#i mean i fucking hate kissinger but i must admit he was good at his job i have his book on china in my reading list

[revindicatedbyhistory]

i don´t think people who legitemately buy the idea that stalin was an incompetent idiot who won ww2 by pure chance understand just how bad the situation for the ussr was during ww2 and also for the decades before ww2

[screamingfromuz]

Ok, fine, let's talk about why sometimes I fucking hate identity politics. Your identity, your lived experience, does not make you automatically right about a subject that is not your personal experience.

your identity is important because it gives you a certain perspective that is unique to your lived experience, which can allow a more meaningful examination of subjects, it does not mean you are automatically right about something or have a higher moral standing grounds.

here is a timely example, I have been hearing a lot of "listen to the holocaust survivors! they have a higher moral ground! they know better then everyone what it looks like! their perspective must be better!" as if to say that because they survived the holocaust they must have a higher understanding of horrors. this is bullshit, and my timely example is Henry Kissinger (Oh yeah baby, we are going there). The guy fled the Nazis as a child, does it give him the moral high ground? does it means his understanding of abusive governments is the definitive authority? NO! that fucker was the living embodiment of the end justify the means and he was ready to sacrifice everyone and everything if it meant preserving what he decided is the USian interests. If I would have tried to give him the moral high ground just because he survived the Nazis people will justifiably call foul!

Being a victim or being from a victimized group does not makes you automatically right about everything! Abuse victims can still be toxic and abusive. I will give another example that is gonna piss some people off (GOOD):

being a woman does not give you a monopoly on defining what is and is not abuse and sexual harassment. Yes, women has more experience in the matter but for fuck sake I cannot even count how many times women I know refused to admit blatant abuse and sexual harassment. Or on the flip side, I saw women call innocent things abusive and sexual harassment! their womanhood did not gave them the definitive authority on the matter.

I know rape victims that advocates that all men are monsters and seek to abuse women. Will you say that they are more right than others because they were abused by a man? Does their experience give them the definitive authority on masculinity?

and you know what, in for a penny in for a pound. In Israel the families of the fallen get a kind of saintly position, where their word is given higher regards then other citizens, and let me tell you people, that is fucking bullshit. Having lost a family member in a war or a terrorist attack does not mean that you are automatically know better! I have heard so much bullshit from some of those families, and people don't call it out because it was a Shacol Family!

and this goes to everyone! if you lost a family member to a shitty situation you do not automatically know how to fix the broken system that killed them! Being right about the way to fix the system is what makes you right about it!

Grief does not makes you superior to others, or make you more right, it just makes your a grieving person.

don't get me wrong, your experiences and identity does give you important perspective and it should be taken in account when examining stuff, and can even help you develop a perspective for matters that can offer deeper understandings. you are always right about your own experiences.

still doesn't make you automatically right about all the other stuff, like the experiences of others. or how the world should work.

So the next person that tells me that someone is automatically right about everything based on their identity alone and not facts, can fuck off. Your identity and experiences does not means shit if you are fucking wrong.

[likevxnes]

side by side (4/?)

read on ao3

part one | part two | part three

v. how they grew: partners, part one

After their wonderful visit to Kouyou’s, Dazai spends the next three days searching information on Chuuya. He finds things he already knows, like the boy’s past with the trafficking organization and the possibilities of the boy being taken from his home. He also finds that upon waking up in a Port Mafia bed, Chuuya didn’t remember a single thing about what happened to him. That his memory loss was written off as trauma. That despite the fact there’s a chance Chuuya had valuable information on the trafficking organization, Mori had decided to let the boy go.

It’s suspicious, and Dazai doesn’t really like it.

His new goal then becomes searching for ways to make Chuuya get his memories back. But all he finds is treatments that can help, but not cure, and that’s not what he wants. He wants Chuuya to remember. He wants Chuuya back.

Before he can find out more, Mori kills the Boss, and Dazai watches as blood splatters and stains the room. And then, the worst of the worst happens: Chuuya becomes assigned as Dazai’s partner.

