Relatable If You Ask Me

My mouth muscles are twitching im right beside my mom 💀

google help me

Where's Chuuya in the Dadzai AU

ex/situationship/"random" hookup. when dazai tells him he has to take care of the baby he's like "i understand if you want to leave me cause technically we aren't even in a relationship", and chuuya is like "you're crazy for thinking i'm leaving you alone with the baby" but they're actually just very much in love

One thing I love about Kunikida and Dazai's dynamic is Kunikida's ability to still believe in him so much he still falls for his jokes. Like you know this has happened so many times yet still he dutifully will write down Dazai's suggestion in pen no less. But Dazai is also kind enough to not let him carry on with it too long.

So sos sos so soss gorogues idbogmfb

femchuu loml

Dazai and the ladies

Hey Nonny! Ooh, an excuse to talk about my favourite chapter in BSD! Don’t mind if I do. So the scene you’re talking about is this one, in the Double Black episode.

It’s very much played for humour. Throughout the chapter, they’re constantly dragging each other and this is like the one thing that actually seems to give Dazai pause for a moment. But how much truth is there in it? Now there’s a question.

Dazai the flirt

Dazai is aggressively, vocally into women. It’s one of the first things we ever learn about him.

I’m not, here, gonna go into whether or not the boy doth protest too much, but I don’t think I will shock anyone by saying that he is, when it comes to women he doesn’t know, an incredible flirt. He’s seemingly forever trying to get in the pants of the waitress at their coffee bar, he lays it on super thick with clients, etc.

It’s interesting to note here that most of that is an act.

For one, he only seems to do this to women that are not close to him. We, as readers/viewers, also know that he doesn’t mean it. Any of it. He’s probably already suspicious of Higuchi long before he decides to ‘woo’ her. The same for the waitress. He’s not actually expecting her to go “Oh yes, random weirdo who hangs out here but rarely pays his tab, let’s go drown ourselves together. It’ll be romantic.” We know Dazai as a highly intelligent man, who is very adept at reading moods. No way in hell would he be so unaware as to think his blunt flirtations would ever actually work.

Dazai the womanizer

So where does that flirt/womanizer idea come from? As you say, nonny, a lot of that is down to Dazai’s real life counterpart.

!Historical Dazai ( born Tsushima Shüji) was a pretty tragic figure. He attempted, multiple times, to take his own life, several times in a 'double suicide’ that cost the life of at least two young women, besides his own. To say that !Historical Dazai’s history with women is painful, is to put it mildly. That stuff is straight messed up.

Now, it’s tempting to think of !Maffia Dazai as reflecting the tragedies of !Historical Dazai. It’s fairly obvious that the character is based on the writer, and !Maffia Dazai is certainly… broken enough. Whereas!Agency Dazai mostly jokes about the suicide thing, and has long since given up actually killing, !Maffia Dazai is shown as extremely nihilistic and just downright depressed. He is cold, and cruel, and just… really sad. I wouldn’t put it past him to try and drown his sorrows in women, like he does in liquor. !Historical Dazai didn’t only have several wives, he had a thing for prostitutes, hostesses and geisha’s, which would fit neatly into the maffia persona. It is even possible that he ruined the lives of several of these women, the same way (or worse) as !Historical Dazai did. We are not shown evidence of this in the series (at this point), but it’s certainly a possibility.

If you think of it that way, all those jokes of his do take on a decidedly dark turn. It’s one thing to joke about your own death (we’re on tumblr, people do it all the time), it’s another to talk of double suicides if you’ve actually ruined a young woman’s life. In that sense, Chuuya’s threat is also incredibly bleak. The initial idea when you read that joke is the whole 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ thing, but in this situation, it would rip open some old wounds and guilt on Dazai’s part.

But that is probably reading Too Much into what is essentially a good joke. Let’s assume that Dazai, being a big shot mobster, had a whole bunch of flings with dancing girls or whatever, and that he dumped them like the troll he is.

Dazai the s/o

Headcanon time!

I think it’s safe to say that !Agency Dazai is not the same man as !Maffia Dazai, or !Historical Dazai. Mentally, it seems to me as if Dazai is now in a better place, and the same goes for his relationships with the world around him. His general stance seems to be ‘don’t harm, care if you must, but troll the shit out of everyone’. Please note how much respect he has for Yosano, how he treats Naomi and Kyouka (once she’s inducted). He deeply cares about these people, but he also trolls the shit out of them. The same pretty much goes for the likes of Maffia and Guild members, such as Chuuya, Kouyou, Akutagawa, heck, even Q. He ostensibly hates these people, but he’s not about to truly hurt them. He just trolls the shit out of them. It is like this for pretty much the whole world. Dazai saves lives. It’s what he does, but he’s not exactly a gentleman about it. He protects, but he also trolls. 

So what this means for any s/o he may have, is that at the very least, they will be trolled on a near-daily basis.

