tell them to set everything aside, or even harkens back to their good old days. He asserts their identities and says, “Don’t you remember who you are?” because to him — and evidently to Callum and Rayla, because it works — working together and helping each other has become a fundamental, core part of who they are as individuals. They are that interwoven with each other, and Rayla reflects that in 4x07 with, “Callum, you’re the 'destiny is a book you write yourself’ guy. No one can control you or make your choices for you” as well as what Callum offers up to her in 4x09 where we see the turning point in their prior uncertainty. Although they’ve both changed, they are fundamentally still the same people they were when they fell in love, and there is both comfort, sadness, and acceptance in that realization, where Callum says:

Mutual Love as Self Actualization: Part 2 — Certainty and Discovery (S5)

Upon reconciling once Callum has said what we knew all along — “I’m so glad you come back” — Callum and Rayla return to the castle, and their searches for knowledge become arguably more explicitly stated by the text. Their first scene together in 5x01 establishes that Callum wants to know the Ocean arcanum (“I thought it would be about controlling the tides or fighting the currents” thereby exerting control, which he desperately wants over himself post-S4) as well as Aaravos, whereas Rayla is seeking answers about her family: “If I can figure out how he put you into the cursed coins, maybe I can find a way to get you out.”

This is, of course, something we know she doesn’t trust Callum with yet, not wanting to burden him with her problems especially before she’s reached her own conclusion of what to do about it (to delay it for the good of the world) and we see that the certainty and forgiveness Callum found in 4x09 has more than carried over.

Opeli: Don’t you want to know what she was up to? Why she did all this?

And although very uncertain about opening up, Rayla still expresses certainty that she knows Callum could and can be there for her, if he wants to be — if he’s ready to be.

This is, after all, with both Amaya’s encouragement and Callum’s reassurance that 1) “You can tell me when you’re ready” and that 2) he does want to know from 5x01. Then, we see both their arcs in this way largely — or at least they would, in a perfect world — be resolved in many ways by their interaction later in 5x04:

Previously, we’ve mostly talked about knowledge, especially within the text of the show, as a positive thing. It is the foundational rock of a strong relationship, it can lead to positive self actualization, and it helps the heroes keep Aaravos from being unleashed. When you do not have enough knowledge or perceived understanding of someone (Claudia assumes Soren could never understand her, and Viren and Harrow’s relationship breakdown), your relationship accordingly deteriorates. When you share knowledge, and share experiences (Rayla to Callum about the coins, Soren to Elmer about abusive cycles), you can become stronger together.

But knowledge is not exclusively a good thing. It can also be harmful, or unwanted, or unwanted precisely because it’s harmful. It can bind you to deals or bonds you don’t really want, and once you know something, you cannot un-know it, whether about yourself or about others. And we see this most plainly in the story Archmage Akiyu shares about the prison ("I knew too much").

So if S4 is about beginning to navigate both in spite of and within uncertainty, S5 is about having the safety of that uncertainty stripped away, both in creating more of it, and in removing some of it. Namely, the Ocean arcanum.

He chased the Ocean arcanum because he thought, if Sky granted him potential and freedom, then Ocean would grant him control, but the truth was more complicated than that. While it did grant him control (the ability to break free from Finnegrin’s spell), it also granted him a rather hard truth he’d rather not know.

The first time he cites his poem about true tides and untold depths, he is talking about his faith and trust in Rayla — the way he views her: “If she didn’t tell me, she has a good reason. […] I trust her. Unconditionally.”

The second time he recites the poem, it is about himself. The untold depths are within himself, are parts he is still trying to understand in full because they are uncomfortable truths. In many ways, Callum unlocking the Ocean arcanum is his version of Ezran’s 4x03 speech (see how we looped all the way back? 'Totally’ intentional I swear), that multiple things can be, and sort of have to be, true in order to gain new ground, even if there’s a part of you that wishes it could be simple.

Season six develops this theme, too, but it takes it and calls it Truth, and we see this reflected most notably in 6x06.

Mutual Love as Self Actualization: Part 3 — Certainty and Salvation (S6)

In season six, we see Callum build upon this certainty with Rayla by the way he remains emotionally open with her about his hopes and fears. After his 6x01 nightmare freaks him out, he runs right to her to receive support; when the guilt and fear gnaws at him in 6x03, he tells her the truth of what he did on Finnegrin's ship.

While the obvious facet of knowledge (truth) and salvation here is in 6x06, I also like to think it starts an episode earlier in 6x05. Callum wants to go along with the mission because he knows the quasar diamonds will be what they get in exchange whereas Rayla goes along with it because he's pushing for it (and well, helping people is always nice).

However, where Callum believes that the icy beast they seemingly have to slay is a monster, Rayla believes differently and hedges her bets on what she knows.

This is a great mini turning point in season six for a few reasons. For one, it merges the idea of truth and knowledge into one ("I know it's true") as well as emphasizing the concept of knowing something in your heart, which 6x06 will build on of "dark magic tears a hole in your spirit/heart that light can fill". It also clearly ties back to something that Callum knows he knows, which is that he trusts Rayla unconditionally (5x01). So he goes with it.

When Rayla does reach out to the behemoth, it's with more facets of knowledge: "I know you're in pain. I don't want to hurt you...", knowing the creature's name and the stories ("I know who you are"), and even in her lullaby:

(We'll come back to the lullaby for 6x06's relevancy as well). Once Rayla's kindness and compassion gets through, of her knowledge and seeing the truth of Esmeray's pain much like Ezran saw Zubeia's ("and the truth of you seeing that made it feel like less, like healing"), we return to how well Callum knows her and his knowledge about the trial ("You knew this was the reward"):

If I'd told you, you would've refused to go, because you never do anything for yourself.

To love someone is to know them, and to know them is (in these cases) to develop love for them. The same way that Rayla brings Runaan out of his grief and guilt induced darkness in 6x09 ("I'm your daughter and I love you") and recognizes the grief and guilt plaguing Esmeray, likewise, she represents and is Love to Callum.

