#beast ensemble

I will admit I kind of suck because, though Beast is primarily about the interactions between Atsushi and Akutagawa, I don't have much to say about either of them. But Beast is so so so refreshing to me to see some of the characters that I thought deserved better in canon receiving their time in the light. The interactions between Aku and Oda are everything to me, especially when Akutagawa has to babysit the kids, and through it he has to learn when to be gentle and when to be harsh. Its so so so important because you get to see that he can do both. The same Akutagawa who's first appearance in the main timeline is blowing up a police station without any care for civilian casualties is capable of gently playing with children, WITH his ability. It opens up a depth to his character that, at least at the time of Beast's official English translation coming out (I had it on Preorder lol), we didn't really get to see in the main timeline. It told me that there was so much more to see from him, more that Asagiri wanted to say about him, and not only made me really attached to his Beast version but made me enthusiastic to see what was to come from the main timeline for him.

Its kind of similar with Atsushi in Beast, if the opposite way. I was always a little disappointed with the anime's adaption of Atsushi, as he always felt a bit watered down to be a one-size-fits-all protagonist, when he has more character and snark in the manga that makes him so much more interesting. I don't love it for him because yanno that shit traumatizing, but I do for me enjoy having seen what happens when you put him in the mafia instead. Do you ever think about how he would have been like, 12, when he was recruited into the mafia? That's like 6 years earlier than in canon. This is assuming that Beast Dazai goes and picks him up at the same point in time that he acquires Akutawaga in the main timeline. (Aku was acquired when he was 14). So by the time of Beast's main plot, that gives Atsushi 6 years in the mafia to become the White Reaper, and what a name that is. To be associated with the death he's so afraid of. Ohh, he's interesting. I wish I had more to say about him. Honestly, beast aku and atsu are more my boyfriend @pmreaper's wheelhouse, and I highly recommend taking a look at his thoughts. Between the Orphanage and the Mafia, Beast Atsushi hasn't really seen much honest kindness, aside from Kyoka. And christ, the collar. I'll talk more about the collar later, but that does something to me. He goes from the orphanage causing him pain and problems about being the tiger when he doesn't even know, to a much more restrictive controlling pain when he does know. He's taught that being what he is just leads to being in pain and he has no control over it and it makes me miserable for him. Despite spending so much time fighting on the Mafia's behalf, on Dazai's behalf, this boy has no idea how to fight for himself.

I think that's a major difference between beast Atsu and Aku honestly. Akutagawa will fight for himself. He'll fight his way out of a bad situation. Beast Atsushi won't. That self pity of feeling he deserves it. Christ. Them. Their soft moments interacting together before everything goes to shit in Beast are everything to me. They're just kids from bad situations they understand each other. Their interactions in Beast stab me through the heart.

I don't have much to say about Gin but I want to mention her anyway. Mostly because I think she's the most mentally stable of the mafia members close to Dazai in Beast that we see (Chuuya, Atsu, Kyoka, Gin). She'd have a Keurig on her desk and make the best coffee on the floor. She's such a stark difference from her main timeline counterpart, too. Gin the mafia assassin and Gin the mafia secretary are so different, visually. But... this is a Gin that isn't fighting to survive in the same way. I think so much about how she was taken so that Dazai had some kind of control over Akutagawa without having him in the mafia. I think about how she decided Akutagawa wasn't ready to have her in his life again. About how she was ready to be killed for the Mafia. We barely see any of Gin in the main timeline, but we see so much of her here. Her loyalty to the mafia, her own feelings of betrayal, there's so much to her that we just haven't seen from the main timeline at all. I adore her. I want to see more of her. I like to think that after the events of Beast played out she stole a mafia helicopter and she and Kyoka flew off to Cancun on a girls trip to recover from All That Shit.

I generally ignore the Beast version of Chuuya the way he's presented in canon if I'm honest. And I quite actively ignore whatever the movie ending with the chains is because the fuck is that. Chuuya's presence in Beast canon is something that i acknowledge and then throw away. I have a very specific mental timeline of how Beast progresses in my head as far as where it diverges from the main timeline. In my heart, Atsushi is dragged into the mafia shortly before Dragon's Head Rush, possibly when the conflict is originally starting up in Yokohama, or some time during it. Somewhere in the 88 days before the final face-off against Shibusawa. (I have a lot of opinions on the nitty-gritty details of that timeline both in Beast and Main timeline but that's a not-right-now problem.) This is the event that, in the main timeline, Dazai ascends to executive. I believe that in the Beast timeline, during the DHR conflict is where he stages his coup to become the PM's boss. Which is... kind of a wild thing to do at 16, I guess, but this is a Dazai that has memories of the main timeline as well as of this world, so is he really mentally 16 at that point with the combined life experience? Anyway. Why do I mention this timeline when I'm talking about Chuuya? Because Dazai needed help staging that coup. Chuuya's help. He was well liked in the mafia even then (we can see Chuuya's own reputation was pretty damn good at this point as its not long after Stormbringer). I believe they had a more amicable relationship in the Beast timeline than in main timeline, and that this was calculated to make Chuuya's loyalty lie more with Dazai than the mafia at large so that the coup would work. But after Dazai is boss? Nothing. Cold and all-business once Dazai is in place to start playing with the entire city like his own personal barbie dolls to get everything in place to allow Oda to write his book. Whatever. Which leads to Chuuya's loyalty-hatred complex a bit but I have... a lot of opinions on that entire interaction between them that I don't really know how to articulate. But it fucking sucks.

