人間失格 .ᐟ

⁽ ⋆ ⁾ AFFILIATED WITH @leventar, @houndlit ⅋ @ephamerel .

SAGE, THEY/THEM. 26 + UK.

⁽ ³ ⁾ REGARDING EXPLICIT CONTENT. triggering content will be featured on this blog but won't always be tagged as per the nature of the story this character originates from. please be warned for death, crimes including murder, suicide and suicidal ideation, gore. i will trigger warn whatever i think goes over the line of basic exploration. if you're uncomfortable with my choice not to always tag this content, you're welcome to unfollow. i do not write explicit sexual content, but things may be alluded to.

⁽ ⁴ ⁾ A NOTE REGARDING SHIPPING. shipping is not my main priority on this blog, especially not where dazai is concerned. i much prefer to explore other relationships and dynamics that exist for him. that being said, romantic dynamics can and will be explored, but are subject to plotting. while this blog is multi-ship, this blog is ship exclusive with @CHUYUA'S chuuya.

as a note, i do not ship dazai with atsushi, akutagawa, mori, oda, ango, or fyodor (whatever those 2 freaks got going on is NOT romantic but they can flirt like insane whores i don't care) .

OTHER PLACES YOU CAN FIND ME : @QISMET, canon and original multimuse.

so i'm going to preface this by saying i am not a doctor and so this analysis is purely based off what is available in the source material and personal interpretations made from research. this is in no way a solid analysis, but i think when writing a character with the complexities dazai has, it's important to give a brief overview of what they are and how it will reflect in writing/interactions with other characters.

there are so many available analysis' on dazai having borderline personality disorder - i do not adhere to this. it is important to note that while dazai is based on a real person, the real dazai osamu lived in such a time where many diagnoses were either unavailable or not wholly trusted. please note that my analysis on osamu dazai, a character from bungo stray dogs, is not a reflection on his real life counterpart and is not meant to be interpreted as such.

firstly, i categorise dazai is living with clinical depression ( major depressive disorder ), which can manifest in many different ways but most notable to his character:

persistently low or depressed mood

anhedonia ( decreased interest in pleasurable activities )

sleep disturbances

suicidal thoughts and/or tendencies

some newer studies attribute mdd to sometimes, in certain individuals, exist alongside the learned helplessness theory which is the behaviour exhibited by a subject after enduring repeated aversive stimuli that which is beyond their control. the learned helplessness theory is a view that clinical depression may result from a real or perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation.

i would go as far to attribute this theory to dazai, as though he repeatedly shows control over his own choices, his view on the absence of control he has on the outcome of life is shown multiple times, seen especially when he poses the question to mori, is there really any point to this thing we call living? from the age of fourteen, we see that under mori's guidance dazai is left absent of choices. he watches him kill someone and is told he will bear witness, and is kept under mori's wing and given tasks and goals to work towards to keep dazai occupied and under his control. further to this, in expanded studies individuals living with the learned helplessness theory may have a pessimistic explanatory style and tend to see negative events as permanent i.e. "this will never change", "there's nothing more we can do" i would say at a stretch that dazai's view on life and the way he experiences it fall under this category, and this is something he has tried to force on others, notably kunikida + atsushi.

it's important when dealing with analysis on mental illness to remember that comorbidity exists and that one or more disorders/illnesses can be present in any one person. so in the next instance, we'll talk about my view on dazai and apathy, antisocial personality disorder and the scale of psychopathy.

apathy is described as a symptom indicating loss of interest of emotions. apathy is not its own separate disorder/syndrome, and more commonly walks had in hand with those of depression and personality disorders ( not all, and this varies from person to person ). apathy is a recognised state of indifference, an absence of interest/concern for emotional, social, philosophical questioning and the world beyond it. people with severe apathy may experience a lesser quality of life as they have no interest processing emotion and/or experiencing life, and are higher risk for mortality or institutionalisation. where dazai is concerned i believe him to be on the severe scale of apathy, which can manifest in tandem in a severe lack of empathy and extreme difficulty in processing emotion, where the lack of concern for it is present. ( you see a dead bird on the side of the road and someone else finds it unbearably sad, but you think, why should i feel anything for it? it's dead. i have no connection to it, i didn't see it die. if i saw it die, would i feel differently? apathetics experience this kind of questioning as emotional responses do not come naturally do them. ) it is important to note that apathy and depression, while commonly present together in individuals suffering from either, are not shown as being linked.

