Bsd Dazai - Blog Posts

art dump!!! these are just sketches cuz i don’t have enough energy to shade.

here’s the full page under the cut

i kind of see kunizai as cicada days by will wood if that makes sense. 😭 please tell me you understand what i mean by this. this song for those who are uneducated about william woodiam.

hmmmmmmm,

i kinda need an au where fyozai are teachers and they absolutely despise each other. it’d be like an annoying long slow burn. maybe fyodor as a psychology teacher and dazai as a band teacher. i’ll draw this when i have motivation again. they’d be so silly.

and here it is, after 2 days of procrastinating, my finished fyozai drawing!! :3

what the fuck did tumblr do to my quality.

i ship soukoku in the most queerplatonic, codependent, doomed yaoi way. there is no such thing as soukoku fluff to me.

a little fanfic piece i decided to write because i don’t actually feel like ranting about how akutagawa isn’t obsessed with/in love with dazai and that it’s just a cry for help and approval. this is just me trying to imagine the scene where akutagawa decided that his goal was trying to get dazai’s approval.

“Does it hurt, Akutagawa?” Dazai said in a cold hiss. 

There was an angry look in his eyes as there usually was after every minuscule mistake made, but there was something else to it. Something more crazed, more feral. Like a rabid animal inflicting its own suffering onto anything it could sink its teeth into. He was holding the younger man by the collar, keeping him from collapsing onto the ground.

“You’re pathetic. You have no clue what real pain is. You’re a failure. You’ll never be good enough for the Port Mafia.” Dazai hissed through gritted teeth. They were words Akutagawa had heard before, but they never failed to make him feel like an ant being slowly burned to death by a kid holding a magnifying glass. That’s what Dazai truly was. A kid. It was easy to forget with his imposing demeanor and annoying pedantic genius. 

Akutagawa found himself unable to speak. His thoughts were swirling and shaky. It was probably the blood loss getting to him. All he could think about was how much he wanted to hear four little words from Dazai: “I’m proud of you.” 

That was it. That was what he wanted more than life. He wanted the person that made him feel like nothing make him feel like something. Was that insane? Probably. 

Dazai threw him down onto his back again. It hurt, it really did, but he had to keep going. He got to his feet shakily. There was a determined look in his eyes as he did.

is it just me or is 15 skk just way better than 22 skk? this may be the stupid brain cell talking.

wait, wait hear me out

souheki with poe as a third wheel who’s kinda into ranpo. when the three of them are together it’s kinda like:

poe: so, uh…

ranpo, already anticipating the kind of thing he’s going to say: poe, my partner’s literally 10 feet away.

poe: ok…

and then he’s just completely miserable around the two of them. and then ranpo will ask poe to drive him and dazai places and it’s just really awkward.

i appreciate both short hair and long hair femzai, but i feel like she’d have a shoulder length mullet or something. i’m saying this as someone who had a mullet at one point in time 😭.

i hate when people characterize atsushi as an uwu soft boy. he is a sarcastic asshole towards akutagawa and dazai in the manga and i love that about him, silly little guy. ‘what are you, a lawnmower???’ -atsushi nakajima.

vent art of dazai again because i fucking hate him and want him to be as miserable as I am.

the lyrics at the top are from mr. capgras encounters a second hand verity by will wood and the tapeworms.

‘ch- chuuya cried when dazai left the mafia 🥺’

I AM GOING TO SKIN YOU ALIVE./j

i got a few details wrong in the post above, the sheep only ever viewed chuuya as a weapon and it took shirase seeing chuuya getting beaten up in stormbringer to truly see him as a human being. the scene with yuan in fifteen was more of a ‘hey, we like being able to use this person as a weapon’. yuan isn’t an important character and doesn’t do much for the plot, i don’t understand the hate towards her because she’s irrelevant. i also got a bit wrong about dazai in that scene, he finds it stupid that chuuya doesn’t notice that the sheep are manipulating him. he’s not jEaLoUs. the general sentiment still stands though. i will edit this later. oh, i also added tags so people will see this follow-up because past lou is fucking stupid.

