#intimatopia

49. A kiss out of necessity.

“And so Sleeping Beauty waits for his True Love’s Kiss to break the spell of eternal sleep,” Dazai muses aloud, moving the cat in his way to the side with his foot. “Except I’m the princess. You’re doing a piss poor job of this prince thing, Chuuya. Then again, you’ve never been good for much other than punching things, so it’s to be expected.”

Chuuya doesn’t rise to the barb. He doesn’t rise at all, still peacefully sleeping in his bed like he has been for the past week. Dazai tries not to focus on the way it makes him feel as he drags the chair he stole from the dining room behind him and sets it next to Chuuya’s bedside. 

He sits down, crosses one leg over the other, and hums. One of the cats trots in from the other room and jumps up into his lap, nudging its nose under his hand until he lifts it to pet it absentmindedly. “You’re making everyone worry, you know. How selfish.” The cat starts to purr under his ministrations, settled into his lap as a dead weight. “Everyone else has had to pick up the slack while you’re busy napping. I had to feed your dumb cats, and pick up your dumb dry cleaning, and pay your dumb utility bills. Forging your signature is hard.”

Against a mewl of protest, he pushes the cat on him—Lisette, Chuuya’s favorite because she had never liked Dazai—to the floor and stands up. Looking down at Chuuya isn’t anything new to him given their height difference, but it feels wrong to see him laid out so vulnerable. His breathing is steady, hands folded gently on top of his stomach, ever the picture of grace and beauty in slumber.

‘An act of true love’ is all it would take to fix this. Dazai’s never cared much for Ability users with conditions that can’t be nullified, only broken by meeting the requirements. They’re annoying, to say the least, not to mention a huge inconvenience to everyone affected by it, whether directly or by proxy. Something as vague as ‘acts of love’ is just an irritation on top of the annoyance, and after exhausting every resource between the ADA and the Port Mafia, they still haven’t figured out how to fix Chuuya.

Reaching a hand out to brush some of Chuuya’s hair out of his face is involuntary, but Dazai doesn’t do anything to stop it once he realizes what he’s doing. Chuuya’s warm under his hand, soft and delicate in every way that contradicts everything he chooses to be. He trails his fingers down Chuuya’s cheek.

“I played with those stray dogs you like to take care of, too,” he says, quiet even in the still silence of Chuuya’s bedroom. “They’re gross and one of them slobbered on me, but they make you happy. And I ordered ramen from that place you’re always talking about. The owner wants to know if you’re okay.” Still no response. He stops his hand at Chuuya’s jaw and cups it in his palm, leaning down until their lips are barely brushing.

Give me one more miracle.

It’s a simple kiss, soft and light and full of a dying hope Dazai is trying so desperately to hold onto. A hallmark of his modus operandi is planning out every variable to the nth degree, having a backup idea to back up his backup ideas, and something as unknowable and unquantifiable as love throws a wrench in the entire operation. He’s not sure that whatever he feels for Chuuya counts, isn’t sure if he’s even capable of something so normal, so human, but maybe taking a blind leap of faith will pay off in the end.

He starts to pull back and suddenly there’s a hand in his hair, asking nothing but for the chance to be present, and Chuuya is pulling him back down and kissing him back. It doesn’t last long—just long enough to make a point.

Chuuya’s eyes are bright with mirth. “I was going to stop you after you said you paid my bills, but I kinda wanted to see how much you’d keep saying,” he says, grabbing Dazai by the front of his shirt and yanking him onto the bed as Dazai yelps. “You really spent time with dogs for me?”

Dazai readjusts his knees on either side of Chuuya’s hips, hands pressed into the bed by his shoulders, and frowns slightly. “Now that I know you’re fine, I kind of regret it,” he replies, though he doesn’t fight it when Chuuya reaches behind his neck to pull him into another kiss.