antisocial personality disorder ( aspd as i will refer to it ) is something i find highly present for dazai, and it commonly links with the scale of psychopathy, despite psychopathy being something that is not able to be diagnosed. aspd is an adult diagnosis that is characterised by a persistent disregard and violation of other's rights (see: his treatment of kyusaku and akutagawa - kyusaku he locked away in the port mafia's basement, concluding that he could not "fix" them and make them less volatile. with akutagawa this is listed further below, but referencing his treatment of akutagawa and how he abused his power over him. ) beginning in childhood/early adolescence. those with aspd will often show a lack of empathy, manipulate others for personal gain and do not often feel remorse for their actions. they will struggle to form interpersonal relationships and experience significant impairments in social situations. further to this is irresponsible behaviour and a disregard for normal social structure, blaming others for problems within their lives, repeated law breaking and lack of clear moral judgement ( important to note that dazai would have killed kyusaku, as he already notes that he cannot change them, and it might be more beneficial than simply locking them away again, if not for the moral judgement that chuuya provided in that moment ). those with aspd are at greater risk of dying prematurely due to reckless behaviour and attempts on their own lives via suicide. noting dazai as having aspd with regards to criminal activity aligns on a natural course - dazai joined the port mafia's ranks in the hopes that exposing himself to violence and impropriety would allow him to form some kind of emotional reaction, whether positive or negative, he wanted to feel something - this does not work, as he is commonly shown to ponder the fact that still, he feels nothing, and trying to has become a useless activity. this is just one of many factors leading to dazai being a dangerous individual, and this lack of an emotional response to averse situations does not change in adulthood and with the new addition of positive choices, dazai is still indifferent.

on the diagnosis of aspd, people are commonly labelled as sociopaths, however i disregard this as i would link dazai heavily with being on the scale of psychopathy.

now, psychopathy cannot be diagnosed, and a key difference between sociopathy and psychopathy is that sociopaths are made, psychopaths are born with this predisposition. psychopathy can present in a severe lack of emotional regulation and ability to feel and process emotion, individuals on this scale are commonly noted to have "dead eyes". a common reference to this would be that as "average" people experience emotions like anger, sadness, fear, anxiety, happiness, for someone on the scale of psychopathy this manifests as experiencing these emotions completely dialled down. what this means for dazai is that there is an understanding of emotion, but no present ability to feel and comprehend it within himself without bringing it forth manually and picking apart with his logical mind.

labelling a character and/or person as a psychopath can be dangerous, and to put it plainly this because of the idiotic ideation that psychopaths are all insane. i know for a fact that many people would label dazai a psychopath and then that manifest in character traits that mirror that of the joker which is a good fictional portrayal of certain levels of psychopathy, but the way this is often interpreted in the rpc is usually harmful and combined with a severe lack of research into the things i have referenced above. ( further to this, i have seen people reference the scene in 15 where dazai shoots someone, and has them ask him for death. in my view, this is the beginning of his journey in his understanding that he cannot feel the way an "average" person would, and it is his first time killing someone with his own hands. the first gunshot fires and he shoots the man, killing him, and the cogs in his brain ask why didn't i feel anything? why didn't it shock me? shouldn't i be repulsed? if not, why aren't i happy about it? this indifference causes dazai to shoot several more times, a certain dissociation that is him chasing a reaction he believes should be there, whether positive or negative, but that simply does not exist. )