rant #4

can some (not all) bsd fans stop hating on yuan for just FUCKING TOUCHING CHUUYA’S ARM??? especially since she walked in hugging onto shirase’s arm as well. it doesn’t have to be taken as romantic, i personally see the sheep as chuuya’s found family. that touch was literally just a ‘hey, can you not force my best friend into joining your organization?’ (also dazai wasn’t ‘jealous’ in that scene. it was ‘oh shit. this girl’s getting in the way of my plan’.) it’s SO fucking stupid that if a female character (it’s always a female character) is even remotely close to dazai, akutagawa, chuuya, or atsushi people hate her because she’s ‘gEtTiNg In ThE wAy Of SsKk/SkK’. there could be a scene where a female character is like ‘hey, i’m really close friends with dazai but we have no romantic interest in each other’ and the fandom would still hate her. with all the disrespect i can manage, eat dirt if that’s the only reason you hate yuan/higuchi/lucy. if you have a reason you’re willing to explain for hating them, please send it to me. this has been lou, your very pissed genderfluid lesbian host. thank you for reading this. i know it’s a spinoff of my last rant but i feel like it needed to be said. thank you for reading if you did.

rant #4

can some (not all) bsd fans stop hating on yuan for just FUCKING TOUCHING CHUUYA’S ARM??? especially since she walked in hugging onto shirase’s arm as well. it doesn’t have to be taken as romantic, i personally see the sheep as chuuya’s found family. that touch was literally just a ‘hey, can you not force my best friend into joining your organization?’ (also dazai wasn’t ‘jealous’ in that scene. it was ‘oh shit. this girl’s getting in the way of my plan’.) it’s SO fucking stupid that if a female character (it’s always a female character) is even remotely close to dazai, akutagawa, chuuya, or atsushi people hate her because she’s ‘gEtTiNg In ThE wAy Of SsKk/SkK’. there could be a scene where a female character is like ‘hey, i’m really close friends with dazai but we have no romantic interest in each other’ and the fandom would still hate her. with all the disrespect i can manage, eat dirt if that’s the only reason you hate yuan/higuchi/lucy. if you have a reason you’re willing to explain for hating them, please send it to me. this has been lou, your very pissed genderfluid lesbian host. thank you for reading this. i know it’s a spinoff of my last rant but i feel like it needed to be said. thank you for reading if you did.

souheki hc! :3

neither dazai nor ranpo know how to drive because they’ve been chauffeured around most of their lives. they make other agency members drive them places instead.

a drawing of a concept made by @briarry i had a lot of fun with this one

another random rant

ok, i’m so annoyed with some (not all) skk shippers. i saw a sigzai post on pinterest and all of the comments were about how they ship skk instead. it’s really, really annoying. i’m also saying this as a souheki shipper who has gotten hate on my other platforms for being a souheki shipper. my real point here is…not everything has to be your otp. i don’t go around on skk posts saying ‘tHiS iS cUtE bUt I sHiP rAnPo WiTh DaZaI’. if you’re one of those skk shippers please stop hating on people shipping other ships. it’s not the end of the world. if you don’t do this and ship skk i’m completely chill with you. just stop hating on other non problematic ships. i don’t hate skk or the non toxic skk shippers. this has been lou. i don’t hate any of the ships mentioned in this post. this is just basic fandom etiquette.

quick rant

i hate in whenever people say ‘fyodor has a god complex!1!1!1’ NO he has a savior complex. he wants to save humanity from sin (ability users). he does see humanity like a god would, but he doesn’t actively think he’s a god. i also hate in when people say he truly cares about nikolai or sigma. he doesn’t. he’s a low empathy being that isn’t above manipulating others for his cause. but he still does have feelings (for example when things don’t go his way he kicks things and he gets actively angry when people say dazai is smarter than him) i don’t agree with the twinkification of fyodor if you’re actively mischaracterizing him, but if you’re making him a little nicer for a fic (if you do understand his character) I don’t mind. thank you for coming to my ted talk, please tell me if i got anything wrong.

some more at school doodles. creds for the message on the right go to alex one eleven on yt. they’re literally my idol as an artist

a dazai doodle i did in school. ugh i hate doing paper art 😭

Father hasth gambled than I shall read a mere eleventeen pages of my lovely light novel. With the knowledge I have severe reading block and have not dared touch this literature for many moons, I have utter confidence that I will read another 51.