Dazai thinks that the world really must hate him. He never seems to be able to get the things he wants, which in this case, was less Chuuya because the Chuuya he knew wasn’t alive anymore. Though he supposes that this was more of Mori’s fault, as the man seemed to be planning this for a while.

It’s a sudden change. Chuuya moves out of the brothel and into the dorms at base—much to Kouyou and Yasuhara’s despair—in the room just two doors to the left of Dazai and across the hall. They now trained together, learning the way the other moved. Kouyou still came by often to help train Chuuya alone while Dazai stuffed his mind with Schelling and Kissinger and sometimes books about the brain and memory loss when Mori wasn’t looking.

But being with Chuuya is strangely painful. It’s wrong, it’s different, it’s not what Dazai wants and he hates it. He hates Chuuya; he hates that the redhead has forgotten him, hates that the redhead doesn’t care for him, hates that he’s now Dazai and not Osamu, and he hates that he isn’t significant enough in Chuuya’s life to even be remembered, when he himself had devoted so much of his pathetic life to Chuuya. So he becomes mean—he teases Chuuya relentlessly, makes comments that he knows will sting, smiles and laughs at the boy’s struggles while his feelings contort into something sinister. Because the only thing that seems to be the same is the way Chuuya’s eyes flare with fire when Dazai sets him off.

In the back of his mind, Dazai knows he's just using twisted ways to cope, but he doesn't really care. He's angry, among a few other things, and what makes it worse is that Chuuya hasn't even asked about that night yet. He hasn't asked what happened the night Dazai burst into his room, hasn’t asked why Dazai thought they knew each other, hasn’t even mentioned it. Is he so unimportant to Chuuya that the redhead doesn't even bother to ask?

“Dazai, are you even listening to me?”

He turns his head to meet a sapphire gaze. The two of them are in the training room, Dazai lying on the ground staring up at the ceiling while Chuuya sits cross legged next to him. There’s a weariness that is obvious in both of their bodies; they’ve been roughly trained these past few weeks, as if in preparation for something. “Nope,” he chirps with a smile, and watches as Chuuya growls and grits his teeth.

“Ugh, I hate you so much,” he grumbles. 

Dazai laughs. Good. “As do I, Chuuya. In fact, I wouldn’t even do a double suicide with you.”

The redhead crosses his arms. “What even are you,” Chuuya mutters to himself. Dazai studies the boy’s face. The fatigue in his body seems to make him more mellow, makes his temper less likely to snap.

“Hey, Chuuya, why do you always wear that hat?” He asks.

The redhead gives him a suspicious look, but answers anyways. “Yasu-san gave it to me.”

Dazai immediately rescinds any previous thoughts of Chuuya looking cute in that hat. He feels a flash of something he’s not used to, something green and murky and too close to jealousy. “It’s ugly,” he states, and holds in a groan when Chuuya aims a hard punch right into his gut. “That wasn’t very nice, Chuuya…” he pants out as he curls onto his side.

“It’s not ugly!” Chuuya huffs, “Yasu-san got it for me in Europe, it’s  one of a kind.”

The murky green feeling in him grows. “Probably because it was so ugly—” he moves just in time to avoid another barrage of Chuuya’s hits, snickering as he sits up. “You only like it because you have a crush on Yasu-san~”

Chuuya turns as red as his hair. “Sh-Shut up! I don’t! Don’t say his name like that!”

“Ah, I get it, is it a special nickname for you to use only?”

“No!” Chuuya screeches, the flush on his cheeks spreading down his neck.

“Chuuya loves Yasu—”

The redhead roars with flustered anger, tackling Dazai and making him land on his back with a loud thud. It turns out to be an impromptu wrestling match, with Chuuya spouting off insults and Dazai goading the other on.

The result is Dazai being pinned onto his back, with even more bruises than before. He’ll admit that Chuuya’s probably a better martial artist than he is, but Dazai always worms out victories with his head. He grins at Chuuya’s still red face, at the fire in Chuuya’s glare, his smile widening when those eyes narrow even more in anger.

“I don’t have a crush on him!” the redhead denies hotly, breathing hard from exertion. He turns his head to the side angrily, seemingly trying to calm himself. “Yasu-san saved me,” Chuuya explains after a few moments, voice more sober, “he saved me from the people who stole me. Even though I don’t remember anything about my past, I’m forever indebted to him.”

