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kouyou-arc-when · 3 months

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ON DAZAI AND EMPATHY: A character study Before you read: Obviously diagnosing any character in fiction seriously is a fool’s errand, but I am a fool, so let’s just do this for amusement. The main thing I desire is to discuss is the extent to which Dazai is capable of various types of empathy, as well as how that influences the way he sees and interacts with others. It will be chaotic and all over the place because I just sat down and wrote this in a fit. Let me explain some factors in analyzing Osamu: The author's intention is clearly to make Dazai's internal world a mystery. Since we don't have enough information, all we can do is hypothesize based on external elements. Generally, across all novels, the only time we’ve seen anything of Dazai’s perspective is in “The Day I picked up Dazai” (Beast continuity) – where he “saves” Oda and tortures that random dude. We don’t hear his thoughts narrated from first-person perspective, unlike many of the other novels.

Now, the crux of the issue. For years, it’s been discussed whether Dazai is a “sociopath”. If we disregard that sociopathy is a very loaded term that can mean a lot of things depending on which specialist you consult, at the very least, Dazai does strike me as someone with a unique expression of empathy, who could qualify for Anti-social personality disorder or a related condition. I will abandon the idea that Dazai is a sociopath, and use actual concepts that have legitimacy within this post. Whether Dazai could qualify for ASPD or any other disorder is something I've seen discussed for many years within the fandom. I'll try to analyze how these concepts could apply to him. In regards to mental health and Kafka (since it is a contentious matter) and the validity of any of this: I understand that a lot of people are resistant to the idea that any of the characters could have conditions more complex than depression, anxiety, and PTSD. This is my counterpoint. I have noticed that Asagiri emulates a lot of characteristics commonly attributed to “geniuses”, without confirming or potentially even intending to write these characters as having a specific condition.

A great example is Ranpo – who will read as autistic to any decent mental health professional (Untold Origins). Did Asagiri intentionally sit down and say “I am going to write an autistic character”? Maybe not. However, the “genius” stereotype is profoundly connected to visions of autism, even if people aren’t aware of it. Take people like Sherlock, House and L from Death Note – they’re commonly believed to be autistic by fans. All of these characters borrow from the same group of traits, that just happens to correspond with a certain condition - savants have always been popular in fiction. It's been known that the favorite type of character for Asagiri is the “prodigy” type, and he has used geniuses across fiction for inspiration of most notable intelligent characters within BSD. For Ranpo it was Sherlock, for Fyodor it was Joker from the Dark Knight (a classic sociopath), for Dazai it was Patrick from The Mentalist.

What I’m trying to say is, you can see various personality disorders connected to the portrayal of these geniuses, and even without confirming their state, it is clear they are either intentionally or unintentionally coded to be that way. Extremely intelligent characters not being able to read social cues, lacking empathy, disregarding rules etc. is something we commonly see in fiction. Basically, a lot of people don’t even know that these stereotypes are based on certain personality types, disorders, and illnesses. It’s sort of like drawing a character and dyeing their hair a certain shade of blue that you don’t know the particular name of: it doesn’t change the fact that you used that color, and the fact it has a name. Most authors are not mental health experts anyways, so they may not be entirely aware of every detail of the psychological framework they write the character to possess. They also may not write it consistently, as they're mostly emulating stereotypes. I mention Ranpo and autism because a character can embody traits of a stereotype without the author even necessarily having the intention to do so, however, to anyone who knows a thing or two, it is clear Ranpo is on the spectrum. If Ranpo were to express a few traits that go against this, it would not necessarily take away from the large-scale portrayal he is meant to exude: an autistic coded genius.

Why am I saying this? It is entirely possible for the author to write Dazai as a person with anti-social personality disorder, to “code” him in that way, but to not be entirely aware of how an individual with ASPD realistically tends to act. Because he may be emulating a certain "stereotype" of a genius, he may also end up emulating specific psychological states, without making them entirely consistent in a realistic way. Writing the way individuals with ASPD tend to deal with empathy can be extremely difficult for anyone. It's easy to emulate a sociopath on a superficial level, but beyond that, it gets more challenging. How would a person with limited empathy act when they're hurting someone? That is an easier idea to handle. But how will they act in a friendly relationship? This is where it gets tricky. That is likely why someone like Dazai can never be consistently compatible with a very specific disorder: but, he can come very close. Besides, concepts such as anxiety and depression are pretty well-known, but more niche mental health conditions are not as well understood. So, BSD Osamu was written with specific attention to mental health issues because the author himself was someone who spoke heavily on the topic. I’ve read a lot of real-life Dazai Osamu, with special attention to No Longer Human (the main inspiration for BSD Dazai was Yozo) – and neither RL Dazai nor Yozo gave me the impression they could qualify for ASPD at all.

I know BSD Dazai is the opposite of the RL author in so many ways, but I guess it’s relevant to mention this because we know so little of BSD Dazai’s internal working processes, and Asagiri's main inspiration can tell us a lot about the intentions behind Dazai's portrayal. Generally, an intention or idea behind a character can give a lot of clues to us - more than anything, I am under the impression some of the main ideas behind Dazai's creation was that: 1) He doesn't feel like he belongs among humans 2) He has mental health issues However, we have difficulty defining the exact source of why all of this is in more realistic terms.

Naturally, since Dazai, an extremely socially intelligent person, sees himself as "othered", it is logical to assume he is not capable of fulfilling some emotional function most people can in a successful enough way. If he were just mentally ill in more typical ways (only depression), I theorize he wouldn't feel that "othered". He specifically is not meant to feel human. Obviously, his extreme intelligence is one of the things that isolates him, but the question is what else?

We are led to believe Dazai "sees" something the rest of us don't, and that is one of the reasons he wants to die. However, there is something more to it, as I believe it to be. We have two characters who are as intelligent as Dazai: Fyodor and Ranpo, and neither of them is suicidal, as far as we know. I believe Dazai "feels" a certain way, and then finds a way to logically justify it. Due to his intelligence, he likely falls into a complex loop which leads him to existential nihilism: but you usually don't end up in a place like that if you tend to feel alright in the first place, regardless of how smart you may be. While Dazai is certainly isolated due to his extreme intelligence, most of the people who made an impact on him are nowhere near him in that respect. In fact, I'd argue Dazai isn't even looking for someone equally intelligent to him, unlike Fyodor (this would take another post to explain).

The man who means the world to him, Oda, is more emotionally intelligent and full of common sense, but definitely not his cognitive equal. You can tell a lot about a person depending on what they value: and due to this I believe that Dazai's main issues relate to emotional matters. He primarily feels isolated due to his emotional state, and his intelligence pushes the problem further. Otherwise, he would treasure people like Ranpo and Fyodor over guys like Oda and Atsushi: he's looking for something to ease his emotional pain. Dazai doesn't seek out raw intellectual stimulation as much as comfort/excitement. This post will be an analysis of how Dazai compares to the "average" psychologically and some of the reasons he may feel so othered. Basically, my theory is that the feeling of being "othered" comes from his emotional profile, as much as it comes from his intellectual capacity. Those two take equal parts in his psyche.

Why would Dazai feel so emotionally "othered"? I believe it may have to deal with a specific personality disorder or condition, and mainly how he experiences empathy. One of the possibilities is ASPD. Anyways, let’s look into common ASPD symptoms, and then we'll look into common behavioral patterns the character shows. Dazai is equal amounts portrayed seriously and in a “jokey” way, but his worst traits and moments are usually described without humor. To preface: Keep in mind that you can have any or all of these traits without it qualifying you for a certain disorder. It is the extent to which you show it that makes a person, like Dazai, out of the norm.

1. Repeatedly breaking the law: This one goes without saying, he was in the Mob as Young as 15, and seemingly a violent criminal even before that age. To differentiate him from other members of the Mafia, it is stated by tons of people throughout the story that Dazai was practically born for this job.

Oda in Dark Era:

He was openly murderous before the age of 15, according to both The Day I picked up Dazai and Fifteen:

Dazai and Oda interacting in TDIPUD When talking to Kyouka, it seems that he has an “interesting relationship” with murder as a whole:

One thing is for sure, Dazai is much calmer, calculated, and more Machiavellian than most criminals in BSD, and this all started at an extremely young age. Many people kill when they're young, but they're not this casual about it. The age at which he was this cold about would be of diagnostic significance.

2. Lack of remorse: Everything mentioned above, it is clear that Dazai has an even more complicated relationship with guilt and empathy. I’m pretty sure anyone in real life would consider him out of the norm, as it’s explicitly stated Dazai doesn’t feel remorse for all sorts of things he does, but there are some hints he is either ashamed of the way he is, or regrets his nature, but accepts it. What is particularly significant here is how young Dazai is when he shows a marked level of these traits. A key event that stuck with me is from the Dragon Head event in Mayoi (from my understanding it was written by Asagiri), where Shibusawa mentions Dazai will regret something (to me it sounded like he meant that killing Shibusawa will end poorly for Osamu). However, Dazai’s reaction was interesting – it was like he was almost amused that anyone would believe Dazai “could” feel regret for anything.

Mayoi Later down the timeline it’s quite questionable whether Dazai feels regret for some of his actions because he hides his feelings like a snake hides its legs, but there are implications he is somewhat remorseful if you read between the lines. More on that later. Dazai has changed compared to his past self, but to talk about that, and the extent to which he has changed would take a whole other post.

More on his lack of remorse, In “The Heartless Cur” Dazai is very young when he gets some randos from the Mafia killed in front of Akutagawa, yet his main emotions are amusement and boredom. This is not the “typical” emotional range of most people, even practiced criminals. For example, Chuuya kills people just like Dazai, but his reactions to it are entirely different.

from The Heartless Cur Murder tends to not be the preferred or first solution Chuuya goes for: there is an expected amount of hesitance if you read into Chuuya. He put a bomb below Chuuya’s and sabotaged Ango’s car without much bother. I’d say even if you do see It as a “means to an end”, the way he did it was really cold. Usually, when people of all kinds do bad things, they have remorse and empathy they need to suppress, but with Dazai we don't see much of that. It's like he can just "do it'. He’s also really great at torture, in Side B at age 15-16, he already describes himself as a “specialist”. This is also touched upon when he speaks to Kouyou:

No matter how "grey" a character is, torture is a very specific process that takes a particular psychological profile to pull off. To be a "specialist" at it, you definitely need to possess dented empathy. Lack of remorse and empathy does not mean a person is going to be a criminal at all - it simply opens the opportunity that they may get lost in those waters more easily compared to the average person.

3. Repeatedly being deceitful I’m pretty sure we don’t have to cover this one. Yozo, the character he was loosely based on, is a big liar, and commonly uses “clowning” to distract from his real personality. Even the real Dazai Osamu wrote extensively about the concept of “lying”. There is a lot to talk about Dazai and “masking”, and I’ll get to that in the second half of the post. Generally, Dazai lies a lot, one can’t even be sure what his personality really is. He lies by omission, manipulates, and intentionally deceives people without any issues. There are so many quotes about this that I’d probably reach the image limit right there if I wanted to reference them all. 4. Being impulsive or incapable of planning ahead Does not apply

5. Has difficulty sustaining long-term relationships: Dazai is famously a hoe. From “All women are his type” (and it seems he has zero issues getting together with any woman, young, old or even taken) to being known as “the enemy of all women” (said by Chuuya), it’s clear he is very promiscuous. Wan is in the gray area of canon, but in one of the earlier chapters he has so many love letters by different women that Atsushi burns them all. Kunikida said he hits on any woman he sees in the Entrance exam novel, which is further supported by random Wan! Chapters, silly crossovers, and everything else (literally anything female).

Not only that, but Dazai sounds like a consistently manipulative and toxic romantic partner. In an Otomedia interview, written by Asagiri, Dazai’s real type was basically something like: “Any woman is fine, because he is confident he can shape her to suit his tastes” which shows a remarkable lack of care for the personhood and individuality of his partner.

When answered what he’d do if his partner cheated or betrayed him, his answer was even more concerning. Depending on the translation, it goes something like: “He has not been cheated on, but he has cheated on others” or “he set up women to cheat on him/betray him” where both are a lot, just in different ways.

Either he is compulsively unfaithful, putting all above together, or he plays mindgames with his partners. He’s also told Kunikida that: “And from my experience, it takes only a smile and some kindness to get a woman swooning over you when she's fallen on hard times” painting an image of someone who takes advantage of people’s weaknesses to get what he wants.

Regardless, it’s clear he is very manipulative and likely emotionally abusive. I won’t even touch upon his obsession with double suicide. There’s also the fact that he seems to use sex to get what he wants – insert scene where he fucks the nurse to get his phone back.

Other than that, Dazai appears to be rather solitary. Ango and Oda are said to be “the only ones close to him” because they respected said loneliness. Even in ADA, Dazai seems to be professionally close to people, but very few people seem to know him on a personal level. I’d say he keeps people at a distance intentionally – before it was violently, later it is by being avoidant. For as much of a womanizer he is, there was that early comic where he spent Valentine’s Day drinking at Lupin “with Oda”, instead of going out with any particular person. I think this demonstrates how emotionally distant he is from all the people he interacts with

6. Being irritable and aggressive:

Dazai is not particularly aggressive, nor irritable, but he has moments where he slips. Tbh, reading back, it says a lot about Dazai’s character who he gets angry at and why. It’s important to say that when Higuchi calls him out on “Hollowing out the hearts of his opponents” in incredibly brutal ways, Dazai replies that he thinks “Sadism is just a method, and how it’s boring”.

Akutagawa is the receiver of a lot of his violence to a disproportionate degree. He beats up Akutagawa beyond what could ever be “just training”. There’s something that ticks him off about Akutagawa, which is interesting, since Dazai tends to not react this way to anyone who doesn’t touch him “intimately” in some way. A lot of people justify Dazai’s physical abuse by saying it is “training”, but it stood out to me how he kicks Akutagawa in the stomach even the first time he meets him in “Beast”, when Akutagawa is just an extremely traumatized and deprived kid he refuses to recruit. There is not much utility to that kick, to me. It felt personal.

Another example of him expressing anger is when people “called him foolish for wanting to die” – clearly he did not take it well since all of those people ended up dead. This is from “The Day I picked up Dazai” when Oda tells him he is a fool for wanting to die.

Other times Dazai expressed rage was in relation to Ango and Oda, particularly anything that related to Oda’s wellbeing.

He snaps at his subordinates when they tell him he shouldn’t be friends with someone “of such low status”, and the only time we really hear Dazai say he hates someone is when he’s torturing one of the guys who put Oda in trouble in the Beast timeline of “The day I picked up Dazai”. Obviously, he is resentful towards Ango and incapable of forgiving him. “Dead Apple” guidebook touches on it.

