#saezuru headcanons

[swallowerofdharma]

What happens to your assessment of the story told in Saezuru once you acknowledge that Doumeki forced himself on Yashiro? That Yoneda broke one of the “standard” rules of romance? There is a place between taking in a scene in a fictional story and making a moral judgment (or looking for someone to make a moral judgment for us to agree with). The place where you don’t have to judge and reach a conclusion immediately or make any call on the meaning of what is happening in a fictional story, but you have to first try to understand cause and effect, internal coherence and characters’ motivations from an external point of view that doesn’t coincide with your own. Some of the best stories you’ll come across will require some work on your part: for stories to be listened to and taken in, for stories to operate on you, the reader, instead of you trying to mold them into what you wanted them to be, bringing your pre-formed expectations in too heavily.

I believe that, generally speaking, many readers may have low expectations for comic books, manga and BL especially. I write this and I already feel a bit guilty because there are so many who have such genuine and emotional interest in Saezuru and that take the time to write and read so many extra analyses including reading the ones in this blog. But I have questions when I come across comments or analyses that indicate such radically different levels of interaction with the story, with expectations that it won’t present any real issues apart from 1) those who can be treated as (psychological = pathological) deficiencies originating from “trauma” (actual magic word now that let us magnanimously forgive characters who are “different”) and that must be “healed” (aka corrected: now now child, start behaving normally); 2) those that can be fixed by a punitive action and our expected contempt (bad guys only). Aren’t we maybe underplaying or trying to keep control over what we are reading? Maybe, also, people who approach these kind of stories for pure entertainment and escapism, or because they’re curious about what is popular in a particular circle and want to participate in fandom for the social aspect of it, are relaying on established tropes or fandom staples. All extra context is lost, layers of sociocultural norms or the story’s themes, broader lore or mythology are left behind, because what matters is molding the characters so that they can serve a purpose: in many cases a romantic trope that is often a repetition, an insistence on ideas already used. I imagine that writers that want to tell original stories don’t want the same thing and are actually trying to avoid it when they are writing or drawing characters with depth and coherence and stories that have a scope and feel grounded in a particular world or setting. Even writers who can only publish their work under appealing marketing labels like BL is now. But it would benefit us readers in general to approach this particular story with less preconceptions, less like mass-product-for-pleasing-people and more like a creative endeavor that want to be explored and to create conversations.

Unfortunately - let’s be real and blunt - in some cases prejudice can also lead few people to think that a Japanese mangaka and especially a Japanese woman won’t have the “right skills” to deal with complex subjects with enough “clarity”, or “awareness”: these aspects being sexuality, gender identity or the aftermath of sexual assault, or the sociological aspects of sexual violence in specific circumstances and environments. We have been lead to believe that these “problematic” themes were just so common for yaoi, no further analysis needed, only tropes and kinks, only labels, no nuances, no self awareness. Yoneda might just have chosen the most common type of conflict she could think of without going through too much trouble. And the yakuza just provided the right aesthetic! Okay, I am purposely deeply generalizing here for the sake of the argument, but it happened enough times in other animanga communities that when readers aren’t offered the simple or standard solutions they expected, they denounced “poor writing choices” instead of reassessing their own expectations of what they were reading: endings being the greatest tool for recontestualizing and reassessing the story as a whole. When readers just refuse to engage with entire aspects or pages in a story because they don’t serve their imagination, then they must know that they might be missing something and should refrain from making loud self-centered complaints. As for Saezuru, it’s not that I don’t expect a satisfactory and “happy” ending to the story or I am worried that readers will be disappointed. The ending in tragedy Romeo-and-Juliet style was teased already at the end of chapter 34 almost to get it out of the way and offer a continuation towards something else. So I genuinely don’t expect a repetition of that. But the ending might not be this conventional “issues resolution” or whatever people think that “healing” means. But I do expect that the various plot points and thematic elements will be tied together in the end, because Yoneda has been showing us consistently good writing.

I had a big part of this post in my drafts before recent conversations, so this was genuinely a generic comment on the growing differences within the fandom. I also hope it didn’t come across as harsh or anything more than a personal preoccupation of mine with how we collectively read stories and how we want to maintain the control over potential subversions of the “rules” when maybe not everyone had agreed to those rules and standards.

[lustfulcat]

omg i absolutely love your saezuru headcanons. do you have any more that youve maybe idly thought about but never had the opportunity to share? please do share them, i LOVE hearing about what the boys get up to in everyone else's heads

You’re asking me if I think about my sons leaving the yakuza to become painfully domestic?

