My Favourite Thing Ever Is The Fact That The Trials Of Apollo Chapter Names Are All Haikus

Sorry if I missed some details, it's early, but...

Just because Dazai didn't constantly beat up Akutagawa doesn't mean he didn't abuse him. Dazai was cruel to another child. Akutagawa was never good enough for Dazai, no matter what he did. This was all such a constant that Akutagawa's sole purpose in life became pleasing/getting some praise from Dazai. Do people not realize how sad that is? And then when Dazai resurfaces with Atsushi, actually praising him and treating him well....

It's the only logical explanation, imo, as to why Akutagawa had such a visceral initial reaction to Atsushi. It's why he hated so strongly. It's also the reason why he abused Kyouka.

This post is NOT justifying Akutagawa's actions, or anyone's really. I'm just saying. I say a screenshot where someone said Dazai didn't abuse Akutagawa, and it got me kinda ranting ngl.

azula's character introduction will always remain iconic

This is genuinely why there's no BSD character I 100% dislike. Everyone in BSD is portrayed in such a human way (even Fyodor and Nikolai). Personally, for me, it's what makes BSD very beautiful, in all the ugliness shown in the story and relationships. I find in some media that there's a narrative for certain characters being 'good' and some 'bad.' I'm not saying BSD has no protagonists or antagonists, I'm saying that BSD doesn't shy away from showing the character strengths and flaws of either. There isn't that much of a narrative going, 'Oh, you should like this character and dislike this one.' Tying back to OP, one amazing way BSD does this is how it portrays abuse.

Hi by the way I'm never going to not throw up when thinking about what BSD says about abusers and victims. Abuse can occur out of love or a desire to protect or save or help someone and it's still abuse. Abuse can occur and years later you will still feel the affects so deeply it's as if it's a part of your body. Your abuser can change and regret and sometimes that means you will walk away over and over and sometimes it means you will throw yourself at them over and over and both are because you never developed a sense of self beyond what they made you to be. Your abuser will die and you will cry and you will hate him and in your weakest moments his memory will be there. Your abuser will live and become a better person and you're still stuck there unable to move on. The sheer complexity of what it allows and asks of us - to understand that at the end of the day we're all people fucking each other up and making mistakes. No one is a monster and wouldn't it just be easier if we were?

the accuracy omg 😭

bokuto’s very patient!

I feel this is even more apparent in Beast, seeing how they act under different circumstances. While they were affected by their pasts in the same way, seeing how, for example, Atsushi's whole bit about how he kills because he's afraid of death. It shows how fearful he is and how far he's willing to go in the name of self-preservation, even though he acts somewhat more 'softer' than Akutagawa in both universes. Or how he's trying to 'escape' the guilt of killing the Headmaster.

Or when Akutagawa gets mad at Junichiro for being overly rough with Naomi in his entrance exam. Not only does that show how he's a 'protector at heart,' but it shows how kind and caring he is on the inside, even if he has an odd way of showing it. Another example with Akutagawa is his unlikely friendship with Kenji and how careful he is with farming. It may be small, but it shows he gentle Akutagawa is capable of being, despite it all.

Sorry, that post just got me thinking lol

OK correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like the main 'yin/yang' parallel with Atsushi and Akutagawa is not something like 'this one is bad but secretly has a good side and this one is good but secretly has a bad side'.

I feel like it's more about 'who they are at their core vs who they choose to be'.

At his core Akutagawa is kind and at his core Atsushi is not. But despite this Atsushi tries every day to make the kinder choices and I love him so much for it. He has to work so hard to be good.

He wants to be a bitch SO bad I know he does but he tries his best to help people and be nice (sometimes he fails but that's OK <3)

Atsushi doesn't always WANT to help people, a lot of the time he's selfish and scared, but he does help people anyway. He keeps helping people over and over again. There's still some selfish motivation to it, and his initial motivation for helping people was because the headmaster told him that's all he was worth, but overall he does care about the people he helps and it weighs on him if he fails to save them. And of course, as the series goes on he starts helping people more because he can rather than because he feels like he needs to.

In Akutagawa's case, he's still capable of being kind but his environment led him into being someone who chooses to hurt people. But he's always been a protector at heart. In the start he was bad compared to Atsushi because he was choosing to hurt people and keep the cycle of abuse going. Just like how Atsushi developed in why he saved people, Akutagawa starts to get redeemed when he chooses to not just act on his rage. Not only does he start to spare people, but he speaks more kindly to them (apologising to Higuchi and telling Kyouka he's proud of her). It all culminates into the moment he chooses to help Atsushi and sacrifice himself for him, going back to his core value of being a protector. Even when he's finally revived, he keeps this role in his new position as Aya's Knight.

I kind of see the streaks of white in Akutagawa and the streaks of black in Atsushi not as their 'hidden sides' but as their fundamental selfs. That's who they are at their core, and their main colours (black for Akutagawa and white for Atsushi) are how they're presented to everyone else and how they try to have people see them as.

Dabbing is outdated, but I did reference the movements from a dancing rat. This is the Meursault arc. This could be Fyodor's little victory dance. I'm late to this trend but I still want to do it :D

the strangest thing to me about the BSD fandom is the fact that the vast majority of people in it are dazai fans, while also consistently assuming the absolute worst of him, disregarding the circumstances around his actions and giving him no grace or consideration of his situation whatsoever.

there's no doubt dazai is a bad person in many ways. he did plenty of unjustifiable, inexcusable things. he's pathologically manipulative with a totally skewed moral compass, most of which was undoubtedly brought on by his upbringing in the mafia. but at the same time, i see such a huge number of people taking that and somehow ending up with - and vehemently defending - this idea that he's a remorseless, indifferent, innately cruel person by nature?

are we forgetting this is the same dazai who was forced to false-witness a murder at fourteen years old? the same dazai who already wracked up numerous suicide attempts barely out of his pre-teens?the same dazai who was referred to by everyone around him as a 'demon' at fifteen years old? the same dazai consistently described as having grief-filled, empty expressions and detached, vacant reactions to practically everything when he was so young? the same dazai that oda described as "a child crying in the dark, alone, left to fend for himself with a hole in his heart as large as the world itself"?

that dazai is an indifferent, heartless, innately psychopathic person? really? i'm not convinced.

THIS! Since he succeeded in realizing it was his people teaching this prejudice, not his faith, he didn't have to lose that important part of himself to become less prejudiced. And he probably wouldn't have anyways, but still. Some would've distanced themselves from all of it to become a better person or might've had to. But he didn't.

Really, really need people to understand how important it is that Matthias kept his faith while unlearning the toxic beliefs that people had instilled in him. That’s really important to his character actually.

“Yes I can give you a reason to live” said the man with the most dead inside stare in human history