“Though they were once good buddies who used to drink together, to Dazai, Ango is one of the persons who caused the death of Odasaku. He still holds that resentment up to now, and is unable to forgive. Ango also seems to feel Dazai’s silent wrath towards him.”

Harukawa has said to pay attention to how cloudy the eyes of a character are to accurately interpret their psychological state. I don't think there are many times Dazai's eyes are drawn in such an extreme way - there is no "light" she talks about here. His eyes are pure black when he talks to Mori during the Guild arc.

He also agrees with Fyodor on “Malice being the best fruit that God Bestowed upon Mankind”

There is also this with Jouno:

Basically, Dazai rarely gets angry, insults don’t work on him (as he tells Chuuya), nor does beating him up, but when he does get irritated he flies off the handle and has no issue crossing any normal boundaries.

That detail is what stands out to me – usually, people have a line they won’t cross when getting mad, but for Dazai it’s like most moral lines disappear. Imo, his anger is for social standards over disproportionate in how far he’ll go and how he'll act on it– he usually has a clear intention to harm the individual he's mad about. In comparison, Chuuya is someone who gets angry more than Dazai, but Chuuya clearly has a line he won’t cross. There is also no pointed sadism in his reactions. Dazai will likely do almost anything.

Basically, it's not how much Dazai gets angry, but the way he gets mad that sticks out to me. Most importantly, Dazai only ever gets enraged if it concerns something very personal and intimate: Oda and his death, his suicide attempts etc. At this point, for me, It’s safe to say that if Dazai gets extremely angry, it means the topic affects him on a deep level (a hint to whatever Is happening between him and Akutagawa, I could talk a lot about that).

More on Dazai’s unpredictable and violent nature:

Stormbringer I think there is a valid argument in seeing Dazai’s aggression as just a tool he uses to keep others at bay, something to hold over people and control them – but even then, it shows a marked disinterest in social norms people usually respect.

7.Having a reckless disregard for their safety or the safety of others This one builds upon all the others. However, it’s always been interesting to me how it’s clear something flies over Dazai’s head when it comes to regularly empathizing with others.

This is often seen with Chuuya. In my opinion, most of the bullying Dazai gives Chuuya is not motivated out of rage, but rather some form of spite. He goes at length to Rimbaud about planning Chuuya’s murder in “15”, then he also lets Chuuya be tortured in “Stormbringer”.

I am under the impression he sees these moments as “amusing” and doesn’t fully emotionally understand why this is something bad, even if he does on a rational level. I’ll say that Dazai did seem to show some rage whenever anyone hurt him physically in the past (seems likely to be a hint to a traumatic past), which Chuuya did when they met, but I don’t get the impression he is generally angry with Chuuya, it’s more like he just enjoys fucking with him. Ironically, for how rarely Dazai gets angry, it seems he reserves his rage/irritation exclusively for people and things he cares about, so Dazai being specifically irritated at Chuuya is just a sign of how much the guy gets to him.

If Dazai were angry at Chuuya, it is in character that he would try to hurt him a lot more than he does. However, I'd say Dazai has a blurry space for what's ok between "keeping someone purely safe" and "deeply hurting them". There is some lack of emotional empathy there - to him, it is more amusing than anything to see someone he finds interesting struggle.

Dazai sees boundaries differently. He’ll put people into danger or through discomfort without worrying much, especially if he’s sure they’re going to walk and live after it, but sometimes not even that. (there’s so many examples of it). I’d say it’s not that Dazai doesn’t care, he just cares about people differently compared to what we’re used to socially.

Regarding personal safety, it’s pretty obvious: he’s a suicide maniac, but even more, he also puts himself in harm’s way all the time without any anxiety present. Examples are when he provokes that sniper in Dark Era (when Oda gets angry at him and wants to punch him), knows he is going to get shot by Fyodor, but lets himself get hurt anyway. When he “dies” in 55 minutes, he seems “lightly” surprised, but there’s no strong reaction to it. To me, it seems that the only physical harm he dislikes is pain he suffers from another person (when he doesn’t plan it). Dazai apparently doesn’t feel much “anxiety” – I remember many different times when he comments on another character’s timidness or meekness, seeing it as something unusual.

8. Behave irresponsibly and show disregard for normal social behaviour He’s extremely eccentric, and even Ranpo says he doesn’t get him. Dazai asks women to commit suicide the moment he meets them, and often attempts suicide around people even if it distresses them (Entrance exam).

While I think he made this excuse in Dark Era to Taneda because he didn’t want to work with Ango, I do believe he believes what he said: “You’d lose your job if I did that.” Dazai wryly smirked. “I don’t like places with lots of rules.” Not being able to accept conventional rules is very often a telltale sign of a personality disorder. Clearly, Dazai fits many of the criteria necessary for having ASPD, so let’s look at some other details that are common for people with ASPD.

Masking: In psychology and sociology, masking is the process in which an individual camouflages their natural personality or behavior to conform to social pressures. Masking is common with many disorders, such as autism, ASPD etc. I am pretty sure it’s canon Dazai masks – on a BSD exhibit, the key element Asagiri wanted to talk about in Dazai’s personality was related to this.

“When I describe Dazai to the staff, there is a phrase that I always use, “an unworldly being with a mental age of two thousand years.” Dazai has far surpassed the mental dimension that human can reach, thus no-one can even tell if the emotions he shows are the real things or not.

There are rare moments when that Dazai shows his very “human” side. That is when he talks to another superhuman who is on the same level with him. The other is when he talks about his old friend who has passed. This is the scene when Kyouka wondered “Maybe I’m, after all, just a murderer at heart.” and refused to be saved. And Dazai’s reaction to that. When he said “Don’t give me any of that!” here, he really meant it. That was an outburst from Dazai, as a 22-year-old boy, in this scene.” Light novels often describe his smile as fake, mask-like, and I could probably find 20 panels where Harukawa clearly drew him to intentionally seem like a fake smiler. From “15” to “Entrance exam”, Dazai often drops his mask, and then goes back to acting silly just to make the other person relax. He does this with everyone, Mori, Kunikida, Atsushi, etc. Chuuya also mentions that Dazai’s “happy-go-lucky” personality in ADA is something new, and he believes it doesn’t fit him.

Kunikida says this in the Entrance Exam: "For someone so full of eccentricities, there is something about his behavior that makes it seem as if he has an unobstructed view of the world. I don’t know exactly why, but all his emotions strike me as an act to some degree. Is he just playing dumb? Could there be more to him than he’s letting on, lurking behind his ambiguous mannerisms?"

More than anything, Dazai himself says that Oda was the person closest to seeing his “real” personality. That pretty much confirms he keeps his real self hidden away. I’d say that there are several possibilities to why this is: He hides it because he dislikes being vulnerable, he doesn’t know how to act “normal”, people are unable to understand him, so masking makes it easier for him to communicate with others…there’s a lot of theorizing I could do here.

Dazai also tends to have interesting thoughts about personalities as a concept.

You’ll commonly see Dazai say something serious, followed by a severe reaction of the other character, ending with Dazai changing his demeanor and saying “just kidding” to lighten the air.

Manipulation: Dazai is extremely Machiavellian – he is prone to manipulating everyone around him, regardless of how much they care about him or not. He manipulated Chuuya into joining the mafia, he does the same with Akutagawa even today: Here we have him preying on Aku's insecurities to sabotage his self-confidence

He seems to be able to cut off his emotions from any situation, seeing people in a raw, factual sense.

There are several moments throughout the novels where Dazai talks about people as if they’re purely resources or pawns. An example of this in Dead Apple (where Chuuya gets angry because he doesn't respect people or show enough sympathy)

The way he speaks of Atsushi, when asked what he thinks of him in a guidebook, is something like “developing as expected”. Especially in the original, it sounds extremely factual, mechanical, and cold. To me, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about Atsushi, he’s just the type to compartmentalize his emotions in opposition to his thinking. This is very common for a few personality disorders and mental health conditions: the capacity to totally cut off your emotions from the equation. Obviously, many people are capable of doing this to one extent or another, but the amount to which he does it is what makes it significant.

Lack of traditional empathy: Personally, I think everything comes down to this. Dazai's experiences with empathy are one of the main themes of his character arc. I believe one of the things that makes him feel othered is his lack of emotional empathy.

People with ASPD tend to have issues experiencing what a lot of people consider “typical” empathy – however, ASPD is also on a large spectrum, so experiences certainly vary. Keep in mind that "lack of empathy" is common for all sorts of disorders, but since ASPD seems to be one of the most popular choices for Dazai, I decided to start there.

Before we continue, there are 2 types of empathy: Cognitive empathy is the ability to recognize and understand someone’s feelings and experiences and imagine yourself in those scenarios. Emotional empathy is experiencing shared emotions with someone or feeling emotions as though the experience is your own.

People with ASPD can commonly do the first type easily, and struggle with the second one. It does not mean they cannot experience emotional empathy, it’s just rarer for them to feel it. In my opinion, Dazai heavily relies on Cognitive empathy compared to Emotional empathy.

You can see often that he seems to not entirely understand “why” something is wrong on a personal level, but he can logically see it. This is a running theme, and you can commonly see that Dazai doesn’t fully understand “normal”.

“15” Asagiri seems to be writing Dazai as someone who has gone “beyond the human dimension” in his skills and intelligence, so other people can’t fully understand him, but I think this goes both ways. Dazai has lost touch with what’s the standard human experience.

One of the times Chuuya specifically calls out Dazai for not "acting human-like" is when he's not expressing empathy and respect. It is clear that Dazai's lack of empathy is one of the aspects which make others see him as "inhuman".

There is another situation with Kunikida during the Azure Messenger arc where Dazai seems to apologize for not getting something “is normal”, it slips by you very easily. It is framed as a joke, and it can be read as him making fun of Kuni, but Kunikida asks himself why Dazai apologized. It does read a bit unusually.

To me it seems like Dazai doesn’t fully emotionally understand other people, so when his mask slips you can see that he struggles a ton with getting what’s exactly “typical”.

Because Dazai is extremely intelligent, he masks in order to fit into society, and he does it successfully since he can intellectually understand most social and emotional functions and processes. However, he slips up like everyone does. This is why he got along with Oda well – since Oda just let him act like himself without having ulterior motives. Dazai didn’t have to “mask”. He didn't see Dazai as "just anyone", but he also realized Dazai was human. Basically, to Oda Dazai was a kid that had empathy issues, but he was struggling much like everyone else.

Personally, I feel like Dazai doesn’t feel entirely “human” because he doesn’t feel “emotional empathy” on the same level as other people, and this is one of the key issues of the character (as it's clearly stated in the Dead Apple manga, where Dazai does seem a bit upset by Chuuya's reaction)

. The reason he felt “seen” by Oda is because Oda fully recognized this and still believed Dazai could do “good”. In our society, it is common for people to think that "empathy" and "sympathy" are conditions for being a good person, but it isn't so simple. The possible complexity of Dazai's moral state is why I find the character so interesting - a person without traditional empathy choosing to be good is really fascinating. (more on this later).

Boredom and general emptiness: “Boredom” is an extremely common complaint for people with ASPD – in fact, intense, non-standard boredom, along with other symptoms such as atypical experience with empathy, is one of the easiest ways to recognize ASPD. A “numbed” emotional state is common for people with ASPD, and due to their different emotional range and inability to connect with others in a more typical fashion, they are prone to “boredom” and seeking out extreme experiences.

Alcoholism/Substance abuse is common for people with ASPD, and it’s pretty much canon Dazai drinks a lot (alcohol is even in his likes). Aside from that, Dazai often cites boredom as one of the main reasons he wants to die, and I remember so many instances where he complains about it in bizarre circumstances. This is common for people with ASPD: depression/suicidality is comorbid, and I have heard people with ASPD mention they wanted their life to end once they no longer have enough stimulation. Dazai is often stated to be “bored”, or look bored even when extremely horrifying things are happening (people dying around him/telling their life stories..). An example with Mori where he talks about wishing to die (from 15):

Another really funny thing, a lot of people with ASPD I have seen tend to dislike “dogs”. Obviously, this hatred comes from the real life Dazai being scared of them and thinking they can attack at any moment, but it’s a funny coincidence. They tend to dislike dogs for an entirely different reason than Dazai does, to be fair.

How Dazai seems to see himself and morals in general

Generally, to me it seems like Dazai is not entirely happy with his nature. He admires Oda and doesn’t understand why he wouldn’t use his talents to rise up in ranks within the Mafia, simply because that is logical to Dazai – perhaps it is that difference between them that he enjoys so much. He is frequently attracted to displays of empathy:

Examples: 1. Ango documenting the deaths of people within the mafia even if it’s “just a waste of money” 2. Almost everything Atsushi and Oda do

He often describes altruism as “interesting”. I am also under the impression that Dazai has a tendency to project his nature onto others, which we can gather from his “Evil expects evil from others” quote to Mori. Furthermore, he sadly remarks in Dark Era that he is “a man despised by righteousness”. so I feel like there is something up here, some sort of guilt, distaste or shame.

This tells me:

a)Dazai sees himself as “evil”

b)He is constantly assuming the worst in others or is prepared for the worst

Another thing this tells me is that Dazai is someone who is likely extremely wary of people’s intentions. This is a ubiquitous theme all across BSD, especially when we see him as a kid. Osamu tends to be skeptical of everyone and everything, as if he’s waiting for people to betray or fuck him over at any corner. In TDIPUD, he keeps getting upset that he can't figure out Oda, since it makes no sense for him to be so charitable for absolutely no reason. Oda said “good and evil are the same to you” – personally I interpret this as Dazai being largely amoral rather than immoral. Whether Dazai can be described as “good”, “evil” or “neutral” largely depends on your view of ethics. Just because someone lacks traditional empathy, it doesn't mean they are necessarily sadistic or bad at all. Immoral and Amoral are two words that sound similar but have different meanings. Immoral is an adjective that describes “something against pre-established morals, ethics, or standard societal practices.” Amoral, on the other hand, is an adjective that describes “something or someone completely lacking morals.” In common society, if you’re not “good”, you are often automatically “evil”. Basically, a person who has "no morals" is just as bad as a person who has cruel beliefs, but those two fundamentally differ. However, in a technical, utilitarian fashion – this is often seen to be true. More or less, “good” is the neutral state, and the more you step away from it, the more “evil” you are perceived to be. The more moral conventions you break, the more "evil" you are, regardless of your intentions. The results of the actions matter more than the source and motivations. In the end, a person is dead, regardless of why you killed them or how you felt about it. The reasons why people do conventionally moral things can be all over the place too - people aren't always kind because they have sympathy. When I hear “evil and good are the same to you”, it sounds like Dazai has no need for either, meaning, yes, he has no inherent need to do good, but no need for bad, he is simply not opposed to either of them. Regardless of what he's doing, he feels the same way. They're both tools to satisfy particular needs. Many people read this and say "aha, so if he sees no difference between the two, that means he is evil", but I think the truth is in the middle. I always say that to estimate Dazai's moral framework, you need to judge him outside of normal conventions. Basically, his starting point in making decisions is different. He begins his process likely by thinking "what will this bring me?" Most of his “evil” is not out of pure sadism, it’s just that he feels no need to stop himself due to moral conventions, he mostly cares about practical results. This is opposed to Kunikida who cares about ideals and morals in a vacuum and pursues them in their most idealized version (and it's well known Asagiri writes duos as opposites). Entrance exam as a novel was about how idealism can lead people to ruin when it's unrealistic.