I bought the fifteen light novel a while ago (I still need to finish reading it because things happened and I got distracted) but when I was reading that scene in I think chapter one? Where its dazai and mori talking, I must have missed a word while going reading it because I thought it said dazai was his illegitimate son and I've never been more confused for a few moments ;-; I had to read the sentence again to realise it said he was not his son

Have this meme I made while you wait for my Fyodor analysis.

Also, I know Fyodor says 'Dazai-kun' but it's funnier this way.

BSD Chapter 121 Theory

Chapter 121 spoilers ahead

So I have a theory about who the Dazai in Atsushi's mind is. Dazai isn't the first person Atsushi has hallucinated about, the first person was the orphanage director. And what did the orphanage director used to do in his hallucinations? He used to give Atsushi advice. But at least from memory it's been a while since Atsushi hallucinated him. Instead he's started hallucinating Dazai. And what does Dazai do in his hallucinations? Also give him advice. So my theory is that hallucination Dazai is an evolved version of hallucination orphanage director and perhaps this is a sign that Atsushi has renounced the orphanage director and accepted Dazai as his mentor in his stead.

Let me know what you guys think!

Verlaine and Dazai: Two Sides of the Same Coin of Loneliness

As anyone who has read Storm Bringer will know, Verlaine dislikes people telling him he's human. So, that got me thinking, if you were friends with Verlaine and aware of his situation, what could you say to him that wouldn't hurt him more? Eventually I concluded that what you could say is that you know he isn't human and that's ok, he doesn't need to be human. But even that probably wouldn't bridge that gap he seems to see between himself and others.

Verlaine describes the loneliness he feels quite vividly. This is how it's written. This takes place in the English version of the Storm Bringer light novel on page 58. 'True loneliness...,' began Verlaine in an elegant tone reminiscent of a violin solo. 'True loneliness is the comet travelling alone through the universe, surrounded by vacuous space and nothingness at absolute zero,' (p. 58). This is quite the striking metaphor. He is, I believe referencing the philosophical idea that if a comet is travelling in space away from any other object there is no real way of determining that it is moving or even if it is even there, since nobody is there to observe it. Incidentally a similar idea is put forward in George Orwell's novel 1984 in that if no one is aware of what the past truly was, does is it even exist? This, I think is what Verlaine is getting at with this vivid depiction of loneliness. So I thought to myself, what if rather than having a companion comet, which is what Verlaine seeks through Chuuya, what if, someone was observing that comet. Put more clearly, although Verlaine might not have someone exactly like him, especially given that Chuuya turned out to be the original rather than the clone, he might have someone who doesn't understand exactly what he is going through but is willing to stay by him all the same, as Rimbaud was. An observer of the comet, if you will. And I think Asagiri does explore this idea, through Dazai.

In Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era Odasaku desribes Dazai's state of loneliness in a way which I personally found strikingly similar to Verlaine's description, at least in terms of imagery. He states, '...nothing beyond your own expectations will happen. Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander the darkness for eternity,' (p. 160.). This takes place on page 160 of the English version of Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era. While not exactly referencing comets or space, the idea of wandering (or floating like a comet) in darkness is similar. It is my personal belief that even though most of us are no Dazai in terms of intelligence and no Verlaine in terms of being skill based life forms, no one can truly understand exactly what our life experience is like. Even if they love us, no one can truly know what our experience on Earth is like. But that's ok, because they don't need to. This is because we can still have meaningful relationships that cure us of loneliness without this level of understanding, of course a measure of understanding is needed, but in my opinion the level of understanding Verlaine was looking for in Chuuya, of being the same, is not necessary. And this is shown both through how much Rimbaud cared for Verlaine and through Dazai's relationship with his colleagues at the agency.