Dazai stiffens. He feels something seize his heart in a vice grip. “Yasuhara saved you,” he deadpans, a thousand thoughts surging through his brain at once.

Of course.

Chuuya frowns. “Yeah, he did. That’s what Kouyou says.”

“I see,” he muses, and even he can tell the tone of his voice is frigid. Chuuya’s frown deepens.

“What’s your deal?” He snaps, obviously sensing something wrong.

Dazai feels himself distancing, feels apathy swallow him whole. “I just didn’t realize my partner was this stupid,” he states,  “do you really think Yasuhara saved you with goodwill? That he and Kouyou actually care for you? That Yasuhara didn’t just save you because of the benefits you’d give to the Port Mafia? Even with all the things they make us do? My my, Chuuya, how unbearably naive you are. It’s disgusting—”

He feels a sharp, stinging pain on his right cheek, and it takes him a few moments to realize Chuuya had slapped him.

Animosity is present in every angle of the boy’s body; his muscles are tensed, his eyes burning with hatred, and the expression the redhead wears is absolutely feral. Dazai feels his lips curl into a smile that drips with blood, with immorality, with all the things the Port Mafia is known for.

“Oh? Did I make little Chuuya angry?”

Chuuya’s gaze practically smolders his skin. The redhead grits his teeth, before abruptly getting off of Dazai, standing up. “I’m leaving,” he hisses out, “you can go fuck yourself.”

And Dazai should stop, he really should, but he’s always been keen at getting the last word. “What a big word for a naive little boy.”

Chuuya doesn’t answer, but he knows that the boy heard him due to the sound of the redhead’s footsteps stopping for just a moment, before continuing in a more brisk tempo.

Dazai stays where he is, staring up at the ceiling, laying down on the training room ground that’s covered with blood stains.

“Just let me die already,” he says with a laugh.

“I can have that arranged.”

He doesn’t even flinch. Just blankly turns his head towards the sound. “It was about time you came out of your hiding place, Ane-san.”

Kouyou steps out from the shadows, elegant as always, her expression cold. She doesn’t even seem bothered that Dazai knew she was there the entire time.  “So you realized.”

“That Yasuhara took Chuuya’s memories?” He prompts, sitting up and giving the older girl a grin. The revelation buzzes within him, a blend of too many feelings that he can’t exactly name. Because of course, of course Chuuya wouldn’t forget about him, they just took Chuuya away from him. He feels a malicious resentment stew underneath his skin towards Yasuhara, a feeling so intense he doesn’t know what to do with it. He relishes in the minuscule stiffening in Kouyou’s pose from his statement. “Hey, how about you two give Chuuya his memories back?” His voice is overly cheerful, but stains the air with black. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough fun manipulating him?”

She looks down at him with what some people may call haughtiness, but Dazai knows it is simply complete confidence in her worth, even with her immorality. “I’d say you’re the more manipulative one here,” she shoots back. “What you said—”

“Was not completely true,” he cuts in, smile deepening, “but it was true enough, wasn’t it? Erasing his memories only made it easier for him to devote everything to the Port Mafia…an easier puppet for the two of you to control.”

“That was not our intention,” Kouyou argues, but doesn’t deny anything else. She turns her head to the side, looking off to the distance.

He tilts her head at her. “But it happened anyway,” he chirps, “I really hate people like you and Yasuhara, you know? You feel bad, but you’re not going to stop.”

Kouyou raises an eyebrow in interest. “You’re saying a person like Mori is better?”

“Mori has never felt sorry for any of the things he’s done.”

“And neither have you?”

Dazai laughs. “Ane-san, you know the answer to that already.”

Kouyou doesn’t respond. The way she holds himself makes Dazai realize the small mannerisms Chuuya has adopted from this woman; the way his poise radiates confidence, the way he looks elegant even when slamming fists into his enemies, the way he addresses other people—he so obviously got it from her. He supposes the only thing the redhead didn’t adopt was Kouyou’s calm temper.

“Yasuhara sees the memories he takes,” the girl states, after a few moments of silence.  

