erotic grotesque nonsense

This went on until I woke up (still within the dream) to him having draped nearly his entire body on me. He claimed he had to workshop his approach because the book he was reading had returned to its actual size (it had), rendering it too heavy to read one-handed.

I accused him of trying to manipulate me into sleeping when I shouldn't, and he abruptly rolled off me. He then sidled against my side instead, but while wearing a terrible smirk; like, just a godawful grin. I was so hellbent on figuring that out that I didn't notice Rainer Marie Rilke until it was too late; he was already clambering on top of us with clumsy abandon.

...

prerequisite texts for commenting about bsd fukuzawa's morality or lack thereof in the notes of this post:

"The Moral Code of Yukichi Fukuzawa," introduced and translated by Joseph Sale (1907)

Why Be Good?: A Historical Introduction to Ethics by Duncan Richter (2008)

Making a Moral Society: Ethics and the State in Meiji Japan by Richard M Reitan (2010)

Chapters 34-36 and 57 of Bungou Stray Dogs by Kafka Asagiri (2012-present)

Bungou Stray Dogs: The Untold Origins of the Detective Agency by Kafka Asagiri (2015)

Not only can he sense the Agency members within the influence of All Men Are Created Equal, we only know this because he was certain Kunikida hadn't died after leaping from a helicopter, tackling Tetchou, and unpinning a grenade. In other words, he knows this because Kunikida was okay before, even in impossible circumstances.

While drafting the post above, I was caught on the spider's silk imagery precisely because although delicate in appearance, spider's silk is, pound for pound, can withstand more force than some types of steel. Its tehensile strength (amount of stress a material is capable of withstanding before breaking) and ductility (stretchiness/ability to be pulled without breaking) means it can absorb 3x as much force as Kevlar.

Kunikida measures himself by his limitations and is hyperaware of his own sensitivity. In Osamu Dazai's Entrance Exam, he acknowledges that his skill, while "versatile and highly valuable... doesn't quite exceed the realm of convenience." To Sasaki, he admits, "...The first time someone died on the job, I cried so much that I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't even call the Agency to tell them I wasn't coming in. I thought I would never recover."

Then, crucially, he reflects, "And yet, now I don't even shed a single tear. That's why I come here instead. I feel like I need to do something so that the victims can rest in peace."

This urge he has to strive within and not against reality is why Ranpo notes after Fyodor sought to break Kunikida by stoking children into such terror, they forced Kunikida to incapacitate them with and amid gunfire and killed themselves when he sought to soothe them:

Although Kunikida considers his skill to be merely convenient, his ingenuity, tenacity, and expansive mind allowed him to prevail over Akutagawa, whose skill is nearly if not already transcendent, such that Akutagawa admitted, "Looks like I was wrong about the Armed Detective Agency.... This is wonderful. Truly wonderful."

Dazai said, "Kunikida, people who believe there is a right and a wrong—people who believe in the existence of an ideal world—they're the ones who end up resenting the world and hurting those around them when things don't go the way they want.... When those ideals and beliefs are carried out, the victims are the weak and defenseless. A cry for righteousness is like a sword. Just as it may harm the weak, it will also never be able to protect and save them."

Dazai is thinking of several people, but I imagine among them is Mori. Mori believes he can carve order from chaos and does so through violence so vicious it cuts those he loves. Dazai is correct in his assessment that there is a rage that simmers beneath idealism.

But he doesn't yet know Kunikida well enough to recognize that Kunikida does not believe in an ideal world, and he knows better than to impose rights and wrongs where they have no bearing on reality. He looks at the American intelligent agent who favors torture and acknowledges that criminals are not the only ones who break the law and violate ethical standards, but further that, "a foreign secret intelligence agency won't change their ways, regardless of how a nobody like myself might feel about it." When he knows Sasaki for who she is and considers her and Rokuzo's death, he gazes out into a "decaying garden" to watch the "crimson spider lilies sway," and when he closes his eyes, the flowers are still there, but so is a trace of Sasaki's smile.

Kunikida does not mistake the world for ideal. He does not live in black and white. He sees only what could be and yet knows his own limitations enough to recognize where he might nurture that potential and where his effort would be wasted. He does not force the world into the shape it should be. He confronts it as it is and loves it not for its most ideal possibilities but for the trace of beauty that persists in its decay. When he says in the anime, "But did she have to die?" it wasn't because he could not see her for who she was, but because in who she was, there was someone who might have been reached had she not exhausted herself trying to bend the world to what she thought it should be.

