a little short thing I wrote with a thought that didn't make it into a longer fic, and half of an idea that has honestly been floating around in my head for YEARS and would kind of work really well with these two if I ever get around to using the whole thing.
TW: discussions of suicide
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“Chuuya....”
Anyone else's voice, and Chuuya would have been instantly awake, no matter how deeply he'd been sleeping. But Dazai.... Dazai was different. Groaning in protest, he curled up and pulled the covers more snugly over his bare shoulder.
“Chuuuuuuyaaaa.... Wakey, wakey little slugabed.”
“Fuck off,” he muttered. The room was too bright. Dazai had opened the goddamn curtains and let the sun in.
“I brought you something.” There was a quiet hiss, and then Dazai prodded the corner of his mouth. His fingertip had been wet with...coffee?
Drawing in a deep breath through his nose, Chuuya could smell it now, permeating the air of the penthouse. Grumbling, he pulled himself up to sit, bleary-eyed and hunched over. As he yawned, Dazai took his hands and wrapped them around a mug almost too hot to hold from the fresh coffee within. Chuuya squinted down onto the surface where it quivered between reflective light and pitch darkness. He frowned.
“'d you stick your finger in it?”
“I was testing the temperature.”
“Hm.” Breathing in the steam, he stared blankly down at the coffee while his brain caught up to wakefulness.
“God, you're hideous.”
“Hn?” Bastard.
“Look at you, you gremlin! Your hair is a bird's nest, your eyes are swollen and you're squinting like you're going blind. You've got drool on your face and marks from your pillowcase, besides.”
He just woke up. Dazai could cut him some fuckin' slack.
Chuuya grunted and took a sip of his coffee. It burned the roof of his mouth, but at least he hadn't flung it in Dazai's face.
Currently, Dazai's face was upturned toward him, cradled in his hands—an easy target if ever there was one. He was kneeling on the floor, elbows propped on the edge of the bed. No bandages, only the t-shirt he'd slept in. His expression was....
“Too early for this shit,” Chuuya said, and threw back half the mug at once. The heat scalded his throat, working up through muscle and skin. He could feel sweat beading, and knew he'd gone red as a crab. The plausible deniability of it being a result of the hot coffee was honestly a farce between them, but sometimes Dazai wasn't fully a waste of skin and would let him get away with pretending they didn't both see right through each other.
Today, apparently, was one of those days. Rather than needle him, Dazai shifted, digging something out of a pocket. He set a black velvet ring box atop the blankets pooling on Chuuya's lap, then went back to cradling his face and staring. Chuuya refused to make the mistake of looking at him again.
“What's that?” He took another sip of coffee, watching the box like it might jump at him.
“Chuuya! I'm wounded! How could you forget our anniversary?”
“It's not—!” He stopped, frowning as he thought about it. “Do we even have an anniversary?”
“Several! But this one is the important one. Ten years ago today, you kicked me into a wall, and offered to kill me immediately, or after I told you what you wanted to know.”
“You can just say it was the day we met, freak.”
“It's comments like that which make me question your intelligence even to this day.” He wriggled, shaking the mattress. “Well? Aren't you going to open your present?”
“Dunno.” He took a longer sip of coffee, delaying the inevitable. “It gonna trigger a murder/suicide explosion that wrecks our apartment?”
Dazai huffed. Chuuya could imagine the pout on his face. Still wasn't gonna look.
“You are so incredibly lacking in romance where it counts. There's nothing intimate about incendiary devices.”
“Mm. Knife in the back is more your style.”
“Please. That option is off the table. You deserve something unique, something to make your heart race.”
Leaning over, Chuuya set his coffee on the bedside table. Dazai snuck in a kiss against his stomach as he did. Then, finally, he picked up the box.
“So this is an actual gift?”
“Unfortunately, the pet store was out of your favorite treats, so I hope you'll accept this as a paltry replacement.”
Chuuya glanced at him long enough to spot the sincerity, then dropped his gaze back to the box. “I didn't get you anything,” he said.
“That's fine.” He shifted again. Out of the corner of his eye, Chuuya saw him lace his fingers together over his mouth. “Open it. Please.”
With a mental shrug—and the power of Tainted a thought away, just in case—Chuuya raised the lid.
He'd thought.... The way Dazai was going on, the way he was fidgeting, Chuuya had half-expected something ridiculous like an engagement ring. Turned out, it wasn't jewelry at all. Sitting in the velvet indent meant for a ring, shining in the clear, morning sunlight, was a bare razor blade. Dazai was waiting to meet his eyes.
“The hell is this?”
It was deeply unfortunate that the smug little smile Dazai put on when he was playing sweet while being a pedantic asshole suited him incredibly well. He'd learned to let it reach his eyes so that they crinkled a bit at the corners, bringing out laugh lines, and making the light caught in their depths sparkle.
“It's a razor blade,” he said, a hint of mockery in his voice. “Obviously.”
“It's a message, you twisty bastard. Spell it out.”
While his smile stayed fixed, Dazai's gaze dropped ever-so-slightly. “Symbolically, then...it's my death.”
Immediately, Chuuya's focus fell to the little black box cradled in the palm of his hand. It was trembling faintly.
“You don't mean—”
“Don't,” he said, suddenly serious. “...Don't downplay it, don't act like you think it's a joke. Give it back if you don't want to bear the weight, but don't tell me I don't know exactly what I'm doing.”