OF COURSE I DO

- That ‘Yashiro sleeping on Doumeki thing?” Still happens all the time. Doumeki’s pants have drool marks on them by the end of the day and, while anyone else would think it’s gross, Doumeki thinks it’s adorable.

- Yashiro sleeps the most soundly when he sleeps on Doumeki, or spooned naked in his arms.

- Doumeki is the better cook. Yashiro has a nice collection of take out menus but now that Doumeki isn’t following Boss around 24-7 - he’s living with him - he has the time to make Yashiro home-cooked meals. He uses his mother’s recipes and Yashiro complains that he’s getting fat from all this food but never stops eating.

- They move in together right after leaving the yakuza. Yashiro just says “you might as well because it’s a pain in the ass to get a car every time I want to see you.” Doumeki just has two boxes of stuff and a case of the porridge he fed Yashiro. Yashiro raises an eyebrow when he sees it but says nothing.

- Yashiro walks around naked a lot. Doumeki likes it but it’s damn distracting, especially when he’s on the phone with Kuga.

- Whenever they’re in Kageyama’s prescense, Doumeki touches Yashiro, even if it’s just a brush of fingers but usually it’s more than that. Kuga is so entertained by it.

- Occasionally Yashiro notices Misumi’s men ‘looking out for him.’ He knows he’s being silently guarded from old threats and when he does spot the poor souls Yashiro makes sure they get an eyeful of his sex life.

- Since Yashiro is so great at making money they not only have their gorgeous apartment, they have a small cottage by the sea. Doumeki likes to roll his pants up when they walk along the beach and Yashiro can’t help but be reminded of that night when Doumeki first offered to hold him.

- They have dinner with Doumeki’s mother and sister often. Aoi and Yashiro are a deadly force against Doumeki, and despite their initial meeting they now get along strangely well. When Aoi started dating and a guy broke her heart, Doumeki took Yashiro’s cell phone away because he was calling some men to “help that boy realize that he made a wrong decision.” Doumeki will also never get over Aoi stopping by to see Yashiro sometimes, instead of him. 

- Every time Aoi asks them when the wedding is, Yashiro laughs like an eight year old and says something crass but Doumeki stays quiet because he can see the little blush on Yashiro’s cheeks. Doumeki thinks an autumn wedding would be nice.

[whydoiloveyouanyway-blog]

I've been doing a pretty good job of avoiding Saezuru spoilers but

I'm getting the feeling that 28 is STILL not the chapter in which everyone goes out for karaoke and Yashiro is up first, starting with "Night and Day" (there's not a flaccid dick in the room by the time he hits "and this torment won't be through/ till you let me spend my life making love to you/ night and day," but honestly, probably not for some time before that, because the whole time he's been stroking and just-shy-of-licking the mic Tina Turner-style), and when Doumeki is up he asks Yashiro to join him for "Je T'aime ... Moi Non Plus" (Doumeki takes Jane Birkin and Yashiro takes Serge Gainsbourg and everyone feels like that's just right even though that means Yashiro’s the one singing "I come and I go between your thighs, but I hold myself back" and Doumeki's the one whispering "No, this time come") and the party dissolves by spontaneous agreement that everyone else is going to stagger off to find someplace to jerk off and leave the karaoke space to Y&D to do what they do whenever they have a small enclosed space to themselves

..... I mean, but that chapter has to be coming, right? or maybe it already happened because that's what follows the party boat excursion? or ..... maybe I'll have to wait for someone (*cough* @artemisrisen) to write a better version of it

[bringmemyqueen]

Iwadai mafia au, where dai's dad is the head of the mafia and iwa's dad is his bodyguard/right hand man, so iwadai grew up together, iwa was always looking out for daichi, dai was bullied in school for getting good grades, iwa was bullied for the opposite, iwa would also beat up anyone who made fun of daichi, dai grew up used to cleaning up iwa's wounds, in their teens iwa's dad ends up taking a bullet for dai's dad and ends up dying, so iwa volunteers to take his dad's place so he drops(part 1)

(Part 2) drops out of school. He's really busy and rarely sees daichi anymore, when he does see him he acts professional and unlike his old self. Iwa's slightly relieved to be away from dai cause he started to develop feelings for him that he wants to deny. Dai is upset because he knows iwa is stressed and hurt, he's also worried, he also developed feelings, and he misses iwa. A few years later dai's dad becomes sick and makes daichi the head of the mafia which reunites the two, iwa acts cold

