Chuuya ☾ Nakahara -> April 29th

i do think. maybe.. hm. i think we can talk about atsushi's hallucinations without making fun of him. i think if your comments about this chapter are poking fun at atsushi for having hallucinations at all, you should maybe take a step back and remember that there are real people in the real world who experience hallucinations and it's not something to laugh at or make fun of 👍

Egghead from Stella's POV is very funny.

Genderbend strawhats

Crack concept: Akutugawa hears Dazai’s “my new partner is better” speech and is righteously pissed.

Because Kunikida is a respected enemy and one Akutugawa approves of as Dazai’s partner at the Agency.

And now this random person with no spine has replaced him?!

Inconceivable.

Atsushi’s very confused until he untangles the reason Akutugawa hates his guts and why he wants to see what he’s made off.

He reassures him he’s not going to replace Kunikida.

Akutugawa, begrudgingly accepts this and they both bond over how outrageous Dazai is for trying to replace Kunikida like that.

Kunikida finds out about of all this from an encounter with Chuuya who’s rather sympathetic to his situation.

“He try and blow your car up too?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about but I believe I know who you’re talking about.”

They bond over their mutual annoyance and get coffee.

Dazai finds out way too late and quickly tries to reassure him that’s not the case. And that it’s all a huge misunderstanding.

Kunikida brings it up every time Dazai fucks up.

Dazai: Heyyy Kunikida you ready for our case?

Kunikida, passive aggressively typing: That sounds lovely, I’m sure your new partner will be happy to go with you.

Dazai, in despair: I would never take a case without you. Atsushi, back me up here!

Atsushi, side eying him: I dunno you did take me out for that meeting the other day.

Kunikida: I suppose I should just retire now then. I trust you’ll carry my torch, Atsushi.

Dazai: Ahh! No! Okay, okay I’ll do my report first.

Kunikida: Be quick we have a case soon.

Dere-shi-shi-shi!

I've been thinking about the moment where Douma suddenly confesses an attraction to Shinobu while the two were in limbo. It's short, and semi-serious, but I think it's a genuine - and tragic - feeling on Douma's part, and it hits him right at this moment.

From his earliest memories, Douma has been surrounded by suffering people, people who latched onto him for peace. He was raised to believe that he lived alone in a world of suffering people, and that his purpose was nothing but to ease their pain. There was no room for himself as a person. He had to be a saviour. People needed him. They latched onto a child and drained him dry emotionally so they could feel better, because they were dependant.

But Shinobu doesn't need him, not even for revenge, not anymore. Shinobu is content.

Douma is entranced. He took to Kotoha, Inosuke's mother, and liked her well enough to want her around, but she was still a dependant, like the rest of his followers. She was still a suffering person who relied upon him like everyone else. She fit neatly into his warped view of the world and its people, and could be discarded when necessary.

Shinobu is unlike anything Douma has ever seen before. He has never known contentment, not for anyone around him and especially not himself. He has lived more than a century believing that just pretending to be that purposeful, happy person was enough. But as Kanao rightly said, he is empty, and he knows it, and it haunts him.

Douma spent his entire life forcing himself to like and enjoy a role he was forced into in spite of his own feelings, and at the end he realised that it amounted to absolutely nothing. He was still empty, unfulfilled and miserable.

So the sight of a person, even the woman who killed him, showing the genuine joy of an ambition and life fulfilled, how could Douma not be smitten by it?

It's not true love, not based on Shinobu as an individual and certainly not healthy, but it's a sensation born from witnessing the purest iteration of the state of being that has so long eluded him. He now knows that such a thing is achievable, possible, and so should heaven and hell.

For more than a century, Douma knew that his life was a lie. He was not a seer, he could not hear the gods, but had to pretend otherwise because everyone believed - or said - otherwise. Living this lie developed a deep cynicism towards those things which people said were true, like salvation and peace.

Douma knew deep down that what he did was not salvation, and therefore believed that it was unachievable no matter how much he said otherwise.

But Shinobu proved him wrong. And no matter how Douma wants to hold onto the thing that proved him wrong, all that awaits him is hell. It was all too late.

Douma really, really did not want to go home.

This was the first meeting of the Upper Moons in 113 years, and Douma was here for it. All he wanted to do was talk to everybody, talking and talking, even when he's not being listened to. He forgave any insult and injury, and his attempts to hang out with the Upper Moons after the work meeting reeks of desperation, even turning to Nakime at the end.

The only other people he's interacted with in between meetings are his followers and his unlucky victims, so his fellow Upper Moons are the only beings in existence remotely like and equal to him in any respect. They are the only beings he can form any real sort of bond with.

The problem is that Douma has no idea what a real bond looks like. He's been surrounded by brainless sycophants for more than a century. The closest he ever got was Kotoha, and we know how that turned out.

Douma was, I think, genuinely ecstatic to have an opportunity to become closer to his fellow Upper Moons, and annoyed when they all turned him down. Even if the moment was played for laughs, I think there's a part of it that's sad in hindsight, knowing Douma's backstory.

Thinking abt young Shakky

Something about Vegapunk using the dna and blood of a caged and experimented on child to create more caged child experiments and the cycles we perpetuate.

Because what does it mean that all that King has left as proof, that the lunarians were real, that they existed as a tribe, as a people, are seven manufactured children he doesn’t even know about, enslaved as weapons to the government that wiped out the culture they’ll never get to be a part of, and Alber himself another enslaved child lost to something he’ll never fully know.

And what of the warlords? Already young once and hurt by their government, young again and slaves to it. Boa looking at a version of her practically pulled out of time stuck in her worst nightmare or Jimbei looking at a version of himself living out a past he escaped by the skin of his teeth but so many he loved didn’t, even Doffy once again at the mercy of the people that already abandoned him, has Kuma not suffered enough? Given enough, is this child version of him doomed to repeat the same path he already could not escape from . Property of the world government, beholden to the celestial dragons, this version of me that cannot go free?

It’s interesting that Vegapunk joined the government so that he could do the most good, but look at the long line of people right infront of him that he’s hurt with his own hands.

Saw a diva in this sweater yesterday and had to draw Atsushi in it, then the art escalated from there! Happy Valentines day!!