There’s a pause. Dazai stops himself from tensing up and giving himself away, even with the feeling that all the air was just sucked out of his throat. “Oh? How interesting.”

“He saw you. With Chuuya. You two have met before.”

He knows what Kouyou’s implying; that he cares about Chuuya, that the two of them were close and dependent on one another, that he’s hurt that Chuuya was taken away from him. He laughs, the kind of laugh that makes people wince from how unhappy it sounds. “You should give him his memories back,” he says, a warning in his voice, “before I really get angry.”

He sees Kouyou straighten. “Perhaps you should tell Yasuhara that,” is all she says, and with that, she leaves, not bothering to say goodbye, not that Dazai was expecting it.

“Hey, ane-san,” he calls out, just as the older girl reaches the exit. She pauses her steps, but doesn’t turn around.

“Don’t tell Mori about this, yeah?” He says airily, but the threat in his voice rings out like metal clashing against metal.

“I was never planning to,” Kouyou responds, and surprisingly, her tone is awfully genuine. “Yasuhara wouldn’t, either.”

After his confrontation with Kouyou, Dazai  immediately goes to Hirotsu, because Yasuhara is off to who knows where and the old man has a habit of letting information slip to him. Though he supposes he's the real instigator of said habit. He likes Hirotsu; the man always speaks in polite tones, even when insulting someone, which Dazai will admit happens often enough during their exchanges. But the man also is a good listener, taking every word spoken to him into consideration before forming a response. Dazai knows that Hirotsu doesn’t really understand him, but respects him nonetheless.

So Dazai goes to him. But of course, Yasuhara’s abroad, out collecting information on organizations in the west, not expected to come back for a while. For years, maybe, according to Hirotsu.  

“A favor for the new Boss,” Hirotsu says, “that’s about all I know, I’m afraid.”

And so life continues.

Chuuya doesn’t speak to him for a good month. Dazai knows that the boy is probably somewhat over Dazai’s words by now. Though the redhead is quick to anger, he usually doesn’t stay angry for very long, depending on how angry he actually got, but Dazai is exceptionally good at pissing Chuuya off. In the end he attaches a tripwire to the doorway of Chuuya’s room after the boy falls asleep, attaching a note to the floor that said the words, “Even though you’re so close to the ground, you didn’t notice this? You must be really stupid.”

The next day he’s woken up by a loud thud and the sound of someone slamming his door open.  

“I’m going to kill you,” the redhead snarls, face red with anger.

Dazai yawns, making the other grit his teeth in annoyance. “Chuuya, it’s rude to enter people’s rooms without knocking you know?”

He gets a bruise the size of a baseball on his back. They begin talking again. And whenever he sees Chuuya talking to someone on the phone with a smile on his face, he pesters the other until Chuuya snaps at him and tells Yasuhara goodbye because a “worthless, suicidal idiot was existing.”

Life goes on.

They continue to train together, and soon, take missions together. Dazai had already been on missions, had accompanied Mori a few times. He's killed people, has ordered people to kill people, and found himself numbly unaffected. In their first mission, he’d expected Chuuya to hesitate to shoot the three bullets in their target’s back and break his jaw. Instead, the redhead pulled the trigger with a vacant expression, his hands steady, the look in his eyes strangely vibrant and focused.

“I know what the Port Mafia does. I know what they want me to do,” Chuuya explains later, when Dazai pushed and prodded, “I’ve already accepted that.”

But when they got back to base, the redhead still spent fifteen minutes washing off the blood he’d accidentally gotten on his hands, scrubbing until his skin was red and raw. The next day, he sees Chuuya wearing gloves. He doesn’t question it.

Life moves on, and Dazai finds that a rhythm has been established between them. One filled with bickering, with insults and malice, with syncing thoughts and movements, with knowing looks and smiles covered  in bloodlust. Dazai wants nothing more than to break it, to step away and watch everything crumble to dust. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want to go through this again. He hates this.

And yet, he still finds himself spending time with Chuuya, finds himself noticing things he’s already noticed before and things he’s never noticed until now.