The question is: would Dazai even have an s/o. I’m pretty big on the importance of healthy relationships, and I am also fairly certain that Dazai, in his current state, is incapable of having a healthy, loving relationship with any s/o. He cannot love another, because he friggin hates himself. It’s gonna take a very long time to heal that. And I think Dazai, in his current state, is also wise enough to realize when a relationship isn’t healthy, and to avoid it. He may be prone to flirtations, to flitting from one person to the next, to double suicides, even, but at this point he’s also trying very hard to avoid those situations from ever happening. He claims, way near the start of the show, to want a death where there are no victims but himself. To do this, he builds walls around himself, even as he is with people that are close to him.

You can see that in the way he treats someone like Atsushi. He cares deeply about Atsushi, I truly believe this, he wants to guide him and watch him grow, he wants to give him important advice to help that boy heal his wounds, but at the same time, he keeps his distance (see that 'i’m not into guys’ thing up there). His first instinct in any situation is to push people away, to gloss it over with a joke.

He’d do the same thing if he were to actually fall in love.

If he does, as you put it, find that special someone, I believe he wouldn’t even make a move until he’s a hundred percent certain that he can control all his urges, can keep himself in check, so that No One Gets Hurt. Dazai the character may be based on Tsushima, but he’s actively trying to avoid living the same life. He’s a that point in his life where he’s looking for atonement, he’s trying to make up for the hurt he caused, not make more. So unless he meets someone who is ok with open relationships, I doubt he’d cheat on them. He’s a troll, but he’s not heartless. The last thing he wants is another notch on his belt, another life ruined. Especially if it’s someone he truly cares about.

PS: I did a profile on Dazai a while back, that is Even Longer and goes deeper into some of his personality.

[Translation] Asagiri Kafka's afterwords for The Day I Picked up Dazai novel

Normally, afterwords would be the last thing I read in a novel, but as there are not many changes to the published novel this time compared to the movie bonus version, I was able to skim through the text quickly and get to this. And to be honest, despite not being a writer myself, I was so moved by Asagiri's views about writing and his characters that he shared in the afterwords, that I had to sit down and translate it right away.

This is just my crappy translation, as usual, but I hope it gave you a short, interesting look into the author and the characters. And please do not forget to buy the novel if you have the chance.

The translation is under the cut, thank you!

It has been a while. This is Asagiri Kafka.

Have you been enjoying Bungou Stray Dogs?

This novel, “The Day I Picked up Dazai”, is a compilation of the first week’s bonus novel “The Day I Picked up Dazai – Side A” and the second week’s bonus novel “The Day I Picked up Dazai – Side B” for the screening of “Bungou Stray Dogs BEAST” movie (hereinafter referred to as “BEAST”).

Normally, it is difficult to publish a bonus like this, but since "BEAST” and “Fifteen” that were published earlier by BEANS Bunko were originally bonus novels too, "The Day I Picked up Dazai” was also published in the same way, thanks to the efforts of all parties involved in the Bungou Stray Dogs series.

It is the story of Dazai and Odasaku’s first meeting, where Dazai who wants to die, collapsed in front of Odasaku’s place, who is neither a mafioso nor a hit man.

Why are there two different stores, Side A and Sode B? Regarding this question, please read the novel and see for yourself. If you keep in mind that this is the bonus for the BEAST movie, I think you will be able to understand it better.

Let me reminisce a little bit here.

This story was actually suggested to me by Igarashi Takuya, Director of the Bungou Stray Dogs anime.

Shortly before BEAST movie premiered, I was struggling. It was because I was asked to write a bonus novel for movie-goers again. I said “again” because, as I mentioned earlier, BEAST itself was a bonus novel for the Bungou Stray Dogs DEAD APPLE movie. I remembered having a hard time writing it, because I let myself run wild and wrote a total of 190 pages instead of 50 pages as requested.

But I had learnt my lesson after the last rampage. I can’t just write whatever I want anymore. I have to wrap the story in a reasonable length, like a pro should do.

A proper, professional story.

Huh?

My pen stopped right there. I stopped, looked around, feeling lost.

What is a proper story?

The act of writing novel is quite different in character compared to other types of media such as writing manga, anime scripts, or game scenarios. You can say it is almost a different thing. Writing novels, rather than narrating an event, is more like putting the flow of emotions into specific sentences. You use the sequence of letters to create rhythms, create flows, and create emotions. If anything, it might be closer to composing a song than writing a story.

Therefore, you have to decide “what kind of emotion will be put in this novel” from the very beginning, or you can’t start writing. That is the only and absolute rule.

Now, however, that is where the condition of a “proper story” hung over me.

A proper novel, of a proper volume, with a proper content for a bonus.

In other words, a proper emotion.

I searched through the drawers inside my head. For a proper emotion that is waiting to be brought out.