He's gone from being uncertain about her survival, about expressing his love, all the way to looking to her for support and direction about the trials set before him:

Kosmo: Dark magic left a hole in you, but the Star-truth ritual can fill the darkness with light. [...] You must search your mind and heart for your one deep truth, the star within you. Then you must let that truth shine and fill the darkness. Callum: One deep truth, huh? Kosmo: Your deepest truth. [...] You must find the star within you, the one deep truth so bright it can fill the darkness.

As know, Callum's trial is still a struggle for him at first. But luckily Rayla's lullaby also foreshadowed the principle of looking inward rather than outward, too, and precisely what kind of answer and truth Callum is going to find.

Callum: I found my one truth.

His truth, his knowledge, his constant, his light... is love, his love, for Rayla and from Rayla. At the end of 6x06 in many ways, Callum is at his most self-actualized, freed from the taint of dark magic and paranoia about Aaravos' control... saved and allowed to become the best version of himself, a bright shining light. A star in his own right. Which is likewise why he expresses his truth before the episode is done. He did dark magic for her, but she's so much more than just darkness or desperation or sadness for him; she's light and hope and Love, too. She's his Constant, Deepest Truth. She's everything.

It's taken two and a half seasons, but he's ready to do more than just know it. He's ready to say it.

So he does.

[viscari-a]

A chaotic analysis of Nice, his image, and assumptions vs knowledge (vague tbhk spoilers)

when the trailers came out, I thought Nice would be a rich kid crushed under the weight of expectations and perfectionism and living up to the toxicity of the top (ballet in particular can be pretty brutal and it’s all about doing the most difficult things with the highest elegance and ‘ease’). That idea never quite went away, since I get the impression Nice did have too much pressure on him, and that he was never able to truly rely on or burden someone else in a way that’d help him relieve that pressure. so now this post goes into two things. 1. Making guesses off of canon’s bits of Nice’s backstory, and 2.The theory that Nice is modeled off of Shang Chao.

Nice’s backstory

So we know from the first episode that Nice has no one aside from Wreck that mourns for him. I brushed this off as a plot hole for the sake of story (I.e. the way firm man could have had far better solutions to his problems, but the realism of that was understandably left aside in favor of getting across an important point in a short amount of time). Things like ballet and piano are stereotypical rich things, after all, particularly since in the trailer Nice is shown to be performing ballet on a stage and performances are expensive. Of course, this doesn’t disprove Nice being rich; his parents could have passed away. Or disowned him, granted that disownment generally comes with lack of financial support. Other things I didn’t think too much about was the way he had gone on the variety shows with Wreck, in order to (assumedly) gain a fan base that could help them later become heroes. In hindsight it’d make sense that someone with rich parents wouldn’t have to do that; they’d have the money for the hero classes and advertisements and the connections to make a start somehow that doesn’t involve doing variety show skits (which, stereotypically, would probably be looked down upon by rich parents and, realistically, is almost the opposite of the refinement of piano and ballet.)

As of right now, the main things I’ve concluded about Nice as a person is that he likes dramatics and/or theatre (Lin Ling acting as Nice has a lot of flips and spins and bows going on), and that he maybe likes alcohol because he has a collection of alcohol-shaped bottles on a background shelf. I have a fair amount of educated guesses about his personality, but that’s too long to get into.

2. Nice living as both a mimic and as a perfection

to my knowledge, the main parts of this theory are the similarities in appearance, and that Shang Chao’s father is the head of the company Nice is under. If the theory is true then the impact Shang Chao has on the plot is truly insane, but it also adds more pressure to Nice than before and it gives a reason for him to know piano and ballet. We know that Shang Chao is a rich kid, and it’s a little plausible that Nice was made to learnt those skills to be a better imitation of Shang Chao.

Or, piano at least. I can’t fully imagine Shang Chao doing ballet, and basic ballet is a common fundamental for any hobby or career that involves dance or balance (I.e. musical theatre, various sports).

the tragedy of Nice having spend most of his time mimicking someone else is one that has a beautiful type of irony considering Lin Ling, but to me feels a bit worse because he’s trying to live up to a dead son. What if smiling is part of his hero persona because Shang Chao always was? Unfortunately, we don’t know enough about him to really compare and contrast (either ‘him’). It’s also possible Nice doesn’t have to ‘mimic’ him, but there’s still the aspect of imposter syndrome: we don’t know how he became a hero, but what if a major part of that is that he coincidentally reminded the chairman of his son? All the effort put in, simply for the end result to rely on luck.

his hero ability is also the abilities people think a perfect hero should have (which has a lot of hilarious potential, anywhere from Superman’s laser eyes to magical girls transformations to me not knowing enough about Power Rangers to give an example). This comes with being the perfect hero. Physically, which we know is affected by Trust, this probably connects to body shape, physical ability, perfect balance, never sweating, hair always in place, etc etc. We don’t know the effects of Trust on the mental state. As of right now I think it either does nothing (Lin ling’s anxiety heightened by the extreme situation and the context of being Nice), or it can amplify what’s already there. moon and nice disprove the idea that Trust can change mental states entirely, because if Trust affected them that much then they’d be in love with each other.

Being a perfectionist means higher stress and anxiety due to always wanting perfection. Being perfect, to most people, often means not relying on others, like how Nice didn’t rely on Wreck, his partner— not at the end, at least. Mentally speaking, a heightened need to be ‘perfect’ could be amazingly toxic in so many ways because the current idea of perfect is complete self-sufficiency and a lack of weakness or failure. Perfectionism aside, this can also lead to a fear of failure, an inability to show works in progress, a fear of rejection, and a fear of being a disappointment. It could also mean high repression of emotions, since toxic masculinity is probably a factor. Who knows how many of those traits were already a part of Nice, before they were heightened by either Trust or by the situation?