He’s naturally immune to socialized pressure that forms the moral frameworks of most people on an emotional level. All of this is very common for ASPD, and a few other conditions. The more I see Dazai talk about how he sees the concept of personality, murder, morality – the more I am convinced his ethical framework is focused on results rather than the inherent morality of said actions. Example: He's going to lie to you to make you happy, even though "lying is bad". There is no inherent value in staying honest if it makes an individual miserable in the long run, even though society sees frankness as a virtue. That way, most actions are “open” for Dazai to undertake, he has no qualms most people have against them, since he doesn’t have socialized morals. A lot of the time, we only see certain things as "unconditionally bad" because we've been socialized to see them that way, even if it's not necessarily logical. He simply lacks socialized morals, leading to a tendency to be amoral. Everything is a means to an end, every action is alright if it's a tool that has more pros than cons. Oda's death was a useful character arc, since it led Dazai to taking Oda's moral framework as his own. He doesn't believe he is better than others, nor does he enjoy hurting random people, he doesn't kill or rob randos to get something and believes he is justified in it. Things of that type would make him “immoral”. Most of Dazai’s evil actions seem utilitarian, rather than committed for the pure act of pleasure or cruelty. When I say “amoral”, I mean this from Dazai’s point of view. Since he has no “moral boundaries”, all actions are open for him to undertake. He can go as far as he wants to any extreme largely depending on his subjective worldview and feelings (as seen in Beast, where he breaks all sorts of ethical codes of being "a good man" so Oda could get a decent life). However, since he is aware that there is a fight between good and bad in every person, and that evil tends to win out compared to the good, under enough pressure, he admires people who selflessly continue to be kind. That is why Oda, a highly moral person even beyond what is logical (his insistence to not kill even if it harms him) is the opposite that pushed him to change. Ulterior motives tend to be something Dazai is worried about in people, perhaps because he is possibly projecting all he is, or can be, on others. He describes Oda specifically as:

"a man who has no ulterior motive". Oda is obviously being a good person partially out of self-interest ("people live to save themselves"), but this self-interest is not destructive. I think for Dazai, it was difficult to find people who didn't have an ulterior motive that was ultimately hurtful, and he projected that onto everyone. Oda acting in his self-interest was ultimately beneficial to everyone. All in all, while Dazai does admire Oda's morals - I think a lot of this appreciation comes from an intimate and subjective place, where he feels comforted someone like Oda even existed. Continuing Oda's work is likely an extension of this as well. Keep in mind, any person has the right to see Dazai's actions as bad, as they often are. I am more speaking of Dazai's internal mental framework. Conclusion: Dazai has no inherent need to do good or bad, for the most part. He just goes as far as he needs to to satisfy his emotional needs.

Oda saved Dazai’s life in the day I picked up Dazai, and listened to him, but expected nothing in return. I feel that Oda saw this struggle within Dazai, and the way “good and evil don’t mean much to him” due to his disorder, but recognized that Dazai perhaps didn’t want to be this way.

Since Oda saw Dazai’s “irregular” nature, and still believed he could be a good person, Dazai was touched and decided to change his life. I believe Dazai had some distaste for himself, regardless of his lack of empathy, he could recognize what he was doing was not entirely right. As Asagiri mentioned, Oda told him exactly what he needed to hear, and the fact that these words were so life-changing to Dazai tells us a lot about what he had on his mind. In my opinion, to see who Dazai is, you need to follow exactly which words got to him.

In my opinion, it likely meant a lot that a person he actually admired wanted to be in his life, especially a person he considered so kind like Oda. He often says that Oda is “the most interesting person he knows”. Imo, this is because “empathy” is one of the things Dazai doesn’t fully understand. He had to learn it. Since he understands human nature so well, cognitive empathy comes easy to him, but he still fucks up sometimes.

Here, I also feel like he is talking about himself – he sees himself in Kyouka. It doesn’t come naturally to Dazai to be “good”, but he is trying his best, that is his ideal now. (Asagiri said this was one of Dazai's rare human moments). For that reason, I think Dazai admires empathetic people and tends to dislike those who are naturally violent, or even choose to be violent out of sadism.

On the BSD exhibit, Asagiri said Atsushi was "an empathy user", and how that is the key to his character. During one interview, the author mentioned that Dazai keeps testing Kunikida's ideals, but Osamu secretly hopes that Doppo will prove to be right, and Dazai wrong. This to me paints a picture of someone who hopes that "good" is worth it, at least from an intellectual point of view. When talking with Fyodor, he seems to admire people who live emotionally, thinking god doesn't prefer perfection, logic and harmony.

"The ones who actually make the world run Are those who scream in the storm of uncertainty and run with flowing blood"

Dazai seems to reject the idea that him and Fyodor and better because they are more calculating and cold - like I mentioned earlier in this god-forsaken post, this to me says Dazai believes empathetic and emotional people are better than him.

"I've come to see it many times, his gimmicks are the accidental and illogical that's a weakness two of us have in common" He suffers because he is not like them, and that contributes to him feeling "othered".

Negative emotions and Akutagawa

My guess is that one of the reasons Dazai has so many issues with Akutagawa is because he is projecting his own issues with his lack of empathy onto him. This makes him relate to Akutagawa, but also dislike him beyond how he usually treats people. Akutagawa questions why Dazai's acts of violence are justified, while Osamu is judging Akutagawa: to me it sounds that Dazai sees his actions as at least partly justified because they are "logical" and utilitarian. He puts a difference between him and Aku, as if Dazai's natural instinct is not to mindlessly hurt others. However, it's interesting he needs to draw this line.

I believe Dazai sees a lot of the hurt he enacts on others as either "justified" or subconsciously defensive. "If I don't hurt others, they will hurt me", and he uses this against all kinds of people to keep them in control. In the Dark Era novel, Dazai speaks of Akutagawa like this:

“When I first saw him over in the slums, I was horrified. His talents are extraordinary, and his skill is extremely destructive. Plus, he’s stubborn. If I’d left him to his own devices, he would’ve ended up a slave to his own powers until he destroyed himself.” Interestingly, Dazai was "horrified" at what Akutagawa was capable of, where most things don't seem to exactly phase him. I think something about Aku's capacity for violence even scares him, and he "lashes" out in response to control him.

Later on Oda calls out Dazai's thinking indirectly in Beast, saying that hurting Aku is still bad no matter why he did it. (more on this in the next section) However, it’s very clear he cares for Akutagawa in “Chopsticks and a Spoon”, so I do feel like he’s likely aware of it. In fact, that story contains one of the gentlest expressions Dazai has pointed at anyone, so I think he partially sees Akutagawa as "innocent" in nature, and more like a wounded animal. I'll likely write a post about it. Since Dazai has expressed some lament or even shame regarding him being a person "hated by righteousness", I do think he is a bit ashamed of who he is. This part is a theory: When talking about "No Longer Human", Asagiri mentioned that he felt the book was about "embarrassment". Since Dazai is canonically famously based on Yozo to some extent, I feel that we can guess that Osamu likely does feel some shame - the question is about what. The rare times we see BSD Dazai express something similar to shame is when talking about his moral nature (when he beat up Akutagawa in Dark Era), but it's a "blink and you'll miss it" type of thing. Yozo and RL Dazai's relationship with his father was one of the cornerstones of his work (NLH even ends with him mentioning how he would have been alright if he had a better relationship with his father). Within the book, Yozo feels all sorts of things which make him feel "inhuman", but he is terrified about being open about it due to his strict father who sees him as somewhat strange. Since the theme of "fatherhood" was lightly touched upon when Atsushi's orphanage director died, I do think this is potentially a sore spot for BSD Dazai too. My guess is that Dazai likely had a poor relationship with his father figure, who saw him as "strange" or "inhuman" due to the way he acted: leading BSD Dazai to feel shame over his nature. Perhaps one of the things that made his father see Dazai as inhuman was his lack of typical ethics and empathy. Osamu internalized this - and ended up becoming a criminal at a very young age, perhaps in an attempt to confirm what hurt him, seeing himself as someone who could mostly do bad (which could be one of the reasons he wanted to die so young). Perhaps Oda making a way for him to "act good" was life-changing because of that too - it targeted a specific wound. All of this is speculation, but Dazai did mention that "self-pity leads you to living a life that is an endless nightmare". My guess is he was talking about himself there: and his own experiences with shame. To extend this: I think one of the reasons Dazai is so harsh on Akutagawa is because he is possibly projecting his relationship with his father onto Aku. Akutagawa is violent and troubled, and Dazai was shamed for the same thing. (but it would take a lot of time to work through this theory, so moving on..)

Dazai exhibiting empathy However, Dazai does show empathy for Oda, and a lot of it. I’d go as far as to say that he over-empathizes with Oda, while he underempathizes with everyone else. His relationships with the people closest to him tend to be why some people think he may have BPD. Especially due to devaluation and the "favorite person" concept. For someone with this type of BPD relationship, a “favorite person” is someone they rely on for comfort, happiness, and validation. A FP is a person who someone with BPD relies heavily on for emotional support, seeks attention and validation from, and looks up to or idealizes. For Dazai, this is Oda. On the other hand, In the context of BPD, “devaluation” refers to a psychological defense mechanism or coping strategy that individuals with BPD may employ in their interpersonal relationships. Devaluation involves a shift in the person’s perception of others, where they view someone they previously idealized or held in high regard as unworthy, flawed, or worthless. They become unworthy of their affection and praise. The person with BPD may engage in behaviors such as intense criticism, verbal attacks, withdrawal, or even cutting off contact with the person they have devalued. These actions are often driven by the individual’s fear of rejection, abandonment, or a desire to protect themselves from potential hurt or disappointment. For Dazai, the clearest example of this is Ango. However, a person can exhibit the "favorite person" and project the phenomenon of devaluation without having BPD. In my opinion, Dazai does show heightened polarity in his feelings toward others, but I am not sure if BPD would be my choice for him. It's very difficult to say, as many conditions mask as BPD, and Dazai's expression of empathy is unique.

Dazai idealizes Oda, and deeply sees his pain as his own, while he always frames Akutagawa in a negative light, even though he is likely one of the people Dazai cares about the most (next to Oda, Chuuya, Ango, Atsushi, especially according to Beast). Another example of his heightened negative emotions are Ango, and Chuuya to a much lesser extent. My guess is that Dazai doesn’t deal with caring about people well, especially when they are any sort of “threat”: which is why he tries to “bully” them down. The reason he goes easier on Chuuya than Akutagawa is because he feels Chuuya is in his nature more sympathetic.

In my opinion, the moment Dazai warmed up to Chuuya was when he realized that The Sheep were pushing Chuuya around: he was no “King of the sheep”, he was acting out of empathy and care. Since Chuuya is so powerful, it was likely admirable to Dazai that he didn’t abuse his abilities for self-gain. This is when he decided to isolate Chuuya from the Sheep: and I think the reason above is specifically why

I'd say Dazai is likely "spikey" to anyone he cares about but has less confidence they won't hurt him. There are two camps of people: 1. Atsushi, Oda, Kunikida, Sigma (generally upright, meek, moral at the end of the day) 2. Chuuya, Akutagawa, and lastly Ango (people who are aggressive, challenging, and need to be put down in Dazai's eyes).

He cares about both camps (Sigma is debatable, I spoke of the type of personality Dazai seems to deal with easily in his case), but he likely feels "less safe" with the second type. Mori could potentially go into the second camp - there is some respect and resentment there at the same time. He even talks about this with Kunikida in Entrance exam.

"“I guess. But you, Kunikida, I’ve got a good idea of who you are now, so nothing you do will ever surprise me. I mean, compared with me, you’re just a simple man with a simple mind, after all.”

See? You wear your heart on your sleeve. You don’t hide how you’re really feeling. It’s nice. You know what else is nice? Just knowing that you’re going to be worrying later to yourself, ‘Am I really that simple?’”

“Why, you—”

But I refrain from arguing. Whatever my response, he’s just going to end up telling me, “I knew you’d say that.”

I suppose that being around Kunikida comforts him since he is predictable, yet kind. On the other hand, someone like Chuuya excites him, because he is wild and challenging enough, but is still a good person when it comes down to it. Basically, Dazai is hypervigilant of pain.

Akutagawa is “off the chain” in comparison to all of them. I am under the impression that Dazai can care about people without treating them well at all, and 2 of the people who are at the top of his list (Chuuya and Aku) are people he “seems” to dislike (In Chuuya’s case rather openly in his profile).

It appears that the more “intense” and “unpolished” parts of Dazai’s personality are strictly reserved for people he cares about, but he is extremely selective about who he shows emotional empathy to as it’s such a rare experience for him. He may capable of "cutting off" empathy to protect himself emotionally. It is quite clear some aspects of empathy miss him broadly in Beast, when he appears shocked that Oda would react so strongly to endangering Akutagawa since “it’s all supposed to end well if he survives”. That sentence itself is totally tone-deaf, yet Dazai is acting as if Oda is supposed to take that normally. It’s quite clear that Dazai doesn’t treat Atsushi all that well in Beast either, as he exploits his fears for Atsushi to be totally obedient to him.

I really like this moment, because it demonstrates that even if Dazai does have some point regarding Akutagawa and the way he goes about things, the way he has treated him is still too much – and Dazai can’t exactly convince Oda, a decent person, why this is ever justifiable under any circumstances. There is an aspect of regular empathy that misses Dazai – it doesn’t cross his mind why his actions are inherently bad. Perhaps it is possible that Dazai was treated with little to no empathy growing up, so he accepted that as a model for acceptable behavior. A lot of the time, cruel actions don't seem to even register to him as bad, in an almost innocent way. It's like it doesn't cross his mind that stuff is out of the ordinary. When talking to Oda about this, he was described as "childlike".