Looking at Dazai was like plunging into a lake in winter. It wasn't the chill void of utter emptiness that came with his darkest moods, but the cold of a vast, isolating loneliness. It was a feeling Chuuya knew all too well.
“You still want to die,” Chuuya said. It wasn't a question. His latest proof was barely a month old.
The way Dazai smiled then was so weary that it hurt to see. “It's out of my hands now.”
Chuuya snorted. “That's stupid. You can still—” He stopped himself, hearing the insanity of what he'd been about to say.
“I have everything I could ask for. A career. Amusing coworkers. An ideal, of sorts, to live up to.” Reaching out, he tugged on a lock of Chuuya's sleep-snarled hair. “I have you.” He leaned back until he was no longer touching the bed, dropping his hands to rest on his thighs. “And I still want to die. Some days less than others, but I don't have much hope left that the desire will ever truly leave me.”
“So...you're trying to take the option away? By giving the choice to me?”
He seemed to chew on his answer for a moment, still and silent with the sunlight striking warm, bronze highlights off his unruly hair.
“Wanting to die isn't the same as wanting to leave.” He met Chuuya's eyes, calling up a smile for him. “You'd be my only unfinished business, slug. My only regret. So, if we find our business concluded someday, you can finally make good on your offer from the day we met.”
Carefully, Chuuya closed the box. Rather than set it on the bedside table, he shoved it beneath his pillow. He'd find a better place for it later, but for now, it was his, and he wanted it hidden away. Shoving aside the sheets, he slid out of bed and onto Dazai's lap, into arms rising to pull him close before he'd even touched the floor.
“Swear to God, I'm going to murder you one day, you absolute waste of bandages.” The words spilled from him in a rush before he shut himself up with a sharp bite to Dazai's throat. The moan buzzed beneath his teeth, and he pulled back to lick away the sting. He was going to mark the hell out of Dazai, leave his throat covered in bruises the color of every jewel that passed through Chuuya's hands: the raw pinks and reds of rubies and garnets, deep purples and blues of amethyst, iolite, and sapphire, the fading green-yellow-gray of peridot and citrine and smoky quartz. He'd leave a choker of jewels around Dazai's throat, so he could carry around the weight of Chuuya's commitment beneath his bandages for days. Chuuya was going to eat him alive.
“Shitty Dazai,” he gasped, grinding down against him until Dazai moaned. “Like hell I'd give it back. If you change you mind, you'd better be prepared to kill me for it.”
“Ahh, Chuuya....” He laughed breathlessly, helping to tear off his shirt to give Chuuya access to his chest. “You understand so well. That's what I love best about you.”
It is common knowledge to most who know me that I rewatch episode 21 of the anime frequently. For a while my attention has been snagging on one particular line of dialogue. When Dazai suggests they use corruption he says that it's Chuuya's choice and Chuuya replies with;
"I hate it when you say stuff like that, it always means that I actually don't have a choice."
It has always felt antithetical to their dynamic, choice has always been a big thing for them, there's never any orders, it's always a question. From their first fight together in Fifteen, Dazai asks Chuuya "Do you trust me?" Chuuya has to choose to trust Dazai. In Stormbringer Dazai gives Chuuya all of the time that he can to decide whether or not to activate corruption and let the answer to his humanity be lost (Before I started drafting this post I actually hadn't realised that Dazai actually tried to give Chuuya as much time as possible - "Two more minutes. Nowhere near enough time to decide how to live the rest of one's life, but it was all the time they could spare" - that was very obviously caring of him. How did I not notice that sooner?) and in the meantime, he puts his mind to work creating backup plans, should Chuuya choose not to go through with it. Choice is so important to how they work, it's always trying to allow the option for a choice, even in a situation where it feels like there is no other choice.
That's when it hit me. In the manga Chuuya says;
"Whenever you say that you really mean there's no choice at all!"
Chuuya feels like there's no choice, what he doesn't realise is that Dazai is doing mental gymnastics to ensure that he can have one. If Dazai can even attempt to come up with backup plans when Guivre, he surely could have attepted to come up with one for Lovecraft.
All of this really fascinated me because it's heartbreakingly reflective of them as individuals as well as what they are together. Chuuya can't entertain another choice when the downside of their best plan is risking his life, he will risk his life over and over to protect the city that he loves and the people that he loves. Dazai on the other hand is showing his care in one of his strange little ways, he knows Chuuya, he knows what corruption means to Chuuya and his humanity, so he always gives Chuuya an out, even though he will never take it. When you put them together you get the devastating picture of Chuuya, who is always willing to take the fall, and Dazai who is willing to contort his mind unnecessarily just so Chuuya has the option to stay on solid ground, but the other road is never travelled, Dazai must instead be poised to catch him every time.
as per @the-red-thread-that-strangles: #pancake has said it in the comments and I'm gonna put her on blast in these here tags #Corruption is a last resort (in most cases; unless Chuuya loses control like against Shibusawa or in BEAST) #considering what it means to both of them it is only used with their backs against the wall; when it's that or giving up. that or death. #and Chuuya will never go down without a fight so he will always choose Corruption; but Dazai tries to give him a choice. #it might cost them but he will try to give Chuuya that choice. chuuya can't read his mind so he doesn't know that of course#but Dazai means it. #SB is such a collection of small moments of Dazai showing his care #also Liv; those tags are uncalled for:
as per OP @wishing-on-stardust: #do i also think that dazai is secretly wishing that chuuya would for once choose the other option #so that he doesn't have to see his partner suffer over and over again? #yeah. yeah i do.