Anyway, the way this all relates back to rich kid Nice is that, historically, being a good person or a perfect person is connected to wealth. A lot of people with less money are afraid to burden others and see the financial lack as a personal flaw, and a lot of people see a comfortable amount of money as a baseline in others (explicitly, such as wanting a romantic partner with a certain minimum income. Implicitly, such as most hangouts, like eating out, requiring money). A perfect person would never have to worry about something as material as money, right? If anything, a perfect person would be able to have the leeway to give away money (kindness/charity as a part of perfection)

For all we know, it’s entirely plausible that Nice is from a lower-socioeconomic family, who got scholarships all the way through, did ballet as an extracurricular in school, and who has perfectionist/hyper independence issues because he didn’t want to burden his always-working parents. Maybe he was an orphan as a child. Not sure if we’ll ever find out, and we definitely won’t in this season.

either way, it’s kind of impressive that for a long time I passively assumed that the ‘perfect’ hero came from a rich family. What are the odds that a lot of his in-universe fans thought the same?

[ewaneneollav]

i hope anyone reads this

when people have a lack of self-direction towards their own well-being, one might typically picture this playing out in external terms - “they don’t think to go outside, or eat nourishing things, or they’re always criticizing themselves”

for instance, we could imagine two people: one is well-adjusted & would eagerly run out into the sun & feel it on their skin when they have the opportunity, just because it’s their preference. the other does not even notice that it would be their preference, because they have abandoned themselves badly enough that they never scan the context around them in terms of which possibilities branching off from it would be more preferable for them, or less. the pursuit of basic comfort is a thing that’s been subtracted from their instincts

in contrast, i feel like my lack of self-direction manifests not in the way i externally behave in the world, but in my internal processes - specifically at a very fundamental level of my sensory processing

to build an analogy: the latter person who runs out into the sun also would not notice the way they automatically entitle themselves to full direct experience of what is happening to them, with no element of dissociation. & they tend to automatically inhabit the sense that their present moment always has some aspect that they can treat themselves as the resident of, some aspect they can enjoy. (it’s hard to describe in words. i am alluding to a feeling that is far, far more just its own pure self than anything that could be quite translated into words)

whereas i would not think to do either of these things. i am not “on my own side” enough to consistently remember that i’m supposed to be the inhabitant of my own subjectivity, & furnish it with thoughts & “styles of receiving life” that make me more comfortable. the internal things which make me uncomfortable & the ones which make me uncomfortable just blend together

sometimes i actually remember to run out into the sun but i typically don’t notice how obvious it is for my own self-interest that i sort of internally organize myself into a... kind of, receptacle for that experience. i might do it with my eyes unfocused, staring off a thousand years, because i don’t think to consider that the comfort of actually experiencing the nice thing i’m doing is also a crucial part of the puzzle. the pursuit of basic comfort is a thing that’s been subtracted from my instincts

i don’t know what i’m supposed to do if the only way for me to live is to have constant, incessant reminders directed to some innermost, most intimate core of my being, the thing beneath my sense of self, the centermost sensorium where i feel everything. reminders directed to the thing i STILL failed to convey in this post because it’s fucking impossible to make anyone understand even a shred of this, even though it’s probably the absolute most important consequential aspect of every aspect of how i experience reality. because you just get to a phrase like “subjective” or “mental processing” & they start pretending you’re saying some psychologically technical thing that’s beyond their field of knowledge, or some wishy washy abstract thing you’d write in your diary that’d be too personally insular for them to ever understand

@turnleftaticela : a couple questions, because i have dissociative issues as well so i think i can at least somewhat see what you’re getting at, but i’d like to understand further: is there something in your mind that like, takes instinctive precedence over experience and thus keeps you preoccupied from thinking to experience things? also, does this happen as like a self-punishing/self-denial/“i-believe-i-don’t-deserve-this” thing, or is it too automatic to register as that? and also also, when you *do* think to experience things, is it something you can then do at will?

thankyou for asking. one answer to the first question might be "thinking about things" but i kindof feel like it's more just a perpetual forgetting that the world is supposed to convene at my awareness into anything but like a spaced-out oblivion. because i dont bother to remember that i should experience. it's definitely not punishing or self-denial. it just feels like a dilapidation, an absence of content or impulse, like if there was ever something there i can't remember when it was destroyed so it just seems like nothing ever formed there

i think even when i think to do consciously experience things, it still tends to be very hard-won

[lookingthroughmirrors]

Opinion on how annabeth punches and pushes percy, the judo flip and percy being reduced to a himbo malewife in hoo (can't make his way out of a paper bag without annabeth).

(Please note most of knowledge comes from PJO and HOO as I have not read much of the later series, but I do know the main points and events that happened and have read certain pages *cough* judo flip *cough*

I’ll start with the first part, Annabeth punching Percy (which happens the first time long before HOO) and the infamous Judo flip, which is for some reason very controversial.

Most of the arguments I see are one of these few things.

1. Annabeth was worried and did it out love

2. They were raised as demigods (child soldiers) so it’s not the same/ they are used to violence therefore it excuses her actions

3. There is nothing wrong with her hitting because it wasn’t like

First off, all of these arguments and any other ones I’ve seen when it comes to this topic and defending Annabeth are bullshit. Why? Because there is no excuse to hitting a partner. Slapping someone’s shoulder while joking or something in a similar context is miles different to what was happening here. Annabeth hit Percy hard, and she did it with the intention of making it hurt. There is no excuse for that. Sure, they were raised as Demigods and violence has always been a large part of their lives, but then shouldn’t Percy also lash out and hit Annabeth if that’s the case? And shouldn’t that be fine too? You don’t hit someone out of worry or concern either, not hard enough for an army to believe you to be a threat. Annabeth has never been nice to Percy, she canonically say in TLT that she doesn’t care if he dies, only that she can go on the quest. And ok, maybe that could be written off as an immature twelve year old, if her actions in later books didn’t continually prove that she hadn’t changed or developed. I think another fundamental issue in her relationship with Percy is that she can never be wrong, Luke being the biggest example of this.

