#i get a lot of soukoku (which I love) but it's nice to change it up now and then too

[intheticklecloset]

hey hi!! for the peppermint mocha event, can i request (was gonna say ‘order’ to fit the café theme because it’s adorable. but that sounds so demanding lmao) ler!dazai and lee!atsushi? maybe atsushi is pretty warm in general, and dazai decides to take the opportunity to say “atsushiii i’m cold :(“ and trap him in a tickle hug wksjxnvc (no pressure!!)

❄️ Peppermint Mocha Special Order ❄️

~~~

According to Akutagawa – who told Chuuya, who told Dazai – Atsushi was always warm.

And it wasn’t that he always felt warm; he physically was a naturally warm person. Perfect for cuddles, according to Dazai – who told Chuuya, who told Akutagawa, and now the mafioso hadn’t spoken to him for three days.

But that was beside the point.

The point was, the Armed Detective Agency office was freezing today, and Dazai had it on good authority that their resident weretiger was the perfect solution.

“Atsushiiiii,” he called to the younger man, having followed him out of the office and to the lockers when the weretiger was about to go to lunch.

He pretended to miss the way Atsushi tensed up with anticipation at his call. It was like he used that tone of voice every time he was going to play a prank or something.

“Y-Yeah, Dazai?” Atsushi asked.

Deciding to really throw the young man off his game, Dazai flopped into him, wrapping his arms around him in a hug rather than say another word.

Atsushi froze again, but for a different reason this time. He seemed shocked, even as his arms came up to return the gesture.

“Dazai?” he asked in a gentler voice. “Is something wrong—AHA!!”

The brunette grinned as Atsushi began to wiggle in his arms, soft giggles spilling from his lips thanks to his fingers digging into his sides. “I’m so cold! Warm me up, Atsushi~”

“Ehehehehehehe, Dahahahahazai!” the weretiger whined, managing to squirm away for a split second before being drawn back into his boss’ tickly clutches, this time with his back to his chest so Dazai could reach around and scribble at his tummy. “EHEHEHEHEHEHE, NOHOHOHOHOHO!!”

“But you’re so warm! You’re like a personal heating pad,” Dazai teased, hugging him closer. “I just want to warm up.”

“Gehehehehehet a real heheheheheheating pad, thehehehehen! I hahahahahave to go – EEEK NOHOHOHOHO NOT THEHEHEHEHERE!!”

Dazai hummed as though confused, though the both of them knew he knew exactly what he was doing, wiggling a finger into Atsushi’s belly button like that. “I’m sure Akutagawa wouldn’t mind waiting a couple extra minutes. Stay and warm me up first, Atsushiiii~”

The poor weretiger ended up arriving at his lunch date with Akutagawa pink-faced and still a little giggly, and having to explain why he’d been tardy.

Akutagawa wasn’t surprised in the least.

[luffys]

Hey there! Hope you don't mind me asking but I've recently gotten into graphic making but have no idea how to do the things I want haha (right now I'm thinking about that neon line art look) do you have any advise on where to find tutorials and what not? Thanks!

hello hello! i don’t mind at all bud and i’m honoured that you thought to ask me for advice! i’ve only been doing graphics for like a year now so this ask surprised me in such a good way! sorry for the delay! i was dealing with things💛  

as for tutorials, i’m afraid i don’t have any i can pass on to you. a lot of what i’ve learnt is through trial and error and taking certain techniques i’ve learnt like overlays and textures from gif making and applying it to graphics.

for advice, shapes and colours are your best friends! there’s a lot you can do with graphics when you limit yourself to certain palettes or even when you add shapes by different overlay methods. 

for a lot of my graphics, i tend to stick with 5 or less colours for the palette because more than that can make it too messy. finding colours that work well with one another and offer good contrast while keeping things cohesive can be hard. if you ever get stuck with a palette, i find adding black as one of the 5 colours can work wonders! it adds a deepness to the lines that might be missing or even offer a nice contrast to bright colours so it isn’t as hard on the eyes. 

in this dabi one i made, my palette was 3 colours only: black, yellow, and red. as you can see even if you have yellow and black as the main screencap colour, like i did with the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th panel, adding the red string on those panels tied those three panels back to the other three so it was cohesive. the orange that pops through on the lines is because I had added my colours using a gradient map so the change from red to yellow featured an orange. by playing around with the gradient map feature, you choose which colour is more prominent by how much of it you put in using the little scale/bar. i used this method of black + 2 other colours a lot (ishigami senkuu, sherlock holmes, bakugou katsuki, and soukoku + genshin au).

this victor nikiforov edit i made was another example of 3 main palette colours: blue, yellow, and black. however instead of using the colours through gradient maps, i focused on using the selective colour, colour balance, and hue/saturation features. i used them to make the colours i chose, stand out from the rest. the black was the colour that tied all six together, whether through the typography or through background colours (like viktor’s scarf). 

one colour palette that i love using is a red, black, and white one! i’ve used it so many times and I never get tired of it (portgas d. ace, donquixote rosinante, bam, and nakahara chuuya). as you can see it’s very simple but you can do so much with it, whether applying it to a gif or a screenshot. 

the other thing with graphics that i’ve learned through trial and error is typography! sometimes finding a good font can just make a graphic. for typography the two things i pay attention to is 1) not overloading a panel with too many fonts and 2) size. in one panel i never use more than two fonts together. two is my max because then it becomes too clunky and messy. i also never do two cursive fonts together. one cursive and one standard are my go to because it’s less straining on the eyes no matter which pairings you do. with size, you can use the same font in one panel but make different words or lines bigger or smaller to add affect/emphasis. the first panel of my nanami kento edit shows what i mean. this aizawa shouta one also shows the differences in font size but because they’re the same two fonts despite the size difference, the set still flows.

you can also play to the character’s aesthetic. take colours from their clothes and run with them for the colour palettes if you’re stuck. or if you want, do the opposite of the character’s aesthetic. that’s what i did for the dabi edit from before. dabi’s aesthetic in canon is blues and blacks, cold colours. i flipped it for that edit and took warm colours as his palette which made for an interesting and jarring change because that’s not normal for him.

last thing i will add is really just have fun and go wild! the fun thing about graphics is that you can literally experiment and try so many things! 

hopefully this made sense, but if not feel free to send me another ask🌻💛

[afinepricklypear]

hello!!! im really sorry to bother you! im a huge fan of your powerless series and i was very excited to see you beginning to post the next instalment, but i just had a question!! od*zai makes me really uncomfortable for personal reasons and i was wondering if there would be any of it in the fic? again im really sorry for bothering you vnjdfklnb

I don’t know when this was asked, I rarely come here...but I’ll answer as best I can and hope it’s not too late. I really don’t want to spoil the story too much, but I can also understand that many fanfiction readers (myself included) don’t like too many surprises in their fics and, when it comes to a multi-chapter fic, they don’t want to invest too much time in a fic that might disappoint them in the end. I also understand that for many people (once again, myself included), ships can make or break a fic, and that many people have notps (I, personally, have *a lot* in BSD), so I’ll try to give you an indirect answer.

I’ll start by noting that I do tag most things appropriately -- including romantic relationships that will appear in the fic, so that’s always your best bet for determining if a particular ship will show up in one of my stories -- sometimes things come up as I’m writing that I didn’t anticipate, and I’ll always warn when the tags of a fic change. I also try to tag when a fic will have an ending that the readers might not be satisfied with.

However, I feel like you might be able to guess the answer to your question too if you read my notes throughout the series. I’ll reiterate a few things I’ve said in the past installments here:

- I’m not a huge fan of Oda. It’s not that I dislike him, I just don’t particularly like him either. I’m neutral about him, I guess. Apathetic is most appropriate. I just don’t feel that the character was well developed by Asagiri. He’s flat and bland. His personality traits read off like a character the author is desperately trying to make readers like by cramming arbitrary positive characteristics down our throats that feel as though they weren’t fully thought out or given much impetus: he rescues orphans, wanted to retire as a novelist, mafia grunt that never kills (though he doesn’t quite qualify as a ‘criminal with a heart of gold’ like Chuuya because we never see him do anything criminal...but then again, we never really see the Port Mafia doing a lot of criminal things beyond murder). He also knows nothing about fairytales and apparently that makes him interesting -- and not an idiot(?) -- to Dazai. In short, like his ability name, he’s basically Flawless. Unless you count his breakdown in Dark Era when his plot devices...er...I mean, orphans that he rescued, each of whom are indistinguishable from one another (except Sakura because, she’s *the girl*) were killed by Mimic, which spiraled him on a Saint’s Martyr journey. 

OMG. He’s the Gary Stu of BSD. I never realized it before.

Er, I’m ranting. I didn’t mean to turn this ask into an Oda-Bash, and I mean no offense to his fans. We all connect to different parts of a character, and I just...didn’t connect to anything with him. That’s not to say I wouldn’t rise to the challenge as a writer of giving the character more depth than presented in cannon.

- I’m not so much a multishipper, as I don’t care about any other ships in BSD outside of DaChuu. Not much else to add to that one...

- I won’t be introducing any romantic pairings into the story that weren’t tagged in the first story of Release, because it would be wholly unfair to the readers who’ve stuck with me through to a fourth story to suddenly throw a curveball at them with potential notps. So, while there might be hints to other pairs (teasing, more like, similar to cannon), no new romantic pairs will be confirmed and the readers are free to interpret relationships between characters how ever they want...though I might note in comment replies my own preferences on those ships, that isn’t to say that the readers are wrong in reading into characters within my story their own shipping preferences since the characters are otherwise meant to be close to cannon, and there are no cannon ships...therefore, anything goes.

- I want to see Dazai and Chuuya move towards a healthier relationship in Release. As it stands, there are a lot of growing pains they would need to go through to get there. It’s not enough to “confess your feelings”, relationships are built on a lot more than that. They’ve got a lot of bad history, in cannon and as established throughout my story, that they need to work through. They have certain understandings that they relied on in the past to work with one another which no longer hold true, and so they have to figure out new ways to work together. There’s a lot made of the trust between them, also, in the story, they themselves and characters like Lady Murasaki have made mention of the solid trust between them. The problem there, however, is this trust predated their confession to one another, and is, therefore, built on a foundation that is regardless of love. So it isn’t really a great measure of the state of their romantic relationship -- a mistake, I might point out, Dazai may have already made.

- Not technically me that said this last one, but I would also refer you back to chapter 2 of Lock-Down, where Chuuya and Dazai briefly talk about Oda. Although Dazai is rather aloof about his feelings towards Oda there, he is very clear that he and Oda were never romantically involved while Oda was alive.

...

Something I haven’t really said, but I do want to create space for it here, is that there are many different kinds of love. When I set out writing Release, I wanted to keep as many things as possible close to cannon, I wanted the characters as close to cannon as I could get them, tweaking only what was necessary to make the story work. One of the things from cannon is that Dazai’s relationship with Oda had a powerful impact on it. I see a lot of soukoku writers deal with this by ignoring or downsizing the relationship between Oda and Dazai, or changing Dazai’s relationship with Chuuya to "elevate it” -- for lack of better phrasing -- to the same level. What can’t be denied about cannon is that Oda meant a lot to Dazai, his dying words inspired Dazai to leave the Port Mafia, and in the Beast AU, he changes *everything* and even, arguably, puts Atsushi and Kyouka through a kind of hell to create a world where Oda lives and finishes his novel. I would be a terrible fanfic writer if I didn’t at least acknowledge that it is made obvious in cannon Dazai does love Oda...however, it all depends on your perspective what kind of love that is. Odazai fans like to interpret it as romantic love, and that is their ship, nothing wrong with it, but romantic love isn’t the only kind of love with power, and it’s not the only kind of love that drives people to do whatever necessary for the life and happiness of that person. 

Within the context of the Release series, Chuuya also interprets Dazai’s love for Oda as romantic love. This itself is a conflict, but it’s representative of a larger conflict in their relationship...that being Chuuya’s insecurity with regards to Dazai’s feelings for him, which is a theme I really want to explore. I don’t know that it’ll ever explicitly be discussed, but a lot of the trauma from Chuuya’s assault by Dante is actually closely tied with this insecurity too. It isn’t Dante’s actions that affected Chuuya so terribly, rather the newness of his romance with Dazai at that point in time, and how easy it felt for him in that moment, for Dante to brush aside “Dazai’s kisses and touches”. It really represented for Chuuya how fragile and vulnerable his feelings for Dazai are, and how afraid he is that he’ll lose whatever is developing between him and Dazai before he ever really gets to call it his own.

