"Don't Try To Find A Reason For Somebody's Love!"

Happy Valentine's day ❤️❤️

In the catzai au, is Fyodor an actual rat and Nikolai a dove?

perhaps

Happy Birthday~

maybe i’m too much of a staunch “atsushi is kind of a dick” purist but i actually don’t think him witnessing dazai’s abuse will actually change all that much in terms of the direct relationships between these characters and how they act towards each other.

part of it is i think sskk’s ultimate arc is moving past the spectre of dazai haunting them, and part of it is like. akutagawa is (was..?) an abuser too. it would make no sense for atsushi to flip on dazai for akutagawa because it’s either he believes redemption is real and dazai has changed (which like, he objectively has, regardless of whether he handled his relationship with akutagawa well) and akutagawa can change too, or abuse forever tarnishes your moral character and then atsushi must hate both these guys (which he clearly doesn’t).

ultimately bsd has a complex relationship with abuse that’s often uncomfortable to acknowledge, like the fact that akutagawa has abused two women on screen and hasn’t actually made proper amends either, and the fact that bsd both acknowledges that the mafia is a cruel organisation based in child abuse and exploitation that largely operates by grooming children into violence, and also posits that the mafia is kind of a necessary entity for the safety of the city. child abuse in bsd is interpersonal, yes, but it’s also a larger system of exploitation of ability users, largely for combat, and practically every character participates in that system to a degree.

even the agency has child members, and while for some it can be argued that the agency saved them from bad situations, kenji, for example, seemingly lived a normal peaceful life until he was recruited to be a child soldier.

ultimately i don’t think the wish fulfilment scene where atsushi explicitly rags on dazai for treating akutagawa badly will ever happen, especially considering this isn’t news for him and atsushi hasn’t been sympathetic to akutagawa about it before. i’m not saying it’s not going to be called out, but i don’t think the #dazaiisoverparty is happening guys hold your horses

I think these last chapters are underwhelming for folks because there was this false feeling that Shinjuku showdown was a meat grinder and people are dying left and right. Which is just not the case.

The shinjuku showdown post Gojo vs Sukuna was planned ad nauseam. The heroes took series of gambles and they worked. You know the "fever" and all that.

Majority of Shinjuku showdown was from Sukunas POV so we had the sense that he was winning cause he thought he's winning.

But the flashbacks were telling us that the heroes did plan for this. Yuta got even labeled for having an alphabet of plans by the fandom and they are not wrong.

Uraume even had an "nah I'd win" moment which should've been the telltale sign that heros were gonna win.

I guess the fandom didn't have the faith in everyone else as much as they had faith in Gojo... which... is on the fandom to be quite honest.

The thing is Sukuna was not defeated just by the power of Itafushi friendship but by the power of collective collaboration.

If you noticed Sukuna is always toying with his victims. Well Shinjuku Showdown was everyone toying with him and his ego to give him false sense that he's winning while gradually making him weaker. Which is also why they didn't go everyone all at once on him. But one by one in the order that makes sense for their techniques and so Sukuna will have that again false sense that he's winning.

Like you know the final boss of a video game you have to slowly grind down to beat.

Sukuna vs Gojo fight was a fight of egos. That is why it was 1:1. Because both of them had to show off and prove something to themselves and the world. Gojo even says he wants to show off for his students for crying out loud!

Jjk is also explicitly a critique of needing the strongest sorcerer. Which is why no one is sweating over the title now even though Yuta is technically the strongest currently.

I think one reread of these last 40 chapters that is done in good faith, without a need to create a theory or find mystical foreshadowing will fix like 60% problems people have with the series.

Their designs are so good I almost forgot they are horrible people

Throwback to Stormbringer really quick before I continue with the Prison Arc. With good reason too.

Referring to real-life Dostoevsky and Dazai.

Dostoevsky believed that suffering elevated, that it was essential for attaining true faith. Dazai feared God. He has only ever been able to believe in God's punishments due to the endless spiral of hopelessness and depression in his life. To him, suffering destroys.

Back to Bungo Stray Dogs.

Dazai made Chuuya suffer so that Chuuya could see that he isn't a monster. That I've known since I've written that portion. However, suffering destroys. He needed to destroy Chuuya's misconception of him not being human, and because to him suffering destroys, he believed Chuuya needed to suffer to break. So, no, Dazai didn't do it for shits and giggles.