Percy, even with his history and past friendship with Luke, was able to look at things objectively to an extent. He says multiple times that Luke had a point. I honestly think if it had’ve just been Luke, if titans hadn’t of been involved, that Percy would’ve joined Luke. But that’s a whole other thing. I only bring it up because I think Luke particularly is the best example of Percy having far better judgement than Annabeth, who refuses to be wrong. Something that again is addressed within BOTL, when she challenges the Sphynx because of her pride, and is an asshole to Rachel because she doesn’t want to rely on another person and is jealous. She likes being the leader, she wants to be the person people rely on, but that has always comes naturally to Percy despite how much he himself hates it.

I personally would’ve far preferred Perachel to be canon than Percab*th. Percy is always stressed about Annabeth, about doing the wrong thing where with Rachel feels like he can be himself, not like he has to live up to some invisible standard he can’t ever hope to meet.

I also, as I’ve written about before when discussing Percab*th is that Annabeth is not an essential character to HOO, and that she could’ve easily been interchanged for someone more interesting and dynamically different. I think Percy was sidelined to try and give Annabeth more purpose in the story. I also think Percy is consistently put down, berated and underestimated. He literally has people thinking he’s a god when he first meets them, that isn’t someone who lacks power. I also think Annabeth has always been a little bit scared of Percy to certain degree. Or at least acutely aware that she would not be able to put a fight if Percy turned on her and he put in a tiny bit of effort.

I also Percy is never given enough or really any recognition of everything he did. That he took the prophecy so it wouldn’t go to Nico. That he turned down immortality, not for Annabeth, but because of a promise he made to Luke and his years long stance that nothing is worth living forever for. I think the nuance of Percy as a character, and his ability to connect with and understand characters like Like and Ethan is severely underdeveloped. He has never been blind to the gods faults, he didn’t do what he did in the name of the gods. He did it for the campers, for the demigods who’d carry out their parents burdens simply because they had the audacity to be born. Demigods doomed to die from the moment they’re born because of their parents, like him. I particularly think Percy is too far often used as a scapegoat for Nico’s issues and often either villainised or dumbed down into a himbo.

It’s ridiculous, since Percy has repeatedly shown himself to have both better judgment and better strategising skills than Annabeth. Percy is better than Annabeth, and he has far more power than she ever will.

Percy is such an amazing and nuanced character with so much room to explore different characteristics he’s shown at different times and he is too often sidelined to boost another character (most often Annabeth and Nico)

Overall I don’t really like Annabeth, and I’ve yet to hear a viable reason as to why what she did should be ok. And I truly believe HOO did a disservice to Percy by dumbing him down, and making him reliant on Annabeth.

I hope you like my answer! Thank you so much for asking I absolutely love getting questions and I also love a chat so please feel free to keep it coming!

[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……

[bnhaobservation]

Your focus is on the Todoroki family, so I'll focus on what was the main precursor to throwing the rose-colored glasses: Touya's quirk. Do you have any theories of your own as to why it is that his body simply began to adapt to an ice quirk?

Although I have my own theory based on, primarily, the ice quirk factor of Touya's heart and Shouto's strange division, which speaks of tetragametic chimerism (such as the case of the woman with her sister's uterus), the dominance of dominant traits (in this case, Himura blood) in elemental quirk homeostasis, the functioning of the long noncoding RNAs in charge of regulating the functions of the cells combined with the mutant gene "plus Alpha" (as would be the activation and deactivation of the physical adaptation mechanisms for the expression of an elementary quirk, such as temperature and acidity tolerance); as it would be possible that his physical change is due to the fact that at some point the ice quirk in his heart was passively activated and that triggered the readaptation of his body to the genetically dominant quirk.

But it always makes me very happy to learn about other theories from people who are dedicated to their writing and take the time to research even if they all come to different conclusions according to the knowledge and beliefs they hold. (It's a bit lonely being a writer in this sense).

I think what you want to discuss is why Tōya and Shōto have a composite-type (複合型 ‘fukugō-gata’) Quirk, right?

Sorry for the late reply but I needed to put some order in my notes before being able to reply to you in a vaguely cooherent way.

PREMISE: I don’t have a degree in biology, which means I might mess up things and my explanation can feel ridicule and basically amount to Quirk magic to who’s more knowledgeable than me so I’m not the best person to ask for such a thing. Horikoshi in creating his Quirks didn’t really bother with medical accuracy which doesn’t help with inferring how things works, especially when someone is, like me, more focused on respecting the canon than the real life biology. Also it’s an ‘in work’ theory. I might end up changing it in the future... or never think at it again since biology isn't really a fundamental point in my story... but I needed to have some ideas on how to set up things so this is what I came up with.

Now…

When babies are born canon gives them 3 possibilities regarding Quirks, they’re born Quirkless (〝無個性〟 ‘“Mukosei”‘), they inherit 1 of their parents’ Quirk, they inherit a composite of both their parents’ Quirk and therefore their Quirk is a new Quirk of the composite-type (複合型 ‘fukugō-gata’). [Chap. 1]

While Quirkless kids are slowly disappearing, the same isn’t true for the other two options, especially for the composite one. We know this by two things.

First, people of the second and third generation of Quirk owners deliberately organized Quirk marriages aiming to have their kids to inherit a composite of their parents’ Quirks. This means the birth of kids with a composite Quirk was recurring enough that people realized it happened and tried to exploit it.

Second, Garaki’s “paranormal singularity theory” (超常特異点 ‘chōjō tokui-ten’), later renamed “Quirk singularity doomsday theory” (個性特異点 ‘Kosei tokui-ten’), is based on this on how Quirks mix and become more complex with each passing generation [chap 166], meaning this isn’t something it happens so rarely it’s negligible, it happens with each passing generation in a way that’s consistent enough that people could fear it would bring doom to the human race.

This makes me think that composite Quirks are merely a result of codominant alleles which end up getting expressed at the same time (so nothing big that can risk affecting fertility, as otherwise people with Quirks wouldn’t manage to become the dominant majority).

