Starting to think that all these people writing shitty thinkpieces hating on skk/dazai have ZERO reading comprehension…
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.
Anyways, that’s my 12am rant; if you disagree feel free to have (friendly) discussion in the comments, or, if youre feeling less friendly, the block button is very accessible! At the end of the day this is fiction and everyone can have their own opinions, even if those opinions are objectively wrong ;)