However, Dazai shows a lot of extreme emotional empathy for Oda, which tends to be rare for people with ASPD (obviously, all traits of it are on a spectrum).

Dazai clearly feels as if he himself is being beaten when Oda suffers. Furthermore, “Beast” shows that he is willing to endanger multiple people he cares about so Oda could live and write his book. In his words “the me from other worlds doesn’t care about the world” �� showing that even though he may “care” about people, it’s really hard for him to fully emotionally connect with others.

This leads him to severe feelings of loneliness and isolation, but it’s quite clear Oda is the exception to this.

Dazai has multiple anxiety attacks when meeting with Oda in Beast and TIPUD:

“I see.” Oda says after he gives it a moment of thought. “I’ll do so then. That is very kind of you. You are a good guy.”

Dazai’s expression becomes distorted.

He opens his mouth, and closes it again, as if he can no longer breathe.

If he tells him everything now, maybe things will go back to how they were. The two of them will go to the bar together and have a toast. Just like that night.

“Odasa…”

Just as Dazai is about to say that name, a train passes by. The express train passing through that station cuts through the silence of the night, right next to where Dazai and Oda is."

and obviously the whole showdown at the bar. Earlier, Oda mentions that Dazai looks like he is about to cry:

An interesting part here is that Dazai gets shocked that Oda would even consider that Dazai could hurt him:

It almost sounds absurd that Dazai, who is known for scheming even against people he likes, would be that surprised someone would expect this from him. This, to me, shows that Dazai does have that underdeveloped, childish emotional side to himself, where he doesn’t understand everything he does. It’s quite logical why Oda, or anyone else, would be consistently doubtful of Dazai, yet he is so used to not caring about anyone, that when he does feel things he is remarkably unpolished and just as illogical as anyone else. I’d say his heart is like a knife that went blunt from lack of use. Since he has no experience dealing with people he feels strongly about, it always comes across very messy – and Asagiri himself often describes him as childish at his most vulnerable.

Furthermore, the lyrics of the song for Beast have these words to say: “Loving you to death won’t kill me Because I don’t love this world enough” And in the Beast novel, he mentions all he has to give to the world is love. I think we can certainly see that Dazai is not emotionless.

To me it seems like Dazai is capable of selective emotional empathy. I feel like one of the reasons Oda was “the one” Dazai attached himself to the most, is because Oda was a struggling man who was also depressed (rather clear the more you read), but he was empathetic and accepted Dazai for who he was.

Him and Dazai had difficulties in common (the guy was a killer as a kid too), yet Oda did his best to be a good person – that is one of the reasons, as Asagiri mentions, why he had an “outburst” when Kyouka implied former killers can’t be good people. Oda was a good person in his eyes, and his role model of “empathy”: someone he wished to emulate. I am pretty sure that Oda became the blueprint for the moral compass he strives towards.

Most importantly, Oda didn’t really judge Dazai when he showed his lack of empathy, while he remained firm in what he believed in.

“Odasaku is the type of person who will never lecture anyone. Because he does not consider himself a superior person who can teach and guide others. However, it doesn’t mean that he has nothing he wants to say. The sentiments that he couldn’t convey in these two scenes were finally delivered to Dazai in the last scene through the words “Become a good person.” Very meaningful scenes when read as a set.”

is how Asagiri described Oda during the exhibit. As Asagiri says, one of the reasons he didn’t tell Dazai anything when he provoked the sniper was his modesty. Since Oda didn’t look down on him, yet showed concern and fully understood Dazai wasn’t just a struggling depressed kid, but someone with serious issues who also happened to be a child – Dazai grew to deeply care for him. Oda didn't shame him, likely avoiding Dazai's hypervigilant sensor for pain.

Selective empathy is common for many disorders – and Dazai, after not feeling “seen” his whole life, ended up making a true connection with Oda. I guess, in that sense – Oda was the one who really reached Dazai’s heart, and since he was the only one who came that close, all of Dazai’s emotional empathy is reserved for him.

In my opinion, the reason Dazai was so difficult to “get to” was that even people who had good intentions toward him never truly saw him.

To see Dazai as a depressed woobie who just needs to be saved is to idealize him – which wouldn’t exactly help him. They’re talking about a version of him that doesn’t exist. If the only way he could be seen as worthwhile was someone seeing him as more “traditionally good” than he truly is, it’s not going to work. He needs to be seen for exactly who he is, and still given a chance to be better.

Likewise, it had to be someone who wasn’t helping him in order to get something from him. I would say that one of the main reasons why Dazai got so attached to Oda was because his friend had no reason to save him, he gave him space, and didn’t even force himself into Dazai’s life.

It was purely altruistic, and for Dazai, who expects the worst from others and seems to fear people’s intentions, this was perfect. One of the main aspects of Dazai's character is his anxious-avoidant attachment style, where he is likely so afraid of potential pain, he pushes others away, or punishes anyone he cares about who might hurt him preemptively. A lot of this is not impulsive, but calculated, which is why he feels a natural resistance to Akutagawa (but relates to him and cares all the more because of it). He understands the self-destructive nature of Akutagawa.

"If I’d left him to his own devices, he would’ve ended up a slave to his own powers until he destroyed himself.”" I believe Dazai likely allows himself to fully empathize with Oda because he feels only Oda is "safe" in this world. The fact that Oda is dead and gone perhaps makes caring for him even safer, as his image of Oda will never change.

Conclusion: I'd say Dazai is someone who is probably extremely traumatized, with a specific emotional profile that doesn't allow him to experience empathy like normal people do - and this is one of the defining traits of the character for me. He is able to isolate himself from normal social pressures and boundaries - and because of this and his extreme intellect, he feels like an alien in this world. A lot of his struggle likely deals with the fact that he dislikes the hurtful person he is, but has difficulty seeing why he should be better - all while he has a distaste for sadism, cruelty and senseless violence in others. In my opinion, a lot of his own cruelty is "reactive": he acts "evil" because he expects the same from others ("evil expects evil from others), and decides he wants to beat them to the punch. He is comforted when he is in the presence of altruistic and empathetic people, because he doesn't have to be what he dislikes (as "enemy" evil will always make him react since he is threatened). In the end, he rationally sees that cruelty is negative, but he still feels it is an effective tool. If Dazai weren't this way, he wouldn't consistently choose empathetic people for his company throughout the story, while acting callous himself most of the time.

A lot of things Dazai does to me feel like he is avoiding hurt, or attempting to "control the pain" he gets in his life. Notably, Dazai mostly lets himself get "bullied" by people he sees as innocent and simple like Kunikida, since "Kunikida will never surprise him" - he knows that Doppo won't cross the line. Ironically, he famously says he "dislikes physical pain", but often gets himself into physically dangerous scenarios.

It's like he doesn't mind pain if he's the one in control (when Fyodor let the sniper shoot him, when that dude from Mimic shot him point blank). Avoidance of pain and control are other keys to Dazai's character. In that sense, I think Dazai was possibly traumatized and learned to almost completely disassociate from empathy early in his life. There are so many theories I could think of here that we'd get nowhere.

It is clear that Dazai is capable of extreme emotional empathy due to his relationship with Oda, and it's possible he doesn't allow himself to feel it in most scenarios due to his avoidant nature regarding pain. However, whatever the reason behind it, it is clear he doesn't feel a ton of emotional empathy in his day-to-day life, and this disassociation from empathy has crafted him into a person who doesn't fully understand "normal humans".

That is why he sees them as fascinating after Oda dies - he reaches Dazai's heart and opens him up to the idea that not all people are unempathetic and cruel - meaning Dazai doesn't always have to be on guard. Does Dazai have ASPD, or is his lack of empathy a result of other things: PTSD, CPTSD, is he perhaps autistic? I can't say for sure, as it could be so many things. Personally, anyone could make an argument for any of these in my eyes. Above, I mostly analyzed his displays of empathy and tried to study which emotional patterns he appears to follow. I think Dazai's character arc has a lot of worth specifically because we see someone for whom emotional empathy may not be natural trying to be good. It's a unique ethical dilemma, and that's one of the reasons I feel in love with the series. Since it isn't natural for him, his efforts mean a lot, and the struggle feels real and genuine.

Thank you all for reading if you made it this far <3 I've taken a lot of posts and translations I've gathered over the years, and I am sure I won't be able to thank everyone, but, I'd like to show appreciation for popopretty, aja154ever and many others for sharing info from exhibitions, databooks and so. Have a nice day !

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #dazai #dazai osamu #osamu dazai #osamu #oda sakunosuke #bsd dazai #theory

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soracities · 8 months

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how do you know when you're getting good at poetry? everybody dunks on halsey and rupi kaur's poetry, and i never really got why and idk if that's what i sound like

Honestly, I don't think there's ever a point at which you "know" you're getting good at poetry--I think "good" and "bad" are kind of vague and amorphous (and distracting) categories that don't do much in helping us understand the feel and impact of certain writing, chiefly because they can also be deeply subjective. How a poet views a particular work and how a reader views it will be very, very different because their relationship to the work is different. I also think "good" is a sort of external category that does not (or should not) carry into the act of writing itself--when you make "is this good?" the chief consideration as you write, you're not actually present in the writing: you're focused on the finished product, not the process, but the process is the most important thing: that's where the poem actually meets you. I think growth, in writing, is less about knowing if you're "good" in this regard, and more about being able to have confidence, or simply just trust, in the writing as it happens.

There's a famous saying somewhere that a work of literature is never "finished"--it just stops. I think skill, when it comes to writing, lies in recognising where this point is, in learning and developing how you navigate what it is you want to say, and how you say it. Some poems, eventually, reach a point where you can take them no further and you know there is nothing more to be said in them or through them. Some poems reach a point where you can take them no further, but there is still something left to be said in them. Those poems get revisited, worked, and reworked again, until they (maybe) get close to the first category: this may mean you work on them for a few weeks, or for years--but either way you are prioritizing the process of making the poem, not how it will be received. "Is this a good poem?" in my view at least, is not really the relevant question--what's relevant is "is this true to what I wanted to say?" Leonard Cohen famously wrote over 100 drafts of "Hallelujah"--I don't know if the central question for him here was just a matter of his skills as a songwriter.

Regarding Halsey and Rupi Kaur, I've only been able to read Halsey's poems through previews on Google Books so I don't know what other people's critiques are--based on what I saw, though, I don't know if it makes sense to criticize their quality as "poems" when she is primarily a songwriter and a lot of those poems wound up as songs. I'm more familiar with Rupi Kaur's writing, though, and others like her (Atticus, Michael Faudet etc), and while I have a personal policy of not getting into Kaur online (there's an ask here which is about as much as I'm willing to say regarding my feelings on her writing)--I can get into this trend or poetry "style" as a whole. And to be honest I think the chief issue here with poetry like this is that poetry, by definition, involves a deep and intimate relationship with language: this holds true regardless of whether the poem is simple, or complex, whether it's 5 lines long or goes on for 50 pages. As I said in that previous ask, it's not something you can reduce to a formula, nor is it a matter of mere reportage or a collection of statements: what makes a poem has nothing to do with line breaks (prose poems exist), but everything to do with how the language moves, how the language of a poem engages with its own content, with itself, and, as a result, with the reader.

The kind of work that proliferates on Instagram does not have that kind of engagement with language--they are, to me, pieces of information more than anything else. They reduce language to a series of stock phrases that act, not as actual words, but as images (and I don't mean this in a visually evocative way). It tries to evoke something that requires a thoughtful and sustained examination in order to be expressed, by surpassing the reality of what that examination actually requires. It tries to ape the effect of a powerful poem without the work that goes into actually being able to make that kind of a poem in the first place: and that work is a sustained encounter and confrontation with the language used and its relationship to what it tries to convey, in understanding that words are not interchangeable blocks you move around willy-nilly but that they have weight and intention, that they interact with each other to build up an idea or a feeling or a landscape in the most accessible way (insofar as language can make anything accessible, at least). But this is rarely, if ever, felt in IG poetry because it refuses to recognize or respect the demands and requirements of the medium it uses.

And because it is lacking in this engagement and recognition, these poems are also, for the most part, lacking sincerity--and this, to me, is one of the most crucial things when it comes to writing. I recall one IG poet whose work was in the same class as someone like Atticus, but I also recall one of his poems which genuinely moved me--and it moved me because, unlike everything else on his account, that poem felt sincere: the structure and the language wasn't any different to anything else he wrote, but in reading it, it was not a question for me of whether it was "bad" or "good"--what made the impact was that it was honest: and the difference showed. You can't come into a poem with ulterior motives. You can't come into it without an understanding, or respect, for the language you use. I'm absolutely not policing what people should or shouldn't read, and I'm not saying people are wrong for liking these poems, either, or that Halsey, Kaur, Atticus et al., are wrong for writing them. Expression is expression, and what speaks to you speaks to you. And to be honest, it is a different kettle of fish when you are writing something purely for yourself (and I think allowing yourself to partake in any kind of artform, without worrying about needing to be good at it, is deeply important for the human spirit)--but because they are putting their work out publicly, if we are going to be evaluating what they write and how they write it, that evaluation has to be rooted in an understanding of the art form they intend their work to be a part of.

For me, these are the main issues I have with these writers and their work and why I just do not like them. But I also want to stress that, ultimately, what you sound like in your own poems, anon, does not matter as much as being sincere to yourself does. As I said, I don' like using terms like "good" and "bad" and I think that often they're fairly reductive (and sometimes outright pointless) categories to use when we talk about and assess poetry--more than anything else, the key to building a robust and informed discernment when it comes to poems is to simply just read--read a lot of it and read widely. The broader and richer your repository of poetry (and literature in general) is, the more informed you are when it comes to all the different ways language can move through a poem, and all the different impacts it can have as a result. It deepens and enriches your understanding of all the different ways of looking at something, questioning something, expressing something. Your vocabularly grows and deepens; your net of associations--visual, linguistic etc--strengthens. And when this understanding grows you are able to place the things you read into a much wider and far more informed context. And this in turn allows you to grow as a reader and a writer. I hope this helps you a little, anon 💕

#ask #anonymous #book talks

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daremna · 1 year

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NOTE: Do not take any of this personally, I am not a professional astrologer. I'm also mostly refering to the underdeveloped/immature versions of these placements. If the shoe fits, slay Cinderella, if not, congrats this isn't about you. PS I do not support misogyny!! Most mean girl archetypes are rooted in patriarchal views and villanising femininity, I'm just using these characters for fun and to base some of my observations on.