I’m however assuming that the genetic code of a Quirk isn’t included just in a couple of alleles. Quirks are too complex for this, which means not all the alleles that create the parents’ Quirk are codominant, which allows two kids who have both their parents’ Quirks like Tōya and Shōto, to have Quirks that are similar yet different (plenty of characters in the series have composite Quirks, the one who’s more famous despite not being a Todoroki is Bakugō).

In short Shōto and Tōya’s Quirk might resemble mosaicism, but, I think, they’re actually not meant to be. They don’t have two different genetic codes inside their bodies, just one that says where their Quirks should manifest and in which amount and if they’ve or not the structures to withstand them.

What do I mean by this?

In chap 135 we've this bit.

Now I’m not a fan of Aizawa’s example, which split the tail Quirk into tail + infrastructure to move the tail because by logic the infrastructure to move the tail should be the muscles and if he can stop them he should be able to stop every muscle, plus he said his Quirk didn’t work on Quirk of the heteromorphic type, I get that now Horikoshi is trying to ‘retcon’ it by implying he can’t erase the tail, just stop it, but if he could stop the muscles of an heteromorph he would stop all his body from working, or, at least, he would stop the 4 arms of the guy that’s facing him and this doesn’t happen.

Anyway this works well to imply a Quirk is made by more structures, structures we don’t really know.

A Quirk likely isn’t decided just by a couple of alleles.

We see that people get to label the ‘result’, their own understanding of their Quirk, they label it with a name and present it to the Quirk registry, but they likely often don’t know how it works (which is why the Quirk registry allows people to make changes on how their Quirk work and why SURELY Tōya’s Quirk wasn’t named blueflame at the start as… it wasn’t blue. I like to bet it was registered as another Hellflame Quirk, which is why even though it was obviously a fire Quirk, Horikoshi refused to say its name).

In a fire Quirk user, he needs to have a part inside himself that create the fire, but also a part that can withstand the fire, similar to how an ice Quirk user needs to have a part that can create the ice and one that can withstand it. This however doesn’t mean 2 couples of alleles, one deciding if one has or not the part that creates fire and the other deciding if he has or not the part that withstand fire.

I generally assume that in truth ice and fire Quirk don’t really create ice and fire. In the ice case it’s possible they actually emit such a cold temperature that they freeze the water molecules in the air and therefore create ice.

In the fire case things are more complicate. It’s not enough for a fire Quirk owner to emit a hot temperature to have fire, fire to start doesn’t just need a heat source and oxygen, which it can find in air, but also some fuel to burn. Heat, oxygen and fuel form the fire triangle but, considering Enji and Shōto don’t burn themselves when they use their fire, it’s hard to say what they use as fuel.

Since Tōya’s tears took fire, it’s possible they’ve the fuel in form of body fluids so, kind of like how Bakugō excretes nitroglycerin-like sweat, they might possibly excrete oil-like fluids, which take fire if they heat up.

In order for a fire to burn hotter you either pump in additional air or pure oxygen or use a fuel that burn hotter, so it’s possible the substance in Tōya’s fluids is slightly different from Enji and Shōto’s.

What about fire and ice resistance?

Normal humans fight cold by shivering and by producing more inner heat and fight hotness by sweating but I take the idea is that ice and fire Quirk owners also have a skin that’s more tolerant to cold/hot temperatures than a normal one. This should be the case because in the sport festival Shōto hits his limit of cold tolerance and starts shivering after using his ice side a lot, when another person would have already gotten frostbites, as for sweat… well, if the sweat is actually the fuel the Todoroki use, it’s unlikely it cools them down, never mentioning Enji said his use of fire was starting to affect him, but we don’t see burns on his skin. Likely it was just that his inner organs were starting to get affected.

Now…

We know Quirks aren’t necessarily symmetrical, Lady Nagant’s Quirk manifest only on her right arm, so likely the placement of the Quirk on the body isn’t as simple as it might seem. Enji seems to have a whole body that can generate fire, eyes included, and that can withstand it according to certain limits, however is this always the case? Burnin’s fire Quirk only manifest on her hair. Midoriya’s father could only breath fire. It’s implied Onimā has fire resistance, in fact he worries for Kidō, who doesn’t have it, but it seems it’s all he has, as he is never show using a fire Quirk.

I said Tōya and Shōto’s double Quirk is the result of a codominance but this is an oversimplification because it’s not like they have a perfect codominance through the whole genetic structure of both Quirks and therefore through their whole bodies (like Bakugō might instead have).

At this we need to add the fact that Quirks are prone to mutate. I don’t mean this just in the sense that Eri and Terumoto Kōki have completely new Quirks, Quirks also apparently grow in power with each passing generation (Tōya’s fire is stronger than Enji), through in some rare cases they can get weaker (Shūichi’s Quirk is apparently weaker than the rest of his family or so his profile in chap 233 implies) and have abilities that can get unlocked with the whole Quirk awakening (個性覚醒 ‘Kosei kakusei’) thing, be it through training or through stress or near death experience.

From a scientific standpoint, there’s just too much we don’t know about Quirks and that probably not even in the BNHA world know to tell for sure.

Still, I wouldn’t say though Tōya’s ice is dominant and we’ve no info about it residing in his heart (though Shōto explains the heart is central to making both hot and cold manifest when using Phosphor… and the fact Tōya tried to use Phosphor as well to withstand Shōto’s ice might have subconsciously unlocked his ice Quirk). The Quirk doctor said it himself, the fire Quirk factor is more prominently inherited.