Tbh germ theory DOES sound crazy. Like if you told a regency-era nobleman that tiny creatures lived on the surface of everything and THAT’S what causes consumption, they’d be like “ah, I see you are a lunatic. Would you reside in my hermitage? Rantings and ravings do so amuse my guests”
Yeah, actually, it would probably be pretty easy to explain germ theory to a Medieval person as tiny evil spirits that live on everything, but they can be purified by soap and water, or by alcohol, because that is why God has granted us those things. And because they can float in the air, if you cough or sneeze after they have infested you, that can cause them to infest others. And when you are sick, the angels God has deputized to defend the bodies of His beloved children are at war with the evil spirits, and, sadly, sometimes they lose, but the best way to help your angels win their battle is to rest, drink plenty (this would probably be small beer in this time period, not water, because the water was also infested), stay clean, and for the sake of God do not allow anyone to let your blood, for the angels need that blood in their war against the evil spirits. Bloodletting is good for some types of illnesses but not the kinds caused by the tiny evil spirits.
boiling as a sterilization measure is also easy to explain. water returns to the air when heated and it rises as steam back up to the floodgates of heaven; we know God created the world in seven days, He's not up there making more water every time it rains. it circulates. the returning of water to heaven also purifies the water of unclean and malign influences. you know wormy water from a muddy puddle will kill your kid. you know you wouldn't wade into a bog and have a slurp. water that remains in the low places of earth absorbs all that is unclean from our waste and it may also sponge up new diseases from hell, we're not totally sure about that one, but it seems likely. God set up the heavenly water cycle so that the earth's waters wouldn't totally fill up with gunk.
what does this have to do with boiling your surgical tools? well look, the boiling water releases bubbles of steam which carries the malign influences up to heaven. you boil a knife, you send all the miasmic particles off with the steam to heaven. if you rinse the knife off in a bucket the water isn't hot enough, the particles go into the water and then right back on to the knife. you gotta boil it to get the particles all the way away.
how can a tool or rag or a bed have miasmic particles on it when you can't smell them? humans have a lousy sense of smell. look at your dog on the hunt. are there no rabbits in the woods just because you can't smell them? we know that miasma is carried on the air, and is what makes stench so dangerous, and we know that humans can't smell worth a damn compared to dogs cats horses etc. a dog can smell if a rat died in a corner of the room last week. you can't. do you think licking the spot where the rat died is going to go well for you? luckily, what humans lack in snout we make up for in brains. we have extra brains where our sniffers should have been. God set that up for a reason.
and why does a rinse with wine spirits work? man, look how fast alcohol evaporates. my guess is that because wine contains a lot more vice than water, it evaporates a whole lot faster, in sort of an equal and opposite way that a rock falls faster than a feather. if you want the miasmic particles to get off there FAST, you dunk it in something that's going back to heaven at a gallop.
what's up with honey? it just preserves things against corruption. doesn't clean them off. honey doesn't evaporate at all. probably because bees don't sin. it's not good for ridding a tool of particles-- it's sticky-- but fine for preserving anything you don't want to go to heaven OR hell. this is why you wash the wound with wine spirits or purified water FIRST, to sluice the miasma out, then slap the honey on AFTER. and boil the damn bandage, too. you wouldn't put a rotten door in a sound doorframe and expect it to keep out bandits, would you? cmon.
Bought my uncle a burger and milkshake in exchange for letting me disrupt the holiest day of the week, NFL Sunday Football, so I could install a Pi-hole and free the household of ads...the thing abt the specific boomers I live with is they told me not to trust people on the Internet but they do not understand the algorithm or online advertising and think that Facebook has their best interests at heart. And every time I have tried to explain to them that no, blorbo from my dashboard is not selling my kidneys on the dark web but Google from your capitalism is definitely selling your web searches to every advertising company on the planet, they think I am paranoid. How could their personal friend Mark Zuckerberg want anything bad to happen to them etc. I am fighting battles I did not know existed!!!
Update I have had Pi-Hole successfully installed for two (2) hours and have since learned that 40% of the web traffic in this household went to advertisements. FORTY FUCKING PERCENT. We live in hell. This is the greatest gift I have ever given my family that they will not understand or acknowledge or feel any gratitude for.
Update #2: it was rising all night but the number it finally settled on was...60%. 60% of the web traffic in this household went to advertisements. I can't tell if this high number is bc I live in Silicon Valley and probably am subject to the Algorithmic Internet in ways people outside of Silicon Valley are not or it is normal to have 2/3rds of your web traffic be ads, but it did make me set up a recurring donation of the EFF lmfao.
Okay I have had multiple people ask, so here are the useful websites that me and Beryl used to muddle our way through:
Using Pi-hole and Raspberry Pi (on the Raspberry Pi website, really good overview of what Pi-hole does)
Tumblr-archived Twitter thread about one household's experience with Pi-hole (this is what sold me on it. Also the tweets were published in 2022 and Pi-hole is actively being developed, so I think some of the teething problems he mentioned might have cleared up or are at least being addressed.)