An element of the Release series that I use to drum up drama and suspense, and which I try to impress on readers is that, with few exceptions, we’re only getting Chuuya’s perspective. His information is limited, and his interpretations of events and the people around him are not always going to be reliable. But we’re on this journey with him and we learn most information at the same time that he does. In this case, the important thing isn’t whether Odazai is a thing, it’s that Chuuya *believes* it is a thing. This creates a nice conflict, because it’s very problematic, highlighting that, while Chuuya trusts Dazai with his life, he doesn’t (yet?) trust Dazai with his heart. A partner secure in their relationship would be understanding that they’re not the only important person in their lover’s life, and that their lover can have strong emotions of love for others without it changing their love for their partner. Thus far, it hasn’t come up as a major conflict in their relationship, because Oda is dead, but recent revelations in the fourth Release story (the reliability of the character who gave the reveal, notwithstanding) raises some interesting questions stemming from: what if Oda could be brought back to life. Most readers seemed to have accepted Chuuya’s logic built on his personal narrative that Dazai was in love with Oda and vice versa, that if Dazai is trying to bring Oda back, he’s using Chuuya to do it as some sacrifice, because he truly loves Oda and wants to be with Oda, and that his relationship with Chuuya is meaningless. So, if we stay within that perspective we’re left with the one question: is he really trying to bring Oda back? -- and the conclusion drawn from it being: if he is, he doesn’t love Chuuya, and if he isn’t, he does love Chuuya. But there are some other important questions I don’t see too many readers asking, such as: are these things truly mutually exclusive? Would Dazai being romantically in love with Oda represent the only explanation for why Dazai would want to bring Oda back to life? Would Dazai really see bringing Oda back as being in conflict with his and Chuuya’s developing romance?

Of course, this added potential motivation for Dazai aside, stopping the Grimm Brotherhood is paramount. This is a dangerous organization that is doing horrendous things, and their mysterious machinations are made more ominous by the fact our heroes don’t fully know their ultimate goals. Thus far, everything that’s happened involving Chuuya has been beneficial towards bringing down the Grimm Brotherhood. Regardless if Dazai is pursuing the Brotherhood for personal reasons, his actions still align with the motivations of the Agency and Chuuya.

I don’t know if this answered your question but I hope that you might trust me as a writer that has no intention of “pulling one over” on the readers and that you will continue to stick with the story. I don’t get my jollies from leaving stories with unsatisfactory endings. I believe that there should always be an appropriate payoff that the story built towards. Thank you for the question, thank you for reading and enjoying my other stories, and I hope that you take care!

[writing-radionoises]

attraction

ship: shin soukoku / akuatsu, kunikidazai 

genre: slow burn romance

prompt: akutagawa is pining and has no idea what to do about it

notes: ada akutagawa, sequel to satisfaction 

It’s been at least a month since the announcement of Dazai and Kunikida’s wedding, a month since Ryunosuke left that dreaded anonymous love letter on Atsushi’s desk.

And yet, Atsushi has not figured out who wrote the love letter. Or maybe he did, and Akutagawa just didn’t know, or maybe Atsushi is even avoiding him…

God knows, all Akutagawa knows is that he’s locked in the bathroom on his former mentor’s wedding day while Atsushi bangs on the door.

“Ryunosuke, you are coming to the wedding, you fucking lawnmower!” He yells from outside.

Akutagawa puts his head into his hands. He’s ready, he changed up his normal top to a short sleeve white blouse without ruffles, it revealed all his scars and bruises, but it was a cute top that Atsushi picked out. Atsushi even tied his tie, fixed his hair, and everything, but here he was, insecure once again.

“He probably doesn’t even want me there…” Akutagawa responded from the bathroom.

“Then why would Dazai-san invite you?” Kyouka said from outside the bathroom, her tone much softer than Atsushi’s.

Ryunosuke had actually forgotten she was there…

Atsushi sighed, “Even if he didn’t want you at his wedding, which he does, I would want you there. Ryuu-san, pleeease!”

… The truth is, Akutagawa could never say no to Atsushi, especially when Atsushi uses his personal nickname for Akutagawa.

The sound of it alone brings color to Akutagawa’s sickly pale face.

“... Okay,” Akutagawa hesitantly agrees, fixing the little cat hair clip in his hair before unlocking the door to the bathroom and opening it.

Atsushi is in a similar outfit to his agency wear, a short sleeve white button up with the addition of a bowtie instead of a typical tie, as well as tan suspenders instead of black.

Kyouka, on the other hand, is wearing something a little more fancy than Akutagawa and Nakajima, simply because she’s the flower girl. Her dress is a tank top, knee length white dress with a dark blue lace collar, a dark blue ribbon around her waist as well. Atsushi has placed a flower crown of blue hydrangeas on her head, as well.

… She’s quite adorable.

“Are we ready to go?” Kyouka asks.

The trio leave the apartment, and make their way towards Fukuzawa’s house.

--

It’s awkward. It’s horribly awkward for Akutagawa. It’s such a small wedding, it’s really only the agency there, with the addition of some guild members, Gin, Higuchi, and a small appearance from Chuuya before he quickly leaves.

Akutagawa had never felt so much relief seeing Chuuya leave.

He ends up sitting next to his sister and Higuchi, Gin wearing a dress Akutagawa had bought her for her sixteenth birthday a few months ago, and Higuchi wearing a simple suit as they watch Kunikida and Dazai.

Fukuzawa got ordained specifically for this wedding, and probably only this wedding. So, up at the altar are Fukuzawa, Dazai, Kunikida, Atsushi, and Ranpo.

There wasn’t a need for a whole set of groom’s men, so the two best men were picked out and left at that.

… Akutagawa found it hard to look at anything but Atsushi. Looking at anybody else made him feel awkward and out of place.

… But Atsushi was a safe ground, the reason Akutagawa went to this event in the first place.

If it was hard to not look at Atsushi, it was even more difficult to not imagine being up at the altar with him. Declaring vows, holding hands, kissing… It made Ryunosuke giddy, feeling his face heat up.

Kyouka poked fun at him earlier about it, saying that him and Atsushi were probably going to be married next.

It’d be so nice… Akutagawa thought, But I don’t think he thinks of me in that way.

Pining is awful, so Akutagawa has discovered. It’s fucking painful.

When the reception starts, Akutagawa makes a run to the bathroom and locks himself in a stall for at least 30 minutes.

He washes his hands and hand at least ten times, as if trying to wash away the thoughts of Atsushi.

They don’t leave.

--

Akutagawa is sitting at a table at the reception awkwardly, watching Kyouka and Atsushi dance from a distance with some others when Dazai approaches, taking a seat beside Akutagawa.

“You don’t look like you’re having a lot of fun, huh?” Dazai starts.

“... I’m having a hard time with feelings, but congratulations on your marriage. Please don’t let my feelings concern you,” Ryunosuke replied, looking back over at Dazai, “It’s supposed to be a happy day for you.”

Dazai smiles a bit, shaking his head. His attire isn’t much different outside of the flowers in his hair, and a new brooch on his chest. His coat has been forsaken somewhere, probably Kunikida’s car.

“Thank you, but your feelings won’t upset me. I know they don’t have a whole ton to do with me,” answered the brunette, “Your feelings have to do with the kitty cat over there, huh?”

Ryunosuke blushed, looking away from Dazai, “Don’t tell him.”

Dazai lets out a fake gasp, putting a hand to his chest, “Ah, I would never! For this is a Romeo And Juliet tale, a beautiful romance written by Shakespear himself! And yet, I am just a supporting character for sir Romeo.”

“If it wasn’t your wedding day, I would kick your ass.”

Dazai chuckles, “You should, anyway. But anyways, I hope things go well for you, blah, blah, blah, all the other shit you’ve probably already heard. You need anything?”

Akutagawa fell silent, shrugging as he looked back at Atsushi, smiling and laughing with Junichiro.

“I think I know what you need,” Dazai responds, standing up from his seat as he holds his arms out to Akutagawa, “A good, old fashion Dazai hug!” Akutagawa smiles a bit as he stands up, taking the hug from Dazai as he rests his head on his former mentor’s shoulder.

… Dazai’s hugs aren’t nearly as nice as Atsushi’s, but it feels nice to finally get attention from Dazai after all these years.

--

Fuck it, tiger lilies, Akutagawa thought, quickly pointing to them on the menu for the cashier to place the order. He paid for the flowers, and was given a date to pick up the flowers as Akutagawa left the flower shop, pulling out his phone and beginning to dial a familiar number.

“Kunikida Doppo speaking, what can I do for you?”

“How did you tell Dazai-san you liked him?

Kunikida sighed from the other end of the phone while Akutagawa starts his walk down to the train station, “Not even a hello?”

“Hello, Kunikida, how did you tell Dazai-san you liked him?” Ryunosuke quickly rephrased.

“Well, it’s difficult to say because I truly didn’t end up telling him.”

“So he was the one who confessed?” “In a way, yes. We are talking about Osamu here, he already figured out that I loved him through his connections to just about everyone in Yokohama. So what happened was Osamu invited me to dinner, told me he knew about my feelings, and that he returned them. We started dating shortly afterwards,” Kunikida explained.

“Ah, you had it easy... “ Akutagawa replied, nervously tapping his fingers on his knee, “... I can’t seem to get my love interest to pick up on my feelings. They’re oblivious.”

“Hmm, you’re in a tough spot, then.”

“I don’t know who to go to anymore… I’ve spoken to Dazai-san, Higuchi, my sister, now you…” Akutagawa sighed, “It seems like no matter what, they can’t seem to figure it out, and I don’t want to be super blunt about it either… That’s just embarrassing.”

Kunikida fell silent, “I have an idea. To understand someone who is oblivious, you should talk to someone who was oblivious. You should talk to Poe, Ranpo’s boyfriend, they were in a similar situation. Poe might be able to give you some advice.”

Akutagawa smiles a bit as his train arrives to get back to the agency, “Thank you, Kunikida, I’ll get to it. I have to go, have a good afternoon.”

--

“Jinko, please think about this for more than five seconds. Please,” Ryunosuke says sadly, watching Atsushi pause from walking into their shared kitchen with the tiger lillies Akutagawa had just bought for him.

Atsushi turns back to him, “Think about what?”

Ryunosuke feels himself freeze up, trying to quickly come up with a response before eventually stuttering something out, “N, nevermind. Don’t think about it.”

Atsushi gives him a strange look, and then shrugs as he goes to put the flowers in the vase, and Ryunosuke goes to make some tea. His heart aches as Akutagawa pulls down a tea bag, then coughing into his hand.

“You look upset,” Atsushi comments, standing besides Akutagawa. Akutagawa hadn’t even noticed that his face was scrunched up into something of hurt. It’s understandable, but now was not a good time for that.

“... Do you have any idea how long I’ve been trying to tell you this? You just keep brushing me off, if you don’t like me, please just say it,” he replied, the words fell out of his mouth without a thought. The moment he said it, Ryunosuke felt a wave of regret wash over him as he quickly tried to distract himself, continuing to make his tea.

There’s a moment of silence. Akutagawa can’t bear to even look at Atsushi, so scared of his response, scared to burst into tears just by looking at the other.

“... Ryunosuke. I like you a lot, you are my very best friend. I don’t know what you’re trying to say, though, and I can tell it’s hurting you,” Atsushi replied, his voice is calm and full of worry, “What are you trying to say?”

“Think about it. Just… Think about it, please, Atsushi. I’ve been so obvious, practically the whole agency knows,” Akutagawa pauses to rub his eyes on his sleeve.

Atsushi reaches out and places a hand on Akutagawa’s shoulder, spinning his friend around to look at him. Akutagawa’s eyes are watering as he holds his entire cup in his hand, then setting the cup down on the counter.

“Do you just… Not get it? What else do I have to do? Jinko, this is fucking ridiculous, we’ve been doing this for months now. Are you really this dense?” Ryunosuke said, to which Atsushi fell silent, not responding.

Akutagawa didn’t know what to say, just staring intently at Atsushi with his heart pounding when Atsushi reached out for Akutagawa, cupping his face in his hands and bringing their lips towards in a swift motion.

Ryunosuke is left in shock for a moment, he had never really kissed someone before. Higuchi kissed his cheek once, though that might be the most he’s ever gotten.

… Regardless, it’s nice. Akutagawa quickly relaxes against Atsushi, moving his hand over the one Atsushi has on his face.

And when Atsushi pulls away, Akutagawa has to resist from pulling him back into the kiss. Atsushi smiles at Akutagawa, he is still holding the other’s hand as he speaks.

“Was I right?”

Ryunosuke nodded, “Yes, you were.”

“I didn’t think you actually liked me back,” replied Atsushi.

“... Please say you’re joking.”

“I wish I was.”

Akutagawa chuckles, hiding his smile behind his hand, “Jinko, you are dense.”

Atsushi smiles once again as he pulls the other into a hug, “Yup!”

… They are not going to hear the end of this from Dazai.

[siberlius-moving]

i know i said no essay bUT HERE’S A LONG ONE

- spoilers for beast au ahead -

BEAST: On being human and alive

What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be living? 