According to page 100 of the English version of Storm Bringer 'Nobody could understand how Dazai worked.' Which probably means that no one can understand Dazai. During the Dark Era light novel when Odasaku is dying we see Dazai realise how well Odasaku knew him, but even here Odasaku wishes he knew Dazai better. And yet we still see Dazai have meaningful relationships Odasaku and with his colleagues at the agency. They care about him and, I think, he cares about them. They know that even though he's a slacker he will be there when it really counts. When the agency is in trouble after the incident with Nikolai and the chainsaw (I forget what the arc was called) it's always Dazai that Atsushi pictures telling him what to do and giving him advice. It's clear how much Atsushi cares for Dazai given what he goes through to save his life during the 55 Minutes light novel and given Kunikida's reaction at the end of said light novel it's pretty clear how important Dazai is to him too.

To conclude, in my opinion what Verlaine needs is, I think, to recognise that people do not have to be the same as him in order to have a meaningful relationship with him, to stay by him and to cure him of his loneliness. This is something he realises at the very end of Storm Bringer but unfortunately by that time it's already too late.

An Analysis of Dazai's Reactions to Death

Disclaimer: I haven't actually finished reading the manga yet so all information in this post is taken solely from the light novel and anime.

Spoiler alert: This post contains spoilers from 15, Storm Bringer, Dark Era and the anime of BSD

Warning: This post is about Dazai so naturally it contains mentions of su*cide and death.

This is my first analysis of BSD, so please be kind. That said, any constructive feedback is welcome. If you have any further questions about my perspective, please feel free to ask!

Then without further ado...

Bungo Stray Dogs written by Kafka Asagiri and illustrated by Sango Harukawa is a multimedia series which explores the complex nature of the human mind through its characters. One such character, Dazai Osamu, inspired by the 20th century Japanese novelist of the same name and his well-known work No Longer Human, is a character known for his eccentric behaviour and fascination with suicide. Often times his behaviour may come off as bizarre on first sight and one might think it is purely for comic relief. This essay aims to explain the reason behind his strange reaction to the sight of the murdered woman in episode five season one of the anime, or this scene.

This screenshot was taken from timestamp 6:27 of Season one episode 5 of Bungo Stray Dogs.

This will be done by exploring first Dazai’s reaction to death between the ages of 15 and 18 or during Dazai, Chuuya, Age Fifteen and Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era, second by exploring the fact that Dazai is aware that he is different to other people, and finally by exploring the way he deals with this difference and with strong emotions during the present of Bungo Stray Dogs or at the age of 22.

Dazai’s reaction to death was unusual to say the least when he was the age of 15 and it continue to be so at the age of 18. There are three main instances where the audience watches Dazai react to death at these ages. In consecutive order from Dazai’s perspective—rather than the order they were published—is first, during the seventh light novel, Dazai, Chuuya, Age Fifteen just after the fight before Dazai and Chuuya go to meet Randou. This scene takes place from page 53 to 54 of the English version of the light novel. There are several unusual points during this scene. But first it should be made clear that the audience has no real way of knowing what kind of experiences Dazai had been exposed to in his early life which could have a bearing on why he behaves this way at this age. There are plenty of theories but at the time of writing this Asagiri had not revealed what Dazai’s early life was like. Now, back to the point at hand. First it is unusual that a boy of 15 when faced with a dying man would ask him if he would like him to ‘end your suffering with this gun,’ (p. 53) however this may be disregarded considering that Dazai although not a part of the mafia seems to have been with Mori for some time at this point. What is more strange however is what Dazai says next ‘…But you’re showing me something extremely valuable—your death—so I want to pay you back,’ (p. 53). He then proceeds to repeatedly shoot the dead body while laughing. This could be chalked back to some sort of love for seeing others in pain if it wasn’t for what Dazai said before. He states that he sees the man’s death as valuable. There is no way of knowing how often Dazai had been exposed to death before but the fact that he views it as valuable suggests that at this point perhaps he had not been desensitized to it. Viewing death as valuable though is, decidedly, an unusual perspective for a 15-year-old boy to take.