Ishi ‘Mezurashī reidesu ne… Honō no kosei inshi wa yori irokoku hiki tsugarete iru nodesuga. Nikutai wa Okā-san no hō o tsuyoku hiki tsuide shimatterundesu. Tsumari… Honō e no taisei yori mo hyōketsu… Samusa ni tekisei no aru karada nandesu. MaA… DESIGN jimita koto wa ne… Kono “kosei” jidai kinki nande… Yameto ita hō ga.’ 医師「珍しい例ですね…炎の個性因子はより色濃く引き継がれているのですが。肉体はお母さんの方を強く引き継いでしまってるんです。つまり…炎への体制よりも氷結…寒さに適性のある身体なんです。まア…デザインじみたことはね…この”個性”時代禁忌なんで…やめといた方が…」 Doctor “That’s a rare case… The fire quirk factor is more prominently inherited, but his physical body is more strongly influenced by his mother’s. In other words… his body is more suited to freezing… to the cold than to fire. Well… anything resembling design… has contraindications/is taboo in this age of “Quirk”… so it’s better to avoid it…” [Chap. 301]

In fact, in regard to emission, it’s likely the fire that’s dominant and the ice is minor, while in regard to structures to withstand temperature he’s better predisposed for the cold (Horikoshi has revealed in the side material Tōya also has fire resistance but it’s not enough to withstand his much hotter fire Quirk).

Tōya has both Quirks but they’re somehow unbalanced in how they express but can compensate if they work simultaneously, Shōto is more balanced in how both express each other but, at the same time he can’t reach the level his brother reaches.

So, back to Tōya, what caused the change in his body?

Quirk activation seems often to be involuntary in kids. As a newborn Tōya should have ended up activating his fire Quirk very early on, we know because Enji and Rei decide to have Fuyumi because Enji wants a kid with a dual Quirk (and believes Tōya doesn’t have it) and Rei thinks siblings could support each other. Fuyumi is conceived around 2 months after Tōya’s birth, which means they knew very early on about Tōya’s Quirk, which makes sense. The luminescent baby shined at his birth and baby Shōto iced his snot bubble as he slept. However he never unlocked his ice Quirk and the family came to believe he didn’t have one. It also make sense, Quirks might not manifest until preschool.

Add to this he was likely encouraged to use his fire side way more than any normal kid would, Enji even started to give him the first fire Quirk lessons.

It’s during one of them that Enji realizes his son’s hair started to turn white, when Tōya is 3, so I also think Tōya subconsciously turned on his ice Quirk, maybe in sleep and didn’t realize about it as the usage might not have been that relevant… or maybe at that time he was still used to sleep with Fuyumi and they assumed the ice in the room was made by Fuyumi, not by Tōya.

However hair color is due to melanin and cold damages melanin, which might be why all the ice Quirk owner have white hair. Their own Quirk damages their melanin causing them to be born with white hair or for their hair to become white as soon as they start to use their ice Quirk.

Why Tōya also starts to burn?

I do prefer to think he hit his limit, Enji has taught him to raise his fire temperature and his fire had become too strong for his fire resistance, but it’s also possible that by subconsciously activating his ice Quirk, Tōya, who’s still in the middle or a very intense growing phase, had caused his body’s resources to redirect on building up an ice tolerance instead than a fire one that can compensate the increase of heat in his fire. However, since Shōto could have both, this doesn’t seem to make much sense to me because this means the two don’t negate each other. Maybe it’s just me.

However I tend to place the blame on the speeding up of the whitening process not to Tōya using his ice Quirk subconsciously (otherwise at a certain point he should have realized he has ice) but to the stress the situation generated. Melanin can be damaged also by stress and, as soon as Tōya start to burn himself, things get very stressing for him, likely first due to medical exams and visits as his parents think there’s something wrong in him, and then due to how he’s told he can’t become a Hero, that he can’t use his Quirk and Enji dropping to train him and spending time with him.

While it starts as a sign he has a ice Quirk, it becomes a sign measuring his distress. So while his hair were always meant to turn white as he would start to use his ice Quirk, the psychological distress caused it much faster than the latent ice Quirk could have.

That’s what I put together that seems to fit with the canon we’re given. It’s obviously a compromise, I doubt Horikoshi cared about the biology in Quirks and very likely Shōto’s hair split as well as his heterochromia are there for a purely visual value (and so that Rei would be lead to attack him), and not because he lost sleep thinking at the biological implications.

As I said I’ve not a degree in biology and my interest is mainly in the psychology of the characters more than in the mechanic of Quirks (which is why I’ve a ‘medical inaccuracies’ tag for my fic) so sorry if this feels terribly unsatisfactory and unreal.

Still, thank you for your ask! As I've said I really have fun talking about what's behind my story.

[demigod-shenanigans]

As previously announced, no lost trio week fic today because I didn’t manage to finish my Star Wars crossover in time, but at least have a preview (hoping to finish it sometime next week):

“Top of the class on Coruscant does not get sent off to Lothal, of all places,” the girl said, clearly baffled now. “What did you do, dump the supervisor’s kid on their birthday?”

“I don’t get why everyone always assumes I was sent here as a punishment.” Jason’s father had looked at him with obvious disapproval when he’d learned of this assignment, but that was business as usual. Jason was pretty sure he could have made the Emperor’s personal guard and Jupiter would still have found a way to be disappointed. Why Reyna had fumed about it, he really didn’t understand, though. “All parts of the Empire are of equal importance. The citizens of Lothal don’t deserve protection any less just because their planet is of less strategic importance.”

“You should be glad that you were stationed here,” the rebel told him, shaking her head. “With that kind of attitude, Coruscant would have eaten you alive. I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t already.”

Something about her voice was eerily familiar. Jason had thought he’d imagined it at first, but the longer he listened to her, the more sure he was that he’d heard that voice before.

He tried to remember what he’d seen of her when she’d taken the crates—before her buddy had hit him in the back of the head.

She hadn’t been wearing a helmet, then, because she clearly hadn’t expected to be caught. The warehouse they’d been stealing from had been sealed thoroughly, but Jason had only been one of a handful of stormtroopers guarding it. If he hadn’t caught their brief comm signal and argued that protocol required someone check it out in case it wasn’t a fluke, they probably wouldn’t have been.

Even then, with the brief glance he’d gotten at her, he’d thought she seemed familiar. But now, hearing her voice, and the fact that her accomplice had called her Pipes…

Realization struck him like lightning.

“Hang on. Piper? Piper McLean?”

Jason had been nine, maybe, stuck on the set of his mom’s awful romcom, glad to at least have the daughter of the male lead for company. Dying of embarrassment wasn’t quite as bad when you were doing it together.