Pi-hole website (gives broad strokes of the software and imho is not actually that helpful, however this proves that I am not making shit up)
Pi-hole documentation (read prerequisites carefully, you do NOT need the newest model of Raspberry Pi to run this thing!! You don't even need a Raspberry Pi at all, you can run it on a bunch of Linux systems however I'm very stupid when it comes to Linux and when my options are install and learn a whole ass new OS or spend $$ on a Raspberry Pi and hook it up to my TV with a wired mouse and keyboard I will unfortunately be spending money)
Privacy International's guide to setting up Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi (bro this one saved our asses)
You guys can ask me questions if you want but I guarantee I will not know the answers bc I don't know shit about fuck, I just followed the directions and reaped the rewards. It did take us 2 hours to set up bc I'm bad at following directions (and it's kind of complicated if you've been out of the software game for a while like I have), and you do have to be sososo brave about fucking around with your internet provider's configuration. So make sure you eat before you do it!! However it has been so worth it for me so far, given that now all my devices at home are running faster and I'm not seeing any ads while web browsing. We will see what complaints my family comes up with, but I love it so far.
Also!! if you've never heard of Raspberry Pi, which I realize are not all of my followers are lost in the Silicon Valley sauce so you might not have, here's is their website and their page for using Raspberry Pi at home.
(And here is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that fights for digital privacy, free speech, and innovation, if you, like me, were presented with cold hard data about your personal internet usage and suddenly realized that our internet is fully a dystopia. haha.)
After a few months with pi-hole, I recently switched to AdGuard Home. It was recommended/is co-promoted in a pi-hole discord server, and it seems to be blocking a bit more successfully/consistently for me than the pi-hole did.
I also use Blokada on my phone when I'm not home and have the Windscribe browser extension which includes 10GB of free VPN traffic and has uBlock integrated into it. (AdGuard does technically make things that do this but I like those better; ymmv).
It all takes some setup and tinkering, but I highly, highly recommend taking steps to clear out some of the internet garbage and protect your info.
Not to harp again on cosy fantasy, but something that struck me recently is that none of these characters ever have to care about money and resources.
I recently read one where the main character is banished from her village. Great, could be conflict there... except she still goes to the market and pays for things, seemingly without worry. Another one had a penniless MC welcomed with open arms wherever she went. A third had a stowaway character instantly forgiven by a supposed desperate crew, who - again! - seemed to have no problem putting food on the table.
And like, I get it. Not having to think about characters paying rent or worrying about when they can eat next is a relief these days. Everyone likes chosen family. But there is a huge lack of conflict to these stories that also results in a lack of character development. No one faces a hardship that is both the result of the environment around them and their own personal flaws. Bad choices don't have negative consequences characters have to learn from, because there are no consequences at all. Endings just kind of peter out or feel unearned. There is no real stress in the environment that feeds into stakes at all.
Think of the Murderbot Diaries, which I have bafflingly seen people refer to as cosy. Murderbot doesn't have to worry about feeding itself. Murderbot would rather watch its shows, but it repeatedly has to get involved in situations it doesn't want to instead. Murderbot would like to pretend it doesn't have to deal with icky emotions, but the driving core of the books are its attachment to its human friends (and ART). Murderbot makes choices that have positive and negative consequences, and has to learn how to deal with its own emotions and anxiety while also learning to accept that other people like it. While you might not be writing science fiction, it's a great study on how a character tells you one thing about themselves while their actions tell you another.
Another series I liked a lot is Daniel M Ford's Warden books, which take a lot of the dressing you see in cosy fantasies - generic DnD tropes, found family aspects, and romance - and injects it with mystery, plot, and stakes. Aelis de Lenti is rich, powerful, and connected, but she steps on toes, insults other characters on accident, and is locked out of the great path she believes she deserves. Throughout the first book, she learns and grows, and carries that forward into the next books.
Okay, stepping off my ranting box here. If you love cosy fantasy, great. If you love to write cosy fantasy, also great! But I really do think these stories can benefit by turning up the conflict dial a little bit. You don't need your character have to deal with real world hardships to still have stakes. You can have your elf open a coffee shop, have a whirlwind romance, and resolve some internal flaw that's holding them back. You can tackle a tough subject in cosy setting (Kay Synclaire's House of Frank is my favorite "cosy" book!) and still carry through a theme. Saving the world and facing down the grimdark bad can get exhausting, but I think there's a solid middle that will benefit everyone to take more advantage of.
There is a very brief moment at the beginning of the Fifteen light novel that gets completely overlooked but I think ultimately encapsulates the entirety of Chuuya and Dazai's relationship dynamic.
“I’m gonna give ya a choice, kid,” the boy told him, hands still in his pockets. “Die now or die after givin’ me the information I want. What’s it gonna be?”
“I like those two choices. Both very tempting offers,” Dazai replied unflinchingly, despite having been hit in the torso and knocked through several buildings. “Okay. Kill me now.”
The boy in the biker jacket fell silent for a brief moment, then looked down at Dazai as if realizing he’d finally met a person of character.
That last line truly is the crux of the Soukoku partnership. They have such a pull towards one another because, prior to this, they had never truly interacted with someone that could be considered their equal.
Dazai is bored. Everyone knows this. He whines about it to anyone that will listen.
“Give that back! I wanna die!” Dazai flailed his arms. “Life is so boring; I’d rather just die! But I want it to be quick and painless! Help me out, Mori!”
But something that gets overlooked is the fact that Chuuya is bored too.
Perhaps it's harder to notice because of how reactionary Chuuya normally is but his baseline emotional state tends to be rather dull. Especially throughout Fifteen and Stormbringer. Like Dazai, Chuuya is struggling deeply with a detachment to the world around him. Dazai has no reason to live and Chuuya has no clue what or who he is. It causes almost this haze around his mind that leaves him untethered from everyone else.