The second time Dazai experiences death is also in the same light novel when Randou passes away. Those who have read Storm Bringer will know that’s not precisely what happens but at this point there is no evidence to show that Dazai has any idea Randou isn’t really dead and so it will be treated as another experience of death. There is a marked difference in Dazai’s behaviour in this instance compared to the one highlighted above. This scene takes place in Dazai, Chuuya, Age Fifteen on pages 118 and 119 of the English version. Whether this difference in behaviour is to be attributed to the fact that Dazai probably knew Randou to some degree or to the fact that Chuuya had earlier highlighted to him the fact that his behaviour in the earlier scene was abnormal is up to interpretation. However, while his behaviour is more normal than before it is still rather unusual. During this scene Dazai seems more aware of the sensitive nature of what is happening because he asks Randou if he has any last words and continues by saying, ‘…If you have any final wishes, we’ll see what we can do to—’ (p. 118). This shows that he is sensitive to what’s happening and that it requires a certain type of behaviour, but it is still rather unusual given that this man is dying because of Dazai’s doing and the fact that Randou was trying to kill the former and Chuuya a few moments ago. Additionally, after Randou explains about what happened between himself and Verlaine before Verlaine betrayed him Dazai goes off on a tangent about the ‘inevitable destruction’ caused by ‘a fight between two skilled spies’ (p. 118). While Asagiri may have chosen to have Dazai say this in order to make it more clear to the reader why Randou tried to absorb Arahabaki, it is still a strange thing to do at somebody’s death bed. This being said, it is clear that Dazai is a lot more respectful at Randou’s death than he was at the G.S.S. officer’s death in the scene highlighted before as Asagiri states, ‘Both Chuuya and Dazai quietly listened as if there was something in what Randou was saying that they couldn’t allow themselves to miss,’ (p. 119). While it is possible Dazai is simply imitating Chuuya’s behaviour here in order to seem more normal it seems more likely that Dazai knows how to react better to the death of a person he knows and this idea is reinforced by his reaction to Odasaku’s death in Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era, which will be explored shortly. It is clear, however that Dazai is affected by Randou’s death in some way when the novel states ‘Some things, however, would not return to normal: the body of a man who no longer felt cold, and the hearts of the two boys who stood rooted to the spot, staring at him,’ (p. 119). This shows that Dazai is affected by death, but he seems to interpret it and deal with it in unusual ways.

The final example of when Dazai experiences death takes place three years later during the second light novel, Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era, when Dazai is 18 years old. At this point he has been in the mafia for three years, so he has probably experienced death quite a bit between now and when he was 15, however this is the death of the person who is probably the only one who ever understood Dazai—with the exception perhaps of Chuuya—and who cared for him in a way which was arguably like a father. This scene takes place from page 159 to 161 of the English version of the light novel. This scene is arguably the most interesting in terms of Dazai experiencing death for several reasons. One of those reasons is that while the scene deals with Dazai’s emotions, it does not deal with his reaction to Odasaku’s death but rather with his reaction to what Odasaku says, which causes a dramatic shift in his world view and which, as any reader will know, ultimately causes Dazai to leave the mafia and strive to become a better person. While the scene does start by dealing with Dazai’s reaction to Odasaku’s death the majority of the middle of the scene is spent on Dazai’s reaction to what Odasaku says to him before returning to his reaction to his death. The scene begins with Dazai rushing into the room, calling Odasaku’s name. This is pretty normal behaviour for anime and manga characters on seeing someone close to them dying. But Dazai then proceeds to say, ‘You’re such an idiot, Odasaku. The biggest idiot I know,’ (p. 160). That is arguably an unusual thing to tell your friend on his death bed, but compared to other things Dazai has done it’s not that abnormal. The scene continues with Dazai saying that Odasaku didn’t have to die. Which is standard behaviour. Then Odasaku says he wants to tell Dazai something. He proceeds with his statement about Dazai stating that he’s looking for his reason to live in the mafia and telling him that he won’t find it. The scene then proceeds to explore the idea that Dazai has finally realised how well Odasaku knows him. The rest of this scene is spent exploring this idea as well as Odasaku’s advice to Dazai. It only actually returns to Dazai’s reaction to Odasaku’s death at the end. By stating ‘Dropping to his knees by Odasaku’s side, Dazai looked up to the ceiling and closed his eyes. His tightly shut lips faintly trembled. The smoke from the cigarette rose straight up to the top. Nobody said a word,’ (p. 161).  The strangest thing about this scene is arguably, that Dazai doesn’t cry. It’s possible that he was holding back tears, based on this description but the fact that it is only implied and left up to the readers interpretation suggests that Asagiri didn’t want to explicitly state that Dazai was crying. In the anime version of this scene as can below there is no hint of Dazai’s eyes being shinier than they usually are when he has lights in his eyes.

