Right, I Need To Say My Piece On The Recent Asagiri Drama.

I know Soukoku is an overrated ship. But the angst we can create with Dazai and Chuuya is such a specific flavor fucked up but painfully poetic that it’s hard not to at least find them interesting.

Like what about the Soukoku where Chuuya sees Dazai again after several years of separation, and he’s the same.

Chuuya sees Dazai, and sure, on the surface he seems like a changed man. Happier. Better. A person who fights for good.

But Chuuya knows Dazai, and he knows that Dazai is only pretending. He knows Dazai is trying so hard to be this other person. To be what Odasaku wanted. He’s gone and tried to change everything about himself but his name, yet no matter how desperate he is he cannot escape who he once was. Who he was in the Port Mafia. Who Mori trained him to be.

And Dazai knows Chuuya knows, but it’s such an easy comfort. His old habits are down right addictive, after all. Every moment spent with Chuuya, Dazai risks falling into who he used to be.

Neither of them want that, but the idea of the ever looming possibility that everything Dazai worked for could be ruined by the Chuuya’s mere existence and the act of Dazai loving him is so very compelling to me.

I feel like a lot of people misunderstand the relationship between Verlaine and Chuuya. There's a lot of argument over whether they're biologically brothers or not. That's not the point. The point is how they came into the world and their unnatural birth. Or, at least, how Verlaine perceives it. He sees both him and Chuuya as artificial beings that will never be human no matter how hard they may try, so they may as well stop trying to fit in with these disgusting humans and just find solace in each other. He calls Chuuya his brother because he feels like he's the only one who can truly understand what he's going through. Their "brothership" stems from their shared existence as artificial beings. This is why Chuuya rejects it so violently at first. He doesn't want to be anything like the man who slaughtered his friends. He wants to be human.

Then, throughout the book, Chuuya comes to accept that however he came into this world, naturally or otherwise, he chooses to be human, and that's what it's important. His actions are what make him human. Verlaine learns this, too, but it's already far too late. He, too, had the chance to be human, but he was too focused on the possibility of being inhuman instead of actually trying to be a good person or to accept the care and support of his friend, Rimbaud, and now, he's gone. That is the tragedy of his story. He always had the opportunity to be human, but he threw it away for the sake of anger and hatred.

Only when they have both learned this lesson that Chuuya accepts Verlaine as his brother. Not because they're biologically related or anything, but because they do have this shared experience with one another, and he's here for him. Not because he forgives him for what he did. But because he has an opportunity to be better.

I love stormbringer. It's so good. Anyone reading this who hasn't read it, READ IT!! IF YOU LIKE CHUUYA AT ALL, YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK! IT'S SO IMPORTANT TO HIS CHARACTER!

I think it speaks to something innate about humanity and the societies that exist in BSD, honestly. (And by extension our own world kind of.)

The ultimate goal is power, no matter its cost. Even if that means ruining and ending lives. Even if that means destroying a person’s chance at ever getting to know peace. Even if it comes at the expense of the world itself.

Those that have something that can be used shall be used. Their human attributes and personality just needs to be thrown away first.

But that’s the thing about ability users in BSD, you can never fully separate their humanity from them. No matter what is done, they prove their humanity time and time again, even if they themselves don’t realize it.

Those in power will always fail to use you if you keep sight of your humanity. That’s what separates you from them.

Something something, Mori's immortal army plan and all the trauma it created, being a way for him to prove ability users are useful and worth keeping around.

The hunting dog's being turned into killing machines and routinely undergoing surgeries just to survive it. They are heroes but it's at the cost of their freedom and peace.

The only creations made by ability users that history deems worthy being weapons like Amenogozen and the One Order.

Child ability users like Chuuya, Kyouka and Teruko being stolen away from their family and treated as less than human because they would make a better weapon.

Children like Atsushi and Yumeno being abused and made to hate themselves all because they have an ability.

Ability users bodies being turned into weapons even after death, like the Holy Sword, the Old Boss, Shibusawa and Fukuchi.

Ability users like Sigma, Bram and Mushitaro being used like tools by organizations because of their abilities.