And yet Chuuya had no interest in money or power. They brought him no happiness because he was missing something far more important: a past.
Chuuya gains nothing from his power as he finds it isolating. Nobody is ever on his level which just adds to his level of detachment.
“Hey. You wanna know why I always fight without using my hands?” Chuuya asked as he approached Randou. Numerous pebbles vibrated by his feet and floated with each step. “I’ve never lost a fight in my life. I’ve never even been in real danger… But that’s no surprise. After all, I’m not even human. My identity is a safeguard, like you said. Nothing more than a little pattern etched on a colossal furnace of power. Hey… Do you know how that feels?”
Chuuya stepped onto empty space, using the floating debris to walk in midair. He took another step forward with his other leg. And just like that, Chuuya slowly approached Randou as if he were ascending a staircase.
“That’s why I kept my hands in my pockets. I figured I’d one day feel like I was about to lose, no longer enjoying the fight but just doing everything I could to protect myself… I thought maybe that way I’d start to like myself as a person—me, a little pattern without a body of my own.”
Like Dazai, this same detachment leads to Chuuya considering suicide. It's also why when Chuuya is at his mental worst and these suicidal thoughts start to emerge, they do so by stealing Dazai's voice and image.
Obviously, I’m gonna never gonna give in. I can keep this up forever. But for what purpose?
“I told you, Chuuya.”
He looked up in the direction of the sudden voice. It was a familiar voice, one that belonged to the person he hated most in this world.
“Your birth itself was a mistake. We’re the same. Is there really a point to suffering through all that pain for a life that isn’t even real?”
The voice was taunting him.
“Shut up,” Chuuya spat, but even he knew he was talking to himself. He was most likely hearing things due to the drugs he was given. There was nobody there, but his mind was scattered, and the voice wouldn’t stop.
“Screw you, Dazai.”
“That’s the best comeback you could come up with?”
Chuuya wanted nothing more than to slice off the ear the voice was whispering into. He could see Dazai’s wavering shadow by his side, and he wanted to gouge out his eyes.
“That’s just proof that you at least somewhat believe what I’m saying. Because deep down inside, you’re the same as me.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up! I’m me! I’m not some piece of shit like you!”
Chuuya hates the fact he can understand Dazai. He views it as a reflection of his worst parts. His worst fear is becoming so detached that he ends up on the level of Dazai, someone who is apathetic towards almost everything.
Dazai, on the other hand, views Chuuya as human BECAUSE of this.
“You sound like you’re certain he’s human.”
“I am.” Dazai sighed, smiling. “There’s no way I could hate a man-made character string this much.”
Dazai gets enjoyment out of his dislike towards Chuuya as Dazai tends not to feel much intense emotion about ANYTHING. Even in the earlier chapters of Fifteen, it's shown that Dazai is bored and exasperated by Mori. Chuuya is the first truly interesting "thing" he'd been exposed to in who-knows-how-long. At the end of Fifteen, there is a conversation where Dazai explains he wants to live. I know that it's well beloved by the SKK fandom but I want to dissect the parts that are overlooked a bit more.
“Get away from me,” Chuuya spat. “You’re not gonna convince me to do anything.”
“I know.” Dazai glanced at Randou. Then he whispered quietly so that Randou couldn’t hear: “Let’s beat him. Together.”
Chuuya stared at Dazai in bewilderment, seemingly uncomprehending.
“…Are you being serious?”
“I have a plan, but I can’t do it alone. It needs both of us to work. Do you trust me?”
Chuuya held Dazai’s gaze for a brief moment and demanded, “Tell me what made you change your mind. I thought you wanted to die.”
“I just felt like it. Is that not a good enough reason?” Dazai smiled, perplexed.
Dazai is perplexed by Chuuya's demand for an explanation. Dazai, up until this point, has been reconstructing his view of Chuuya. He isn't used to be questioned about his intentions as he often has very surface-level ones (because he wants to or because it's directed at some goal).
Most people would simply accept Dazai's answer of "feeling like it" as trying to unravel Dazai's thoughts and feelings seems like an impossible thing. Chuuya doesn't deny TRUSTING Dazai nor think he's lying - he's "bewildered" by the statement. Instead of backing down though, Chuuya wants to know WHY. More importantly though, Chuuya believes that Dazai's explanation will be enough for him to UNDERSTAND where Dazai is coming from.
“Working for the Mafia has piqued my interest, albeit slightly,” Dazai
began. “In the outside world—the world of light—death is kept separate
from everyday life. It’s swept under the rug. People find it unpleasant. But the Mafia’s world isn’t like that. Death is an extension of everyday life. It’s a part of life. And I tend to think that’s more accurate. Death isn’t the opposite of life but merely a function of it. We breathe, eat, fall in love, and die. And you can’t get the full picture of living without observing death up close.”
Chuuya quietly stared at Dazai’s expression as if he were searching for
something human deep inside of him. “So you’re saying…you want to live now?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Dazai replied with a resigned smile. “Maybe I
won’t find anything, but I figure I’ll give it a try. Once I successfully
complete this mission, I’m going to join the Mafia. Gotta defeat him first, though. Besides…”
“‘Besides’…?”
“I got a new dog—you. And I still haven’t given you any commands,”
Dazai said with a smirk. Chuuya snorted.
Chuuya, in this moment, still doesn't fully understand. He's trying to though. This is going to seem like a super random segue (just stay with me as I promise it's not) but also in the beginning of Fifteen is this description of Dazai. It's from Mori's perspective.
