#ugh dazai my love

[sickficideas]

dazai being very idle and quiet when sick or badly injured hurts kunikida a lot to see because he can’t believe it but he wants to see dazai be his bubbly annoying energetic self again, he tries to get him to say something or do something to mess with him or trigger his silly antics cause it’s sad to see him like this

I saw this on Twitter recently and this ask made me think of this because it's canon 😭 They get very concerned when Dazai is like this, he's hard to speak to and it's scary because he's never like that 💔 When he's very sick or injured and resting in the infirmary and he's acting this way Kunikida stays with him the whole time 💔 He's happy if he can even get a little half-smile from Dazai...💔💔���😭 Dazai is fond of Kunikida being concerned over him...he doesn't want him to worry but sometimes he doesn't have the it in him to put on an act 😭

[animaybi]

Lil evening soukoku sketch ok goodnight!

[vitasexualiiis]

poor fukuzawa is soooo out of his element with these two???

there's no way between mori, dazai, and ranpo he doesn't feel like a stone cold dumbass like 75% of the time even though he'd otherwise be the smartest person in the room.

[kaurwreck]

Rereading the early Guild Arc is incredible because it's Fukuzawa and Mori engaging in viciously nasty and personal threats to one another's closest loved ones and allies that wildly escalates beyond their implicitly agreed upon tension, which comes to a head because Dazai petulantly mischaracterizes Mori as pathologically mathematical (because he isn't over that Mori could do what he did to Dazai) and intentionally triggers the paranoia and obsessive compulsive betrayal sensitivity that he'd clocked in Mori at fifteen, causing Mori to irrationally lash out and release Q (and then self flagellate because the consequences of this were wildly amplified by the Guild's seizure of Q), by which point Dazai realizes he'd gone too far and now has to get Ango hit by a car about it.

And Francis is just like. There.

(He's also going through it, but because Louisa isn't in underground son protection jail like Ranpo or hashing out unresolved grief like Dazai and Mori, she's keeping Francis rational with decision trees and focused tasks within the realm of his control.)

This is why there's a chapter called "The Conflict of Strategies." The Strategy of Conflicts by Thomas Schelling is about coordination between mutually dependent parties in conflicts. Unlike zero-sum games (in which one person's gain is equivalent to another's loss), mutually dependent parties rely on each other and so can't draw blood without harming themselves in the process.

The Agency and the Port Mafia are both pillars maintaining Yokohama's tenuous stability; if one falls, the whole city could devolve into a warzone. Thus, their mutual dependence is part of the logical structure of any strategy and demands some kind of collaboration or mutual accommodation, even if only in the avoidance of mutual disaster.

Mori often uses a strategy of irrationality, i.e. he acts volatile and whimsically sociopathic, where he's actually very controlled and rational, which Dazai knows. But, as Dazai reveals to Mori's horror in Fifteen, Dazai also knows where Mori is vulnerable to emotional provocation. This is because Mori, like everyone else, isn't completely rational or completely irrational; it's not a one-dimensional scale. But, "everyone else" includes Dazai.

Dazai characterizes Mori as a math equation because he's still reeling from the betrayal he feels over Mori sacrificing Oda despite knowing how much Dazai loved Oda, and despite Mori knowing it would drive Dazai away from him— because he and Mori also love each other. Even though Dazai probably understands logically that Mori made the decision despite his love for Dazai (and not in the absence of it) because Mimic was an existential threat on Yokohama, Dazai cannot shake the irrational and emotional thought, "If you could do that to me, of all people, you really are as coldly logical as a math equation."

This is irrational because Dazai knows that's not true; he demonstrated in Fifteen that he knows that Mori is terrified of, more than anything else, chaos, and that the threat of chaos is enough to trigger Mori into decisions he does not want to make and otherwise would not make. That's what he was trying to do in Mori's office in the first chapter of Fifteen— goad Mori into killing him by invoking a fear response.

But, Dazai is hurt and so he treats Mori as coldly rational and approaches him with vicious disregard for Mori's betrayal sensitivity, loneliness, and fear by taking Kouyou and leveraging Kyouka to keep Kouyou from returning to Mori. Mori, having lost Kyouka and thus Kouyou's incentive for staying in the Port Mafia, was already afraid he'd lost Kouyou's loyalty and support— and she's one of the four people he depends on. He also depends on Dazai, and although he's aware he drove Dazai away, that still hurts him. Further, Dazai demonstrating that he can and will use what he knows about Mori against him is terrifying to Mori because Dazai is one of the very few people capable of emotionally manipulating Mori. Dazai has Mori's nerves pinched between his fingers while telling Atsushi it's just an electrical wire.