As far as within the Mafia hierarchy, I think that very few people ever report to Dazai himself. Only Gin, Atsu, Chuuya, and maybe someone really trustworthy like Hirotsu. Chuuya is the boss's right hand in this, he's the second in command, above what a normal executive position would be. Dazai is busy making plans on his insanity corkboard trying to ensure this world stays perfect for Oda. He's busy scheming on what to do to make the mafia more powerful to ensure its reach can accomplish what he needs it to. He's busy doing all the meta-number-crunching to minmax his power so he can treat the world like a plaything. I think he leaves a lot of the normal day-to-day running the mafia to Chuuya, who acts more like the boss in the level of Mori in the main timeline, since the Mafia itself in Beast is like 3x the power it was in canon. Someone has to be keeping an eye on the city itself. I think the executives more of report to him than they would Dazai. It just becomes this really weird hierarchy of designated people leading what they need to so Dazai can focus on what he wants. Obviously none of this is supported in Beast canon at all its just what I believe in my whole heart. I also think that there may have been a point in time they tested something similar to the collar Atsushi is given with Chuuya to see if there was a way to shut down Corruption without Dazai needing to be involved. It failed and Chuuya was hospitalized for a week after and 100% made it Dazai's problem. Which, tangentially, do you ever think about the Beast aftermath? How if something comes up where Beast Chuuya has to use Corruption, there's no longer a way to stop it? Because I sure do.

This brings me down to more thoughts about Beast Dazai himself, who is such a wild character to me. He's everything normal timeline Dazai doesn't want to be. Oda wouldn't want this. Oda wouldn't want a world where so many people are miserable that don't have to be just for his sake. Its depressing, but main timeline Odasaku had chosen his time to die and was quite ready to do so. And main timeline Dazai? He just had to accept that. And grow beyond it. And learn how to create connections with others. But Beast Dazai? He swings the opposite. He doesn't try to recover, he's obsessive, he tears everyone else down into his misery with him to try to create a world that Oda can survive and write his novels in without ever thinking about the fact that Oda would never want that, would never ask for that, but he's on such a pedestal in Dazai's mind that its never considered. Its selfish. He thinks he's doing something for someone else but its so, so very selfish and frankly ridiculous. He chose to never really make any connections with anyone else. Oda of that universe doesn't even know who he is, other than the boss of the mafia that ruins people's lives. There's no connection. Beast Dazai is so untethered and doesn't see anything in that world as anything more than means to an end and I'm so, so obsessed with him. He's tragic. He's trying so hard to do something correctly and doesn't even understand what he's doing wrong because he's so caught up in saving the one person he's so fixated on. He's crafted an empire out of the mafia and couldn't care less about it. He's put himself into the shoes of a god and sacrificed every mortal comfort because of it. I have so much I could say about him but my brain is going to short circuit if I think about him for much longer. I'll probably talk more about him again when I finally reread Beast. I hate him more than I can explain. He's the most interesting man alive. He's no man at all. I'm in hell

Odasaku. Oda. He's still alive. He has even more orphans. Akutagawa is one of his orphans. He thinks he's the most normal guy but he's so, so weird. He trusts Akutagawa with his kids. He'll fight Akutagwa in the middle of the Agency as a training exercise. He probably has the most bland coffee order you can imagine. Anyone know that textpost about the guy that got the black coffee with the blueberry flavoring? The ordinary man with something deeply wrong with him? That's beast Oda. He wants to be a writer, he succeeds, he has a mafia boss obsessed with him and doesn't even know until said dude goes off and dies. I have NO idea what the fuck he was doing in the movie. I generally ignore the movie honestly. He's just some guy. This world was made for him and all he wants is to be ordinary. This world was made for him and he chooses to be mundane. This is a man that knows mortality well. That knows the best parts of life are the small ones. He wants to help people and he succeeds. He sees other people who had a past of violence, like he did growing as an assassin, and he helps them get out of it, he prevents it from happening, he offers care in a way those unused to receiving it can accept. He isn't perfect. He's just a guy. It makes him perfect. I want to kick a wall.

The agency in Beast and how they all rally together is so interesting as well. We don't really get to see them all in action together that often honestly and its a delight. I wish I had more to say about all of them. They're such a cohesive unit of strays and I love them.

I certainly have so much more I could say about Beast but this is already like, the length of an average one-shot fanfiction on AO3 just of my incoherent rambling. If there's anything you want me to talk more on please send another ask because this was a fucking blast to dig up a lot of my old thoughts. I have several unedited one-shot beast fics tucked into storage that maybe one day I'll share because they're all based off of my headcanons and personal beliefs on the timeline.