Dazai’s expression was unchanging, which made reading his thoughts nigh impossible. His face was as still as the frozen surface of a lake.
Why do I bring this up? Because Chuuya gets a similar moment about reading Dazai's face at the END of Fifteen. You would think that based on how Dazai's face/expressions/mannerisms are usually described in more serious moments, that Chuuya would get frustrated because he can't read Dazai or would once again be confused by Dazai's. The term "expressionless", "bored", "empty" are all the main synonyms used to get across how apathetic Dazai tends to be seen as. In this case however...
Chuuya glared at him, still breathing heavily. Despite his trembling legs and the sweat pouring down his face, he didn’t take his eyes off Dazai for a second. He quietly stared at Dazai as if all the answers were written on his face.
Chuuya has only known Dazai for a few days at this point. Yes, they had defeated Rimbaud together, but Dazai is his enemy in this moment - he's actively threatening the Sheep. Still, Chuuya is confident in his ability to read Dazai.
The defeat of Rimbaud shifted something in their dynamic. Whatever happened in that fight created a connection between the two of them that led to an understanding on Chuuya's end that nobody else (excluding possibly Oda) has of Dazai.
This might get me a lot of flack but I don't think Dazai comes to that same understanding of Chuuya until the end of Stormbringer.
Yes, Dazai cares for Chuuya and is confident in his humanity but I don't think he GRASPS who Chuuya is as a person until their fight with Verlaine.
Dazai is downright GIDDY when Guivre appears. It's the most interesting thing he's ever seen. It offers him both a new experience AND an opportunity for death...
Dazai looked up at the creature.
“This is a singularity? Did this power really come from a skill?” He
sounded downright ecstatic. “It looks like the end of the world.”
Even his lips unconsciously curled with euphoria.
But when Dazai's about to give up, he chooses otherwise because of Chuuya. I won't cite the infamous "ANYTHING BUT THAT" scene with Mori as everyone is already well aware of it but instead a later moment...
“What do you want to do, then? Grow big, too, and have a fistfight with
it?” Dazai’s icy gaze met Chuuya’s. “It’s hopeless. Isn’t it obvious just
looking at that thing? A singularity’s like a loophole in the rules. That
monster is a manifestation of something that shouldn’t exist in this world. Humans don’t stand a chance against it. There’s nothing we can do.”
“You’re wrong about that,” Chuuya said, sternly holding Dazai’s gaze
for several seconds. He then let go of Dazai and stated firmly: “There is something we can do about it. I’m sure of it.”
Dazai listlessly dropped to the ground in a seated position. “Ha-ha-ha.
This is getting interesting. And what are you basing that on?”
Dazai is surprised by Chuuya once again and is willing to shift gears because of it. He's actually relatively "comforting" of Chuuya in this scene and shows concern for him up until Chuuya activates corruption. When Chuuya DOES, it's when we get this line...
“Incredible,” a dumbfounded Dazai muttered as he watched from the top of the gas tank. “So this is the power of Arahabaki.”
Dazai does the one thing Chuuya needs him not to do - consider him as a separate being to his own power. But then...
“So that’s Arahabaki’s—that’s Chuuya’s true form,” Dazai muttered feverishly as he stared up from the surface.
He ends up correcting himself after a few more moments.
Dazai really only got it in that moment, I think. Ironic considering this is the same scene that discusses the loneliness of Verlaine and Chuuya. It shifts the narrative of Chuuya being completely detached to having formed relationships and friendships. It calls out Verlaine for having wanted the same things. It also reinforces the fact that Chuuya STILL does have a connection with someone that he can rely on.
This second sun that lit up the sky eventually vanished, quietly and delicately. After limply floating in the air for a few seconds, the wings on Chuuya’s back vanished, and he slowly began to fall.
Until Dazai caught him.
There is something, I think, about knowing and loving someone you don't like. Soukoku works as a partnership because they understand one another so well that they never lose interest. It's just so interesting to pick apart and see how deep that dynamic actually goes.
Sorry for the rambling lol. If anyone actually made it to this point, congrats! You win nothing but my respect.
A fan of skk where either one of them is too exhausted to keep up pretenses around others regarding their other half, and the other just let them be. Chuuya came to the agency due to some work related matter regarding the alliance with a handful of paperwork,,, doing it while sitting on the couch. Dazai, who hasn't been able to sleep for 3 nights straight, enters fully prepared to fake his joyous energy for another day, only to stop mid-sentence as soon as his eyes lands on Chuuya hunched over a pile of papers and proceeds to flop onto the couch with his head sneaking into Chuuya's lap and melts like ice cream on a hot summer day, feeling all the tension from his bones leave him as blissful sleep finally decides to overcome him with his head buried in Chuuya's stomach. Chuuya on the other hand initially tries to get the "lanky bastard" off of him only to notice the under eye makeup covering up his dark circles, sighs, and leaves him be there, quietly raking his hands in Dazais hair whenever he feels nobody is watching as he continues to do his work.
Chuuya makes a point of making sure everybody in the agency knows that he does not like his current position #with Dazai sleeping on his lap like an overgrown cat #however he also doesn't let anyone wake dazai up or move him away from his lap saying it would just bother his concentration #and dazai wouldn't let him wrap up his work if he woke up anyway #Ranpo and Yosano would snort at his explanation but Chuuya ignores them both.
I feel like Apothecary Diaries is exemplary proof that writing quality depends not on which tropes are used, but on how they're used. The yeast of that story ferments on one of the most maligned and frustrating tropes in existence, and yet it's executed so well that the bread is delicious with a nice firm crust.