The characters here refer to Beast AU’s characters, but I will specify when I am referring to the main universe’s respective characters.

Dazai and Akutagawa: what is a beast? who is the beast?

Dazai in the Beast AU, having glimpsed into the alternate universes, had concocted an elaborate plan to ‘save’ an universe where Odasaku got to write his novel. I would like to think, that this Dazai saw the lives of other Dazais who had left the Port Mafia and lived a purposeful life where he could genuinely be a good person and help others, surrounded by people he cares about and who also genuinely care for him (thus, in spite of all the suicide jokes, Dazai in main universe is actually clinging onto life pretty tightly). But Dazai in the Port Mafia was still a person who hadn’t learnt to appreciate human life as being something more than the act of moving and breathing. As smart as he was, he hadn’t had the maturity to understand empathy, sympathy, and the value of having connection with others. Main universe’s Dazai, in fact, is still learning to do so. He has a long way to go, but you realise that it is his connections with people like Oda, Atsushi and the ADA that give him purpose to live another day, and help him be so much more successful in pulling off his schemes since people actually trust and open up to him. You can argue that he would still have been successful being his old Port Mafia self, except with a lot more deaths and violence. But, he would have lived a very short life. Which, was what happened in the Beast AU. 

Beast AU’s Dazai, latching onto the regret of main universe’s Dazai, and encouraged by his own lack of will to live in his present life, decided that this universe didn’t matter (since he technically had already ‘lived’ in other timelines) and set on a path to help Oda finish writing a novel. It is incredibly selfish, because for everyone else, this was the only life they ever had, would ever lived. By the end of the book, Dazai realised this. He got called out by Oda for it. In their one and only meeting, Oda noted that Dazai was almost childlike in the way he tried to recreate a friendship that never existed. When Oda told Dazai that they were not friends and that he would do everything in his power to get Akutagawa back, Dazai understood. At the last stage of his grand plan, where he was to die, it had seemed like he got what he wanted - Oda had his book written and had led a nice life after all. But was it really what Dazai wanted? Was he not just slave to the main universe’s Dazai’s wishes? 

Akutagawa in Beast AU isn’t very much different from Akutagawa in the main universe, at least until Dazai came about and changed everything. Dazai in the Beast AU, had become the Port Mafia boss at a really young age. All the immaturity and issues mentioned above get ramped up here. He controlled the port mafia with an iron fist. I would think it was harder for him, because at least for Mori, he had years to build his way up. The rumours that Dazai killed Mori to usurp his position made it harder for Dazai to consolidate his power. He knew that he needed multiple figures of fear to rule. In the main universe, Dazai was an executive who didn’t know the existence of Atsushi. Akutagawa was the only one he could mould into a similar role he was looking for. Thus, Beast AU’s Dazai went to Akutagawa first. 

But in the main universe, Dazai realised too late that Akutagawa was too 'wild’. He was a blunt kind of mass weapon of destruction, too much of a wild card. In any case, Dazai was just an executive then, and Akutagawa served his purpose most of the time, and Mori had a good range of competent supporters he could use. Chuuya actually respected and was extremely loyal to Mori. In the Beast AU, Dazai didn’t have that kind of support. But he needed one, controllable weapon from the shin soukoku for his future plans. He tested Akutagawa by letting him kill all the gang members (in the main universe, Dazai had them killed as a ‘gift’ to Akutagawa to entice him to join Port Mafia). Akutagawa killed them extremely brutally, almost animalistically. Too wild for Dazai’s needs. That was okay, because Atsushi was perfect, and Dazai knew of Atsushi’s existence. Atsushi had a moral compass and knew right from wrong. He was only uncontrollable when influenced by his ability and he turned into a tiger, but this can be managed by a brutal spiked choker around his neck. His conscience, along with his fragile mentality, allowed Dazai to perfectly control his actions by using said conscience against Atsushi, without the unpredictable risks that Akutagawa posed.

Here’s the important thing: Dazai thought that Akutagawa was a ‘beast’. A beast is a thing controlled by its nature. It cannot be controlled by anything else besides a severe master. It is dangerous, it is wild, it is irrational, but it is innocent. After all, it is only doing what its instincts call for it to do. How can one be guilty, when it does not know what it is doing is wrong? If it is evil, then all it knows is evil deeds. Nothing one does can change it. After all, Akutagawa was inclined towards destruction, and he was talented in it. He tends towards irrational destruction with utter disregard for his or others’ lives. Gin was injured while saving Akutagawa during the massacre, and he abandoned her for mindless, hopeless revenge. This fact was used against Akutagawa - Dazai rejected him over it and took Gin away. Dazai told Gin that Akutagawa had abandoned her for violence and would abandon her again because when it came down to it, he was a destructive beast who cannot ignore his nature and he cannot love the way normal humans do. Akutagawa proved Dazai’s point when he attacked Atsushi for calling him out on this, even though Atsushi was leading him to Gin. Gin, out of resentment and love, left Akutagawa so that Akutagawa could live on, like he was a wolf that belonged to the forest.

But Dazai was wrong. Akutagawa had lived in environments that had shaped him to be extremely reactive, violent and constantly on survival mode. He would react to threats with immediate violence. But that did not make him inherently a beast. Even he had nothing, he acted as a protector for the children, and led them as much as he could. After Oda found him, offered him food and shelter and gave him a chance to live a life beyond constant survival, he flourished. He bonded with Tanizaki over the love of their sisters. He agreed to ADA’s conditions for helping him find his sister even though he could have simply attacked them for answers. When Kenji showed him the rice plains he was enraptured by the sight. He learnt to plant rice with Kenji and had continued to help him with farming even when he had no reason to help him. He sucked at paperwork but was really good at keeping with Kunikida’s schedules and helping him track and catch criminals (and without killing them!). He helped Oda babysit 15 kids by making playgrounds, showing up for their PTAs and helping them be more confident in school. When he had the opportunity, he could choose to be kind. When he had the patient guidance of a loving community, he could learn from them and change. (Minor scene at the start of the novel: When Akutagawa gets hot tea spilt onto him, Tanizaki and Kunikida sensed instinctive bloodlust on him. But what he really did, was to catch the tea cups and the serving tray swiftly with Rashomon and hand it back to the waitress.)

Oda pointed it out rightly - Akutagawa was an emotional person and he cared too much. When things he cared about were hurt, these emotions took control of him and he would lash out in rather violent ways. And he would feel guilty over it. But, how can a beast feel guilty? It is interesting that in the Beast AU, Atsushi was hardly ever referred to as a beast, even when he was famous for being unable to recognise friend from foe when he was in a tiger state. One of the more obvious parallels is then when Akutagawa noted that Atsushi was driven mad by guilt. And Akutagawa slowly saw it in himself. They were similar that way - both were hounded by the guilt of a irreversible mistake that destroyed/changed their lives. Akutagawa never forgave himself for leaving Gin alone that night when Dazai took her away, to the point that he wanted to die. He only wanted to find and kill two people. One was Dazai. The second was himself. He was afraid of this uncontrollable beast he felt was inside him. 

Oda told him not to chase the beast for a good reason - Akutagawa was not a beast. But he could choose to be one, if he followed that path of no return. Kunikida at the crucial fight point, when urging Akutagawa to stand up and continue fighting said it too: that Akutagawa was not an evil person, but he could choose to be a good person if he chose to become a detective with the ADA. And Akutagawa chose. He allowed Atsushi to live, and told him to keep on fighting and living. He continued working with ADA, trying to solve cases and save people, so that he could prove to himself that he was not a beast, and that one day, Gin could see that he was better and came back to him. I think, even in the main universe, Dazai knows he is wrong about Akutagawa - he may have given up in trying to teach non-terrorising skills in Akutagawa when he was still in the Port Mafia, but he has since tried to amend his mistakes through Atsushi.

Being able to make choices is what makes you human. Choosing to do things beyond our instincts, our nature. We are good, because of the choices that we have made. Likewise, we are bad, because of what we have done. Akutagawa was born to have traits of a rabid hellhound, but he didn’t become one. No one tamed him. What happened, was that he had met with kindness. He had friends. He shared his thoughts and his past and his feelings to the members of the ADA, and they had connected with him and helped him out as much as they could, even when he had yet to fulfil the ‘spirit’ part of the exam. Kenji and Akutagawa had an interesting conversation in the fields. Kenji pointed out that while his companions had died, he had continued to live well. Akutagawa then wondered if it was because his companions have given him the best parts of themselves for him to live on. It is the connection with others that make life worthy of living, that make life mean something. To be human, is to make choices. To be judged on our worth as a human, is to be judged by our very actions. This is inherent in what it means to be alive: living is only worthy when we can share our lives with others. 

Now contrast this with Dazai. Did he really have a choice? If he did, he made some dreadfully selfish ones that destroyed and traumatised the people around him. The Dazai in this world had his own experiences that made him a separate person from the other Dazais after all - his actions and the consequences were his and his own to bear. Who was he to have something that the other Dazais had worked to achieve? The Dazais in other universes may have lost Oda, but Oda was a friend, who shared memories and time with him, who understood and seen him. The loss was devastating, but main universe’s Dazai didn’t truly lose Oda. Oda was still alive, in his mind, giving him the motivation to live on, reminding him to reach out to others and telling him that he was not alone. Dazai in the Beast AU was truly alone. He might have thought that he could replicate a connection in this universe, but his actions had made them nonexistent. As much as Oda was kind and empathetic and perceptive in every universe, it was just impossible. And Oda’s life involved people he cared deeply about, people who Dazai had hurt. Dazai, in the Lupin bar that he had never been in this universe, may have been in denial to tide over the years of waiting for Oda to finish writing and for shin soukoku to develop the best they can be, but once he spoke to Oda, the illusion shattered. Even with all his knowledge of the world, it was never going to recreate a purpose to live. No matter his good intentions, Dazai would never receive the acknowledgement he badly wanted from Oda. Oda would never give him the relief of forgiveness Dazai wanted for the terrible deeds he had done. And Dazai would die, in misery, fulfilling a wish that didn’t truly belong to him.

If Dazai truly didn’t have a choice, then, he was compelled by forces that created this condition within him - he was then, the only beast of this universe. 

[redrocx]

If it's ask game... 1-50.! Just because I don't want you to be bored! 🤣🥰

Oh wow, what a task 😆 I had lots of fun, thank you so much, sweetie 💕

1. First things first, did you have a good year? -- hmmm it's a good middle, I'd say. Lots of ups and downs but also made lots of progress health-wise.

2. How old did you turn this year? -- 24

3. Do you feel your age? -- lmao tbh I feel so damn old or more like tired of life lol (not in a suicidal way just generally tired haha)

4. Did your appearance change in anyway? -- cut my hair a few weeks ago, got new glasses

5. Post your favorite selfie. -- oh man I'm usually not comfortable posting selfies lol I won't do it for personal reasons, sorry 😬

6. If you traveled, where did you go? -- Paris and Vienna (both for concerts lol)

7. Which fashion trends did you love? -- I'm not much into fashion and don't keep up lol

8. Which fashion trends did you hate? -- same as 7

9. What was your favorite article of clothing this year? Post a pic if possible? -- hoodies, I've been wearing them whenever I can. Also a new pair of pants (too lazy to get up and take a pic though lol)

10. What song sums up this year for you? -- actually two songs, This Is Me from the Greatest Showman and The Very Last Time by Bullet For My Valentine

11. What album came out and has been on heavy rotation since then? -- Rammstein by Rammstein

12. What was your favorite movie of the year? -- Avengers Endgame *sobs heavily*

13. Did an actor/actress catch your attention for the first time this year? -- cant think of anyone in particular

14. Favorite new TV show? -- the Blacklist

15. Which new ship/fandom has taken over a lot of your time, attention, and tears? -- there's two ships lol one old (Soukoku) and one newish (Lawlu). Fandom-wise I've finally started watching Naruto, and then Rammstein (though I'm not particularly involved in the fandom)

16. What food did you try for the first time? -- persimmons (I don't like them lol)

17. Did you make any big permanent changes this year? -- well I finally started driving school lol if that counts

18. What was one nice thing you did for someone else? -- wrote a birthday oneshot for a friend

19. What was one nice thing you did for yourself? -- bought myself a Switch

20. Did you develop a new obsession? -- Rammstein

21. Did you vote? -- yes!

22. Did you move? -- sadly not yet