Combative abilities like Demon Snow being passed down the bloodline forcing children to grow into weapons.

Something about ability users being dehumanized and used by non-ability users for years and years, yet they are the ones villainized for being what they were forced to be, every time.

Something about Fyodor having lived to witness all of this and all that came before. Internalizing that resentment towards ability users, perhaps having been the victim of it at least once, and deciding that the only way the evil will stop is if ability users didn't exist.

Dazai: Wow, Chuuya, you want to hold my hand before marriage? How awfully lewd of you. Chuuya: We literally slept together yesterday. Dazai: That's NOTHING compared to the lewdness of holding hands.

btw with art when people say 'youve got to do it scared' 'youve got to draw bad' 'youre not gonna know how to do it until you do it' it sounds like bullshit but its true. 90% of art is just getting over the fear that it's not going to be good enough to deserve to be made in the first place. but you're here. you're alive and, with no need to justify that, you're going to make art. it's just part of being alive. you'll spend so long worrying you aren't doing it good enough that you'll look back and realized you didn't live a single day of it.

Recently I’ve been going back through BSD to do some analysis and I was thinking about Atsushi as the tiger, and what the tiger symbolizes.

I think the tiger is a good allegory for Atsushi’s views on himself as a person. And hear me out:

At the start of the story, Atsushi fears the tiger, but he also seems to hold some spite towards it due to it being the cause of him getting kicked out of the orphanage.

But then we learn that Atsushi is the tiger, and Atsushi himself feels terrible about it. There is suddenly no separation between himself and the tiger in his mind. They are one and the same, and he is just as responsible for everything as the tiger is. He hates the tiger, he doesn’t trust it, and he doesn’t understand it.

And he is the tiger.

It’s kinda common knowledge that Atsushi hates himself, nor does he trust himself, and that is reflected in the fact that the tiger is shown to be an uncontrollable, bloodthirsty creature. It does nothing good for anyone; just as Atsushi thinks he himself does nothing good or useful for anyone.

I’d also like to mention the fact that during chapter/episode one (1), when Atsushi is revealed as the tiger, Dazai is the one to stop it with his ability, and I think that’s an excellent little nod to how it is through Dazai (and by extension the rest of the ADA) that Atsushi is able to begin to trust himself more, and have more value in himself as a person.

Of course later on, Atsushi does make peace with the tiger, and it’s such a powerful moment because it’s not just Atsushi reconciling with the tiger, it’s Atsushi reconciling with himself as well. And I think it shows his growth as a character just fantastically.

I’m open to hearing the thoughts of others as well of course :]

what do you mean elon musk did a nazi salute on live tv at the united states presidential inauguration twice and is now erasing the evidence off the internet by replacing the footage with the crowd cheering instead?

would be a shame if people reblogged this, wouldn’t it?

This panel makes me so ill. Like what do you mean by those expressions, that face holding and held gaze? What do you mean by Chuuya's trust in you being a beautiful thing? What do you mean by the implication of your telepathic connection? Why would you bring up a prince waking up his princess "the wrong way" in that gentle softly teasing voice? What do you mean you would jump to your death and fight a dragon for him? What do you mean you trust him with keeping you safe from your unhinged suicide plans when you haven't even told him about said plan? What do you mean you will hold his head in your lap to protect him after and keep your hand in his hair just because you can? What do you mean that he is the only thing on your mind in the middle of corruption and not only is his name the only thing you have ever said in that state but you we're able to control your strength to not even bruise him? What do you MEAN I am not supposed to see this as a confirmation of there being something as genuine as love there when THIS is a canon event?

You know what we need more of in BSD?

Sibling dynamic Ranpo and Kyouka.

It’s right there, Asagiri and Bones literally handed it to us but we hardly ever talk about ittt

thinking about how stormbringer makes a point to emphasise dazai being unpredictable and no one knowing how he works or what hes thinking. even adam, who is a literal robot with predictive analysis shit going on, cant figure out what dazai is doing. but chuuya looks him straight in the eye, says, "I know how you work." and proceeds to nail exactly what dazais thinking with almost no indication of it at all.