This screen shot was taken from time stamp 21:33 of episode 4 of season 2 of Bungo Stray Dogs.

After that the scene zooms out so that Dazai doesn’t have a face as can be seen here.

This screen shot was taken from time stamp 21:38 of episode four of season two of the anime.

This suggests that the decision to not show if Dazai was crying was deliberate. Given how much Odasaku means to Dazai, and that he had just realised how well Odasaku understood him it seems unusual that he would not cry.

The combined evidence of these three scenes suggests that Dazai behaves rather unusually in regard to death but that he seems to process it more normally when the person is closer to him than when it’s a stranger, where his behaviour is decidedly strange. Regardless of his closeness to the person however, evidence would suggest that the way Dazai deals with death is different to other people to a greater or lesser degree.

Now, how does all this have a baring on Dazai’s behaviour many years later in episode 5 season 1 of Bungo Stray Dogs? It has a baring on it if one accepts the fact that Dazai is aware that his behaviour towards death is rather strange to other people. It is never explicitly stated that Dazai is aware of this, however based on his behaviour it is clear that Dazai knows he is different to other people. This is highlighted in a particular instance in the seventh light novel. This scene takes place in Dazai, Chuuya, Age Fifteen on pages 53 to 54 of the English version. In this scene Chuuya stops Dazai from repeatedly shooting the dead body of the G.S.S. soldier. The scene commences with, “‘Quit that, you idiot […]  He’s already dead,’ said Chuuya, ‘Quit shooting his corpse,’” (pp. 53-54). However, it is Dazai’s response to Chuuya’s statement which shows that he knows his reaction is unusual. Dazai responds with ‘You’re right. When you’re right, you’re right. That’s the most normal reaction to have,’ (p. 54). Then as he walks away from the body after dropping the pistol he laughs. This is the scene as it’s written, “‘Ha-ha. ‘Normal.’ Ha-ha-ha.’ Dazai’s hollow laughter filled the cluster of trees, vanishing into thin air,” (p. 54). The fact that Dazai reacts by stating that what Chuuya says is normal and the way he laughs about it shows that he knows that he is not normal. If the idea that Dazai knows he is not normal is extrapolated, then it is implied that he also knows that his behaviour towards death is abnormal. If it is taken into account that Dazai realises his behaviour, particularly around death is odd it makes sense that as an adult he would want to hide that.

All of the above scenes took place when Dazai was still a teenager. However, it seems that even as a young adult he doesn’t know how to behave around emotionally charged situations. This is shown in episode one of Bungo Stray Dogs where Atsushi and Dazai are in the warehouse waiting for the tiger to show up. During this scene Atsushi is amazed by Dazai’s confidence and he states ‘You’re really confident, I’m kind of jealous. They called me a good-for-nothing at the orphanage. And now I don’t know where I’ll sleep tonight or whether I’ll be able to earn my keep tomorrow. […] No one’d care if someone like me were to die in a ditch somewhere. Yeah, I may be better off eaten by a tiger…’ this happens at 13:30-13:57 of episode 1 of season 1 of Bungo Stray Dogs. To Atsushi’s statement Dazai does not reply. He is silent for a beat with a neutral expression as shown here.