(the post in question:)

okay, so. this is positioning logic, reason, and objectivity as a) the opposite of empathy, b) inherently male, c) vices. 

i don’t know if the OPs meant to imply any of these things- the odds are good that they just meant “ugh, That One Dude In My Philosophy 101 Class Who Thinks He’s A Paragon Of Logic Because He’s Read Atlas Shrugged is a Jagoff And I Wish I Never Had To Hear Him Again”- but that is what they’re implying. and these are all really really bad things to be implying for so many goddamn reasons. we’re talking “we don’t have time to unpack this let’s throw away the whole damn suitcase” kinda way.

so first off. when you imply that logic is the opposite of empathy, you are implying that feeling for other people is always an irrational thing to do. You are basically saying that helping other people is never the best or wisest course of action, that it would be wiser to let other people suffer. You are saying it is immoral to try to figure out the best solution to a problem instead of going with your gut and instinctively HELPING!!!!!

this is the kind of attitude that breeds benevolent sexism and white saviourism. no, really. feeling bad for people who are hurting is good and important. but unless you’re willing to sit down, detach yourself from your emotions to a degree, look at the actual problem space and not just at how you feel about it, and talk to the people who are hurting to see what they need-- in short, unless you use some degree of logic and reasoning-- you’re going to do what makes you feel better and not what solves the problem. 

it is good to empathize with other people, don’t get me wrong. but it’s also often the logical thing to do-- when people are hurting, it’s natural to want to help. positioning empathy as the opposite of logic means that you actively discourage people from trying to solve problems and encourage them to do things that make them feel better about problems. 

second of all. when you position logic, objectivity, and common sense as male traits, you are reinforcing the old sexist stereotype that men are ‘logical’ and women are ‘emotional’. it’s not great to reinforce sexist stereotypes even if you flip them over and say ‘being logical is bad actually’. 

setting aside the fact that you’re giving your enemies ammo-- which, you know, fine, I’ll grant that respectability politics are bullshit-- there are plenty of women who have systematizing/overly-logical/low-empathy brains. saying that ‘logic’ is a male trait kinda implies that these women are Being Women Wrong and that to be a woman you have to be Froofy and Emotional and Empathetic and Nurturing. 

i’m h/t-ing funereal-disease for this one (not tagging because she said she’s low on spoons)- basically, lately there’s been this push to define Womanhood as something stricter again, coming from the Left as much as the Right. There’s this idea that if you’re a woman but you’re not froofy and empathetic and emotional, well, you must be NB, right? 

liiiiiiiike you shouldn’t have to believe in astrology and enjoy Sisterhood (TM) to be able to call yourself a woman, but a disturbingly growing number of people seem to think that’s the case. >_

third, and finally... when you discard logic, reason, and common sense, you are much easier to radicalize and therefore control.  

there’s a reason so many cults and high-demand groups are, well, religious in nature. religion kinda demands you leave your common sense at the door, because some things are Ineffable. the gods are gods, mortals are mortals, and you will never be able to fully understand them. 

...I don’t think this is inherently wrong, but... when you’ve abandoned logic and reason and common sense, it becomes much easier for other people to tell you to do things that you would normally agree are bullshit. in the tumblr pagan community i met someone who was encouraging other people to worship him as a god. and people did it. because this person leaned on their religious beliefs and encouraged them to ignore their common sense. (you know, ‘people who demand to be worshipped are, generally, Bad News’). 

 if you want to radicalize people-- if you want them to believe dogma and hate the outgroup, rather than feeling empathy for everyone and acting based on their own ethical principles- you have to convince them to abandon reason. if your followers argue with your dogma, they’re not going to do what you say. if your followers won’t hate who you want them to hate on cue because “it doesn’t make sense”, you won’t have a small army of people to harass people into submission.

so you have to get them to abandon reason and focus only on dogma. you have to convince them that members of the outgroup can’t be objective about their own experiences and that the ingroup is always right. you have to convince them that any evidence the dogma might be wrong is false, it’s Enemy Lies or them Not Being Woke Enough. 