He’s already noticed the habit the redhead has with tucking his hair behind his ear when he’s uncomfortable. He’s already noticed the little glance to the side the other always makes when he lies. He knows when the boy’s smile is genuine, has remembered how to tell.

But he never noticed the blaze in the other’s eyes as he takes down enemy after enemy, has never noticed the other’s cruel, wild smile in the middle of a fight that he finds oddly appealing. He’s never realized that Chuuya loves to fight, loves to smash his fists against faces and stand in front of piles of bodies while glowing with the pride of victory. He’s never noticed the respect Chuuya gives to his superiors, always acting grateful, always speaking politely.

It’s a weird combination, this past and present Chuuya, one that he’s not sure if he wants to deal with. But, like with all things concerning Chuuya, he finds that he has no choice in the matter, with Mori insistently pushing the two of them together. Not to mention the two of them have an irritating habit of bumping into each other—Dazai had once tried to hide from Chuuya, only to find the boy in the places he thought the redhead would never go to.

“What are you doing here?” The redhead had screeched at him. “Since when have you ever hung out in the lower levels?”

He’d scowled, and said, “well, I was trying to avoid you—”

“What? I was trying to avoid you!”

And then there are those moments in which Dazai feels this yearning, and it's those moments that scare him the most. They are always the little ones, like the flashes of Chuuya’s smile and laughter, like the way he’ll say Dazai’s name in soft, trusting tones, like the way he refuses Dazai’s company even if he wants Dazai to stay.

Somehow, they begin to develop a routine in which after missions, Dazai would walk into Chuuya’s room and the two of them would bicker like there’s no tomorrow, or laugh at jokes and references no one else would understand, or plan out excruciatingly detailed plans for future missions.

Today, Dazai’s sprawled on his stomach across Chuuya’s bed, head resting in his palms,  much to the redhead’s distaste. Chuuya’s sitting next to him, cross legged and hugging a pillow close to his chest.

“How about we call that one Shame and Toad?”

Chuuya frowns. “Where’d you even come up with that?”

“See? No one would expect anything if I suddenly shouted it out!”

Chuuya flicks the other on the forehead, rolling his eyes at Dazai’s exaggerated pout. “They’d expect that you were insane, maybe, but I guess people do that anyways.”

Dazai gasps. “Has Chuuya’s insults been improving?”

“Shut up,” he huffs. “I guess Shame and Toad could work.” He studies Dazai’s expression. “You really get a kick out of planning these things, don’t you?”

“Hmm?” Dazai hums, grinning, “it’s fun when it’s like this.”

Chuuya frowns at the statement but doesn’t push. He shifts his position so that he’s now lying down next to Dazai, on his back. “What did you mean, that one night?”

Dazai stiffens. He forces his expression to stay impassive. “That one night?”

Chuuya tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear. “You know, that night where you burst into my room. You said you knew me, right?”

“Did I?” He replies airily, though he feels as if someone had gripped his heart in a steel vice. He’d been wanting Chuuya to mention something for weeks, but now that it’s finally happened he realizes that he’s now more scared than ever. How on earth could he explain this to Chuuya? That he’d traced the bruises on Chuuya’s wrists with what some people would dare say was affection, that he’d made promise upon promise to the redhead, that Chuuya was something that made him want to live again?

He can’t.

Things are too different now.

And if Mori were to ever find out about this, about Dazai’s weakness, surely nothing good would come out of it.

Chuuya scowls, turning onto his side so he can look Dazai in the face, and the realization of how close they are hits Dazai square in the face.

“Don’t play dumb,” the redhead hisses, before his face softens into a more calm expression. “I guess I just wanted to say that if we did know each other, I’m sorry I forgot.”

Being impassive isn’t working. He feels his heart start to pound, from the small distance between them, from Chuuya’s words, and he desperately pulls on a different mask. “Oh my, Chuuya’s actually a softie at heart—”

Chuuya nails him in the stomach, making him gasp out in pain.

“Shut up!” The redhead retorts, now turning his back towards Dazai. They begin to bicker again, moving back into more familiar territory, making it easier for Dazai to breathe.

Life presses on, and Dazai continues to fall into the rhythm he has no interest in playing.