as a tldr; dazai is a psychopath and his mental state dances that scale alongside clinical depression, apathy and antisocial personality disorder, which under the scale of psychopathy, all of these play a role. in his younger years he explored death and violence to a frightening degree and used others as test subjects on his journey to make himself feel something, a feared member of the port mafia dazai was proficient in ways of torturing individuals to make them talk, referencing "is there anyone who didn't talk after i started interrogating them?" and this is because dazai sees people as things to play with both physically and mentally. he manipulated chuuya's friends into thinking the worst and set in motion the plan to force chuuya into the port mafia, despite already having decided he wouldn't kill the sheep. he abused his power over akutagawa to force him into a state of dependency on dazai's approval, physically and emotionally wounded him to a point beyond recognition and that forced him to do well on the reliance of dazai's good mood.

his actions are inexcusable, and the traits of all listed above manifest in his "new life" within the ada, in different ways. psychopaths do not need to be inherently evil, and this is a common misconception. psychopathy is referenced to be a driving force for serial killers, murderers, criminals as they lack emotional comprehension and moral guidance that "average" people do not need to think about. dazai makes conscious efforts to perform the role of an "average" person, brings emotion forth manually and acts it out as he has seen others do. he can empathise, he can feel, but it takes a great deal of effort, as if he didn't force this, he simply wouldn't feel, wouldn't comprehend emotional responses. for the most part, this has become second - nature to him now, and can do so easily. but there are times where the mask he wears slips ( see: dark era dazai, age eighteen, walking towards a volatile gunman who had his weapon pointed directly at his head, asking him to kill him - knowing he would miss as he had calculated the man was fatally injured and couldn't make the shot, but it is referenced that he was begging to be let go from the hold the world had on him, going as far as to almost cry ).

dazai's performance of emotion within the ada is important because it is at least 80% MORE than what it was when he was with the port mafia, and this is because as a tactic of manipulation, it does not serve him to be feared within the ada, or by the people he's supposed to help. the whimsical nature that you see, dazai is comfortable feeling and performing, but it is that. a performance of a capability he doesn't have naturally.

name of muse(s). most prominent at the moment are dazai + geto!

best experience. hmm, i've made a lot of friends through writing! starting off on twitter in like, 2012 i met my best friend of 8 years, moving onto this hellscape (affectionate) i've met similarly lifelong friends and my partner ♡ ! writing has always been something i enjoy and i majored (that's not really a thing in the uk but it was a focus of the degree i never finished lmao, but i did get a diploma!) in screenwriting, so the aspects of rp are similar to that in a way, i think of it less like writing a novel and more like writing a screenplay. in my writing i'm huuuge on scene-setting and meanings behind things and always have a huge focus on what characters are doing that i often forget they need to speak and not gaze at each other ...

rp community pet peeves/dealbreakers. someone said negative comparisons where duplicate muses are concerned and i agree, as someone who has always been duplicate friendly it's so sad when people pit themselves against others for the sake of a few harsh words. this has become slightly less common though! and as such i'm glad my little community that i've built here doesn't have anyone like that hanging around! i also don't like pressure, drama ... the usual stuff that tends to be annoying where any rpc community is concerned.

muse preferences. yikes uhhh ... the ones that are typically seen as one - sided? morally ambiguous or grey? typically seen to have that "all for one" attitude but really it's "one for all"? i tend to take on characters that represent melancholy more often than not and i'm not sure what that says about me as a person but ... mhhhm. biggest muse focuses for me are when i can really dig emotional wells within them and pick them and their stories apart. i like nuance, but i don't tend to write many villainous characters, at least not those that are evil to their cores. i commonly write those that have something to fight for i guess?

plots or prompts. both! i utilise prompts to turn them into threads unless i just want the opportunity to go offfff on some character introspection using the prompt as the basis.

long or short replies. i tend to match whatever anyone throws at me, but i also don't know when to stfu. sorry for who i am as a person.

best time to write. uhhhh ... all the time? that's maybe a lie considering i'm always posting about not writing but honestly whenever the inspiration hits BUUUUUTTT i'm always always always available to talk people's ears off.