(you also have to get them to abandon empathy for the outgroup but that’s another story.) 

and OP is implying, whether or not they’re intending to, that that’s a good thing. that abandoning logic and reason means stripping yourself of unwoke social principles. that becoming more dogmatic is the only way to be empathetic. that anyone who wants to apply logic or reason to a complicated situation is ... That Fucking Guy. 

this blog has had a great run and I love what I've made here—but I've been thinking about a clean fresh start and I think I need one. feel free to unfollow me here and follow me @tenderwiki. if we were mutuals I'll follow you back.

jasmine: what mythical creature do you wish actually existed?

maybe trite, but dragons. i feel they are the only kind of creature in mythology that are properly fleshed out in terms of how their presocial factors (long lifespan if not immortality) influence their psychology and worldview. this is standard in many such settings such as forgotten realms, but i feel it was conveyed especially interestingly in heavensward, which i just finished— they treat members of mortal species as cells of a unit (their society) which is in itself immortal, because they were around back when their ancestors’ ancestors did heinous things to their brothers and sisters.

this device is in general underrated— you barely see it in scifi, even though cybernetic enhancements should by all means engender such things. experimentations in this foray do exist, but i feel they never quite manage to transcend the ‘regular human with some funny quirks’ archetype until they’re literally creating gods or whatever (as bob page attempted to in deus ex).

hornier answer: more humanoid interpretations of fae legends. the kind of devil that the deviless from sunless sea and queen annalise from bloodborne symbolise as well.

lion’s fairytale: would you rather be the sky, the ocean or the forests?

the sky. it’s the only uninterrupted one among the three of these across the entire globe.

pumpkin patch: what’s your zodiac sign?

aries. it’s a nice enough time to celebrate one’s birthday— i don’t think i would want to celebrate either a summer or winter birthday. it is also the most aesthetically pleasing sign, in my opinion, and i like the sycophantric descriptions and portents that aries-themed content has the best. if i had to choose a sign based on my personality, it would be aries.

ahhh ily too carys mwah <3 

why do you ship kunikidazai?

*searches brain for a reason I haven’t already told you* uhhhhhh……

I think part of it is I want there to be some sort of meaningful relationship between the two of them. It’s just that they make such a great duo but it hurts me knowing how dense Kunikida can be and how perceptive Dazai is. Like, Dazai absolutely knows so much more about Kunikida than he lets on, but Kunikida...doesn’t know much about Dazai, I think. But even just as friends, I want them to be on the same page and I want Kunikida to put the effort into really getting to know Dazai and I want Dazai to realize that somebody with such firm ideals like Kunikida thinks he’s worth his time and effort and hnnngg

I also think Dazai would be good for Kunikida? Kunikida absolutely can not end up with someone who fits all of his ideals or else he’ll hold them to those ridiculously high standards and that’s not healthy for any relationship. Dazai does not fit any of his ideals at all, which is why he’s so great! Dazai is messy, disorganized, seemingly unmotivated, not a woman....and, to top it all of, he’s not even guided by a moral code, it seems. While confusing at first, I want this to be the driving force behind Kunikida realizing that there’s more than one way to be good. 

Dazai is good, isn’t he? Or at least, he’s trying, and sometimes that’s all you can do. I just feel like Kunikida having this disaster of a person who, on top of everything, has one of the bloodiest track records imaginable but is still the one who comforts him when he can’t save everybody on a mission, and who he always wakes up to him cuddled up to his side...that’s just what I want. That’s good food. They’re good boyfriends. Did I even answer your question?

How did you start shipping dazatsu?

Ok, fun story time! I’ve been in the bsd fandom since like late 2016/early 2017, back when I was still on wattpad. I had gone through my AOT phase and was looking for something else to watch when one of the people I followed started a bsd reading list. So, I checked the show out, liked it, and searched around for fics.

At this point, I was just branching out of x readers, so I didn’t know how to navigate my way around ships. I also started looking for fics only a few episodes in, so I didn’t even know much about Chuuya or Akutagawa (so I wasn’t really feeling s/skk because I barely knew the other halves of them.) Then I found a dazatsu fic, and it stole my young naive heart.

However, I dropped the series when school got busy and didn’t pick it up for like....a year and a half. Then I re-binged it, got obsessed, started this blog, saw dazatsu fanart, remembered all the fics I read on wattpad, and a little while later here we are!

*grumbles* what the hex, carys. after i do so much work for these edits it’s still not enough, huh? :pensive: :pensive: :pensive:

this is a good number of prompts from one person <3

do I have to warn for rape fantasies? the ask made that pretty clear, right?