Aries placements Including 1h and mars. Known as the 'baby' of the zodiac, ruling the head, aries placents can often have an inflated sense of self, petty and childish tendencies. Because they are ruled by mars, they tend to be very easy to anger, argumentative and driven.

1h/aries mercury are straight to the point and will tell you what they really think without sparing your emotions. Will press your buttons just to rile you up and get a reaction out of you.

1h lilith + chiron placements can have have an unstable/toxic relationship with women and be extremely competitive with them. Can receive a lot of unwarranted negativity and jealousy from other women which in turn will make the native see other women as untrustworthy. (I have lilith in the 1h and I've noticed I tend to rub a lot of women the wrong way. My entire school experience was getting bullied and targeted by MULTIPLE women. I've also had to work through a LOT of internalised misogyny).

1h lilith + pluto will have an intense and heavy energy around them whether they like it or not. Command attention in every room. People will fear or respect you, most likely both. They crave power and don't care if they step on anyone along the way. Will get what they want, or else...

Leo placements including 5 house and sun. The stereotypical 'qeen b' sign. Can often struggle with extreme self esteem & self worth issues. When not worked on, they will project their feelings onto other people to regain a sense of power and control.

Narcissistic to overcompensate for what they think they lack in. Similar to Regina George, they will keep people around that they look down on to always feel on top and like theyre the star/ main character at all times. "She's the queen bee - the star, those other two are just her little workers."

They are ruled by the sun, so they feel like the centre of everyone's universe is their rightful place, they can't help it🤷. (Yes, I'm a leo, and what about it?)

Leo risings can have the typical 'mean girl' look. Attitude, confidence, great outfits and big/poofy hair. "That's why her hair is so big, it's full of secrets." Big Shelby Cummings energy.

When paired with aquarius placements, they can have an even more inflated ego. Theyre the two signs with the biggest god complex.

Virgo placements including 6h. The 'know-it-all' of the zodiac. Can come off as pedantic. Trying to outsmart anyone. Big emphasis on virgo mars and mercury.

When paired with leo placements, they can be self-righteous and very judgemental. "I'm just better than everyone" energy.

Scorpio placements can be as fierce as aries placements, as they are both ruled by mars in traditional astrology, but they will mostly keep it bottled up/hidden to maintain their mysteriousness.

Sun-pluto aspects can make an assertive and driven individual.

Scorpio/1h mercury: "So you agree, you think you're really pretty" energy. Calculating and manipulative. Will play mind games with you. Watching your every move. "Gretchen Wieners knows everybody's business, she knows everything about everyone." Like a cat playing with it's mouse.

Can come off as cold and rude at first regardless of their character (especially scorpio rising). But that's just their rbf. Unless you actually give them a reason to dislike you, then all hell freezes over.

Scorpio mars will become vindictive and spiteful. They hold onto grudges like no other. When vengefuly, they play the long game. WILL remember that time you made fun of their outfit when bumping into you 20 years later. Selective memory🙄.

Gemini placements including 3h and mercury. Stereotypically fake and two-faced. A social chameleon. Extremely charming and persuasive. Can have a tendency to lie and gossip like no other, they love the mental stimulation it gives them. They are ruled by mercury, the planet of communication after all.

Mars/Mercury in gemini or in the 3h love to argue for fun. Will start a verbal altercation just for the hell of it, if they're feeling particularly bored. Gemini-mercury placements will come up with the most creative insults lmao. "You put the "suck" in "liposuction" You put the "ooo" in "jiu-jitsu" You put the "ism" in "This is all just a defense mechanism". Truly a poet, they have a way with words.

Not easy to anger. Like they'll fight you but they don't actually care unless you really got to them. The type to make fun of you if you're really angry and riled up.

If paired with scorpio placements, girl........ They can really be scary is all I'm gonna say (and i hate to stroke people's ego's so this should say a lot).

Libra placements including 7h and venus. Ruled by venus the planet of love, and represented by the scales but don't let that fool you. When underdeveloped they can be highly superficial, shallow and fake. Love to gossip.

Libra rising look innocent and sweet, borderline angelic untill you past it and the mirage slips away~ Remember, biblically accurate angels are scary as hell. Can have the typical 'mean girl' aesthetic, very pink and feminine.

Libra mercury/ venus can be a sweet talker, very charming and persuasive.

Heavy moon aspects especially harsh moon-pluto and moon-mars. The 'mommy issues' placements (I'm sorry. Me too tho). Can become manipulative, fake, cold and detached. Can see women as the enemy and fail to make connections with them due to the maternal trauma they experienced. Have a hard time trusting other women.

Capricorn/10h placements can be dedicated and power hungry. Their workaholic tendencies, if mixed with more vindictive placements or character traits can make the person very ruthless. Goal oriented, focused on the bigger picture. Gets shit done, it's not their fault you were in their way. Big Blair Waldorf vibes! “Destiny is for losers. It’s just a stupid excuse to wait for things to happen instead of making them happen.”

“If you really want something, you don’t stop for anyone or anything until you get it.”

Yh you get my point.

Sagittarius placements are known to be brutally honest. Born without a filter, trust them to tell you the truth. Can come off as rude but usually without malicious intent. "What? I'm just being honest." Truth hurts sometimes.

Mercury-mars and mercury-pluto aspects (heavy on the mercury-mars) know exactly what to say to hurt someone. They can say some awful things in the heat of the moment and regret them afterwards. Their comments can really stick with you, they'll go right for the jugular with no hesitation.

*Remember, these are just for fun, based on my own research and observations. I'm not a professional, I don't know shit. There's no such thing as an evil sign, all placements have a dark side. It all depends on you and how you deal with your issues. I have like, a lot of these placements so I'm not targeting anyone*

~Jules💖

Edit: To the one's reposting this on tiktok with no credit, it's pathetic babes, stop. If you're that interested in astrology try coming up with your own takes🥰💋

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flowerandblood · 5 months

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The Taste of Shame (2)

[ dom!modern • Aemond x friend sister • female ]

[ warnings: doubts related to sex work, panic attack, remorse and depression, fluff, sexual tension ]

[ description: Aemond works as a professional dom, fulfilling the various fantasies of his female clients - however, he guards his privacy and does not enter into any relationships with them, recognizing that he does not want or need it. It turns out that what he wants and what he doesn’t no longer matter when he meets his friend’s younger sister for the first time. Slow burn, sexual tension, doubts related to sex work. ]

Series & Characters Moodboard Aemond NSFW Alphabet

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

_____

Walking to the lecture they talked about everything and nothing; for the most part, she was the one speaking, telling stories or asking questions, guiding her bike beside her by the handlebars, while he just added his thought or simply remained silent, listening to her.

They arrived at the Community Centre true to her word very quickly and indeed he immediately saw posters announcing that there would be free lectures by philosophers in the fields of contemporary ethics.

Robert's sister padlocked her bike in the designated area and they both went inside, following the signs. They entered a large, neo-classical hall with beautiful pillars and rich ornamentation on the ceiling, reminding him of a theatre or opera house.

They sat side by side on seats in one of the first rows − she explained to him that the presenter would be asking questions and, among others, her professor would be answering.

Indeed, the discussion was remarkably interesting and he caught himself drawn in; the men were talking among themselves about capital punishment, attitudes to the treatment of other humans and animals, warfare and human-wide conflicts.

However, he felt a cold sweat on his back and a tightness in his throat, his heart starting to pound like mad when the presenter asked the next question.

"As we know, a lot of young people start, as they say in modern times, sexworking − whether they show up on webcams or have sex for money. How do you, Professor, view this, do you think it's good for the psyche of such people? Is it morally right?"

The professor grunted and corrected his glasses with a slight hand gesture; he was a grey-haired, elderly man with a kindly, calm face.

"It depends on a number of factors. Firstly − what that young person's goal is. When we choose our job, we usually want more than just to earn money, most people's dream is to do things that fascinate them, that they are fulfilled in. Of course, people are also fulfilled in the sexual sphere with their partners, however, what happens when sexuality becomes a profession?

Well, in a way, two things are then combined that can be very destructive to the psyche − materliness and one's own body. At the same time, we make the decision ourselves, so it is not morally wrong if it involves two adults who agree to it, but there is an internal objectification, a selling of some part of our intimacy.

Of course, one can feel good about it. One may even like it. One should not tell such people that they are denying something, or say that they are selling themselves, that they are pricing their value. You see, it is not for us to judge. Everyone can do what they want with their body, it is their unquestionable right.

However, the danger arises when, underneath this materialistic approach, there is a desire for self-destruction, a desire to simultaneously dominate, to be in charge − I decide what happens to my body − and, at the same time, I desire to humiliate myself in my own eyes − I sell myself and I'm nothing, I don't want affection because I don't deserve it.

This issue is very complex and delicate, judging too quickly, especially by outsiders, will be even more hurtful to such people, a confirmation that they will never be loved and accepted, so they will be afraid to make sexuality emotional, which will lead to the opposite effect that we would all like."

The presenter nodded with understanding.

"If the professor were to state what it should look like in an ideal world, what would the professor say?"

The man laughed good-naturedly, stroking his white beard.

"I don't have an answer to that. I think that in an ideal world, the person who is made for us would be highlighted to us in green and those who hurt us in red. But we don't have that option. I think the fundamental mistake of every human being is to make judgements prematurely, instead of being willing to understand, to offer conversation, to support.

Calling someone a whore or a slut has never helped anyone, what's more, it only makes such people even more likely to have suicidal thoughts and be afraid to seek help when they feel they need it, because they are scared of revealing themselves to their parents or loved ones."

The presenter moved on to the next topic, but he heard nothing more, staring blankly at the floor, leaning forward so that his elbows were on his knees − he felt himself trembling all over, his eyes burning from the moisture that had gathered under his eyelids, his throat all clenched.

He felt her hand on his back and he shuddered, glancing over his shoulder at her with wide eyes − she was leaning over him worriedly, he could smell her pleasant scent again.

"Are you all right? Do you want to go out for some fresh air?" She asked frightened, clearly seeing how pale he was, and he nodded in embarrassment.

By the time they got outside it was completely dark; he reached with his shaking hand into the inside pocket of his leather jacket, taking out a cigarette and a lighter, firing it quickly and putting it into his mouth.

He felt her looking at him − they were standing in the square in front of the main entrance where there was no one but them, all around them was the loud hum of moving cars.

For some reason he felt desperate and miserable, weak, small; he clenched his eyes shut, shaking his head, trying to pull himself together. He sat down on the cold stone steps and she immediately sat down next to him, far too close.

He sighed when he felt her hand on his shoulder, stroking him gently, her warm breath on his cheek cool from the crisp evening air. He let out a loud puff of smoke with his lips, thinking only of how he had never let any woman touch him.

He placed his hand on hers, wanting to feel her for once, her skin soft as silk, exactly as he had imagined; he looked at her in pain, her eyebrows arched in worry, in incomprehension of what had actually happened.

"I'm selling myself." He said finally, desperate, and she blinked as if she didn't understand what she had just heard.

He took a drag again, not taking his eyes off her, and let the smoke out through his nose.

"I do all sorts of fucked up things to women for money and get satisfaction out of it, you know?" He asked in a low, trembling voice, feeling devastated how tears of shame one by one began to run down his face.

He felt himself shaking all over and thought he was an idiot, wondering how he could have said that to her. For some reason, he felt something inside him break.

He wanted her to know, to tell him she was disgusted with him, to look at him with that look full of reserve, to tell him it was nothing and just go away simply to let him finally stop thinking about her.

He saw her tighten her lips, her eyes turning red, her eyebrows arching in sorrow as if she was in pain as he was. He felt a pleasant shudder when her hand stroked gently through his hair as if he were a small child, and then she hugged her face to his cheek and simply remained silent.

She didn't say anything.

She stayed.

She wanted to comfort him.

Delighted at this revelation, he burst out into a quiet, mournful sob, leaned over and snuggled his face into her neck, wanting to hide from his own shame and remorse, from what she might think of him, from what he feared and could not forgive himself for.

Why did he have to be like this?

Why exactly did this give him fulfilment?

He sighed quietly as she put her arms around him and hugged him, her soft hand stroking his cheek with gentle, slow movements, her face nestled against his hair and placing a gentle kiss on it.

"You didn't do anything wrong." She whispered finally; he swallowed hard, rubbing the tip of his nose against her neck, brushing his lips gently against her bare skin, again, and then again.

He felt her tremble and tighten her hands on his leather jacket, his manhood in his trousers completely hard.

He had no idea what had just happened between them, but he didn't want to stop.

After a moment, as his emotions left him he realised what he had done.

That he had told a complete stranger about who he was, revealed to her his darkest secret.

This thought made him panic − he got up abruptly and mumbled through his tears that he would go home already, that he apologised to her for everything, not listening to her pleas to wait for her, running quickly down the stone stairs, walking ahead.

He looked over his shoulder as he turned into the corner of the next street and noticed with some kind of disappointment that she was not following him.

He burst out into uncontrollable sobs for the second time once he had locked himself in his car having complete chaos in his head, feeling that he was going through some kind of panic attack.

He thought that until he'd met her he hadn't felt this way, that the idea that he couldn't date her because of what he'd done made him start to regret it all.

What was he supposed to do now?

He reached for his phone hearing it vibrate and unlocked it quickly seeing as many as three new messages from her.

He clenched his eyelids, dropping his phone on the other seat, hiding his face in his hands.

He needed to calm down.

He sat like that for a few minutes in silence, not thinking about anything, just breathing, and then he drove home as if nothing had happened.

He entered his flat, took a shower, ate something and then turned on the TV, all mechanical, completely empty; he shuddered when he got a new message, reaching uncertainly for his phone and felt an unpleasant twinge in his stomach when he saw it was one of his clients.

She wanted to meet the next day.

No, he thought.

I don't want to.

He wrote her back that he was taking a break from it all for a while.

He was infuriated when she started texting him to tell him not to do it, that she needed him, that meeting him made her want to go on living.

He slammed his phone furiously into the wall.

What about what he fucking needed?

When he picked it up after several minutes he found that it worked despite the cracked screen.

He accessed the last messages he'd received from Robert's sister and began typing quickly to her on his phone's keypad.

He pressed his lips together when he saw that she immediately displayed his message, a bubble popped up in his app window indicating that she had just written back to him.

He swallowed loudly, writing her back without thinking, without controlling himself, allowing himself to shamelessly write her exactly what was in his head.