Kunikida does not seek to change others. He knows he can't, and it's that path that feeds the rage of an idealist who can't understand why others would so callously fail to act within their romanticized expectations of what the world should be. Instead, he seeks righteousness in himself, he seeks to bend so that he won't break, to exist humbly and within his humanity. He grapples with a ravenous hunger for self-improvement, which may never be satiated but also which he carefully contains within himself such that he does not devour others in his fervor. In doing so, in remaining so conscious of his limitations, he fixes his gaze on the reality in which he cultivates his ideals— once which is capable of more than it is, but because of what it is, rather than what it isn't.

This is why he has a yin and yang pin, why he layers black and khaki over and beside one another, why he is constrained by the size of his notebook. It's also why he can fall apart and nevertheless rise again, why he can contain hunger and fury without allowing either to devour him, why he can welcome Atsushi into his devotion despite having lost Rokuzo, why he can see what he can't change and instead focus his energy on that which he can, and why his rigid schedule can be broken without ever deterring him from his relentless pursuit.

He yearns for ideals, but he also strives for them. He exists in a constant state of transformation. This is why he can smile through yet another one.

So, while I contemplated Fukuzawa's grief above, I know that when spiders' meticulous and geometrically exact webs nevertheless snap beneath the weight of the reality in which they've woven it, they adjust around the information that they cannot change and begin again crafting that which they can.

Kunikida may die, but he knows, and perhaps in this way he might remind Fukuzawa, too, that while reality may not bend to what must be just and righteous, there is meaning in our capacity to yearn for those things, and there is something just a bit wonderful about striving towards them.

Natsume told Oda that people live to save themselves, and Oda acknowledged it's something people realize right before they die. Kunikida, I think, realized that too. In a journal entry, Kunikida wrote, "The simplest path in life is being satisfied with each day for what it is... The truth does not move people because living and dying are constants, regardless of any such truths. Nobody knows these truths, for we cannot see them."

Thank you for thinking my bsd headcanons are on point!!! Yes, I have lots of kunizai headcanons, I think Kunikida is such a crucial pillar in Dazai's polycule.

Kunikida has a sex towel that's a different color than the other towels, but still part of an overarching and cohesive scheme because he needs to be able to tell when Dazai has grabbed the wrong towel but it also would distract him if it clashed too badly with the rest of the towels.

Kunikida keeps Dazai's dorm stocked with gummy vitamins mixed with actual gummies because Dazai will just eat them all as a meal if he doesn't feel like making himself food, and it's a waste of vitamins if he eats them all at once.

Dazai won't take medication if it's inconvenient or gross, so Kunikida will press his thumb into the hinge of Dazai's jaw and pill him like a cat. The first time Atsushi saw this, he was perturbed. The second time, Kunikida taught him how to do it too.

I think a lot about how personally and deeply Kunikida takes every life lost under his watch, and how Dazai is watching him, waiting for him to collapse beneath the pain, only for Kunikida to consistently bounce back anyway. It's a well of hope and healing for Dazai, and he relies on Kunikida, not for what Kunikida does for him, but for who Kunikida is despite everything. I'm not saying that Dazai would lose it without Kunikida anchoring him, but I have read Beast, so. Maybe that is what I'm saying.

This isn't a headcanon so much as it's actually canon, but Kunikida's nagging and browbeating are his sincerest show of affection and Dazai knows this and irritates him because when Kunikida throttles him over it, it's affirmation that Dazai doesn't often receive when he acts out. Chuuya is also good for this.

Speaking of which, Chuuya and Kunikida remind Dazai of each other for their stalwartness, their commitment to their values, their loyalty, their disgust for authority they don't respect, and their reactivity. Their ferocity is soothing to Dazai.

Kunikida sees Dazai as impossibly coquettish, provocative, and sensual, whereas Dazai finds his own sexuality brutish and like an imposition. Dazai's startled during the moments he sees himself through Kunikida's perspective, but he likes being surprised by Kunikida more than he hates himself. (Which also startles him, the first several times it happens.)

Kunikida, holding Atsushi up by his armpits: stinky Kyouka: no!! don't be mean!! Kunikida, swaying him: stinky bastard man Kyouka: no!!!!!! Dazai, not looking up from the pornographic magazine he's reading in the office: naughty boy. brat cat.

Dazai thinks he's keeping that he and Kunikida are sleeping together from Fukuzawa, namely because he sees himself as a corrupting influence and is avoiding the rejection he's certain he'd receive if he sought Fukuzawa's approval. Kunikida has already disclosed to Fukuzawa and received the appropriate paperwork from the law firm on the first floor of the Agency's office building. Dazai doesn't read the things Kunikida asks him to sign, so hasn't realized.

Kunikida says no to Dazai and not to Ranpo, so Dazai pays Ranpo with difficult-to-obtain sweets in exchange for Ranpo's cooperation when Dazai wants Kunikida to do ridiculous things about which Kunikida is liable to tell him no.