23. Did you get a job? -- old job but got a promotion!

24. Did you get a pet? -- nope, my birb's still good and healthy 💕

25. Do you regret not doing anything? -- not leaving the G****** fandom sooner

26. Do you regret doing something? -- no, I don't think so

27. Have you done anything that scared you? -- enrolled for driving school

28. Did anyone/thing make you so mad it stayed with you for days? -- G****** fandom again/asshole people on social media in general

29. Did you lose anyone close to you? -- no, only people I *thought* I was close to

30. Did you fall in love? -- with Rammstein and back with One Piece, yes. Romantically, no

31. Did you fall out of love? -- no

32. Did you start a new relationship? -- only friendships

33. Did you go through a break up? -- no

34. Did you have to cut ties to someone? -- lots of people

35. Who was important to you this year but wasn’t important last year? -- @takashima-hikari 😘😘😘 I do hope I can meet you someday 😭😭 and cry over One Piece and abs together

36. Who wasn’t as important to you this year as they were last year? -- some friend(s)

37. If you could have a do over on one thing you did, would you take it? -- idk hm depends on the thing

38. What was the best moment of the year for you? -- attending the lives of my two favorite bands & meeting some of my dearest friends for the first time

39. What was the worst? -- getting suicidal over shit that happened in a fucking fandom and shouldn't have affected me this bad to begin with

40. Did anything happen that you were sure would change you as a person but it really didn’t? -- can‘t think of anything 🤔

41. Did anything happen to you that you were sure wouldn’t change you as a person but it did? -- honestly I started to realize a lot of my past mistakes while being confronted with similar situations I put friends in in the past and I'm trying to make amends and become a better person

42. What are you most proud of accomplishing? -- conquering my chronic pain & finally leaving a fandom that was more toxic to my mental health than it was good

43. What have you learned about yourself this year that you didn’t know in the years prior? -- the way my body functions and gets affected by emotional & mental turmoil and how to cope in healthy ways

44. Did your opinion of anyone change for the better? -- my dad (not that I thought of him as bad before but he's being showing an increasing support which makes me happy)

45. Did your opinion of anyone change for worse? -- lots of people (again that shouldn't have mattered in the first place but I'm the problem as we all know)

46. If you make resolutions, did you complete them this year? -- I don't think I had any

47. If you make resolutions, what will your resolutions be for the coming year? -- to keep improving both my mental and physical health, and to be more vigorous in taking actions to improve my mental health especially in regards to social media

48. If you could go on an adventure during the remaining days of the year, where would you go and what would you do?  Who would you go this? -- I'm actually meeting up with my family on Christmas in Berlin, that's all the adventure I need and am looking for~

49. What do you wish for others for the coming year? -- that they go through the same self-reflective and enlightening journey that I have been going through this year, and that other people (especially friends & family) will have the strength to get the help & support they may need

50. What do you wish for yourself? -- to become a better person, and to grow even more; to be someone my friends & family can (continue to) be proud of

[natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple [My Thoughts]

I can’t guarantee that there are no spoilers, so I will just put the “keep reading” line. With that being said, this is in no way a deep analysis of any kind. Do not take this seriously. I’m just an idiot running my mouth. This is just a stupid thing that I’m writing because I just finished the movie.

If you’re Canadian, just know that they did not prepare a special message for us. The voice actors who appeared in the message before the start of the movie (Uemura Yuuto, Ono Kensho, and Taniyama Kishou) and the Crunchyroll staff prepared the message for Americans. I’m Canadian, but I guess that’s close enough (still a little disappointing though).

Whether you ship Atsushi x Kyouka as a sibling relationship, a friendship, or anything else, it was quite nice. Personally, I do support this ship despite the age gap of four years, but I wouldn’t be angry about any ships that aren’t... illegal let's say. Their relationship was done in a way that it wasn’t forced to make you think that they were in any specific kind of relationship which I liked because I had a feeling that audiences would’ve criticized it if they hinted any tiny bit of a romantic relationship. I think that kind of thing should be saved for the future if they decide to act on it. Let’s just say... I’ll preorder that ship.

Chuuya x Dazai (or Soukoku) is a ship that I don’t mind. It’s okay, but I personally liked Oda x Dazai. Too bad... well that ain’t gonna happen. Unless you believe in the afterlife... I guess. Was it forced? A little. Was I bothered? Not that much. I don’t care what you ship. If this is your ship, embrace it. I’ll sit here with my popcorn routing for you.

Was the story predictable? Yes. I didn’t feel that bothered by it though. I understand that they didn’t want to surpass or reveal anything that the manga has or anything that hasn’t been explored yet. This was made in a way that you wouldn’t feel really lost if you didn’t watch this and just continued with the manga. It was more of a side story. Plus, as a person who is constantly anxious, predictability is great. Don’t judge me.

The pacing was a little bit fast, but as an anime movie, it would be a bit crazy to have any expectations. Just be glad it wasn’t a complete recap. I think this movie would’ve benefited from being an OVA instead of just a movie, but that would’ve changed so many things in production. I will take what I can get.

I won’t get into the details of everything that was predictable. That would take too long, but the little things like the pill that Dazai took, why Ranpo put the snacks into a safe, the abilities attacking, how that would all work, everyone surviving (because as I said, this movie would not interfere with the major overarching story), etc. Also, I think we all know that Dazai and Ranpo know everything that’s going to happen. There’s no way that they can lose, and not for a single second did they convince me that the agency or anyone was in a pinch. The entire time felt as if it was under their control. In that sense, it almost belittled the villains slightly. Fyodor probably knew that and backed off to make another more prominent appearance later. Shibusawa was disappointing. For a villain that is so hyped and with an ability so outstanding, he was one of the biggest letdowns about the movie. The dragon was also disappointing just because I feel like it was meant to represent the “Tiger vs Dragon” cliche, but I was not too hyped about that. Just everything about Shibusawa and his actions I felt were not as well thought out as I wanted them to be. I knew that the “good side” was going to win, but his final form looked kind of like a joke (comparing to their usual high-quality character designs), and he didn’t put up as much of a fight as I thought they would have. The other ADA members barely make any appearances until the end, and I feel like they missed an opportunity with that. I understand that they were pressed for time though so I will let that slide... (begrudgingly)

I was pleased with the music and animation. Studio Bones did a pretty good job. The music did a wonderful job complimenting the visuals, and my attention was captured by the changes of tone and texture (if I can use that word) of the music. I was really surprised by the sophistication. I mean, it wasn’t the best anime music OST by any means, but it was good enough to suffice. Nothing extremely extraordinary. But GRANRODEO made a great inserted song that was placed in some reused visuals (too bad they didn’t animate all the visuals new) and some new visuals (mostly just the characters with a caption to describe their abilities) was good for hyping the audience. It was well-written and perfectly set the mood up for epicness. The ending by Luck Life was to be expected, and I loved it. I all the BSD endings, so the fact that they got back into it with a nice song addition to this movie was amazing. They reused the second OP during the final fight. I’ll be honest, they didn’t do as great of a job with this, but that was for one reason: the sound mixing made everything else drown out the song. I understand that everyone has probably heard the song beforehand, but I wish there was more balance.

Now onto voice acting... Bungou Stray Dogs has a great cast. None of the cast is really “newcomers” except for Atsushi’s seiyuu Uemura Yuuto whose role was one of his first major ones. I believe he was a student beforehand though. I think he’s getting a lot more roles now. 

I think I’ve finally gotten used to Kensho Ono playing Akutagawa. At first, I didn’t think he would fit the role too well. I thought they just did it to put in a big name, but I don’t mind it now. He does bring a certain tone to the character that is unique to him. 

Fyodor was a mixed choice for me in terms of how I liked it. I know that Akira Ishida is definitely not new. He has so many roles under his name that range in character type and personality, but I almost felt as if they could’ve done better. I would’ve appreciated it if they opened the cast to more new voice actors. Maybe this role would be too big for someone who is new, but as much as Ishida’s portrayal wasn’t bad by any means, I would’ve been open to other interpretations of the complex and witty character.  The reason why I think Akira Ishida fit (despite him being Katsura in Gintama) is because he still brought the tone of the character to life. He still had the charisma of the character. He was good; he just wasn’t great.

Now for the choice of Shibusawa... I wasn’t really pleased. Kazuya Nakai is definitely talented as a voice actor, but his voice just didn’t resonate with me well. Shibusawa was disappointing for me as a character. I expected him to be more sophisticated, but that voice just didn’t do it. It’s one thing for the writing, but I know Nakai for voicing quirkier thugs and goofy samurai (just look at him in Gintama. You’ll get what I mean). Alternatives for this role? I wouldn’t know who would fit. Here are some alternatives off the top of my head: Satoshi Hino, Morikawa Toshiyuki, Hikaru Midorikawa, Tomokazu Seki, Nakata Jouji, Shinichiro Miki, etc. These are all veterans who I know have the range for this. 

Character development in this movie wasn’t bad, but be sure that you have the popular opinion because if you don’t like Atsushi, Kyouka, Akutagawa, or Chuuya, sorry, but you can just sit your butthurt baggage over on the side. I know. It sucks, but they only had so much time. I already said that they would’ve done better with an OVA for the proper development and pacing, but just be glad that we got this for now. BSD doesn’t do the best job with their side characters, but that’s a rant for another time. 

Atsushi was a little bit annoying in this film. He was constantly having to get himself together, and I felt like Kyouka was carrying him along half the time. I didn’t entirely mind this though because Kyouka is my favourite, and her strength and resilience was nice for me to watch. But Atsushi really came through (a little rushed) at the end. His backstory was a little shallow. I expected more out of it. I understand that they had limited time, but I felt as if they have a gold mine of development there. They had so much potential and the timing was perfect. They just decided not to really touch it.

Dazai got enough screen time. Was he the main character? Not really. But let’s be real, Dazai gets more than enough the rest of the time. You knew that he was pulling strings the entire time anyway. The Oda recap was really sweet though. That moment where they shared a flashback conversation was beautifully done and stood out to me. They didn’t beat it to death either. Nicely done.

Chuuya. Not going to lie, he’s a little overrated by the fandom, but he adds a good amount of vulgarity to add to the comedic factor. I’m not sure how I feel about him having such a big impact everywhere. I wanted to see some of the others. But I don’t hate him. He relies on Dazai a bit much for my liking, and he did play a major role in the final fight which I still have a mixed opinion about. His voice acting at that point in the final fight was not living up to expectations, but Kishou Taniyama provided that amazing opening, so he gets a pass automatically.

Akutagawa got quite a bit of screen time, but I felt like they didn’t develop him with any of it. We didn’t get to see any more depth than we already had. We didn’t learn anything about him. We were just shown same old Akutagawa. I didn’t mind it. He was epic. He did provide enjoyment.

Kyouka. This made me so happy. I saw a newer side of her that I already knew existed. She was such a badass that I couldn’t complain. I would’ve loved to see more about her and her backstory. We saw a brief visual of her mother. That was about it. The manga explores her past a little more, but I thought the movie would’ve touched on that a bit more from what I saw in the trailer. I am still extremely happy with her appearance in the movie. It was one of the most enjoyable things for me because she is my favourite character.

Fyodor got screen time. Not much. His presence was slightly brought to the side. You could tell that he was held off for later though. I think he’s going to be more involved in the manga, so let’s give this one a pass too.

I’m not going to talk about anyone else because there isn’t much to talk about when it comes to anyone else. They all stayed pretty much the same. I don’t think we expected anything though. This is kind of just a side story after all.

Did I enjoy this movie? Absolutely. Of course. I enjoyed it. There’s no doubt about that. I would push aside problems with the movie in a heartbeat. Those cute Atsushi x Kyouka moments are enough to keep me going for weeks. Kyouka getting screen time made me so happy.

NOW TIME FOR THE LINKS!

Music:

Want to listen to the BSD Dead Apple OST? https://bsd-bibliophile.tumblr.com/search/music You’ll most likely be able to find it here! The OST is nice to listen to. I highly recommend listening to it and following this account (you probably do already though)

For additional music recommendations, I highly suggest you check out the artists connected to this movie including: - GRANRODEO - Luck Life - Taku Iwasaki (the score writer) Iwasaki is known for a lot of other anime as well. He’s really talented!

Studio Bones (animation):

Want to know what other anime Studio Bones has done? Check out this video: https://youtu.be/Y1-i1sbDNLQ Noragami, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, My Hero Academia? These people are top-tier animators.

Seiyuu Recommendations for Shibusawa:

Curious about why I thought of these names? Here are some compilations of their other roles: - Satoshi Hino: https://youtu.be/B5gVmf0zwus - Morikawa Toshiyuki: https://youtu.be/INiLyrlRCmY - Hikaru Midorikawa: https://youtu.be/EAU4Fu49Yz0 - Tomokazu Seki: https://youtu.be/8iN0f7bHy0Y - Nakata Jouji: https://youtu.be/YAMJqU_3480 - Shinichiro Miki: https://youtu.be/yteyBKbVRIc These might not fit since this about personal preference, but it is food for thought!

Shibusawa’s seiyuu (Nakai Kazuya) other roles: https://youtu.be/7GV5vYhLMAw And if you’re curious, this is what I heard when I saw Shibusawa: https://youtu.be/7GV5vYhLMAw https://youtu.be/6x7_1GJ3F8w (He’s the guy with the black hair) ^ His role in Gintama is iconic, and I find a lot of these scenes funny.