He stared at the screen with a pounding heart, wondering whether to do it or not, walking restlessly around his living room with his phone in his hands − he typed out the answer slowly, feeling that he was hot.

She didn't reply for a long time even though he could see that she had displayed his message.

He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head, laughing despairingly under his breath, not believing how desperate he was.

He'd known it from the moment he'd seen her, when she'd gotten off that fucking bike and looked at him with those big, innocent eyes of hers.

He stood looking at her message as if stupefied, reading it again and again, unable to believe it, feeling like he was about to die from the arousal and heat he felt in his chest, his fingers trembling as he tapped out his reply to her.

And so she did.

He didn't dare propose to meet her alone, knowing how that would have gone down on his part.

He didn't want to scare her off.

However, they wrote with each other for days, even during his classes; Criston and Robert laughed at him for having a girlfriend and not even wanting to introduce her to them.

He didn't care.

She was the first person he told about how it all started, what he felt when he did it, what aroused him and what repulsed him about it all.

She listened to him and answered him with sincere concern and worry, without judging him, without pretending it was a simple and obvious subject, giving him a sense of comfort and understanding.

He made it clear to her that he had refrained from any contact with strange women for the time being.

He licked his lower lip as he lay back in his bed, writing her off quickly.

He swallowed hard when she wrote him back after a moment.

He felt a squeeze in his heart at her words, some kind of pain that she thought of herself that way, that she saw herself as just another person he wanted to take out on.

He chuckled involuntarily, typing back a quick response to her question.

He blinked, looking at his screen with a pounding heart, not believing what he read.

______

Aemond Taglist:

(bold means I couldn't tag you)

@its-actually-minicika @notnormalthings-blog @nikstrange @zenka69 @bellaisasleep @k-y-r-a-1 @g-cf2020 @melsunshine @opheliaas-stuff @chainsawsangel @iiamthehybrid @tinykryptonitewerewolf @namoreno @malfoytargaryen @qyburnsghost @aemondsdelight @persephonerinyes @fan-goddess @sweethoneyblossom1 @watercolorskyy @randomdragonfires @apollonshootafar @padfooteyes

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xenocorner · 1 month

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(If you're someone who enjoys my work, and also happens to like/support AI generated images, please give this a read? Just hear me out, please. This is not a bashing post, I promise. It's not pro-ai either though. But please hear me out)

This whole AI art stuff is just getting... Honestly exhausting. If you are someone who supports AI generated images, I beg of you, hear me out? I'm not here to bash, to say you're a bad person or a thief. I know it's more complex than that. I'm just, trying to express how I feel about this whole ordeal. I'm not here to get angry either. I don't have the energy for that. I'm also not trying to change your mind. Just, hopefully help you see/feel a different perspective? That's all.

Long rant under the cut because. There's a lot.

I'm not even angry anymore. I don't have the energy for that. But I keep seeing AI images all over, everywhere. The thing is getting better (because of course it is). And I see more and more people support it. And sometimes those people are also artists or people who like art and support artists.

And then I also see artists be laid off. I see how it gets harder and harder to make a break in the industry. And even after you make it you get laid off because... People don't wanna bother with it anymore. Corps would rather cut costs.

And then I see people defend AI images. Say it's okay, that it isn't stealing from artists, that it is just a tool, ignoring a huge part of the problem (whether willfully or not).

And it just makes me so incredibly sad. So utterly devastated.

I was angry. I really used to be angry. I'm just hurt now. Hopeless for the future. And tired. Really really damn tired.

Tired of artists having to justify their existance in the professional world. Tired of people just saying... No.

No, you don't get to thrive. And you're selfish and entitled for wanting to thrive. No, you don't get to feel hurt when your work gets scrapped without your permission to feed a data base designed to replace you. No, you don't get a say in this. Don't like? Bohoo, don't see.

Well, how can I not see when this issue directly affects how I live? How can I not see when this issue affects my future? It's not just a matter of "Don't like x kind of content, don't interact with it". It really is not. I really wish it was, I wish it was that simple. But it's not. Because this is not something like a ship or a trope that one can ignore and not be affected. This is like trying to ignore a dumpster fire in your neighborhood. Yeah, you can avoid looking at it. You can avoid talking about it. But the smoke is still getting into your house. You're still breathing it. It's still hurting you. It will have effects on your life, whether you like it or not.

I threw away 12 years of my life building up my skill to work in a field that feels like it's dying out. Am I (and countless other artists) just supposed to start over? How? Time is unforgiving.

Bohoo for your bad choices, suck it up. Your fault for pursuing art as a career.

Was I supposed to just, KNOW, somehow, that the career I choose, that used to be viable, would just... Take this turn? Was I supposed to have a 10 year look into the the future?

You should create for the joy of creating!

I do. I love creating. I love making people happy with my work. Work I spent years perfecting. It's the most beautiful feeling in the world to know that someone smiled or cried or felt something because of something I did. It makes me smile and cry too.

But I also like to be able to eat. To have a roof. To pay for my meds. And the joy of creating honestly dwindles each time I see people talk about AI images the same way they talk about a painting in the Louvure.

Becaus they do. I've seen people talk about images generated by a machine (built upon stealing artwork from unconsenting artists) like they're the work of God. And they write such beautiful things too. And I'm left baffled, confused, uneasy.

And then I go to see artists, living, breathing, feeling artists, who create marvelous pieces, who pour their heart into their work, who shed sweat blood and tears to get their skills to where they are, who are still shedding sweat blood and tears to keep improving... And they don't even get a 'nice'. They've been job searching for 3 years. They can't get a steady flow of commissions. They're scrambling to be able to get a table at a con.

And it hurts to my very core.

It hurts in a place I don't even know how to describe, because it's so deep and so personal and so raw that I don't think there's a name for it.

I love art. I love it so damn much. I love making it, I love sharing it, I love teaching it.

I think many other people love art too. I think many other people who love art don't even consciously realize they do.

And it hurts seeing art just... Become this.

It hurts seeing the artistic souls of this earth be pushed down and down again and again over and over and be told to just. To just suck it up.

To die off.

Because when people support AI images, they are telling us to die off. It feels like they are telling us to die off.

And I don't think the people who do realize it at all, because a lot of people who support AI images are not bad people. They are not. They enjoy art too. But they are, consiously or not, directly or indirectly, hurting the artists whose work made the data base AI generators use possible.

They're telling us to die off because they already have our work. And they can use it to generate new, regurgitated work faster, cheaper. They don't need us. So while they may like what us, artists, do, they're feeding a system that is killing us off. Both metaphorically and literally. Metaphorically by killing the will to create. Literally by taking our living off of us (or at least to those who's art is their living. Like myself).

And again.

It hurts so damn much.

And I don't think a lot of people manage to see the hurt past all the anger.

I, personally, have grown exhausted and there's no anger left in me, only sad and hurt.

But I promise you, behind every angry and fighting and barking and bitting artists there is out there, there's hurt. There's some form of hurt behind each and every one of them. Of us.

I really hope this reaches the right people. Whether that be a fellow artists struggling to get their feelings into words to let them know they're not alone. Or someone who supports AI images, and supports artists too, and can maybe get a glimpse into a side of this whole issue. Not necessarily to change their mind but, maybe help them understand better where all the anger from artists may be coming from.

Please, I'm not here to start any fights or debates. I really am not. I just need to get this sort of thing out there, because I think talking about it is important.

#Rambles #I know I have some followers that like my work that also like AI #I still love you #I know you don't try to do harm and are just here to vibe about the same blorbos #I know you like art in general #But I'd wish you could hear me out on this #Even if it doesn't change your perception

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smoochhyuka · 6 months

Text

Munch!Kai tasting heaven for the first time

He could not believe you would doubt yourself so much, especially since all he thinks about at night are your soft thighs wrapped around his head.

○o。content warnings! nsfw, soft dom!Hyuka, perv!hyuka, fem!reader, cunnilingus, breastplay, mention of asphyxiation at the end, he is head over heels for you, a little angsty at the start but nothing too heavy and it gets resolved quickly (mention of dieting, calories, weight loss and body image issues), implied to be chubby (you can read as plus-size or in a 'not-fitting-kbs' way), tummy lover hyuka, kinda long build-up this is purely self indulgent ToT

It has been raining the whole day and has only gotten worse throughout the evening. Since you live at the very top of your apartment complex, the thick droplets can not only be heard from the windows but also from the ceiling, creating a calming brown noise effect which you are using to your advantage. Today was a free day for you and your boyfriend was able to wrap up practice a lot earlier than expected and paying you a surprise visit. You lit up all the candles you own, used the coziest pillows and blankets to cuddle up in and cranked up the heating. You decided to put on a cute pair of very short shorts in your favorite color, fluffy white socks and a thin white tank top without a bra, in hopes that Kai would at least react to your uncharacteristically revealing outfit. To your disappointment, he did not even glance down at your body.

Kai asked to be your boyfriend just after a couple of dates. Due to his busy schedule, meeting each other turned out to be difficult, causing you to mostly meet in the evening or at night, most of the time having sleepovers at your place. They are innocent, too innocent to your liking. You watch a movie, sit together and play games or just lie in bed and talk about anything. It is wonderful, of course, you have not met a man as attentive, caring, earnest and passionate as him. You know he loves you, he has told you accidentally and honestly a little prematurely on your first month anniversary date and has not stopped declaring his sincere feelings for you ever since, but you are a worried if your boyfriend is sexually interested in you. He breaks every kiss that turns hot, never allows his hands to wander below your hips or make any suggestive comments. You are unsure what the cause might be, and you are debating on whether you should ask, since it ultimately could just be too soon for him and you do not want to risk scaring him away by coming off too strong. But the mind does not always work rationally, you are searching the fault on you. Do you need to dress more sexy, since you both are usually in your lounge wear when you see each other? Are you not cute enough, because of your blunt sense of humor? Are you... not thin enough to his liking?

A bowl of popcorn and a pack of his favorite gummies are between you, which kind of stops you from cuddling up to him too much. Kai put on a random anime that he said you must see, snacking on the gummies. You try your best to hide your frustration, concentrating on the episode and trying to memorize the names of the characters. You do not notice him picking up a few pieces of popcorn until they are right in your face, "Ahhhh", Kai hums at you, gesturing you to eat said snack. You turn your head away, still not really looking at him, "thank you, but it doesn't fit into my calories, I had dinner already.", you reply. His playful smile falters, his brows furrow. Since you did not look away from the laptop, he pauses the anime, "What do you mean, 'calories'?". You look at him with big eyes, "I decided to go on a diet.", you state matter-of-fact. He is visibly upset, an angry pout on his face, confusion and worry in his eyes. Why would you go on a diet, do you not know how beautiful you are? He knows how easily it can spiral out of control, it hurts him to think that you would find a diet necessary. "Why would you?", he asks rather harshly, having a hard time hiding his disapproval. You are rather taken aback, since you did not think he would react this way. You figured he would not really react at all. It is not only common for idols to diet regularly but also for normal citizens to pick up that habit, you were absolutely not prepared to see him this agitated. As you are unsure on what to rebuttal, Kai speaks up again, "Of course you are free to do what you want, but I want you to know that I disagree. I want you to be happy and healthy, eating good food." There is a lot more he would want to say to you, but ultimately he thinks it is not his place to tell you what to do, especially not so early in the relationship, "You should also know that you are the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen.", he whispers before turning the anime back on, not without stealing a glance at your sweet body, which you took notice of. For a while, you sit quietly next to one another, no one really paying attention to the screen, but being lost in their own thoughts. Kais quiet confession got your heart racing, he does compliment you more than enough, but they are never as intense as this one. Usually, he calls you cute or pretty between grins and giggles, he would shyly look away, sometimes poke your stomach to distract you from said comment. This time, he not only looked you in the eyes with a firm expression, even if it was just for a split second, you could see lust in his face after he dared to finally take a closer look at the outline of your nipples in the slightly see-through top, your small belly button, your lush thighs that you pressed together for a more comfortable position. You decide, it is time to adress your concerns.

"I thought you might prefer it if I lost a few kilos", you admit, the episode still running, your boyfriends body tensing up, "Kai, do you think I am sexy?" Even though you are an outspoken person, asking him this is quite embarrassing. Having said that out loud, you feel like a fool. He pauses, his hand hovering over the space button for a while, before leaning fully back and looking you in the eyes again with that intense stare. His eyes fall lower, you grow a little insecure under his gaze, trying to pull down you shorts a little, adjusting the straps of your top, making your tits jiggle deliciously. He hisses quietly upon seeing that, you almost did not notice. The tension thickens, "I...", your boyfriend starts, pausing again to think, "That is a very unexpected question, at least from my perspective." You furrow your brows, tilting your head to the side. You have a habit of blowing a little air in you cheeks and pouting when you do that, seeing that confused and innocent expression in addition to those little clothes that do not leave a lot to the imagination gets Kais brain all fuzzy. "I think about you every night.", he admits, "It has been so difficult not to initiate anything." He was able to surprise you again this evening, your mind goes blank. Have you actually been this wrong? Kai carefully takes the snacks and the laptop and puts them on the floor, he scoots over to you and wraps a long arm around your shoulders, whispering into your ear, "Don't tell me you put this on to seduce me. I have been trying so hard to be a gentleman for you." His voice sends shivers down your spine, you close your eyes, savoring the sensation of his hot breath in your ear. "Tell me, baby, is there something you want us to do tonight?" He is circling your shoulder with his index finger. With his long, slender index finger. You knew your boyfriend was more than the cute and innocent maknae fans know him as, you most definitely have seen his performances, but for him to have a dominant side like this is something you hoped for, but not necessarily required him to have. "Or do you just want to lay back and let me handle it? I probably should make it up to you, for making you worry like this.", he places a few hesitant kisses below your ear, you just now notice the small tremble in his hands, "You completely misunderstood, though." His voice exuding confidence, his body language telling a different story. His eyes are closed shut, he is practically hiding his blush in your neck. You have not really said anything, making his heart pound hard in his chest. He thought about this moment a lot, everytime being more erotic, more experimental, dirtier. He realizes your first time is not going to be a two hour long session of you both trying out your naughtiest fantasies, instead, it is going to be a lot more emotional than his wet dreams allowed. He is feeling a form of performance pressure that did not even cross his mind accidentally.

"A moment ago...", you whisper, pulling him out of his head, "you said you think about me every night. What is it that you think about?" You open your eyes, big eyes searching for his. He looks up timidly, you smile at his pink cheeks.

Bondage, toys, sensory play, wax play, shower sex, kitchen sex, lingerie, anal... what did he not think about? There is only one reoccurring theme in his wild imagination about you.