There was nothing but emptiness there.

A professional story teller is one with the skill to move the readers’ emotions. When people find the chance to move their own emotions, they will happily be paying for it. Human-being is that kind of creature.

And writers are ones who create and sell those kinds of emotions: the fear, the excitement, the heart throb etc., those that make you think. It is that kind of job.

It is supposed to be that kind of job.

Yet I became unable to move forward.

A good story is a story that moves people. I know that. Then what kind of emotion I should put in the story to make it "proper"?

How do I find that emotion?

I mean, how did I even write novels until now?

I stood still. My legs stiffened, my knees froze, unable to take even a step forward.

I then tried to at least pretend that I was moving forward, by listening to music, by taking a walk around the neighborhood at night. But as good as the night breeze felt, I didn’t manage to reach a single story that I needed to write.

What if I stayed like this forever, what would I do?

I felt a chill plunging into my back.

Then I realized, that stories, or probably emotions too, are not things you can search for or come up with. You have no choice but to patiently wait for it to come your way. You have no choice but to humbly and earnestly sit and wait for the story’s visit.

I got that, but the "proper 50-page story” still refused to come.

It was not long before one week passed. Then two weeks.

I was doing other work, while keeping my heart’s door open, waiting for the story to come to me.

At that time, I had an online meeting with the anime staff. I casually asked Director Igarashi, “Do you have any story you want to see?”

The Director gave it a little thought then told me, "I want to see the story of Dazai and Oda’s encounter”.

At that very moment, the story rushed in through my door, like a bang. I could hear that sound very clearly.

Two stories. Odasaku, and the two Dazais. A story where they met, and a story where they couldn’t meet. A story of gain and a story of loss. If I can portray the gain and loss side by side, the amplitude of the heart will be doubled and rise up in front of us.

That was a momentary event. Rather than pushing my way forward, I felt as if something was pulling my hand. Before I noticed, I have already finished the stories.

I came to realize.

It is not the writer who searches for the story. It is the story that chooses its writer, and at some point it will come our way. A professional writer is no more than someone with the ability to catch that call.

Also, this is the most important thing: there is no such thing as a “proper emotion”. Because after all, the feelings of other people belong to them only. That is why there is no guarantee that a novel can move others “properly”. However, you can move your own emotions. You know what kind of novel can and how it will move you. If you do, you can write just that. That’s the only way. That is the truly professional attitude. That’s what I thought.

Well then.

It is a little bit off topic, but as we are talking about “stories that come our way”, let’s talk about Odasaku’s first-person narrative.

Odasaku is a special character. For me, he is exclusively a novel character, and I have never portrayed him in the manga.

He first appeared as the narrator in “Dazai Osamu and The Dark Era”, then “BEAST” and now this “The Day I Picked up Dazai”. All are novels. That’s why for me, Odasaku doesn’t live inside the pictures, he lives inside the first-person narrative passages.

He is an eccentric guy. Even if you prepare the place and tell him to speak, he won’t speak to you that easily. His way of thinking is rather unique, that if I write his narrative after writing other characters’ first-person narrative, I would stumble for sure. Odasaku doesn’t speak. He just sits there in silence, while I can do nothing but sitting in front of my blank manuscript paper, trying to talk to him, like “What’s up?”, “Here, here”. However, he is a guy who won’t speak when it is not necessary. Sometimes it goes days or even weeks without him saying a word. Why did such a character come to me...?

During such time, there is only one thing I can do. That is, of course, to stay with him, sit patiently, and simply wait.

Finally he will start speaking. In his unique rhythm, word by word. His words have the power to cut through the world from a certain angle. That special cross-section is full of things I have never seen before and it never fails to surprise me.

And then when he finishes telling his story, he will swiftly disappear. To a dark and quiet place somewhere – probably, I can only imagine, somewhere like a bar. He will sit there calmly and keep his own time to himself. After that, it will be hard to call him again. It is a backbreaking task to me, but in the end, that is the type of guy Odasaku is, and if I am allowed to sound self-conscious, that is Odasaku's charm.

This story was written in such a way. There is a chance that he will come back again. And when he does, I will patiently listen to his voice again.

This story was completed and published thanks to the help of many people: in the Bungou Stray Dogs BEAST movie’s Production Committee, the anime staff, Young Ace’s Editorial Department, BEANS Bunko’s Editorial Department, and the many people who were involved in the publication of the book. Thank you very much. It is all thanks to you that the book was published without any problem this time as well.

Well then, see you in the next story.

Asagiri Kafka.

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

GIVE ME YOUR PLAYLIST NAMES FOR FUNSIES AND I'II CHECK THEM OUT. EVEN RATE THEM IF YOU WANT TO

colored them in !! for funsies

These new Spotify updates are ASS. WHY CANT I HEART MY FAV SONGS THEY NEED LOVE TOO