Miscellaneous Videos:

This is a hodgepodge playlist of BSD-related content. You have the crack videos and hand-animated content and parodies, the seiyuu songs, their other roles, and some anime snippets. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGH6abWmUXgPnoHTOHyeeXyG6s_WINyzB

Shameless Self-Promo!

Tumblr: https://nsisbest385.tumblr.com (main) https://natsspammityspamspamham.tumblr.com (...spam if you didn’t sense that)

YouTube: BSD-Inspired music: https://youtu.be/sfnN6eqUfEs Reason Living (Cover): https://youtu.be/-rlSxB6CZrE Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRETNNIpCqiarbeuJoGrjBA

[lookslikerainydays]

Can you do 51 for soukoku please?

51. “I see the way you look at me when you think I’m not looking.”

send me a number and a ship.

“Yuu seemedslightly unwell. I told him to rest today and to take a muffler if they’replaying outside again. I hope he won’t get sick though, I don’t need any sickkids right now on top of all the work I’ve got to finish—are you evenlistening?”

“Yeah, yeah.Sick kids, very sad.”

“Dazai.”

“Hmm?”

“Are youjealous?”

Dazai scoffsand immediately averts his gaze as he turns to face Odasaku, “What are youtalking about?”

“I’m talkingabout the way you look ready to murder that guy talking to Chuuya.” Odasaku’ssmirk has Dazai sighing.

“That’s whatyou got wrong. He’s not talking to him, he’s flirting and yet Chuuya can’t evennotice it.”

Odasaku looksback at Chuuya and his subordinate talking and hums, “He’s just being friendly.I wouldn’t say flirting.”

“Too friendly.”Dazai adds and it has Odasaku glancing back at him.

“Too jealous?”Dazai sighs at Odasaku’s word and shakes his head and Odasaku shrugs, “There’snothing wrong with being jealous when someone starts flirting with the personyou love. But Chuuya loves you, he wouldn’t do anything with anyone. Plus, ifthat guy knew about you two, he wouldn’t even think about flirting with Chuuya.Flirting with Chuuya means getting killed by you—”

Odasaku’sinterrupted by Chuuya’s chuckles and the other man smiling brightly at whathe’s accomplished. Chuuya’s smile lingers as the man continues speaking andDazai glares at the way the man seems to be closer now to Chuuya and how canChuuya be oblivious to all of this?

“If you’regoing to stare at him like that, isn’t it better if you go and talk to Chuuyaor something so he can finally be away from the guy and you’ll stop beingjealous?”

Dazai tsks atOdasaku’s suggestion, “I’m not jealous.”

Odasaku keepshis gaze fixed on Dazai and Dazai remains quiet but he knows it won’t last forlong. He knows him too well and he knows Odasaku has his way and won’t relentuntil Dazai says it out loud. And Dazai can’t stop himself from revealing it; afterall Odasaku’s the only one with an answer to all his questions.

“Just a little.”Dazai admits quietly and Odasaku hums, “It’s only because Chuuya and I aretogether and this guy is flirting with him.” Dazai bites his tongue fromblurring out even more, not ready to reveal everything all at once and Odasakudefinitely senses it with the way he nods his head quietly.

He’ll probablyblurt it out another day anyway.

~~

“I told himlast night he’s too friendly to everyone and someone might get the wrong idea andhe told me I only feel like that because I’m an asshole.”

“Such sweetyoung love.” Odasaku takes a sip of his drink and Dazai swirls his glassgently.

“That guy wasflirting with him again today. I ended up interrupting that before it got toomuch.” Dazai explains and Odasaku places his glass down.

“How did thatgo?”

Dazai takes asip and place his glass down, “I told him something about his hat and we werearguing like usual. The guy just stared for a while before realising I’ve gotChuuya’s attention and left.”

“That’s good.He left and you didn’t kill him.”

“How’s that good?Killing him would have been better.” Dazai pauses before mumbling, “Plus, heleft probably thinking he’ll come back another time.”

Odasaku glancesat him from the corner of his eyes and Dazai meets his eyes briefly beforelooking down at his glass. He knows there’s more for him to say but Dazai can’tseem to blurt it out just yet. He clears his throat and decides to change thesubject all together.

“How’s Yuutoday?”

Odasaku perksup at the mention of Yuu but has a small smile on display, “Last night he’dbeen fine. Except today morning he threw up all over me and he hates hismedications and I’m not there all the time with them, so I have no idea if he’staking them or not.”

“Will you go checkon him now?” Dazai asks and Odasaku shakes his head.

“No, it’s toolate he’s probably asleep now. I’ll drop by sometime tomorrow.” Odasakuexplains and Dazai nods his head.

“Maybe I’ll come along too.”

~~

“I still don’tunderstand why you want to come along.”

“I haven’t seenthem in a while.”

Dazai followsOdasaku’s steps as they make their way to his kids’ room and they stop by theroom where the distinct sound of tiny high-pitched voices arguing can be heard.Odasaku takes in a deep breath, seemingly preparing himself for what awaits himahead, before opening the door. The kids quiet down for a second when the dooris pushed open and their eyes fall on Odasaku and Dazai.

“Alright,what’s going on? Who’s arguing with who?” Odasaku asks quietly and carefullyand Sakura’s eyes widen.

“He hid mydoll!” Sakura points out towards Katsumi and Katsumi shakes his head.

“I didn’t hideyour doll! Why do you need a talking doll anyway? It’s too loud, it’s better we can’t find it!” Katsumiargues and Odasaku glances at him which has Katsumi sighing, “I don’t like thatdoll!”

A tiny figuremakes his way towards Odasaku and Dazai recognises him as Yuu. He pulls onOdasaku’s hand gently and Dazai notices how quiet the boy seems to be today. Odasakuruns a hand through his hair, “Hey, how are you feeling now?”

The boy shrugsbut doesn’t let go of Odasaku’s hand and Kousuke sighs loudly from where hestands next to Sakura, “Just bring her doll back, Katsumi. If you don’t thenshe’ll start crying and you know how annoying and noisy she gets when she cries.”

“I'm… noisy?”Sakura’s lips tremble before she starts bawling loudly and Odasaku sighs whenKatsumi points out it Kousuke’s fault that she’s crying and they start arguing.

Yuu pulls onOdasaku’s hand then and Odasaku looks down at him, “What is it—oh no, no. Notnow.”

Yuu throws upthe very same moment Shinji had stood in front of him and the next thing theyknow, Shinji is crying loudly as Katsumi and Kousuke continue arguing andSakura’s bawling hasn’t stopped since. Yuu’s sniffing slightly, seeming on theverge of tears as well, and Odasaku looks between the five of them, not knowingwhere to begin to fix this mess.

Somehow thischaotic moment seems so perfect for Dazai to pull on Odasaku’s other arm,“Odasaku.”

Odasaku’sprobably excepting Dazai offering help rather than adding a new problem withthe way he immediately turns to him, “Dazai, can you—”

“I’m jealous. Iadmit it, I get really jealous. That guy was back flirting with him again todaybecause if anything, it seems that Chuuya dislikes me and nobody would everbelieve we’re together. And I don’t care about that because everything is finebetween us. But is it really fine? Because Chuuya isn’t that dense. He knowsthat guy is flirting with him but he’s not doing anything about it. Does hereally like me, Odasaku? Maybe I like him more than he likes me? Maybe I’ve gotit all wrong and Chuuya doesn’t want anything serious with me?”

Odasaku’s eyeswiden at Dazai’s words as his kids’ crying and arguing echoes around the roomand he manages to nod his head idly at that, “Okay, you can’t help now. Youneed help too.”

“There’s achance if I don’t get help I’ll end up in the same state as your kids.” Dazaihasn’t let go of the end of the sleeve of Odasaku’s jacket just yet and Odasakudoesn’t do anything about it.

“How about Itake care of the kids first then you?” Odasaku asks carefully and Dazai nodshis head. Odasaku looks down at where Dazai’s still holding on to his jacketthen back at him, “Can you let go?”

“No.”

Odasaku staresquietly and sighs as he nods his head, “I understand. Just try to help me withthe kids, yeah?”

Once Yuu andShinji have been cleaned up and Katsumi and Kousuke have stopped arguing andSakura has gotten her doll back, Odasaku pulls Dazai downstairs with him.

“I wasexpecting you to admit this sometime soon, but didn’t really expect it to bethe moment the kids started crying.” Odasaku says once they’ve sat down andDazai shrugs not looking back at Odasaku just yet.

“Maybe theircrying is what made me admit it.” Dazai says with a slight chuckle, “They’rebetter at expressing themselves than me.”

“If you want tocry nobody is holding you back.” Odasaku has a grin on display and Dazai can’thelp it but laugh.

“That’s notwhat I meant.”

Silence lingersbetween them for a few seconds and Odasaku smiles gently before taking in asmall breath, “So?” Odasaku awaits Dazai until he’s looking back at him tocontinue talking, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

Odasaku nodshis head, “Alright, you said you’re jealous. You think Chuuya doesn’t careabout you?”

Dazai shakeshis head, “No. Chuuya cares way more than he’ll admit about me.”

“You thinkChuuya doesn’t like you?”

“He does. But,”Dazai sighs, “I don’t know. I don’t understand why he was fine with that guyflirting with him.”

“Maybe he’sjust too nice to let him down and that guy probably knows nothing would everhappen.” Odasaku glances aside and has a small smile on display, “I’ve seen youtwo together and how Chuuya is with you. He won’t be the sort to just allowsomeone to flirt with him when he’s with you. But I know you, even if Chuuyacompletely ignores the guy, you’ll still be jealous.”

“Chuuyaattracts lots of people.” Dazai mumbles and Odasaku glances at him with asmirk.

“That isn’t thereason why you get jealous.” Dazai looks back at Odasaku carefully, “You saidit yourself. For once you’re taking something seriously.”

Dazai bites hislips slightly as he lets the thought linger a bit and looks down.

“It’s Chuuyaafter all.”

~~

Chuuya’s quietnext to Dazai and Dazai wonders if he’s already fallen asleep. The lights areall out but it isn’t completely dark in the room with the gap between thewindow and the curtain dimly lighting up the room, hazy purple shadow castedacross the room.

Dazai remainslying on his back, staring at the ceiling blankly, as Odasaku’s words runthrough his mind. He’s taking this seriously; for once in his life takingsomething seriously and holding it close to his heart, but he can’t help butwonder if Chuuya is feeling the same. It’s understandable if Chuuya isn’t,after all it’s Dazai he’s dealing with and Chuuya’s one of the few that canfully understand Dazai and knows Dazai’s never taken anything seriously. Ifhe’s doubting this relationship, Dazai fully understands and has no one toblame but himself.

And he shouldbe patient and let Chuuya figure out everything by himself, yet Dazai’s findinghimself in need of some reassurance that Chuuya does indeed love him with howhe’s witnessed that guy twice flirting with Chuuya in these last three days asthey’ve worked together and something about Chuuya’s reaction has sprouted thisjealousy in him.

Dazai turns hishead aside and stares at Chuuya’s back and whispers in the quiet room, “Chuuya.”

“What?” Judgingby the way Chuuya had immediately replied, Dazai can tell he’d still beenawake.

Dazai doesn’treply and instead turns to lie on his side. He stares at the back of Chuuya’shead and reaches his hand to comb his fingers gently through his hair but stopshimself.

“Chuuya.” Dazairepeats and it has Chuuya letting out a small breath.

“Dazai, what doyou want?”

Dazai smiles ashe scoots closer to Chuuya and this time runs his hand through Chuuya’s hair, “Nothing,just wanted to know if you’re awake.”

And if youlove me.

Dazai doesn’tmention it though and he can feel the jealousy starting to settle in the pit ofhis stomach again at the thought of someone else being in his place and playingwith Chuuya’s hair like this. The thought doesn’t sit well with Dazai and hefinds himself swallowing the sudden lump in his throat and silently pleadingChuuya to just say or do anything to give him the reassurance he needs.

“Why?” Chuuyaasks and Dazai can hear it in his voice how tired he is.

“What do youmean?” Dazai scoots closer and drops an arm around Chuuya’s middle, pulling himslightly closer so that Chuuya’s back is against his chest.

“You wanted toknow why I’m awake because you have something to say.” Chuuya answers and Dazaichuckles.

“I don’t.”

Chuuya tsks, “Liar.”

“How cruel, Chuuya.”Dazai purposely drawls out Chuuya’s name, hoping Chuuya isn’t tired enough tonot argue with him and then have him in some way or another just give Dazai thereassurance he needs.

Chuuya sighsand turns around slightly, not completely but enough to look back at Dazai.Chuuya’s eyes are tired and Dazai knows had he not spoken earlier, Chuuya wouldhave been asleep by now.

Chuuya smiles, “Isee the way you look at me when you think I’m not looking.”