"I think about eating you out.", he answers bashfully, laughing awkwardly because of his bad habit to smile away his anxiety. Hearing him say that is sending a jolt right to your core, sinful images flash in front of your inner eyes. Your heart rate increases, unsure on how it could even beat any faster. Your boyfriend picks up on your rising body temperature, your glossy eyes and your breathing picking up. "I-", you stutter, "Please." You have lost your words. Your big and strong boyfriend has you in a tight grip and just admitted that he wants to eat you out in a way that is sexy and still uniquely cute to him, mentally you slip away, you brain is blank, you can only feel your skin tingling at every spot you are touching him. He leans forward and kisses you softly, his pink velvety lips feel like small pillows. Without breaking the kiss, he sits in front of you and presses you down into the pillows, a little bit more forceful than intended. His dick has been slightly erect since the moment he saw you this evening, but by now it has grown to his full size. You take notice of the bulge, reaching out, but Kai catches your hand and pins it above your head. He grins at you, "I am going to take off your top, is that okay?" You nod, profusely. He giggles at your eagerness, even when he is hovering above you, he manages to be sweet. His warm hands find your belly, he holds you by your waist and massages you with his thumbs. You whine, growing hot and bothered by his pace, making his cock twitch, he groans and leans forward to place some more kisses on your tummy. You squirm everytime his lips get lower to your heat, everytime you do he nibbles at the spot. He kisses a wet trail up your body, until he has reached the hem of your shirt. Fingers slipping underneath it and pulling it above your head, exposing your chest and your hardened nipples. For a brief moment Kai gets shy, seeing you this exposed is a sight that he has been dreaming so long of. His hands trail slowly back down to your mounds to cup them gently, but not without running them over your face and stopping just for a moment to caress your lips.

"You are so beautiful", he whispers, you tilt your head to the side to escape his gaze, slightly embarrassed. "I love you.", Kai starts grinning after your proclamation, leaning forward again but this time to catch your right bud between his lips, applying pressure to the other one with his thumb. You sigh at the feeling, the slight tingle that creeps through your entire body. Making sure not to apply too much of his body weight onto you, he delicately sucks and licks on your chest, only experimentally biting you a few times with his front teeth, which you seem to enjoy. He could listen to you small sighs, heavy breathing and occasional whines forever, but you both have other plans for this rainy evening.

Wet and passionate are the kisses that trail down to the hem of your shorts, his breathing heightening after every peck. His hands follow suit, as he is know toying with them, his fingers trembling slightly just like a moment ago. Trying to ease his nervosity, you lay one of your smaller hands on top of his, looking into his eyes. After one last, deep breath, he pulls down your shorts and underwear, exposing you fully to him. His cheeks turn into a sweet, deep red. "It is a little unfair", you start teasing him, breaking eye contact yet again, "that I am the only one naked right now." Kai laughs awkwardly as a response, short-circuiting, mumbling a small 'sorry' before shakily pulling his own tank above his head, exposing his flushed chest. The sight of your boyfriend, covered in blush, kneeling between your naked legs is a sight that you will not able to forget for quite some time. Despite his clear apprehensiveness, Kai is moving his position a lot further down the bed, making sure his head is right above your glistening pussy when he leans back down. The smell of your heat is hitting him before he can even realize how close he is to you, he would not necessarily know how to describe it, just that it is intensely erotic. You pull your knees closer to you chest, effectively spreading your lips further open and allowing him to now see your two holes.

Not knowing what to do with his arms, he uses the left one to support himself, and the other one to grabs you by your hip. He opts to start with a small peck next to your cunt, earning him another whine, before wetting his lips with his tongue and placing a kiss rather centrally on the sensitive nerves. His nose brushes your clit, "Kai.", you breath heavily. Now curious about you taste, he sticks out his tongue to trail upwards, just barely missing the sensitive bundle of nerves, which placement he did take notice of. Now circling it, applying a little bit more pressure, you start moaning for him. His head starts to feel dizzy, your smell, taste and voice occupying his senses. Trying to swallow more of your juices he starts sucking on your clit, getting you to cry out and press your thighs together around his head, restricting his breathing slightly. Kai could have never imagined how tranquilizing this whole experience could have been. Not being able to move his head a lot, he goes back to licking between your folds, slurping off the never-ending flow of juice that you produce. Your boyfriend is eager to find what works the best for you, trying out different patterns with his tongue and sucking on different nerves, taking note of every little noise that you make for him. He carefully sticks his tongue into your hole, and just through imagining his cock entering the textured and gummy walls, he can not help himself but to use his left hand to pull out his angry red dick and sloppily pumping it. You are too focused on the overwhelming pleasure you feel to notice, holding tightly onto the stuffed animal Kai has gave you on your first date. "I am so so close.", you exclaim, sounding slurred. "Come on my face baby.", he quickly rebuttals, barely lifting his mouth from your pussy to say it. Since you seemed to like it when he sucks on your clit, he does it again and you cry out loudly. It does not take long for that tight knot in your core to burst, you come violently, pressing down even harder on his head, cutting off most of his air, leaving him to only breath in your smell. That sensation getting him to cum just a few moments after you, while you still twitch, squirm and rub against his tongue trying to get down from the high. His thick, opaque cum covering your bedsheets and his hand, slow pumps to get out the last droplets. Both of your heartbeats start to normalize, you release your boyfriend from the headlock and let your legs hang. The sudden hit of air overwhelming him, but after a few breaths he is able to sit up straight, scoot forward again and plop down next to you.

You immediately turn over to him and swing your legs around his hips, rather harshly coming in contact with his --to your surprise-- flaccid and naked dick. He shrieks, you sit up in concern and cup his cheeks. "Sorry!", you blurt out, without necessarily understanding what just happened. His furrowed brows relax again, his pained expression turning into amusement. "It is just so sensitive after coming, that's all.", he tells you honestly, "I couldn't help myself". You start smirking, "I guess that answers my question from earlier.", you say, after seeing his hand that is still glistening from the white coat. He follows your eyes and immediately rolls out of bed, "I get that cleaned up and then we fall asleep cuddling." You just nod, watching him in awe, pulling up his pants back over his butt and disappearing in your bathroom.

#sorry for the goofy ass ending but i couldnt help myself #everyone needs a kai to fuck away your insecurities #hueningkai hard hours #hueningkai hard thoughts #txt smut #hueningkai x reader #smoochwrites

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swordsandarms · 1 month

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"Why did Rhaegar leave a whole THREE Kingsguards with Lyanna? Why did he leave Jaime, A CHILD, to PROTECT his family? Why wasn't Arthur, a DORNISH man, with Elia?"

These or other individual questions about the Kingsguards during the Rebellion era keep coming up every now and then. Usually, it concerns questioning Rhaegar's motivations, sometimes even Jaime's morality or culpability, as well as the morality of said Kingsguards.

But I was having a conversation with some fans and it comes down to the same issue: no one considers the Targaryen politics at the time, and fragment these circumstances in shallow bits and pieces, naturally, coming down to "there's no good explanation for this!"

Everyone hates that these two Targaryen men have genuine character complexity, especially in rapport with eachother: Rhaegar and Aerys.

Let's go over the Kingsguard at the end of Aerys' reign, and actually consider allegiance and what the mean, and how those would actually easily explain a lot-

Jon Darry, Darry cousin: unclear loyalty, when it comes down to the Aerys-Rhaegar conflict. Darrys are without a doubt Targaryen men, but we don't know if and who they would choose. Darrys are most of all connected with Viserys and Rhaella, who are very sheltered from the rest of the world all the same. Darrys might have been sideline in the Aerys-Rhaegar conflict by such default then, and eventually Jon would be sent to the Trident anyway. But then again, unquestionable loyalty to House Targaryen sounds like a traditionalist approach.

Arthur Dayne: Rhaegar's man without a doubt. His oldest and closest friend.

Oswell Whent: Rhaegar's man. He's with him at the Tower and rumours are his family conspired alongside him to get the Lords at Harrenhal to stage Aerys' usurpation.

Gerold Hightower, Comander: King's (Aerys') man. The scene at the King's doors is often brought up in discussions about the ethics of the KG. But it actually also unveils a key political information within the Aerys-Rhaegar factions. Whether it's a matter of adhering to the status quo only, or personal allegiance to Aerys as well, the message is clear: even when it's between two royals, it's the King he will stand by, no matter what, even when he's not in the right (and if his son tries to usurp him, then technically he is).

Barristan Selmy: Barristan undergoes a character development during the main series in which he finally questions unquestionable allegiance to a King no matter their morality. A past Barristan, however, would then resemble a Ser Gerold, and be in the King's (Aerys) service before anything by virtue of duty. Notably, he would later reflect that Rhaegar did not find him fit to be in his confidence, and these expectations are probably why.

Lewyn Martell: Easily Elia's and Rhaegar's man, and Dornish. Noted as being in his confidence.

Jaime Lannister: One that causes a lot of controversy. A lot of back and forth discussion as to what expectations Rhaegar had of Jaime (and whether Jaime himself fulfilled them). The answer can actually be seen easily by:

1. Looking at it with the awareness that there was a faction divide existed in the KG in between Aerys and Rhaegar, as it was building up to a conflict and hence-

2. Reading their last conversation with that in mind

The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate. “Your Grace,” Jaime had pleaded, “let Darry stay to guard the king this once, or Ser Barristan. Their cloaks are as white as mine."

Prince Rhaegar shook his head. “My royal sire fears your father more than he does our cousin Robert. He wants you close, so Lord Tywin cannot harm him. I dare not take that crutch away from him at such an hour.”

Jaime’s anger had risen up in his throat. “I am not a crutch. I am a knight of the Kingsguard.”

“Then guard the king,” Ser Jon Darry snapped at him. “When you donned that cloak, you promised to obey.”

Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime’s shoulder. “When this battle’s done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but … well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return.”

For one, Jaime is the last KG left in King's Landing, and one to be kept close to Aerys himself. And Rhaegar is taking him into his confidence before he leaves - he is pretty much talking treason, hinting at usurpation upon his return.

Why did he leave Jaime, A CHILD, to PROTECT his family?

First of all, he doesn't leave Jaime himself in that post. As seen above, Aerys calls the shots. We know from the Ice and Fire "history book" that he sent Lewyn away from Elia as well for being Dornish (while before he was stationed with her and the kids on Dragonstone in Rhaegar's absence) and he commands Jaime to stay. As it appears, he also sends Darry and Selmy with him (with Selmy being a traditionalist at the time, it may even be to keep an eye on Rhaegar).

Rhaegar doesn't have a choice of whom to ask to look out for Elia and the children, no matter which KG would've been in town. He makes that clear. And as to expectations he has of the only one left and whom he can have a word with, while Jaime is, yes, by all means considered a grown man in their society AND a capable soldier who's well trained and already been in combat, he's not asking for Jaime to stand between his family and an army or anything.

There's not meant to be an army. That's meant to be Rhaegar's job to prevent. He's going out to battle. He's meant to give Robert a honorable single combat, prove himself as strong and fair - unlike the mockery of a "trial by combat" Aerys gave Rickard. Hence prove himself unlike his father first of all, probably give his explanations about Lyanna, and also make it clear he's against Aerys' actions and wanting to give the justice by deposing him.

No, Rhaegar isn't irresponsible, dumping that burden on younger Jaime. He does the responsible thing of taking all that upon himself. What does he expect of Jaime? As read above, he does not put Jaime in the mindset of a fighting machine that's supposed to save his family from anything unrealistic. He puts him in the mindset of someone who would be his man and oppose Aerys when the time comes - he's meant to be the one threat to his family when the chips fall down and he is taking the throne.

Whatever reading Rhaegar did of Jaime, he thought he could say those words to him (that would've been dangerous if he were wrong), that Jaime would have it in him to turn against Aerys (again not some ridiculous expectation - a frail man). And Rhaegar is clearly not dumb. He was right in his perception, wasn't he? (Is this where Jon Snow gets his amazing perceptive skills - "little his eyes do not see").

Why wasn't Arthur, a DORNISH man, with Elia?

Why would he be allowed to? We've already established Aerys calls the shots. And among them there's one KG specifically being sent away because he's Dornish and hence loyal to Elia (and Rhaegar). If Lewyn couldn't be there, why would Arthur?

Why did Rhaegar leave a whole THREE Kingsguards with Lyanna?

That is something I couldn't understand for a long time, too. Not only the specific number, but the fact that clearly Rhaegar can't just do whatever he wants with the Kingsguard. Why was this allowed?

It doesn't make sense until you go back to the Aerys-Rhaegar allegiance divide above. The three are Gerold (most loyal Aerys appears to have) and Arthur and Oswell (most loyal Rhaegar appears to have).

Gerold came from King's Landing to take Rhaegar. Oswell and Arthur would have already been with him. Either-

1. Gerold was sent with the order to stay behind with Lyanna. Aerys already took hold of Elia and the kids to control Dorne (and Rhaegar) and would have her in the hands of his most obedient man, too. Rhaegar cannot let that happen, as he plans to turn against Aerys while he's away. If he can't send Gerold away, he makes the compromise of leaving two of his own. One only would have been uncertain odds, but if Gerold eventually acts up when things unravel, he's outnumbered. Arthur and Oswell can do what they have to do and they are in an isolated location and can lie about it later to protect their honor.

2. Gerold wasn't meant to stay behind. But since Rhaegar is decided to depose Aerys, removing him from Aerys is an opportunity. Aerys/Gerold can be lured with the illusion of having a hold on Lyanna. Rhaegar had to leave someone (trustworthy) with her regardless but compromises his own numbers for the same reasoning above, if it means removing a barrier from between him and Aerys. Aerys would be blindsided in allowing in from that same perspective: Rhaegar is made to leave crucial allies behind.

#asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #rhaegar targaryen #aerys targaryen #elia martell #lyanna stark #jon snow

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railingsofsorrow · 11 months

Text

Countdown

[s.reid x reader]

summary: Blood and wine were indistinguishable. You couldn't move, you couldn't breathe, the world was giving up on you (or was it the other way around?). You had to keep fighting. If there's one thing you are sure of is that they would find you. He would find you. You just didn't know how much longer you could take until then.

pairing: s.reid x f!reader

w.c: 6.7K

warnings/content: mentions of freud regarding complex mother/son relationships; tw!aggravated assault; tw!coercion caused by substance use; tw!mentions of child abuse, physical and emotional abuse; very tw!graphic violence be aware; tw!blood; tw!descriptions of injuries and scars; cursing; tw!suicide ideation; mentions of hallucinations, tw!abduction and tw!death of a relative; heavy descriptions of losing sense of time; crying; cm usual stuff; poor analysis of a profile cause I'm no aaron hotchner; in resume there's angst; mc cannot get a break. (tell me if I forgot anything plz)

A/N: oof that's a lot of trigger warnings. if you don't feel comfortable, feel free to leave, this isn't a light fic, quite the opposite. mc goes through a LOT. btw do you like wine? I do. (no pun intended) enjoy the reading!

navi

masterpost

follower celebration

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“Suffering is a terrible fire;

it either purifies

or destroys.”

