Okayyyy Ive Been Meaning To Talk About This Moment Forever Because I Think The Way I See It Differs From

okayyyy ive been meaning to talk about this moment forever because i think the way i see it differs from a lot of general fandom opinion.

for context, this is from the dhc section of the dead apple manga. skk are talking about an executive who just died and dazai makes a joke about it, prompting chuuya to deck him in the face and say nobody could believe dazais human. (believe, very importantly. not that he Isnt, just that its unbelievable).

humanity is a key theme to all of bsd, but its Very explicitly central to the skk dynamic. chuuya is an intensely human character in the way that he acts and thinks, and yet! between his ability and ofc the history in the lab, it still gets called into question.

(its pretty solid that our chuuyas the real one, but thats not the point here. sb being an exploration of what it means to be human and whether Actually Being One is all that important to what you are and do, through a Distinctly human character- Thats the point. How you are being more important than what you are.)

then we have dazai on the other hand, where what he is doesnt come into question at all. Even his ability, despite its name, isnt dehumanising to an outside eye, compared to chuuyas corruption or atsushis tiger for example that can take away from their control of themselves. its the how he is, in contrast to chuuya, that comes into question with dazai. he very consistently holds himself outside of humanity both implicitly (through self isolation - shipping container being an extreme example) and explicitly (dead apple dazai talking about humanity as an Outside Observer. he is Not including himself as one of them).

When we are encouraged to doubt his humanity, its dazai Telling us to. he deliberately poses himself as inhuman because he FEELS it. and the dhc moment to me has always felt like chuuya seeing through it and calling his bullshit. Dazais making light of a death to be a dick, to push chuuyas buttons, but also because hes got this constant need to present the worst possible version of himself.

actually if you look at the panels of him when hes talking about the guy being dead, just before he gets dramatic ridiculous exaggerated dazai about it, he doesnt seem to think of it so lightly

(smthn smthn dazai imposter syndrome. the need to deny any of his more human qualities because he feels they dont Fit him. and the links w his questions to atsushi at the beginning and end, his bs 'do i really seem like the type of guy to do x thing'.)

chuuya says hes acting inhuman, that his humanity isnt something people will believe because of the way he ACTS. and then chuuya does an example of his own Chuuya Humanity Act, an act of service for the people he cares about in the form of going to solve the situation himself. AND. ultimately, dazai ends up planning around this later to lead chuuya straight to him so the two of them can deal with it together.

skk pretty consistently ground eo to humanity. dazai through nullification/corruption, but outside of their abilities too (its the thought of dazai - more specifically, not thinking like him - that stops chuuya from killing N in stormbringer and denying verlaines assertion that he shouldnt have been born). and on the flipside, chuuya is part of the reason dazai doesnt khs during or after fifteen. dazais protecting people thing really starts out with chuuya. and again, chuuya makes it his business to call dazai on his shit. (even right the way back in chapter 31 of the main manga, we have that interaction over Q, with dazai saying he spared them only for self serving logical reasons, and chuuya saying he doesnt buy it).

this to me has always felt like part of that. its not 'youre not human', its 'the way you act makes it unbelievable that you are'. its an invitation to prove he is by doing something Real, something worth more than sleeping there til he dies.

and dazai does.

More Posts from Doyoulikeslimes and Others

doyoulikeslimes

11 months ago

four panel comic with a dark & starry purple background.
the first three panels show luffy in his gear 5 form, laughing uncontrollably with his eyes shut. a speech bubble in the bottom corner of the first panel shows someone offscreen calling his name: "luffy?"
he keeps laughing.
another speech bubble, on panel three: "luffy!"
he keeps laughing.
on the last panel: "..." "Nika?"
abruptly, luffy/nika stops laughing, and his eyes open wide.

final panel of the comic. luffy/nika turns to look over his shoulder, glowing gold. he answers with a "はい" ["hai" or "yes", in japanese].

oh he's a little bit fucked up actually

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doyoulikeslimes

1 year ago

I love how this scene implies that zoro is a self diagnosed luffy enabler. like zoro COULD have gone with him but he specifically chose to stay behind. he took himself out of the equation completely and sent nami n sanji in his place. babygirl knows his strengths and his weaknesses i'll give him that

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doyoulikeslimes

11 months ago

luffy now using 'dawn' in his gear 5 attack names gives me the opportunity to point out something i don't know if i've mentioned before on this blog but that's been on my mind for actual years.

so, the english word 'dawn' is written in japanese as ドーン/dōn; for example, that's also how it's written in these attack names, and also in the name of dawn island (ドーン島/dōn-tou). and don/dōn is the same sound effect one piece uses ubiquitously to emphasize impactful or important panels or beats. (i think the official english translation usually renders it DOOM?) it also shows up in tom the fishman's speech pattern and the lyrics of binks no sake- i associate it very heavily with the comic as a whole.

and in thinking about gear 5, it's also occurred to me that the constant use of don for emphasis is potentially reminiscent of the sound of a drumbeat- especially since in wano, it's partially supplanted as the default 'emphasis' sound effect by the べん/ben or べべん/beben of hiyori's shamisen, another instrument.

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doyoulikeslimes

8 months ago

i world love to hear your opinion 🙂

what if tsukasa exploded with anger and told hanako that he did all this to make him hate him and remove his seal because he doesn't want to stay and continue with his brother and that he would rather disappear 😔

How will hanako react and what will he do ???

I got carried away sorry 😅

PLEASE THAT'S WHAT I WANT!!!!!!

Tsukasa, speak openly about what you are feeling clearly!!!

Despite that, I wonder how Hanako would react, he's the one who needs to open up, and if he didn't do that even when Tsukasa was about to die, I wonder what would make Hanako honest.

He doesn't talk about his feelings, not even to Nene, she has to read between the lines.

I wonder what it will take to make Hanako finally say what he truly feels.

Hanako would probably find a way out of this situation without responding directly to what Tsukasa said.

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doyoulikeslimes

7 months ago

The inky mystery animated pilot(IMA) congratulates all of those who managed to get approved as the official Voice Actors for our characters! You all did amazing and made such a perfect cast!

@theinkymystery

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doyoulikeslimes

8 months ago

I feel like Tsukasa experience in red house forced him to mentally mature cause I don't think that's how a 4 years old would act

Yes, and we can add that the red house has a flow of time. Tsukasa has been there for years, so over time he has matured.

Despite this, he is naturally very intelligent, because at the age of 4 he made the decision to sacrifice himself to save his older brother. This is something that is difficult even for adults to consider.

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doyoulikeslimes

5 months ago

Hi, do you watch 'react to cale' gacha videos?

Actually... no, not at all. As I explained in this post, Amalia's series is the only one I actually ever watched and enjoyed. In the past, I checked out a random TCF gacha video or two out of curiosity to figure out what the fuss was about (and why there seems to be like a bajillion videos of this kind on Youtube from all different fandoms for some reason)... but I did not like them, at all. There's nothing wrong with liking them of course, judging by the view counts lots of people do. But for me, there was just no substance to it? So I don't get the hype. (Then again, I don't enjoy the TikTok format either. Might be a matter of taste.)

Amalia's TCF video series was different for me because it is more an actual fanfic than a random clipshow. I originally found it because Amalia also made some INCREDIBLE animatics. There's a lot of effort put into all of their videos. The gacha series has script, and a really good one, too! So if you ever find another series like that (...in English please, I don't know Russian lol), please let me know! I would love to see it.

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doyoulikeslimes

11 months ago