Dazai blinkshis eyes slowly, “What?”

“You think I’mdense enough not to notice those guys were flirting with me?” Chuuya chucklesslightly and grins, “And you think I’m dense enough not to notice the way youwere looking at me every single time?”

Dazai stares athim blankly, allowing Chuuya’s words to sink in, “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talkingabout you being jealous.” Chuuya says and finally turns round completely beforehe smirks as he adds, “You looked like you wanted to kill that guy. You love methat much?”

Dazai chuckles.

Of courseChuuya noticed, of course Chuuya reacted that way, he knew Dazai had noticedand had only wanted to see Dazai’s reaction all along.

It’s somehowthe reassurance he needed but he’s still Dazai and he won’t just admit it, “Idon’t get jealous. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, okay.”Chuuya says lightly, unconvinced by Dazai’s words.

Dazai’s stillgot an arm around Chuuya, rubbing his hand inattentively against his back, andChuuya stares quietly for a moment at him before adding, “He came again todayafter you left.”

Dazai’s eyeswiden and Chuuya’s smirk is enough an indication for him to know Chuuya cansense his jealousy already. Dazai keeps his voice calm as he speaks, “He did?”

“It’s such ashame you weren’t there. You looked like you were ready to kill him that timewhen he’d been speaking to me. And I kept on thinking if that was yourreaction that time, then what would have your reaction been if you’d seen himhugging me today.”

Dazai’s hold against Chuuya’sback tightens, finding himself pulling Chuuya slightly closer possessively, andChuuya continues smirking, amused by Dazai’s reaction and Dazai can only mumbleout, “He hugged you?”

“I thought youdon’t get jealous?” Chuuya asks instead.

“He hugged you?”Dazai repeats and Chuuya chuckles.

“No, he didn’t.I didn’t see him after that time. I just made that up so please don’t go andkill him.” Chuuya smirks, “So? Will you finally admit you get jealous?”

Dazai sighs, “Whydo you have to attract so many people?”

“It shouldn’tmatter. I don’t love any of them.” Chuuya mumbles as he rubs his eyes tiredlyand Dazai can’t help it but smile at that thought.

There’sonly one person Chuuya loves.

Chuuya noticeshis smile, knowing Dazai’s thoughts wordlessly, and he has a similar smilebefore he pecks Dazai’s lips, enough an indication for Dazai and just saying ofcourse it’s you.

“Go to sleep.”Chuuya says quietly and Dazai nods his head.

They remainbathed in silence for a few moments and Dazai’s certain Chuuya’s on the vergeof sleep yet he can’t stop himself from mumbling, “He really didn’t hug you?”

He’s met with aloud whine and Chuuya mumbling, “I’m not going to get any sleep, am I?”

ao3 link

[leio13]

I Was Tagged (Twice)! It’s Miracle!

Thanks @catsbythegreat and @fraink5!

Rules:

1. Post the rules

2. Answer the questions given to you by the tagger (in this case 22)

3. Write 11 questions of your own

4. And tag 11 people

Catsby’s 11 Questions:

1. Do you want any pets in the future? What kind? 

PLEASE. YES. ANYTHING FLUFFY THAT I CAN PET AND CUDDLE. PREFERABLY CATS, BUT I’M GETTING DESPERATE.

2. What would you consider one of your hobbies?

My hobbies include procrastinating, getting addicted to games that involve some kind of collecting of sorts (like LLSIF, FEH, etc.), procrastinating, writing garbage, crying over my life, procrastinating, sleeping when I should be working, uh… that’s about it, I think.

3. What kind of music do you listen to?

Japanese music mainly.  

4. How do you feel about milk? 

CHOCOLATE MILK IS MY LIFE. 100000/10. Drinking it right now. Whole milk is pretty lit too.

5. If you could go to any country that you’ve never been to, which one would you go to?

Japan!

6. Do you like the ocean? 

The ocean looks nice…? That’s about it. I’m not stepping in there. I am not risking stepping in seaweed, on crabs, on sharp rocks and sea shells, getting eaten by sharks… 

7. Do you prefer sweet things or savory things? 

Sweet things, I think. I don’t think about it too much. I just kind of like what I like (which isn’t a lot of things).

8. What is the best food your family makes? 

Only one? Cheesecake.

9. What’s your favorite season? 

Winter! I love snow!

10. What is your favorite city in the country you live in? 

New York City! I haven’t really been to many…

11. What’s your favorite kind of weather? 

Warm but with a coolish breeze where the sun is shining, and the grass looks the brightest it’s ever been, and you just want to run and jump and spin like Maria in the beginning of the sound of music.

Now Mina’s 11 questions:

1. What is the greatest unsolved mystery in your life?

uh… I don’t know. Maybe that one time every one of my siblings and I had a dream that ended in some one shouting “we’re all stupid!” Still not entirely sure what that was about…

2. What’s the funniest thing you’ve seen today?

What did I even do today…? uh… maybe that post I just reblogged about Fullmetal Alchemist…

3. If you casually adopted one anime character’s wardrobe, whose would it be?

Kirigiri or Yosano because I want to look as cool as these two butt-kicking ladies.

Also, I think Q looks really adorable, so if I ever felt like dressing like a little preppy boy, that would be the way to go for me.

4. On a scale from HATE to would-bite-into-like-a-fruit, how do you feel about bell peppers?

I like bell peppers, but you will never catch me biting into one of them like an apple. Have you seen the insides of those things? eww… nah, man. My peppers gotta be hollow and minced.

5. Do you play (or have considered playing) FGO?

Hell yeah, I do! 

6. What is the rarest pair you have ever shipped?

I don’t really ship rare pairs… In order for me to ship something, it has to be smothered in cheesy shoujo manga romance tropes… that or apparently lots of pixiv art can do it for me soukoku. so yeah…

7. How do you feel about sick fics?

👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀 good shit go౦ԁ sHit👌 thats ✔ some good👌👌shit right👌👌there👌👌👌 right✔there ✔✔if i do ƽaү so my self 💯 i say so 💯 thats what im talking about right there right there (chorus: ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ) mMMMMᎷМ💯 👌👌 👌НO0ОଠOOOOOОଠଠOoooᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ👌 👌👌 👌 💯 👌 👀 👀 👀 👌👌Good shit 

8. What is something you reference excessively?

Shrek. 

Also, “alone at last”

9. Saddest moment in any media (book, movie, anime, etc) you have consumed?

Dark Era… When everything changes in Minagoroshi-hen… Iskandar (bless his heart) vs Gilgamesh (screw him)… the end of Assassination Classroom… drowns in tears

10. Best/worst one-liner from a movie?

Do I have to choose? There are so many good quotes. I for some reason can’t stop thinking of christmas movies, so… “Grace? She died years ago.” A true classic any time of the year.

11. What would you make the last question to this questionnaire be?

Do you know Oyashiro-sama?

My questions

1. Do you know oyashiro-sama?

2. Do you like york peppermint patties?

3. What’s your favorite joke?

4. What would a combination of your favorite and least favorite tropes be like/

5. What’s the rom-com-harem-light-novel title of your life?

6. On a similar note, pick 5 members of your harem

7. What is your favorite meme?

8. What character unexpectedly grew on you? Why?

9. What would you do if you had the powers of Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo?

10. Now what if your hero partner had Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo’s powers; what power would you have in order to complete their ability?

11. On a scale of 1 to how-high-are-you-Rika?, how would you rate these questions? (By the way, I’m not high)

I’m going to tag @hatterchan, @gureshin-trash, @leroleero (why won’t the tag work???), @vettiecakes, @soragakitakato, @naoamaya, @xxene, @this-is-gospel-for-us, @somanyguys, @wanderesslluna, and @daniellelyle! If you don’t want to answer my weird questions, don’t feel pressured to do so! If you do want to answer my weird questions but were not tagged, I tag you now!

[die-with-me-dazai]

Other things I'm sad were changed/didn't make it into the anime

Kunikida remembering the exact day Katai locked himself in the office

It's small but I really liked Atsushi's original wording of "It's no wonder Dazai-san threw you away and left." I feel like it hits a lot harder and cuts a lot deeper than "Of course Dazai-san would leave you and vanish on you." Manga Atsushi really did not hold back and I feel like the original wording not only seemed to hint at placing more blame on Akutagawa but also more heavily implied that Dazai completely and entirely gave up on Akutagawa which, obviously, would be devastating for him as the reason he fights so hard is for Dazai's approval

On that same note I don't like how they took out the part about the switch going off in someones head being the "sound of 'change'". Again it's just a small thing but I really liked how it implied Akutagawa acknowledged that flaw after being called out and we may start seeing him trying to get better about it. In addition to that I liked how manga Aku responded with "Is that so..." rather than out right saying Atsushi was right. It stuck with the theme, again seeming to imply more of a new perspective for him that he's still trying to wrap his head around rather than him seeming to already be aware of this or just generally accept it so quickly. Idk overall me the scene just wasn't as powerful in the anime as it was in the manga

On a lighter note

I'm more upset than I should be that we didn't get Atsushi calling Akutagawa a lawnmower

Also Atsushi coming in with that same "threw you away" insult KNOWING it hits him hard reinforcing just how important that previous scene could've been

"Tiger skin carpet" God I wanted to hear that threat so bad

Atsushi mockingly calling him "hellhound" (also why did they bother changing that to the generic term beast? Hellhound sounds so much better and so many jokes could've been made off that)

And most importantly one of the Shin Soukoku shippers' favorite lines "After this war, I'm going to teach you things other than 'killing!'" I can't even tell you how much emphasis I saw put on that line when this chapter was released (ofc, I was one of the fans obsessing over it) so the fact they cut it entirely? Super disappointing. To be fair it does sound a little shippy to imply they would do anything together outside of what they're forced to and it did seem a little out of the blue that Atsushi would so aggressively threaten to... teach Akutagawa how to chill...? But at the same time it was a nice concept I guess

"Dazai-san's most trusted subordinate" *cuts to Dazai telling Atsushi dumb pun dad jokes*

I know there wasn't really a good way to fit this into the anime and it doesn't translate well anyway but it's a gem from the manga that would've had me dying if I'd seen it in the anime

I may update with more minor things later but feel free to add more. I still love studio bones and their adaptation is still phenomenal but I just can't help but feel like a few minor things were lost in the transition

Cannibalism Part 3 was absolutely amazing to finally see animated but I have to say I’m really sad they slightly changed this part as I was looking forward to seeing Atsushi reach out as if he’s actually about to try to comfort Akutagawa

I know we find out in the next panel that that’s not the case but the momentary implication is just a super cute shin soukoku moment

It’s not really a big deal and the scene flowed better the way they did it in/for the anime, I just wanted to throw this out there since it was definitely one of my favorite parts in the manga

[graevite-blog]

( and then there were none )

ship: technically soukoku but pretty one-sided at this point snickers--

warnings: death, suicide, blood and stuff. nothing happy here, folks! ... no, seriously. 

words: 1,272

in response to THIS because i'm such a nice onee-sama i can’t possibly accept such lovely gifts without giving something in return!! (L) @controliisms​

waking up after using corruption is always fucking terrible.

it hasn't happened in a long time now - since dazai is too busy being leader to go on missions with chuuya and chuuya is plenty strong on his own without needing to rely on that dark power anyway - but the feeling of his broken bones and very bloodied clothing is unpleasantly familiar even so.

even just tilting his chin down slightly sends pain pulsing through his head, but he still smiles to himself when he sees a mess of brown hair laying on his chest.

it's hard to speak, and he coughs up blood at first, but one arm raises despite the pain to drop a hand in dazai's hair. "hey..." he wants to say 'thanks', but he's sure Dazai already knows how grateful he is, and talking hurts.

he closes his eyes and lays back again, waiting for dazai to move, to sit up and kiss him or something, probably relieved that he'd stopped chuuya in time--

wait.

they hadn't been out together.

chuuya wouldn't have activated corruption if dazai wasn't with him. why had he used it? his head is pounding from the blood loss and the use of corruption making him weak, but he forces himself to think back.

he'd been... on a mission for the past few days. and they'd discovered--

that drug. that drug with the effect of forcing one to activate one's abilities. and chuuya had been drinking with his subordinates - just one drink before he'd gone home.

just one. he'd been careless.

he sighs quietly to himself, reprimanding himself for being so careless. at least dazai isn't chewing him out, though he'd have the right to do so.

eventually, chuuya wonders if dazai actually fell asleep or something, since he still hasn't moved. or maybe he's mad at chuuya and is just hiding his face? hm. slowly, carefully, chuuya drags himself into sitting up, hand supporting dazai's head even as it sends pain lancing down his arm. corruption had probably broken bones, but at least it doesn't seem to have done anything fatal.