(Part 3) towards daichi and finally daichi is fed up and asks iwa what his deal is, iwa kinda breaks from all the stress and pressure and daichi is there to comfort him. Iwa apologizes for everything and admits he really missed being around daichi. For a moment they're both silent and end up kissing. They agree to keep their relationship a secret although they're kinda obvious.

sdjfalkflsdf yesss!!! mafia au always giving that good angst (*๓´╰╯`๓)

[artemisrisen]

i cannot stop thinking about yashiro using social media as a means of expressing his adoration and affection for doumeki

[e-sam99]

umm is there any new fanfiction headcanon of saezuru i'm desperate

[decipheringthelife-blog]

That Saezuru spoilers

😂😂😂 I knew it! I had this headcanon that at any given time Doumeki would put on Yashiro's seat belt 😂😂😂 I died a bit tho

[storyofauke]

i've always thought that yashiro wont be as lewd as some people have pegged him down to be once he starts a relationship with doumeki. i feel as though he'll be vulnerable and slightly coy. how do you think their dynamic will be? and do you have any saezuru headcanons?

I agree. I think we already see that in how he reacted to Ryuzaki. Okay, let me back up. One of my favorite scenes in this entire thing (so far) is this one:

The “what did you do with my cum” scene. Yashiro asks and is dumbfounded because no one has ever swallowed for him before. And he doesn’t know if this is what “normal sex” is like. He’s been dismissive of “normal sex,” and thinking it’s not for him. And yet we just saw him beg Doumeki not to break him...with “normal sex.” When what he really means is he doesn’t know what loving sex is and he’s afraid of it because--again--he’s afraid to love something and then lose it. So yeah, when things settle down and they’re an old married couple, I expect Yashiro to give himself over to every sappy delight he can possibly get out of boinking Doumeki.

[domeyashiro]

Have you seen the Vol. 6 extra pages? In the last page, it seems like Doumeki was ready to dive into the darkness and do whatever it takes to be with Yashiro. What do you think? How do you interpret? Do you think in the timeskip, Doumeki went to work with Misumi and became his bodyguard when Yashiro had to quit the Yakuza?

Well, I definitely HOPE that Doumeki is working for Misumi now or for Golf Buddy at least, for a simple reason: If Doumeki is in even bigger danger without Yashiro than when he was with him (because he decided to become the bodyguard of the leader of a whole damn mafia syndicate), all of Yashiro’s efforts to keep him at a distance were basically for nothing. So he would have to take it upon himself to get Doumeki fired somehow. Only, Misumi knows Yashiro like noone else and would know exactly how to push Yashiro’s buttons and enjoy the hell out of this situation. I hope he feels grateful to Doumeki for saving his son’s life, and since Yashiro kind of fucked up his own Yakuza career and is of no use to him now, maaaaybe he feels inclined to play cupid for them (after provoking and teasing the heck out of Yashiro, of course).

This headcanon has been entertaining me for months now, and I refuse to let go of it before Sensei comes up with something better. She confirmed on Twitter the other day that Doumeki is an idiot after all, and that Yashiro has a very very weak spot for dumb Doumeki, so I’m all excited and ready to see what she was hinting at with that statement. LOL

[lustfulcat]

Saturn Change

Lights blurred in the rain outside the sake bar. Yashiro drank alone at a dim corner table, enjoying the quiet before the storm. Soon, Shinseikai would have a new leader; Yashiro was wary, Hirata was impatient, and Misumi was ready to rise.

Yashiro was on his fourth sake, a slight frown dusting his face. Now that the title of Wakagashira was looming Misumi was insistent that he have a tattoo. Yashiro didn’t want to mar his skin with ink, only with bruises and scars. A tattoo would give him lines, boundaries, root him and make him real. 

And he was barely real. 

He’d been an actor for so long… The mask he wore, was it a mask or his true face? He no longer had any certainty in what he was and in what he was becoming. 

Tilting back, he looked up at the ceiling and toasted it. 

I only get sucked in deeper. Happy Birthday to me.