MaoMao and Jinshi are both intelligent in a lot of ways, including deductive reasoning. So one might expect their repeated misunderstandings or continued blindness toward certain revelations to feel contrived. But they never do, in part because of how brilliantly their characterization was established.
From the first installment, Maomao ponders how "knowing too much" could get her into trouble.
At first her main concern is her own literacy. The ability to read is not a skill most young women of her station possess, and would doubtlessly draw attention. Attention threatens her ability to lay low and wait out her service contract. So she keeps this skill hidden.
And indeed, her concerns are validated by the narrative, because she catches the attention of Jinshi and Gyokuyou—two of the highest authority figures of the rear palace—immediately upon employing her literacy in her effort to warn the concubines of the poisonous effects of the makeup.
This instantly alters the course of her life, a consequence that at first seems positive; after all, personal attendant to a concubine is certainly several steps above the average palace launderess. But these elevated steps bring more attention onto her, and it isn't long at all before the emperor himself is ordering her to perform medical miracles.
Knowledge is power. And as Maomao explains to Jinshi: it's not always about what someone will do with power; it's about what they can do.
So Maomao uses the powerlessness of her station as a shield, and hides behind it by pretending not to know things.
And the way she does this is interesting, in part because she is so good at deduction. Often it comes down to her simply choosing not to pursue a line of thinking, forcefully redirecting her attention elsewhere the moment she realizes that certain lines may connect to form a bigger picture than someone of her station should see.
Maomao is an apothecary. Effectively, throughout the story, she's an herbalist, pharmacist, chemist, physician, dietician, and forensic detective.
At the same time, her primary survival mechanism is avoidance. And this is established very early in her characterization, even before her actual titular passion.
When Maomao, solver of mysterious deaths, worker of medical miracles, foiler of assassination plots, repeatedly fails to connect the increasingly-obvious dots pointing to Jinshi's true identity, it doesn't feel contrived at all; because by the time those dots begin to come to light, the story has already established that it's firmly in-character for Maomao to simply refuse to pick up the pencil if she already knows what picture those dots will form. As long as she doesn't draw those connections herself, she can remain safe in denial.
And that's how Apothecary Diaries turned one of my least-favorite tropes into one of the most compelling parts of its story.
So my beta reader for the Big Fics is an astrophysicist, right. Who is currently also writing a hard sci-fi novel about the exploration of Phobos (more power to them, I cannot with the physics required for that, best I can do is soft sci-fi/fantasy and that reminds me I should finish that story).
Anyway I was bitching about how hard it is to come up with feasible planets in Star Wars because sometimes you need a new planet from scratch and sometimes you need to know more about a planet than the 'has jungles, is probably a moon technically' than Wookieepedia will give you, and they're like 'oh yeah I can do something about that'.
So they've written (in Matlab but they swear it will run as a .exe as well and I may be conscripted to embed it as a web tool at some point) a star system generator.
You input what you know about the planet (ecosystem, population, sun colour, does it have liquid water, does it have a moon or moons, is it a moon or moons, temperature averages, atmosphere, you get me) and it will give you the... everything else about the star system, in obedience to real-universe physics. And if you input nothing you get a randomly generated star system.
And I’m like oh I know people who will be into this with a vengeance, and they're not on Tumblr, so this is me seeing who exactly would be keen on, and I cannot stress this enough, a real-physics comprehensive star system generator.
It's still in the debugging phase (last error fixed: every planet wants to have a population of exactly 5000 regardless of other factors, turned out to be a missing equals sign somewhere), but I'm psyched for this and trying to gauge interest for how high a priority 'make this an accessible web tool' needs to be.
okay so, guy at work, who i find out afterwards is famous at this place for being a sex pest, comes up and starts with what i also learn is his favorite opener to conversations where he’s going to be a sex pest, namely: “Do you know where the term ‘blow job’ comes from?”
and here he made his first fatal error. his moment of hubristic sex pesting. because of course i know where the term blow job comes from, i love learning about sex and the history of sexual terms! i know so much about oral sex that i could write a book on it!
his second error: approaching a little autistic freak with what he intended to be an uncomfortable sex question that would make me feel weird and gross. Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I Have Never Misjudged A Man’s Intentions So Incredibly In My Life. because i did not realize he was trying to harass me. because i love talking about sex facts, albeit not usually at work. unless. someone prompts me. my coworkers are the kind of people who are generally online enough to know terms, but not exactly what they mean, and they realized they could ask me a while back and get good answers without the resulting awkwardness because i do not experience shame. i am primed to answer questions like the one he has proposed.
So I Answered It.
and well, really, what happened is that I began answering it, then realized the answer required a bit more context. I mean, you can’t just say “oh, well, the term first appears in writing in the 1940s” without first explaining that ‘blow’ by itself already had sexual connotations for centuries, and then, really, are we talking about the origin of the term or the origin of the act. and well we have a ton of literature and art depicting fellatio throughout human history, did you know a lot of it was men performing it on other men? oh, that reminds me, there are a multitude of latin words for oral sex performed on penises, and hold on let me quote you the entirety of catullus 16 from memory and explain it’s fascinating insights into the roman world of homosexuality-
i do not know how to turn any of this ^ off, by the way. i’m sure some people out there have a switch that disables their infodumping mid-speech. i do not. and i also didn’t realize he wasn’t looking for a real answer until my other coworker explained so hours later. he could not excuse himself from the conversation he started, and i made a conservative man at least 30 years older than me to listen to my catullus recitation. i will sodomize and facefuck you, indeed.
anyway, i think i got a bad grade in being sexually harassed. my pro tip is maybe don’t start with what a very autistic individual will misconstrue as you earnestly asking them to explain sex to you. the special interest shield will cause splashback damage.