Anyway, then Q is seized, hundreds of Port Mafia members and affiliates are killed, and Mori is wracked with shame and the fear that he behaved like the old boss. That's why Hirotsu and Chuuya are so gentle with him, and why, despite their agreement that Kouyou would stay with Dazai until Dazai saved Kyouka, Dazai asks her to return to Mori. It's also why the Agency and Port Mafia call a truce to collaborate against the Guild, without blaming Mori for what happened. They forgive because the cost of fighting is, as just demonstrated, too high, but also, they recognize that the escalation was mutually cultivated.

It's also why, at the very end, Mori asks Kouyou why she stays when she could leave. He knows he doesn't have Kyouka anymore, and he's still grappling with his guilt for those entrusted to his care that were killed because of his lapse in rationality. But, Kouyou assures him that this is a version of the Port Mafia she wants to protect. Because, even as Mori was spiraling and releasing Q, Kouyou was realizing that, unlike what happened to her, Kyouka could leave and decide for herself where and with whom she feels safe and has purpose. She could do that because Mori and the Agency have helped to create spaces and community and stability where there wasn't before. He's helped create a world where Kyouka can be a flower born in darkness and yet still make the choice to bloom in the light without being rejected or burned by it.

(And also because Kyouka left, and Mori didn't go after her to force Kouyou to stay. Because he would never do that.)

She wants to nurture that world with him, and she trusts him. The conflict may have escalated, but as soon as the cost was felt by the city and their own people, the Port Mafia and Agency were able to mutually deescalate and collaborate to contain the chaos and defuse it before it spread.

Mori isn't the old boss, and the humanity and love in him is reflected in his stewardship of their city. His humanity and love also mean he's capable of being hurt and will sometimes act emotionally and irrationally. But, it's okay for him to not always be rational; that's why Kouyou and Chuuya (and Hirotsu, who was goddamn MVP in the Guild Arc) are there to support him.

[benetnvsch]

kndz! kndz for my kndz moot!

TUNNAAAA AUGHHH WHAT-

This should be illegal,, I’m like shaking in class,,, knkdz !! Tuna Knkdz in my inbox,,, #blessed,,,

This is so cute,,, the way Kunikida is holding Dazai softly are u kidding me,,,, the lil forehead smooch,,, knkd using Dazai’s given name and his hair being down too ahhh ,,

this is so precious to me, ur art is amazing

tysm for this I’ll treasure it always :’)

[samhasnocontrol]

KnkdzWeek2024 Day 3 - Long distance.

Get it? Cuz one's always 6ft under? Get it? :D

KnkdzWeek2024 Day 4 - Mistletoe

Extra doodles cuz I feel like angst isn't my strongest suit.

Day 3 twitter → https://x.com/samhasnocontrol/status/1871948963936674226?t=EhjNvBSmWNloBYmKE9cTiA&s=19

Day 4 twitter → https://x.com/samhasnocontrol/status/1872235276388676059?t=EhjNvBSmWNloBYmKE9cTiA&s=19

[kyouka-supremacy]

So no sskk?

[liibation]

Strange time by Matt Maltese is so viscerally skk it makes me want to throw up

[batshikns]

im just finishing with the lineart for the chuuya reference sheet! But I drew this during school, and I thought it'd work

[thatkarleesidraws]

Honestly, I just really want to see Dazai cry. Like cry cry. I want to see him break down and sob and finally let out all those emotions he’s so neatly hidden behind that clown facade for years and be free of the burdens and the sorrow he keeps all to himself.

[wow-an-unfunny-joke]

I want to make skk art but I’m soooooo bad at drawing Chuuya (and drawing in general tbh) I’m gonna screeeeeam

[naetles]

i love you kunikidazai

[animaybi]

Gosh I hate them

[sigmasredbloodcells]

Well there goes my aroace sigma headcanon

[flowers-of-buffoonery]

absurdism as the core philosophy of Bungō Stray Dogs: #1

[mahachi]

Soukoku hehe