he strokes his fingers almost absentmindedly through dazai's hair. he must be asleep after all. there's blood everywhere, but that's not surprising - chuuya can taste it and feel it running down his cheeks and face.

it takes another few moments before chuuya can speak again. "... hey, dazai, we should get going."

no response - dazai must be exhausted. he probably wasn't sleeping again, since chuuya had been gone. seriously... chuuya will have to give him another lecture when they're both feeling better. for not the first time, he wishes his ability worked on dazai, because it'd be a lot easier to float them both back, but he supposes he'll just have to break his own rule and wake dazai up this time.

so he shoves dazai back a little, shifts him to see his face, and hesitates there. ah, he really looks peaceful... it'd really be a shame to wake him... but it can't be helped. chuuya's in no state to walk, let alone carry anyone. so he brushes a thumb along dazai's cheek, stroking the skin affectionately. "i'm sorry, love, i know you're tired, but i really can't carry you right now."

no response.

( to be honest, some part of him has already realized that something is very wrong. )

chuuya pinches the skin beneath his fingers - something that never fails to make dazai whine and pout at him, huffing even as he stirs.

again, no response.

dazai must really be exhausted! there's blood on his clothes, too, now that chuuya looks more carefully - had someone hurt him? they'd have to pay for that. then again, chuuya's already killed everyone else in the area, as far as he can see, so perhaps he's already taken care of it.

only when he rolls dazai over and sees the knife - chuuya's own - buried hilt-deep and twisted in dazai's gut does his brain force itself to acknowledge what it had been so desperately pretending isn't true.

the blood on the ground isn't chuuya's, it's dazai's. dazai's not refusing to wake up because he's exhausted, it's because he's-- and chuuya's knife-- corruption must have--

he pulls the knife out of dazai without conscious thought. dazai had realized the danger from the mission report. he'd come out here to make sure chuuya was alright, and since he wasn't, came to stop him. came to save him, despite the danger.

and he'd gotten a knife in the gut for it.

there are tears streaming down chuuya's face long before he processes them. maybe they've been there since he sat up and saw the unnatural way dazai's body had slumped - yet another thing chuuya's brain had refused to acknowledge at the time.

he's choking on a terrible mixture of sobs and blood, and crying is still such an unfamiliar thing, grief choking his every laboured breath. dazai... had chosen to approach despite knowing that he might die. he'd valued chuuya's life over his own.

he'd surely want chuuya to live.

the mafia will need a new leader, and as dazai's right-hand man ( and murderer-- ) it will be expected that chuuya takes his place. even now, he can hear people approaching in the distance - presumably mafia members who had wondered where dazai had gone by himself and came to find him. chuuya should lead them, should tell them what happened and what he knows and give them a plan of attack to destroy whatever remains of this group. it's their fault, after all - if chuuya hadn't been drugged, if he hadn't been forced to activate corruption, if he hadn't--

then dazai would still be here.

but he's not.

and it's a shame that dazai valued chuuya's life over his own, because chuuya had never felt the same. he's not fit to be the boss. he'd let his anger and grief cloud his judgement.

he's always been too emotional.

"i'm sorry..." the words are useless. dazai can't hear them, and they don't change anything. it's the only thing chuuya can manage around his choked, bloody sobs. "I'm so sorry... i love you, i'm sorry, i'm sorry..."

chuuya had always known he'd die young; he just hadn't expected it to be suicide.

his knife finds its new home inside chuuya's own chest. it barely even hurts, piercing his own heart, and chuuya doesn't know if it's because of shock or just how tired his body already is. he doesn't care, either, just turns his head away from dazai to cough up more blood, then moves to lay down alongside him, body's aches forgotten.

they don't matter now anyway.

he knows this wouldn't make dazai happy. if there's any sort of afterlife ( which chuuya has never believed in, but almost hopes there is, now, even if only so he can have a chance to see even a glimpse of dazai again ), he knows dazai would be screaming at him from it. this is the exact opposite of why dazai had sacrificed himself. dazai had died so that chuuya could live, had made the ultimate sacrifice out of love. 

logically, he knows he should do his best to live on and honour dazai's memory and sacrifice.

but chuuya's always been emotional.

dazai has never asked too much of him before, but the thought of living without him... of waking up every day without dazai by his side, of having to lead the entire mafia and stay strong and live in their room and remember everything and continue living--

dazai has never asked too much of him before.

seems there really is a first time for everything.

[ol-razzle-dazazzle]

soukoku prompt: agency!soukoku AU where Dazai makes a deal to save Chuuya's life but in exchange he would lose all of his memories of Chuuya

Okay well this was really interesting to work with- if you want to know more about the ability user see Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann (honestly how Dazai saw Chuuya took a lot of inspiration from Koishi Komeiji from touhou so if you wanna look into that she’s a really interesting character would recommend)

 The details of this AU is that Hartmann works with Fyodor, and can manipulate the subconscious, Soukoku was originally with the Mafia but after Oda the two ran away together with the Agency, and mainly do the ‘leg-breaking’ jobs, which puts them in a morally gray but still with the good guys standpoint. Whether or not Atsushi, Kyoka and the others are there is irrelevant to this story, but Ranpo, Kunikida, Yosano and Fukuzawa are there by manner of timeline, but the only one who’s mentioned is Fukuzawa.

Without further ado, here is ‘You forget the gravity of the situation’.

“You’re not leaving.” Mori smiled at Dazai, looking directly into his now-healed eyes. “What you think you can forget it and leave it all behind, just because of him? Please tell me you aren’t serious.” Polite intimidation oozed from Mori’s voice. 

“People change.” Dazai smiled back, “People die, people fade, people come into lives. Think of it not as an end, but rather…”

“A beginning?” Mori stifled his laughter, the sharp glint of a scale rushed at Dazai’s head, which was thankfully dodged.

“Don’t worry, I know you won’t leave because you can’t. No one can forget.”

“Don’t leave, Dazai.” Was the last sentence the mafia executive heard. The door was open, freedom awaiting, the rays of streetlights slipping through. But a terrible obstacle was behind him.

Chuuya glared at him, and Dazai hopelessly offered a sad smile. 

“Don’t leave without me.” Was the first sentence two free men heard.

They were partners after all. They would follow each other to hell, heaven or purgatory.

And that’s how it was. With Ango’s help, they managed to get into the Agency. All was well, considering. Chuuya and Dazai couldn’t exactly go around ‘painting the town red’ (with blood) but it was a living. Due to their known nature they mainly were dispatched on simple jobs that would require normally risking their lives, but those were always the best (and most justifiable if they went a bit too far)

Until now.

It was meant to be a simple infiltration. Only one anemic man to kill, and by hell’s sake did they need to kill him. Fukuzawa himself ordered no holding back, kill any guards in sight. 

But there were none. 

“Hmm, maybe the President just wanted us to have some alone time together.” Dazai muses, threading his finger’s through Chuuya’s hand. 

“…It’s a trap, I can feel it.” Chuuya felt on edge.

“Well of course it is, it wouldn’t be infiltration otherwise.” Dazai leans down pressing his lips against Chuuya’s. “And even if it is, we can manage.”

Chuuya felt himself lean into Dazai’s affections, but felt his eyes fervently search the room. Aside from cameras, there was nothing else but empty halls, and the occasional squeak of a rat. No guards, which ironically enough, made them put their guard up even more.

“Chuuya.” Dazai’s call echoed through the other’s mind, as well as the walls. “We’ve been through worse, and we can handle this.” Chuuya’s grip tightened, sighing. 

“I know.” The door looms before them, and Chuuya swipes his hand away, turning the door.

Fyodor smiled, looming over them. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” The word hung in the cold air of the room. Dazai stepped forward. No…wait…why was there only one noi-

Dazai whipped his head around, his eyes widening. “Run.” Chuuya was struggling trying to activate his ability but to no avail. A man held a knife against his neck, and Chuuya stopped moving. But it wasn’t just a reflex, no…it was something more. His expression flickered to fear, a blank-filled state. 

Fyodor hums in thought, “Isn’t he a lovely man? My most welcome addition for now, a dear old friend… isn’t that right Hartmann?” The other man didn’t respond, as Fyodor gestured Dazai to sit down.

“For now?” Dazai raised an eyebrow, trying to keep calm, his voice trying not to tremble. Chuuya made no resistance, it was almost as if he wasn’t blinking or breathing, as if he wasn’t there. Dazai turned the chair to have eyes on both sides of the room. 

“You know, it’s pretty funny. I made up that I could manipulate the consciousness when I was kept prisoner and now…” Fyodor glances towards Hartmann.

“You really shouldn’t reveal your ally’s ability, Fyodor. I’m disappointed that you would make such an oversight for grandeur.” Dazai practically spits, trying to lose his eyes on Chuuya’s state.

“But it is necessary, after all- we need to make a deal.” Fyodor’s grin widened. Dazai fiddled with his bandages, untying the ones on his left hand, the gloves are off. Chuuya moved. “Grantors of dark disgrace…” Dazai smirked at Fyodor, but his expression evaporated upon seeing there was no change in Fyodor’s disposition. Do not wake me again… “Chuuya stop!”

Too late. Cackles filled the air, as Chuuya haphazardly unleashed brute force, missing shots, the walls crumbling around them. Blood splattered, but it was his own.

Hartmann stepped back, clicking his fingers. “You hate him for it, don’t you? That he’s had to seal you away, that you ran and left everything…” A soothing voice, so unsettling. Chuuya turned towards Dazai, a blank look on his face. He raised his hand, a black hole beckoning. 

“Don’t leave without me.” Dazai ran towards him, pain searing through his body, hugging Chuuya tightly. He glanced down, and saw red. It’s not working. Why isn’t it working? He’s going to die. 

Fyodor settled a hand on Dazai’s back, sending shivers up the other’s spine. No, if he was nullified he’d be dead by now. He wishes he was dead right now. Either by that or the black hole. A void would be nice right now. 

“Yokohama’s most dangerous duo…now wouldn’t you think that poses a threat?” Fyodor muses. “Because of your annoyance, I haven’t been able to get nearly as much done as I want to.” 

Corruption ran through Chuuya’s body, but his movement slowed, slowly consuming him. 

“Now, how about you forget?” 

“No matter what, you can’t forget.” Dazai responded through hissed teeth.

“Ah, I’m not talking about you leaving. You’ll get your wish, to leave together.” Fyodor smiles, as Hartmann grabs Chuuya, “He’s weak enough to manipulate the subconscious, isn’t he?” Fyodor asked, recieving a nod. “Perfect. But we’re forgiving so we’ll give you an option.”

“Let Chuuya die here alone, or forget him all together- that is, you will leave together, but you won’t remember him.” 

Fyodor glanced at the camera. “Your choice.”

Dazai got up, body quaking. His scarred hand touched Chuuya. 

“I’m not letting you leave without me.”

“Dazai.” An unknown voice beckoned him out of sleep. “Get up already you manic!”

Tousled hair rose from a bed, and a simple sentence that cut into their hearts more than anything else.

“Who are you?”

“You…you can’t be serious right?” Chuuya smiles nervously, setting a hand on Dazai’s own. “I’m your partner don’t give me that bullshit. I’m Chuuya, you can’t forget me- that had to be some intimidation bullshit from.” Dazai glanced down at his hands, freshly bandaged. He looked up, his expression back to normal.

“Who are you?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. No this…this doesn’t make any sense.”

“Why are you wearing a hat indoors?” No. Dazai would’ve insulted him. But this was Dazai, that’s for certain. He would’ve nullified the ability just by touching Chuuya. There’s no one else that could nullify…

No.

Chuuya left the room.

“How could you do this?!” A muffled yell was heard of a room nearby, and Dazai felt a pain in his chest. An emptiness. 

“You need to understand Chuuya that-” There was that name again. A name that felt familiar, yet so alien. A locked away memory, that would never be found.

“You nullified ours, you went along with him! Why, how could you do this to us?!” 

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Fukuzawa responded calmly. 

“What happened to ‘All men are Equal’? This is bullshit. Why-” The walls shuddered, a crack was made near a drawer in Dazai’s room. He could remember the President, so why not him?

“Because I never trusted you two.” And with that sentence, Dazai understood that crippling feeling. Loneliness. That there was no one there for him, no one alive that could understand him. That he was never meant to be with others. Left alone, forgotten.

Tears dappled the sheets. The door slammed open, and he felt a robotic warmth of an unseen-before man hugging him, a choked sob. “Please, don’t forget me. Don’t leave me. Dazai please-” Dazai’s eyes shut tight, clutching the other in his arms, his heart ached more.

His eyes opened, and despite the painful ache in his heart his mind was clean of the memories of the other person. They were crying, but he didn’t know why.

“I don’t know you.” 