One of my favourite things about the Sherlock Holmes stories in universe being written for public consumption is that Watson does not try to hide the fact that he and Holmes do crimes such as repeatedly breaking into people’s houses or letting murders go. Instead he frames these events as fun dates filled with Holmes ranting about how stupid and/or useless Scotland Yard is. Every time it just makes me laugh.
It's like "Welcome back to a day in our lives as consultant detectives! Today we're doing some crimes so we can find proof that this criminal is morally not evil as per our personal judgement and so we'll let him go!" And I love it!
I also love when he adds in a little “And I purposefully waited 10 years to publish this story so now it’s definitely too late for the cops to do anything about it 😊”
I've seen increasing buzz around here about Howl's Moving Castle (book). I think you all deserve to know that all of Diana Wynne Jones's books are filled with characters and plots that are absolutely as delightful and unhinged as that one.
Some Actual Plots include:
Dogsbody - The star Sirius is accused of murder and sentenced to exile on Earth in the body of a dog until he finds a magical item called a Zoi. He's adopted by a young Irish girl living with her abusive and neglectful English relatives. He has to balance his desire to find the Zoi with needing to be a Good Dog for the girl who takes care of him. Also the Wild Hunt is there.
Hexwood - A girl finds a magical wood behind her house where she meets a wizard who thinks he's a convict of the intergalactic government, a boy created by the man to destroy said government, and a robot found in a junk heap. The magic wood is actually an alternate reality being generated by an AI who has a grudge to settle with the head of said government. The book is about abuse, PTSD, and trauma.
The Dark Lord of Derkholm - Magical world is being destroyed by a company using it as an isekai amusement park for people from another dimension. Bio-wizard is appointed Dark Lord for the year, and he and his family (four of whom are bioengineered griffins) have to find a way to survive the season while everything is going wrong.
Deep Secret - Interdimensional detective/diplomat/wizard needs to find a replacement for his deceased mentor. He does so at a fantasy convention, while trying to keep an interdimensional empire from collapsing into civil war after the emperor is assassinated along with all of his heirs.
She's an absolute master at weaving fantasy elements into the mundane world and writing from the PoV of kids. Her books are funny, clever, and full of delightful characters. I'm begging you all to check them out.
I’m willing to sacrifice my notes for this because I’m curious. so TikTok has been blowing up with this very divisive thought experiment, and I am convinced the results on tumblr will be very different based on culture here. Feel free to participate and share your thought process! For those easily caught up in rumination, this experiment involves moral ambiguity and hypothetical harm, skip if you need to.
The thought experiment goes like this. A large group of people (the whole world or a whole country or just a large and diverse group) each individually must press one of two buttons, a red button and a blue button. On their own, both buttons do nothing. However, if more than 50% of people press the red button, everyone who pressed the blue button will die. If more than 50% of people press the blue button nothing happens.
Which button do you press?
red
blue
Voting ended onMay 11
Is the button you would press different from the one you think is correct? Is there an ethical imperative to press one over the other? Which button should people press? I’ll discuss TikTok’s reaction below the cut
I want to emphasize that I don’t think this experiment reflects morality. I don’t think red or blue represent some Kantian ethical imperative and that someone is bad for choosing one or the other. Hell, I think there’s a right choice, but in the moment, I don’t know if I could choose it. Moreso I think this experiment shows the ways in which individualism vs collectivism function in the public subconscious.
TikTok is VERY split on this one. I would say it’s around 50/50, but red is a VERY vocal group. Their insistence is that people who would press the blue button are irresponsible, and they shouldn’t need to needlessly endanger their own life to press the blue button to save people too stupid to not press the red button. Meanwhile, people who would press the blue button argue that it’s impossible to get 100% of people to press red, that 50% is a much more reasonable goal, and that people who would press red are engendering eugenics rhetoric. From that write up it’s probably pretty clear where I stand.
people have tried reframing it over and over to get others to understand their positions. However what it comes back to is that people who would press the red button believe they are not actually killing anyone, blue button pushers are just pointlessly killing themselves. Meanwhile blue button pushers argue that pressing red is deliberately causing harm because they know people WILL press the blue button, and therefore are willing to actively cause harm to save themselves.
it’s a complex topic I think, but mostly what’s been interesting is seeing a phenomenon of what I believe is guilt over pressing red and making justifications to convince themselves that blue was an objectively wrong choice and they are superior. Blue people are not lashing out in this way against team red, merely advocating for communalism and understanding and the occasional insult about amorality. But mostly it is an army of people I think feel bad, don’t like that they feel bad, and then do their utmost to make sure it’s everyone else’s fault and I think that speaks to the cultural mentality of individualism that dominates the sociopolitical climate right now.
I think it’s very revealing to see how this experiment has brought out those who otherwise would not have radical beliefs functionally parroting Nazi rhetoric. By contrast, tumblr is much further left, and has a much higher population of communists, socialists, and communalists. Collective good is often assumed to be a given over individualism, and so I’m curious to see if the poll results reflect that. I hope that I framed the experiment in a neutral way, even if the write up here is clearly biased blue!