He knew he was correct from the way the rebels both froze when he spoke.

“I have never heard that name before in my life,” her friend finally said, which would have been way more convincing if it hadn’t come after a thirty second pause. He stretched out his hand in Jason’s direction. “This isn’t the celebrity brat you’re thinking of.”

Jason blinked at him.

“Why are you waving at me?”

“Leo, put your hand down,” Piper hissed. “You’re not nearly skilled enough with the Force to pull that off. All you’re doing is embarassing yourself.”

“You were trying to use the Force on me?” This probably should have terrified Jason, but he was more fascinated than anything. Besides, the knowledge that one of the armored figures was Piper had fundamentally changed the situation. He didn’t think she would hurt him. Rebel or not, he couldn’t imagine Piper being a serious danger to anyone.

“Why did you tell him that’s what I was doing?” Piper’s friend—Leo, apparently—protested, his whole body tensing up.

“What else was he going to think?”

“I don’t know!” Leo frantically waved his gloved hands, and Jason was relatively sure he was just gesturing this time. “It doesn’t seem like stormtroopers think very much in general, and so far, this one has failed to prove otherwise.”

“Hey!”

[trendywaifus]

Can i have Lisa,Eula and jean with an academic S/O who became smart through hard work , but still feeling like they are not smart enough?

Thanks for your writing btw they have been helping me whenever i feel down

school’s finna start soon so I’m glad I was able to get to this at a nice time. also, you’re welcome lovely! if you ever feel down just know that I’m always here for you and I’m here to stay. this blog right here proves it and this is for everyone else as well!

btw this is heavy in dialogues–ish. ( not proofread lol)

“ your cute little nose has been buried in those books for a while now, darling. i almost mistaken you for jean. “ lisa jokes sweetly, placing her hand on your back as she peeks over your shoulder to take a quick glance at your progress. you’ve tucked yourself away in the small corner of the library for the past few hours and now it’s almost closing time. for the time you been there, she doesn’t think she seen you out of that chair.

“ sorry lisa, “ you awkwardly laughed, “ i’ve been stuck on this formula for a bit. i still need to figure out the base ingredient for making the heatshield potion. “ she hums, her eyes skimming over the question and then your written out work. she rubs your back soothingly before she answers, “ you got almost everything down packed cutie but what you’re missing is butterfly wings. “

butterfly wings? was it really that simple?

you groaned, crossing your arms. “ that was such an easy and common answer, lisa. why didn’t i get that?” she chuckles airily and kissed your temple. “ don’t beat yourself over it too much. alchemy can be simple at times despite it being really complex. when i studied at the sumeru academy, even i was having trouble with some of the fundamentals and properties of alchemy. “

“ yes but lisa, compared to me, you’re, well—you! you’re a genius. you had to have gotten it right the first time every time! “

lisa frowns at your words. “ which was due to my insatiable hunger for knowledge back then. I can’t deny that i am more academically–gifted than others but you can only go so far with just pure talent. many people unfortunately doesn’t understand that. “

her words sinks in, you felt stupid for even exerting your frustrations on your lover, she was just trying to help you. “ no need to look so ashamed, darling. i understand how you feel completely, trust me. however, don’t let this discourage you from your studies. i really do admire your work ethic, you remind me of my younger self. . in a better way if i should say. “ she pats your shoulder and yawns.

“ with that being said, it’s just about time for me to close the library. since you haven’t gotten out of that chair, that rear of yours must be sore. so why don’t you be a cutie and help me put everything back up? i’ll reward you with kisses after~ “

eula steps inside of the shared home with a deep sigh. after a long day of the usual nonsense with the locals and patrolling she wants nothing more than to settle in bed with you. she takes off her heels and steps into the unusually dark living room. weird, normally you’d wait in the living room for her with open arms and a huge smile but you’re nowhere to be found. her first thought would of been you going to sleep since she did arrive late later in the night this time. that was until she notices a dim light at the end of the hallway from the shared bedroom.

she raises a brow and made her way down the hallway. “ unbelievable. “ eula mutters under her breath as she sees your hunched over figure at the desk, studying. “ you were like this when i left in the afternoon! “ you jumped at the sound of her voice and smiled apologetically at her, rubbing the back of your neck. “ my dear, you’re back! sorry, i got caught up with the material and i didn’t notice you’ve came in. “ the woman scoffed, crossing her arms with disdain. “ not greeting me at the door is something I can live with, but coming home to you cramped up in this room is ridiculous. did you even take a break, eat, or even come out of this room? “

you avert your gaze to the floor, swallowing thickly. eula impatiently taps her foot, waiting for your response. “ well? “

“. . . .uh, no? “

“ what the devil! what’s the meaning of this? you’ve been like this for the past few days! are there any exams I should know about that’s coming up? “

“ . . .no, “ eula was about to scold you but she stops herself as the sad look on your face makes itself known. her heart drops at the sight.“ i. .feel like i’m inadequate. seeing the people around me thrive while i’m stuck at a standstill. .hurts. “ you admitted, lips pursing into a tight line. eula stands there by the doorway in silence, finding the right words to say. she understands you fully, it scares her of how familiar this set up is. it was like she was hearing her inner thoughts when she was younger.

she sighs, “ don’t you dare say that, (name). you’re not inadequate at all. “ she walks over to you and rests her hand over yours. “ think of it like this, people have their own way of dancing, some may like to go slow or fast in terms of tempo to reach the end of their song. but, do you know what matters most for that to happen? “

“ practice and stamina? you’ve practiced dancing all your life, eula, wouldn’t you say those are crucial? “

“ yesn’t. i’m also trying to be more practical here, mind you. it’s about discipline and grit. you can’t have a good practice routine if you can’t separate yourself from distractions. you most certainly won’t have good stamina if you don’t have the grit to work yourself through inevitable trials and errors. i’m the way i am today not only because of the aristocratic ways but because of those two things. “

she takes it upon herself to close the book in your hands and sets it somewhere on the desk. a soft frown adorns her lips, “ but you also have to maintain your health as well, both physically and mentally. so whatever this you’ve been doing—needs to stop. now, come and get ready to go to bed with me my love, i demand for my nightly cuddles. “

“ my love, why are you up so late? “ you jumped in surprise at the familiar concerned voice and a hand touching your shoulder. you whipped your head around to see your lover, who had a worried smile on her face. if she was already home then it must of been almost midnight by now! you started studying around midday. “ oh jean, uh, i was just catching up on some notes. “ you explained, gesturing towards the set of papers in front of you. the blonde peered over your shoulder to take a look with a curious glint in her eyes. “ ah. .my apologies but, i don’t remember you mentioning anything about homework or exams coming up, no? “

you scratched the back of your neck nervously, “ no, i didn’t, i just wanted to study. “

“ and. .when did you start? “ jean asked softly.