[anonimjeden]

Chapters: 3/14 Fandom: 囀る鳥は羽ばたかない | Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con Relationships: Doumeki Chikara/Yashiro Characters: Nanahara (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai), Kageyama Kanji, Misumi (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai), Amou (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai), Ryuuzaki (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai), Hirata (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai), Original Characters, Doumeki Chikara, Yashiro (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai), Yoneda Kou Additional Tags: Masochism, Loyalty, Master/Servant, Reluctant sadism, Yakuza, Sadism, Phone sex: Yashiro/Doumeki style, Shameless Smut, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, First Kiss, Tiger sweater, Blow Jobs in a Car, Jam sandwiches, Murakami - Freeform, Steinbeck, The contact lens case, Murder Kink, Abduction, Hospital Sex, Love Confessions, Confession to Kageyama, Elevator Sex, Final Yakuza showdown, Yashiro and Doumeki on a beach, Headcanon, Bit of meta: characters meeting mangaka, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net Summary:

[Traduction - 'Careful Now' by Dionys]. Ils ont quasiment couché ensemble dans la voiture. Et après ? Doumeki tente de cacher ses sentiments (et son impotence guérie) pour que le Patron ne le vire pas. Patron, qui a bien sûr remarqué son attirance, et compte bien torturer Doumeki pour s'amuser. Parce qu'au moins, se dit Yashiro, ce type reste impuissant. [Fait suite au chapitre 21]

[hotfuss]

anyway I love my autistic son domeki and my abuse survivor yashiro who is so brave to get through all the shit that has been thrown at him. he’s so strong but so fragile at the same time I love him so much

[artemisrisen]

omg i just read all your saezuru headcanons and i cannot get enough. do you have more???

Saezuru headcanons part 67349043

-         doumeki would get reading glasses when he gets alittle older. Him sitting in bed with his old man spectacles on, reading atattered, yellow-paged crime novel by a favorite author.

-         subsequently, yashiro settling into domesticityand resting on doumeki’s chest, being lulled to sleep as doumeki reads to him.(then waking up and demanding doumeki re-read the last part because yashirofell asleep and doumeki kept reading, oblivious)

-         yashiro being stressed as hell about them movingin together and breaking up with him for 27 minutes because he’s convinced itwill all end terribly

-         doumeki proposing to yashiro in hawaii onvacation

-         yashiro going to aoi’s art exhibits by himself,and buying her pieces anonymously.

-         yashiro and doumeki having so many inside jokesand intimacies together that it’s like they’ve entangled their brainsinextricably.

-         yashiro filling a dishwasher with liquid soapinstead of detergent and already buying a new one before doumeki gets homebecause THIS BROKEN ONE layered their entire kitchen with a new flooring ofsoap bubbles.

-         doumeki being the beloved uncle to aoi’s child:carrying him or her around with a front baby carrier, giving them baths, babysittingon weekends or whenever necessary, being a gentle guardian to their tinybaby-ness. yashiro being beyond stressed by the mere presence of a non-adultand also buying them ridiculously priced clothes, like 40000 yen shoes.

-         In fact, yashiro just trying to buy the love ofdoumeki’s entire family, who already love him and don’t need extravagant gifts.(but doumeki’s mama will accept her new yves st laurent heels, thank you)

-         yashiro trying to get doumeki to watch porn withhim and it fails (“fails”) because yashiro is embarrassed by all of doumeki’s “stupid”,probing questions (“do you like how that man looks? Do you want me to do thatto you? What part of this makes you feel the most aroused?”) (they still havereally good sex afterwards)

[artemisrisen]

I can't promise karaoke because I can't promise anything ever without failing every single person around me, but a yashiro and doumeki romantic duet is not as corny as it seems like it would be, especially in FRENCH. I headcanon that yashiro speaks fairly good french and doumeki is a crowd-shockingly good singer (no headcanon in fact, since his seiyuu is actually an exceptional singer). so this would work and also be kind of earth-shattering for the audience. i accept this in place of the mega-sadness that is chapter 28! yay!

I’ve been doing a pretty good job of avoiding Saezuru spoilers but

I’m getting the feeling that 28 is STILL not the chapter in which everyone goes out for karaoke and Yashiro is up first, starting with “Night and Day” (there’s not a flaccid dick in the room by the time he hits “and this torment won’t be through/ till you let me spend my life making love to you/ night and day,” but honestly, probably not for some time before that, because the whole time he’s been stroking and just-shy-of-licking the mic Tina Turner-style), and when Doumeki is up he asks Yashiro to join him for “Je T'aime … Moi Non Plus” (Doumeki takes Jane Birkin and Yashiro takes Serge Gainsbourg and everyone feels like that’s just right even though that means Yashiro’s the one singing “I come and I go between your thighs, but I hold myself back” and Doumeki’s the one whispering “No, this time come”) and the party dissolves by spontaneous agreement that everyone else is going to stagger off to find someplace to jerk off and leave the karaoke space to Y&D to do what they do whenever they have a small enclosed space to themselves