This screenshot is taken from timestamp 13:58 of episode 1 season 1 of Bungo Stray Dogs.

He then proceeds to state that he thinks the tiger will come soon. This is an unusual reaction given what Atsushi just said, and it would make more sense for him to comfort the boy. But he doesn’t. This is arguably because Dazai doesn’t know how to react in what would be considered a normal way in an emotional situation like this. If he doesn’t know how to react normally here it is unlikely he knows how to react normally to death. Now, it has been made clear above that he recognises his behaviour as abnormal, and it is likely that since his instinctive reaction is abnormal, he is unable to fake a normal reaction as he doesn’t know what this would be. Hence his unusual reaction in episode five season one. He reacts with such melodrama because he knows that his instinctive reaction isn’t normal, but he doesn’t know what a normal reaction would be, and he can’t just not react either thus he opts for this melodramatic reaction which, although isn’t normal still shows a rather dramatised version of sadness at the woman’s death which is perhaps more normal than what his instinctive reaction would be. And although the others at the scene who don’t know him are rather confused at his reaction it attracts less attention than if he were to react in a similar vein to his reaction to the G.S.S. officer’s death.

To conclude Dazai’s melodramatic reaction to the murdered woman in episode 5 season 1 of Bungo Stray Dogs it not just comic relief, there is a deeper meaning behind his eccentricities. He reacts this way because he is self-aware enough to know that his instinctive reaction to death is unusual and in order to not shock other people at his behaviour, he opts for the melodramatic response he gives since while still unusual it is more similar to the way a normal person might react being a rather melodramatic version of it.

Dazai drawing that I think I drew for his last birthday, so like 4 months ago, I think

I got the reference picture from Pinterest, but I wasn't able to find it again, so I don't know who to credit

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHUUYA!!!🥰🥰🎉

Headcanon time, because of course, I need to ramble.

Dazai's hair was black during his time in the Port Mafia, but not because it was his natural color. It was a reflection of his own neglect. He didn’t take care of himself, rarely going outside during the day, and when he did, it was only in dark alleys. His hair was greasy, unwashed, and full of dirt, sticking to his scalp. God knows how much old dried blood remained in it as well...

It was only after leaving the Mafia that he began somewhat caring for himself, even if only a little bit. He still struggled with it (God knows depression was hard on him), but it was still better than his days in the PM. It was an improvement. Over time, his hair actually grew quite healthy, regaining its softness. The black color was gone, replaced by a warm shade of brown, and his curls regained their natural bounce, framing his face.

He actually looked healthy.

chuuya, when he finally gets his own car (he's known how to drive for ages now, but hasn't been allowed to unless necessary), marching over to dazai and forcing him inside. all smug and excited—"get the fuck in, dazai!!"—absolutely elated that he's the older one. rolling down the windows and turning the radio up all the way, annoying every building they pass as they speed through the entire city in minutes. fuck the red lights, and fuck the stop signs—they're laughing almost hysterically the entire time, and chuuya's clutching onto his hat because more than once it flies out the window. dazai's trying to stay calm and be the mature one but chuuya's smiles are infectious, and soon enough he's shouting off-key along with the music, flipping off anyone they pass, and skipping through the stations just to irritate chuuya—except chuuya's nearly doubled over in laughter, struggling to maintain control over the car and himself. they come home at 1am, with texts and calls from their superiors because their mission reports are late, and where the fuck are they, and answer the damn phone, but neither of them could care, stumbling into someone's apartment (is it chuuya's, or dazai's, or someone else's entirely?), giggling the whole way through. "we're doing this again when you get a car, mackerel," chuuya bites out, knocking dazai over to grab himself some water. dazai agrees silently, rolling his eyes and picking himself back up. "just try not to lose your hat when it happens, then," he calls back, with chuuya's hat in his hand and a panicked chuuya reaching up to his head to find it.