#bsd rant

"beast!mori is a better person!!" you do realize everything prior to taking in dazai, beast!mori did the same thing as bsd mori (ex. bringing yosano into the war). and he probably had dazai help him become the pm boss the same way... not to mention the time he did spend as the mafia boss before dazai banished him

the reason beast!mori seems nicer is because he doesn't have to be the port mafia boss anymore, and being put in charge of an orphanage as someone who does appear to care about children means he's naturally going to be a lot kinder to said children. beast!mori and bsd mori have the same mindsets because they're the same person just in different circumstances (the other characters are like this too; their actions might differ a lot from regular bsd but they still have essentially the same thought processes)

beast!mori's actions can be used to analyze bsd mori better because it allows us to see how he would be were he to have more freedom to be more than just the pm boss. like bsd mori telling yosano that typically he'd want to listen to a child's whims (paraphrasing) but how circumstances couldn't allow that. beast emphasizes this since we can see that he really does care about children (like that panel where he mourns not being able to save dazai, and also the whole orphanage scene lmao)

The agency is dealing with some wacky stuff, and there he is, casually sauntering in, like, “Hey, I’m here to help solve your issues because my ‘rival’ (boyfriend.. 🫪🍩) asked me to.” then he just fucking dips????

I want more kunikida and Dazai partnership and I am convinced the only reason people prefer soukoku is because of the anime’s poor adaptation of Dazai’s entrance exam.

So many people have devalued kunikida, who was supposed to be one of the main characters, in favor of Chuuya who is meant to be part of Dazai’s past.

Kunikida and Dazai play off of each other and reflect one another in a way Soukoku can only dream of, and their relationship is a core part of each of their characters. Mersault was such a perfect opportunity to create a narrative foil not only with the plot of Dazai’s entrance exam but to expand on Kunikida’s character by putting him directly against fyodor.

Not to mention that putting Dazai with Chuuya undermines his growth and change as a person and character.

It is very explicit in the light novel that Dazai cares for Kunikida, and that they are perfect partners for one another.

Not happy thoughts I fear tho.

Because the thing is, i don’t think there could exist a universe where Dazai is happy.

Yes, he has a lot of trauma that has been caused by others, but i feel like his worst enemy and biggest baggage isn’t anything that has rlly happened to him, but more so his intelligence. He feels inhuman not js bcuz of his crimes, but also largely bcuz his intelligence is so rare, that he feels aliented from humanity, and would still feel aliented from humanity even if he lived a normal life.

Kind of how Ranpo has always suffered bcuz of his intelligence b4 he met Fukuzawa. The difference with Ranpo is that Fukuzawa gave him a way to block off his ‘freakiness’ and make him ‘normal’ like the rest; the glasses. The glasses for Ranpo serve as a mental barrier; in a way protecting him from his own mind.

But Dazai doesn’t have such thing that could block off his own mind, and i don’t think he ever will, bcuz he will never get to a lvl of trust w smb where he would let himself get deceived like Ranpo was.

Nothing will ever surprise him and so life will continue to be boring and senseless. No one will ever be able to understand Dazai either, because their minds simply don’t have the capacity for that; Oda, ironically, probably came closest to understanding him by understanding these facts, hence the “you’re not gonna find a reason to live” speech.

Like. YES. I am ALL for critical interpretations of Dazai’s character (he rly does suck sometimes and is extremely complex, he’s definitely NOT a good person), but simply saying that hes awful and horrible and no one should like him? That’s just sucky media literacy. Every single character in this fucking manga is morally gray, that’s the ENTIRE point, and if that went over your head… sorry dude, I don’t think you get it….

“Oh but he abused akutagawa!” OKAY? Yeah, he sucks! He did evil things! He would be the FIRST person to acknowledge that! I think there’s very few people in the fandom who ACTUALLY excuse Dazai’s actions; but yknow whose morally horrendous actions tend to be COMPLETELY overlooked?? Akutagawa fucking Ryuunosuke. I love him dearly, he’s one of my all time favorite characters; but guess what? He abused Kyoka! The same exact way Dazai abused him, and that Mori abused Dazai! None of them are perfectly good characters and that’s The Point. You can still like them as characters. Theyre MEANT to be morally gray.

I could also go on a tangent about how, while definitely awful, Akutagawa and Dazai’s relationship tends to be wildly misinterpreted and shouldnt be written off as a simple abuser/victim dynamic, BUT, that’s a rant for another time…

And then…. SOUKOKU. Come on now. Look, I was skeptical of it as a ship at first, as I think most people are, because

1. From a very surface level reading, yeah, it does look like they fucking hate eachother, and

2. Theres a lot of the fandom who WILDLY mischaracterizes them for the sake of the ship. Like, seriously, the shippers can get annoying as hell and disliking a ship for that reason is totally valid!

So, yeah. I get it. You don’t have to like Soukoku, people can ship whatever they want (besides like. Obviously problematic stuff), it’s literally fiction, who cares. There’s a LOT of other amazing ships for both characters, and admittedly I do enjoy a lot of those ships!

BUT. The second I see someone go on about how “They literally hate eachother! They want to kill eachother! Chuuya celebrated when Dazai left/Dazai didnt care about Chuuya! Blah blah blah-“

…

Look. LOOK. If youre a new fan/have only watched the first couple seasons of the anime/haven’t read any manga or LNs… fine. Whatever. I can accept that you simply didnt think any deeper on the characters and their past/personalities. Whatever. But if youre the type to write an entire thinkpiece on tumblr… ESPECIALLY if youre gonna reference the LNs… you have no excuse. It’s just a horrible horrible misinterpretation of BOTH of their characters.

Dazai is a LIAR. He’s one big fascade wrapped up in bandages and a trench coat. Almost everything he says is an ACT, put on to distract others from what he’s truly thinking and feeling. There’s very few times we actually get insight into Dazai’s mind—particularly during Dark era/the day I picked up Dazai/a bit of Fifteen— and when we do, it’s made clear that he’s a sad, traumatized, broken person who’s far too smart for this world, and doesn’t see himself as human. That causes him to do a lot of shitty things; and it also causes him to keep everyone he cares about at a DISTANCE. He does it with the ADA, and he did it back in the mafia. Oda was the only one who saw through it, forced his way into Dazai’s life anyways; Chuuya is the closest besides him.

Chuuya and Dazai don’t understand eachother, but they TRUST eachother. They both shout insults at eachother, use stupid childish nicknames and physical violence like two kids—because that’s the dynamic they adopted when they WERE two kids. ( yes 15 counts as a kid, I will fight you on that). Their bickering dynamic is comfortable and familiar, as weird as it is. They don’t always particularly like eachother, because their personalities are so conflicting and because Dazai intentionally antagonizes Chuuya on the regular, but they DO care about eachother. Any close reading of Stormbringer, or of the main manga, will tell you that. There’s a lot of complexity to their relationship since neither of them see themselves as human, really, and they both had really fucked up upbringings; but they DO care about eachother. You can read it as romantic or platonic, but to insist that they actually hate eachother when all the evidence points to the contrary is a shallow reading of the characters, and of the story’s overall themes in general tbh.

So, yeah. Anyone is free to like or dislike any characters/ships they want. Thats fine! It’s fiction, it really doesnt matter. But when someone who claims to be a fan has a blatant misinterpretation of the characters and media? And then goes on to spread that false interpretation to others, insisting that WE’re in the wrong for defending these characters/ships?

Yeah, that pisses me off.