….. I mean, but that chapter has to be coming, right? or maybe it already happened because that’s what follows the party boat excursion? or ….. maybe I’ll have to wait for someone (*cough* @artemisrisen) to write a better version of it

[domeyashiro]

oh man, people were complaining about chapter 34 and honestly? I was so cool with that chapter, like I trusted sensei, so i expected better. But daaaamn, chapter 35, naaahh, that spoiler don't remember card she threw there? cheap, I expected better to be honest, really? don't remember??? My god, i feel like I'm watching a soap opera, like, sensei i expected better, i really did.

I’m really puzzled why people can’t just lean back and watch the story unfold before their eyes without judging it before it’s finished. You’ll have more than enough time to be disappointed once it’s over, IF you are disappointed by then, so why get worked up about plot details now when you don’t even know yet what Sensei plans to do with them? I know we’re all emotional about our boys, but she gave us a full 40 page chapter in which she effortlessly wrapped up the whole Yakuza plot. That leaves us with the outlook of a whole volume dedicated to only Yashiro and Doumeki finding a way to be with each other, and I’m super excited for that tbh.

I’m also not a big fan of the memory loss trope, and I was worried even before the chapter came out that Yashiro might end up with amnesia after all the blows to his head he suffered. But now that the card is on the table, I’ll just roll with it, because how many endings has Sensei fucked up so far? Exactly. None. So I have no reason to not trust her abilties. Especially since Yashiro is obviously just pretending to have forgotten about Doumeki to protect him and not actually suffering from amnesia.

Btw, the last panel clearly suggests that Doumeki hasn’t returned to a proper life after all. And Yashiro is still involved in some shady parrot business too, so my current headcanons revolve around Misumi having adopted Doumeki as his new bodyguard, and Yashiro losing all his cool once he finds out that Doumeki is in even bigger danger now than back when he was with him. So in the end he’ll have no other choice but to leave the Yakuza together with Doumeki if he wants him out. I mean, just imagine Yashiro’s reaction when he blows up into Misumi’s face for stealing adopting his boyfriend underling and Doumeki protects Misumi from him just like he protected Yashiro from Ryuuzaki in vol 2? And Doumeki being coached by Misumi to act indifferently in front of Yashiro to make him chase after him instead of the other way round? We know Yashiro wouldn’t just watch Doumeki throw his life away for Misumi. And Misumi is probably just relieved that his son survived and wants him happy, now that he can’t have a career as his successor anymore. If anything, he should be feeling grateful to Doumeki to some extent now, and we know he is a man of honor (who also enjoys teasing Yashiro way too much).

Well, long story short, since I’ve started thinking about the ending this way, I’m not even mad anymore that Yashiro and Doumeki will probably be seperated for a while again. Because I’m sure Sensei has come up with something even better for us than I could ever imagine.

[domeyashiro]

Hello dear, I just want to say that OMG I really HATE inami's character, at mean how ca be so hypocrite, and Do you think that in the next chapter Yashiro and Doumeki will have sex, well i hope at least a passionate kiss will be fine. Thanks for your attention and have a nice Day (=・ω・=)

Oh yes, Inami is even more disgusting than Hirata, and that’s quite a non-accomplishment!

I’m not sure about the sex. I think next chapter would be too early, especially now that Yashiro obviously hurt himself again when he kicked Nanahara, but I also didn’t see the last sex scene coming at all, so my guess is as good as yours.

What I’d love to see though, is Doumeki showing Yashiro that he is mad at him, only talk to him the bare minimum, give no sign of affection, just serve his duty as the loyal bodyguard. And Yashiro being totally clueless how to react to such behavior, trying to mind his own business, but being secretly (and later not so secretly) very insecure that Doumeki might not love him anymore. Which is what he wanted, of course, but it still bothers him way more than expected. Also Doumeki giving him the cold shoulder is incredibly hot, and more than he can handle at the moment, especially because Doumeki doesn’t even think of touching him. So seeing Doumeki walk into the shower naked, and sleeping in the same bed handcuffed to him is the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to Yashiro. Yes, I think I would love to see that just as much as another sex scene. ≖‿≖