[adaandportmafiaimagines]

ERROR [1/4]

[Dazai Osamu X Hacker!Reader]

[Slight!Chuuya X Hacker!Reader]

Inspired by the Vocaloid song [ERROR], originally sung by Lily but Ritsu Namine made it popular. The translation is found here.

(Read: LONG chapter(s) [first chapter alone is 7 pages] ahead under ‘read more’ and endgame is Dazai because I can’t get enough of him)

Description

“Chuuya, Dazai… I’ve got a pleasant surprise for you…” The flaming red haired directed the two children to a room, filled with flashing lights and blank screens, “meet the upcoming mastermind of Port Mafia’s technology system… at a young age, she already understood and hacked into thousands of Japan’s advanced systems…” The two children squinted their eyes, bust able to see an outline of a small figure, motionless, as the third child sat on the chair, “children… meet [Surname] [Name].”

Can you see it? The tears in my eye  I'm blurred by the colours of life  What did you leave me?  Ask me - I'll collapse

 “Mommy…” The five year old child quietly directed her question at the older image of herself

“Yes darling…?” The said mother of the child softly looked at her daughter with sorrowful orbs

“Why… are they burying daddy?”

This simple question, this innocent and naive question made the old woman’s eyes water. Transparent droplets of liquid escaped their homes and slid softly down rosy cheeks.

“M-mommy! Why are you crying? A-are they doing something bad to daddy?” The little child panicked, “daddy still has work to do tomorrow… what if he’s late because he can’t get out? Daddy promised me to buy me that bunny plushie for my birthday! B-but he can’t do that because-because-”

The mother engulfed her daughter in a hug. Her salty eyes escaping some more from her closed eyes. How could she tell her innocent child that her father was killed? How could she tell her that he could never wake up? She knew that their jobs in the mafia would be risky, but never had she thought that one of them could loose a life…

How fragile human lives are…

What a merciless world this is…

Around 8 years later…

 The flaming red haired woman led the two boys zigzagging through the Port Mafia’s headquarters. Her strong strides never loosing rhythm as she explained that to both celebrate the future of Port Mafia two executives (they both were developing fantastically), and they need more children around their age to bond with, she decided to introduce them to yet another future mastermind.

The three walked into a room without any source of light bulbs, if it was not for the flashing tiny dots on both monitors and system/base units, along with screens, the place would be thrown in total darkness.

Endless amount of wires, thick and thin, snaked around the floor, overlapping with one another, though non were tangled, these wires were plugged into dozens of base units, almost as tall as Kouyou herself. Among the mess, in the middle of the room, the faint outline of a raised platform could be seen. Perhaps a desk?

“Ane-san,” Chuuya started, “who is that?”

He directed them to a leather chair, one fit for rotation, and if they squinted their eyes enough, an outline of a child could be seen.

“Might be a dummy Chuuya.” Dazai started, “or maybe a corpse.”

“Dazai,” Kouyou gently scolded, her equally red eyes narrowing, though her expression showed nothing but amusement, “you’re not really leaving a good first impression by saying that.”

“Sorry, sorry ane-san.” He sheepishly rubbed his head, though as if he just made a stupid blunder instead of deliberately mistaking someone for a corpse

“Now then… [Name]-chan, would you please introduce yourself to the future Port Mafia executives?”

The dark leather chair rotated sideways, so the child could face all three. From what little light was in the room at the time, Dazai could see that she wore a simple white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, her dark coloured skirt was wrinkled, though it flowed just above her knees along with an equally dark knee-high socks, her formal shoes were blended in the darkness so well that it might as well be nonexistent, her tie, unlike both Dazai and Chuuya, was so loosely tied that the knot ended up at her chest, as if she just slapped it on in the last second.

All in all, she looked nothing like Port mafia’s mastermind hacker Dazai had in mind.

Nor could he predict how painfully important the said girl could be in his future.

 Ahh… that was… the start huh…?

 Blue, red, and white are mixing  I'm shouting from this world 

What was I wishing for?  I was tired from chasing after it

 Years flown by like minutes after [Name] made friends with both Dazai and Chuuya. Perhaps, it was precisely because of how everyday was both so tiring and energetic that the days turned into months…

The two males never did get along as one might describe as ‘partners’, no, not the romantic one, but the one where they work together and go on dirty jobs. Even when Dazai was promoted and became the youngest Port Mafia executive, even when the much feared Soukoku was formed, while their teamwork spread despair among the Mafia employees, deeply rooted into their souls, on the other hand, their personalities could not conflict so much anymore.

It had become a common occurrence for the [hair colour] female to not-so-gently whack both red and brown on their head if they annoyed her too much.

In other words, every half hour then.

And [Name]?

She, like her honey-brown orbed male, developed quickly before (just like Kouyou predicted) becoming one of Port Mafia’s top hackers.

“Say [Name]-chan…” Dazai asked to the fifteen year old, as the tiniest (belated) celebration was held in Dazai’s apartment for him becoming an executive, “why did you become a hacker? Surely, someone with such high intelligence could become a well-respected government official where the highest protection could be given? But, that’s not to say Port Mafia lacks any protection…”

“Why ask Dazai?” She answered, sipping her favourite drink, her [eye colour] watched carefully at the ice in her drink

“Just curiosity. But, to be honest, you do not necessary have to tell me if you’re so seriously against it.”

“Dazai’s right,” Chuuya walked towards the two, and in an instant, the calming look on Dazai’s face morphed one of a scowl, Chuuya’s expression was almost an exact mirror image, [Name] however, just retained her pokerface, “you can tell me about it.”

“Oh? Who’s talking? I-is it a ghost? I can’t see anyone.”

“You-!”

[Name] sighed, she pondered to whether tell the story just to get them to not murder each other for a while. Ah well, there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of sharing one’s past eventhough one of them is an executive right?

That’s… what fr- no, no such words and meaning exists in Port Mafia.

“As you may know, I have an ability… dubbed, “The Sun Also Rises”… its power is similar to our only star – the Sun.” She held up her ice drink and activated her ability, the chunk of ice in her glass melted until it was no longer there, “I can manipulate heat with my entire body, which gives off light at the same time… that light could be used on solar panels to generate electricity.”

“… Which is why the laptop you carry has solar panels… so you could work without depending on electricity in an emergency…”

“Exactly correct Dazai. Now… as to why I became a hacker… my parents were in Port Mafia as well, and my mother was also an experienced hacker, my father, on the other hand, was one of the lowest ranking employees they have… as unlikely as it was, the two fell in love and… here I am.”

She took a mini break in her explanation by sipping her favourite drink, which now was disgustingly warm (no) thanks to her Gift. She made a disgusted face, throwing her tongue out. All Dazai could think of was how the normally expressionless female could made such an expression, it really was a valuable and rare moment.

Damn… such a nice change… he thought, she should express herself more…

“Then, father died… perished because of a bullet wound, which of course, was fatal… though he was one of the lowest members of the organisation, he was popular among the mafia as well… always looking out for people when he was on missions, which was partially why there were a lot of people at his funeral.”

Her once calm [eye colour] hardened, before continuing.

“However… the thing is… it was his day off, mother was in an important meeting with the executives and she took me along, of course, I wasn't present in the room, but outside, playing on a gaming device, while father was at home… resting as he got home late last night. However, several hours later someone broke the news to mother and I that father died.”

Silence, “At that time, I did not know what the word “died” meant, well, perhaps my parents wanted me to stray as far as Port Mafia as I could… huh? Well, guess that failed, I mean… look at me now. Anyhow, the thing is… though some amount of money was stolen, there was not a single sign of struggle at out house… besides, father would never be outdone by a simple burglar… which lead both I and mother to the conclusion of… someone purposely murdered him.”

“And so by doing technology-based work, and moving up the ranks using any means necessary, you could uncover the profiles along with autopsy and paperworks, some of these are not even revealed to the victim’s family.”

“Correct again Dazai… but to be honest… I guess I really had a thing for numbers and hacking… unlike humans, if you simply input a correct numerical formula and formula alike, the computer would do exactly what you told it to do… whereas humans would constant have their own minds… along with pure emotions as obstacles… but then, I guess I was lonely too as well, I mean, I used to think numbers were my friends, who would do anything I asked…”

“Ah, you’re so weird [Name]-chan~” in an instant, the teenager felt a harsh click on her forehead

“Wh-what was that for Idiot-zai?” She pouted, her free hand furiously rubbing the spot

“Oooooh, nice nickname for this right here!”

“Shut up little guy.”

“You-!”

“But [Name]-chan, if ‘friends’ is the wrong word for us, we’re your… well, we’re less than friends, but we’re something… ah, except for this right here… I don’t wanna be even acquaintances with him.”

“My thoughts exactly Dazai! You’re just a bandage-wasting-sorry-state-of-a-human!”

“Ehhh- but who was it that got promoted to an executive in this room I wonder~? Executives raise their hands~” Only a bandaged hand was in the air, “only me then~”

WHACK. WHACK.

“O-ouch… so harsh [Name]-chan…”

“C-couldn’t you be a little bit gentler next time [Name]-chan?”

“And here I thought I could go an hour without having to hit you two…” The only female muttered, deadpanning at the two’s over-dramatic responses, “but, shall we… have a toast?”

“To what?” The opal eyes questioned, though he raised his glass as Dazai did the same

“To… whatever this is.”

“Well… to our complicated relationship.” Dazai named

“To our relationship- wait, that sounded so wrong.”

“Hush Chuuya… to our relationship…”

“Cheers!” Three voices of different pitches simultaneously resonated throughout the Sun-kissed room.

[Name] then remembered something on the back of her mind. A wish made years ago…

-Flashback-

“Why do other children fear me so much?” The child, no bigger than ten questioned, compared to other kids her age, she doesn’t show a variety of emotions

“Is it… because of this so called “Gift”? Is my ability more of a curse…?”

She laid fresh flowers down on the gravestone, looking up at the midnight sky, thousands of bright jewels blinked down, compared to the endless expanding universe, she and her problems seems so small and insignificant.

“You said… on clear nights like this… you would always wish for something trivial and achievable, but you couldn’t bring up the courage to do it or the circumstances were vastly against you… you then explained to me that important wishes, no matter how impossible they seem, you would save those for comets…”

I wish for…

“Hey… would my selfish wish be granted? ... Please answer me… father!”

People to accept for who I am… people who would not be afraid of my position and intelligence… people who I would like to call… “friends”

-Flashback END-

 Dazai remembered that on that day, he wished to see [Name] smile… however impossible that sounds; he would be the one her vibrant smile would be directed to… though it sounds possessive, it was just a not-so-innocent teenage boy’s thoughts.

Is this what they call “love”?

Or is this what they call “friendship”?

Ahh… those were… peaceful days… tranquil days indeed…

 How much?

 Sitting in a certain Port Mafia’s office, with heaps of paper on the desk which hid the working member behind as another mastermind sat on a nearby chair, hurriedly clicking the buttons on her GBA[1] as if her life depended on it.

“[Name]-chan… maybe you should stop playing and work…” The red haired voiced his concern at the female.

Why? You ask. Partly to stop suspicions on how he got a female in his office, partly to stop people questioning her if they suddenly barged into his office, but mainly because with the way she was so absorbed in it, she reminded him of his oh-so-wonderful partner.

“Why? It’s a good game.”

Just like a certain bandage-wasting-human… “Say… did you hear about the legendary stolen sapphire-”

He stopped abruptly, gone the peaceful expression on her face, but replaced with partially between horror and anger.

“Sapphire… sapphire… Pokemon Sapphire… Kyogre just awakened by Archie, leader of Team Aqua and-”

“Wait, that was what made you ticked off with such a despising expression?!” Chuuya exclaimed, astounded how a simple game could cause his emotionless friend to be capable of such intense emotion.

“Chuuya, Kyogre wrecked my entire team… even with the usage of dozens of revives and both super and hyper potions… but then, it is a legendary, so what can you say?”

“I say stop playing such games or you’ll become intelligently declined like Dazai!”

She blinked at him. Her [eye colour gem] meeting opal before she resumed playing on her game, “It sounds as if… you’re almost jealous of Dazai.”

“Why-! I am more certainly not jealous of that!” He stomped to her form and yanked the game device out of her hands, “this is what I would love to do to him if it’s not for that blasted ability of his!”

Her GBA ruthlessly hit both ceiling and floor a few times before completely smashed into useless pieces because of Chuuya’s ability.

“Chuuya.”

“What?” He asked, still irritated. Him? Compared to that bandage-wasting-womanising-good-for-nothing-absolutely-useless-

“You are jealous.” She patted his shoulder, which tensed at the contact, before walking out of the room, not fazed at what just took place, “oh, and by the way, you own me a new GBA.”

 [1] – Let’s just say that the Dark era BSD universe is set in 2010s, thus it would be possible for reader to have Pokemon Sapphire as it was released in Japan in 2003.