“ erm, probably like two or three hours after you left?”

jean almost gasped before clearing her throat. “ i know that i’m not the one to talk about taking breaks but. .did you perhaps get a chance to take a walk or anything of the sorts? “ there was a short pause before you responded with a meek voice, “ . .no, no i didn’t. b-but to be fair, i lost track of. .— “

noticing your nervous demeanor, she lightly squeezes your shoulder and kisses the top of your head affectionately. “ i understand. you must be tired and hungry, do you want me to cook something while you rest in bed? “

“ no jean, i’m fine. you just got done with your official duties, it’s okay—“

“ i insist, dear. here, take my hand. “ with a warm smile dancing upon her lips, she holds out her hand for you to take. you tentatively take it and jean gently pulls you up. you stumbled a bit due to your sleeping legs but jean was quick to hold you steady. “ are you alright? do you need me to carry you to bed? “ she asks, her oceanic blue eyes filled with worry.

you chuckled softly, “ absolutely not, sweetheart. i can walk. let’s not put your back at risk here too. “ a light blush stains her cheeks; jean quietly leads you to your shared bed for you to rest. “ I-I will go prepare dinner for us, please stay in bed dear! “ she says shyly before scrambling off to the kitchen to hide the redness of her face as she hears your growing laughter.

[homestuckreplay]

radiation poisoning from my libertarian grandpa :(

(page 779-791)

A few days of updates here! I was kinda mad about the Fruit Update on the 18th. I like captchalogue mechanics, it’s fun to see how all the different modi work and the different situations characters can get into when the modi go wrong. But a five page update of just picking up fruit was too much for me. I simply could not find an interesting thing to say about that.

But now we’ve seen more of Jade’s house, and it’s… a lot. Her atrium having four wings might be relevant later, but doesn’t mean much yet – same with the beautiful pink and yellow clouds outside. Her real instrument looks like a bass guitar (due to its four strings). A trend I noticed before of the kids’ rooms getting messier and houses and lives getting weirder with each successive introduction definitely peaks here. Jade’s room is littered with plushies, plants, guns and uranium, and her grandfather might be the strangest of the four guardians, stranger than a business clown, a ventriloquist rapper, or a woman who builds a cat mausoleum with a secret passage.

Jade’s grandfather is a ‘WORLD RENOWNED EXPLORER-NATURALIST-TREASURE HUNTER-ARCHEOLOGIST-SCIENTIST-ADVENTURER-BIG GAME HUNTER-BILLIONAIRE EXTRAORDINAIRE’ (p.790) which doesn’t paint a great picture to me. That description suggests a man whose quest for personal glory eclipses any regard for other cultures, the environment, health and safety guidelines, or anyone ‘weaker’ than he is. He probably ‘discovered’ the frog statue island we see in WV: Ascend and took it as a trophy, raising his family there even if that’s not the best thing for the island ecosystem or his granddaughter’s life and health.

Jade’s bed and her two closets (below and inside her room) are all topped with strange reddish orbs on spires. It could be coincidence – there’s only so many shapes – but they remind me of the orb spires the kernelsprites land in after hatching (p.424), and as such, could have some connection to her strange powers. Jade’s other contraptions, gadgets and gizmos are a mystery to me – I know the window is a Problem Sleuth reference, but for the photoshopped in devices, I can barely begin to speculate. I do think that given the sciences of appearification, transportalization, alchemy, sylladices and strife specibi, these probably don’t have the same in-universe applications as their real world references. Physics simply works differently in the world of Homestuck, and I’m trying to make fewer assumptions about the world’s fundamentals (beyond gravity, which we’ve witnessed often).

Jade has been so associated with prognostication and esoteric knowledge that finding out she is also a nuclear physicist, a very different type of knowledge, was such a moment of characterization whiplash that puts her at both extremes of the science-religion dichotomy.

The uranium nuggets in Jade’s room, and recurring atomic symbol on her contraptions matching the bunker’s fuel gauge, are more connections between her and WV. But her room contains nods to all her friends, too. Her Slimer poster and magic chest are obvious John references. Her Squiddles poster and plushes are something Rose likes enough to put on a shirt, really hurting her dark eldritch aesthetic, and the anthropomorphic Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff art is signed TO: GG FROM: TG (he even drew his stupid record symbol). Worse, the Manthro Chaps Jade collects are definitely part of the Smuppets line of products; their design is so similar.

A becquerel is the standard unit of radioactive decay per second, and luckily for Jade, one becquerel is not harmful to human health – in fact, human bodies are constantly undergoing several thousand Bq of radioactive decay (even the skeleton has its own radioactive isotopes). I wonder if this is Jade’s cute name for her pet because she loves science, or if this creature has been mutated by Jade or her grandfather’s experimentation, and got the name that way. It could explain why Dave calls Bec a ‘devilbeast’ (p.382) and thinks he should be shot. (Seeing Jade’s gun collection also makes this line feel way too real).

JADE SHIRT DESIGNS TALLY: Atom, Leaf, Pumpkin, Slimer, Spirograph, Squiddle, Creature

> Jade: Engineer a glass case for your URANIUM and store it outside.