[Oscar Wilde]

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According to Sigmund Freud, there’s a theory called “the Oedipus complex”. It happens when the child develops a sexual attraction to the opposite-sex parent, meaning that they wish to replace his father to possess his mother, from whom he craves affection.

Spencer’s voice rang through your head as you observed your surroundings. Your hands weren’t tied anymore but the red marks around your wrists made you feel as if the ropes were still there.

There are five stages in this condition, the fifth being the hardest to overcome, but not impossible. However, when the Oedipus complex is not resolved it could lead to an unhealthy attachment towards the opposite-sex parent in adulthood, besides the commitment issues and trouble involving same-sex rivalry.

You also recalled the Doctor detailing statistics about the topic, wildly gesticulating with his hands. But your head was fuzzy and you didn’t know whether your memories were true or if you were making them up anymore. Just as a means to bring you some type of comfort in that endless torture.

He was drugging you.

Paul Knox, the UnSub, was a white male in his mid-forties. Lived alone for most of his life, except for when he married Martha Moore; they stayed together for one year before the marriage ended. Paul worked on a construction site and was described by his coworkers as quiet, “always kept to himself”, and responsible. He always made sure his task of the day was completed before he went home.

His past wasn’t the easiest one. And it seemed as if he couldn’t get away from it. Paul spent his entire childhood being abused by both of his parents, his father, a strict man, sexually abused his wife, who would later take out her anger on her son, by wrapping a belt around his neck and squeezing it until he passed out — This was the signature behavior they found on the crime scenes.

Victimology told you and the team something as clear as day: every woman he murdered was a surrogate to his mother.

And you concluded you had pissed him off enough for him to abduct you and keep you the same way he was keeping his victims.

When you woke up, the only thing you could see was blood.

Blood whenever you stepped.

On your hands.

On your arms.

On your lips.

You could even taste the metallic liquid. And that made you terrified. Not more terrified – of course – than being locked up in a place for god-knows-how-long without a sense of reality. There was a physical fight hours before—or was it days? You couldn't know, time was different where you were. You had a slight chance of speculating if it was day or night due to the minimum crack on one of the walls. Your pinky would fit if anything.

You succeeded in breaking a plate of food he had brought at the back of his head; which barely confused the man as you attempted to sprint towards the door. Well, You did try. Right as you reached the gate, he yanked your hair back and knocked you out on a solid surface.

When you woke up, the first thought that crossed your mind was I'm dead.

You weren’t.

Thankfully, you had just passed out. Again.

Letting out a painful breath, you forced your eyes to stay open. You had to keep trying, you weren’t about to let him win that easily. Before your team found you — if they hadn’t already — you had to buy yourself some time. Once his obsession exceeds its peak, you wouldn't stand a chance.

The sound of another shard of glass clicking against the floor disturbed that deafening silence. Although, no more than actually taking a piece of glass out of your flesh.

You moaned in pain when it was finally out. Maybe being shot would hurt less because I'd blackout. But this hurts like a bitch.

Your breathing was unsteady and you were hyperventilating. There were at least five breathing exercises running through your head as you surveyed the room, looking for a way out. You had been placed in another corner. It was still the same room, but you were seeing it from another angle. This time you could walk; barely, but still. You refused to look at your feet with the trail of blood it left as you walked.

Focus. You need to find a way out.

You're a profiler. Profile him.

Forty-five.

White male.

Abandonment issues caused by his mother leaving him at the age of nine years old.

Each victim was a surrogate to his mother; he kept them for two days and then wrapped a belt around their throats to slash it postmortem. That's his M.O.

You had none of the victim characteristics. You were only unfortunate to be in the right place at the wrong time.

Emily and you were sent to investigate the supposed location the UnSub took his victims to; an old apartment downtown. However, he was onto you as soon as you entered the place. In a moment of distraction, you had been swiped with a chloroform wipe before Emily could blink.

What a cliché way to abduct someone.

On the first day, he covered your mouth with a dirty blanket but kept your hands and feet tied up tightly around a chair. You complied with everything he said, claiming you understood him and that he was so much better than his mother. Wrong move. At the mere mention of her, the guy completely lost it.

You could still feel the slap that made your head turn. No doubt his fingers were marked on your cheek.

Then, radio silence. Your brain worked wildly as you started to analyze your surroundings with undivided attention. There were two dark shelves a few meters away from you and a few boxes scattered around. The room was extremely dark, no windows, and carried a bitter smell. The floor was a blur to you, you didn't know were you were stepping.

Countless bottles on the shelves. It almost reminded you of—

Wait.

There was barely any light in the room, only through that tiny hole in the wall. You assumed it was around evening because of where the angle the shadow was reflecting upon.

1978. Read on the bottle.

This is a wine bottle.

I'm in a wine cellar.

Your happiness was short-lived as your vision blurred, causing you to stumble back slightly.

The bottle slipped from your fingers.

Your mind goes into wildfire when your feet stepped onto something sharp and, immediately, the familiar sensation of it deepening into your skin. You never realized your body was falling, the only thing you could actually grasp onto was the pain, the agony you felt. Your screams echoed through the walls, then your tears joined as a company.

Blood and wine were indistinguishable.

Your vision begins to gloss over, dark spots covering your eyes from reality. It would be only a matter of time until you drifted off again. Was it sad to say that the sensation was becoming familiar? It shouldn't be. You should be fighting for survival.

But your legs had pieces of glass sticking out and your left hand throbbed from an open wound from another piece you had pulled out.

You heaved a shaky exhale, grunting as you tried to step back from the broken bottle. Daring to take a look at your legs was the last you did before the door creaked open, a bitter smile spreading on your dry lips.

“Shit.”

✫・゜・。✫・゜・。

The BAU’s technical analyst typed fast on her computer, her eyes quickly swapping between each screen. She was checking into possible locations Paul Knox could've taken his victims, excluding where the last body was found. His M.O. changed drastically from one night to the other, which meant he was escalating. And angry, extremely angry — Garcia couldn’t imagine something else after hearing the news you had been taken.

“As if this couldn’t get any more creepy…” The blonde mumbled under her breath, eyes scanning over her newfound footage. It was a big house, colonial style colored with a pastel yellow on its walls. The picture showed the Knox’s posing for the camera; mother, son, and husband. Left to right. Something irked her in that image and that’s why she hadn’t dwelled on it when they were looking for the prime suspects’ background. His first home wasn’t relevant, he didn't take his victims there.

They had been so wrong.

Her server picked up on a distinct signal. One that shouldn't be there in such an old building.

“He films it. Everything.” Emily handled five of the eighteen tapes they found in the UnSub’s apartment. Derek shook his head as he saw many names written on each of them.

“There’re eighteen here.” You frowned, counting for the third time. “It’s supposed to be seventeen. We found seventeen bodies.”

“We haven’t found the last one yet.”

And this is how you disappeared from their radar. The eighteenth woman was not found and you were abducted from right under their noses the night after you figured he kept souvenirs from his victims. Necklaces, earrings and those awful recordings.

When Penelope succeeded in hacking into the system, a camera was functioning properly. Just one. The place was dark, but the camera provided a poor lightening and from that, her breath caught in her throat.

“Oh, my god.” The technical analyst covered her mouth in astonishment. There you were, on her computer screen. There was no doubt. She's worked with you in the same environment for nearly five years. You were friends, coworkers, partners in crime. She knew you. And that was breaking her heart.

You were thrown over the floor against a shelf, your head lolling to the side as if you were too weak to lift it. “No, no, no,” Garcia exclaimed, tears trailing down her cheeks and ruining her make-up. The floor was damp with something and she can't even imagine what it was.

“Garcia?” Hotch's voice spoke through their connected microphone. “What is it?”

She had completely forgotten she was in a connected call.

The team was in the round table room, trying to figure out your whereabouts with the help of the clues they had until now. Which were minimal. They were very behind in the UnSub's game.

Garcia's gasp made everyone quit their work, to simply stare at the machine anxiously and wait for the woman's next words.

“We have to find her. Now!” Nothing else can stand out through the line like Penelope's frantic fingers typing fast.

Derek is the first to ask for clarification, “Baby girl, give us something. What happened?”

By now, everyone was on the edge of their seats with the tension.

The line pauses, and before anyone could complain, Penelope interjects in a weak voice, “Come to my cave. You need to see this.”

Once they arrive in Penelope's office, the sight is more than they expected. Way more.

The door opened and a figure walked into the dark room. They all watched with bated breath as Paul Knox crouched down to your weak body, drawing a hand to run through your cheek.

“That son of a—”

“What is that?” Spencer cut Derek off, eyes glued to the man's pocket, something was sticking out of it. His mind works faster than any other, the likelihood of the team having a breakthrough during a case because of his inputs is huge and he's quite proud of that — even though Spencer doesn't give himself much credit.

He feels the dumbest in the room right now.

Not only did he lose you the night you were taken but he couldn't find you. The geographical profile was redone five times by him, he analyzed every detail over and over again, his brain was on fire. But he failed. He failed. How could he do that when you needed him the most? Where was his knowledge and IQ of 187 when he needed it?

Penelope turned off the screen on an impulse, earning discontent reactions from everyone else. She didn't answer them as lots of things started popping up on the other computer screen.

“Garcia.” Spencer presses, jaw clenched. He was really trying to not yell at the technical analyst to find a location fucking faster or else instead of a living agent they would find a body to bury.

No. No, that wouldn't happen. That couldn't happen.

“I'm trying!”

“Try harder!” He yelled, causing every eye to give him impressed looks. Spencer Reid doesn’t scream, he doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn’t lose his cool. But he had never seen you in a pool of your own blood in an unknown place as a hostage before. He had never been so powerless. “He's gonna do something!” He reasoned his outburst with the team. How weren't they desperately losing their minds? Was this what they were like when he had been kidnapped by Tobias Hankel? Extremely collected and calm, just like in any other case? “Are we just going to sit here and watch? This is Y/N!”

The sound of the footage suddenly burst through the cave, causing everyone to freeze up.

“Stop. No, n— what is that? Get the fuck away from me— No!”

“Oh, my god,” Emily mumbles with a hand over her mouth. They weren’t able to see the footage, but hearing your screams was just as painful.

“Reid,” Hotch warned, knowing how hard this was being on him. He shouldn't stay there, it would only make things worse, as much as it pained Aaron what was happening — he was your friend before he was your boss — the situation required him to be the levelheaded one. He couldn't jeopardize your safety because of emotions. “Go take a walk.”

“No.” was Spencer's reply. Before he could snap at anyone else and make the tension in the room increase, a hand squeezed his shoulder.

“C'mon, kid.” Derek tugged his forearm.

“I'm not going anywhere—”

“Yes, yes, you are.” Derek sends him a pointed look, pushing him out of the room “C'mon, let's take a walk. Being like this isn't gonna help us find her.”

“Look,” JJ points to the moving image, Penelope had turned it back on due to Hotch’s request. They were too close to figure out your location and they needed to grasp every detail of wherever that room was. “It’s that a… needle?” That can’t be happening. Not again. JJ flinched back as the syringe was pressed against your neck and your cries started to quieten up. She had seen that film before, it was just a continuous nightmare by now. Spencer’s limp body flashed through her mind, a terrible flashback. Now, you. It wasn’t fair. Hotch took her out of her inner turmoil to say they had found her location. Emily was already out of the room.

“Find our girl. Please, find her.” Penelope gave her a pleading look, her glasses were smeared with tears.

Jenifer didn’t need to be told twice.

✫・゜・。✫・゜・。

Next time you woke up you saw metal bars. There was a steady dripping sound resonating around. You didn't know where it came from, your senses were compromised by your dizziness; sometimes it was distant, sometimes it was right by your side.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

Always three times then a pause.

Paul had put you in a cage. That much was clear, the quadrangle shape along with the metal bars. You could barely stretch out your legs all the way due to the limited space.

Something stirred in your sight and you realized you weren't alone in the room. He's still here.

Where are your instincts? Where are the tactics you use to save someone almost every day? And why aren't you making use of them right now?

The dripping stopped.

Something creaked and your face was being touched. Feeling the familiar reaction of a panic attack approaching, you tried to regulate your breath. This was not the time. You thought. But again, have you had control over anything over these past few days?

“Don't cry. I won't hurt you.”

When you got out of the high of whatever substance he had injected into your system, you winced at the numbness in your left foot. You moved your limbs around, attempting to sit down. He had cleaned you up. You were in different clothes, too. And the blood was gone.

He touched me.

Hetouchedmehetouchedmehetouchedmehetouchedm—

Stay focused.

“13…11…9…7.” You started counting in the odd-numbered pattern you learnt calms you down. “5…3…1…13— What is—” a red light in a corner of the room glinted at you. “Are you recording me?” You exhaled harshly, squinting your eyes. No, that wasn't the dizziness. The red light was probably there the whole time, but it remained unnoticeable. A wave of drowsiness almost knocks you out again but instead, you squeeze your nails against your tight to prevent sleeping — pain was better than the unknown. You didn't know what he did when you were out of it, though you had an idea just a minute ago. “You enjoy your souvenirs, don't you? Sick bastard!”

You're losing your temper, control yourself.

I can't.

I need to get out of here. I need to GET OUT.

“Let me out.” You whispered to nothing.

What takes you to a breaking point? Being held captive by a sociopath maniac or not knowing what to do to escape it?

All of your qualifications went down the drain. Suddenly you didn't have a PhD in Biopsychology.

Survival mode originally evolved to help us handle threats and situations that activate our stress-response systems. When the alternative does not involve escape or fighting, we are wired to freeze, a state of hyperarousal.

It's always better to go ahead with the instructions, otherwise, you might touch a rough spot and their only response will be to eliminate their target.

Your friends’ voices rang through your brain as if they were supposed to help you somehow.

The walls were closing in, rationality was out of the picture.

“Let me out of here, please!”

“Stop screaming. No one will hear.”

You turned towards the door, jaw clenching. You weren't just weak, you were angry. That shouldn't be happening to you, you were just at the wrong place at the wrong time and he took advantage of that.

“They will catch you.” You spat out. “You don't have a chance once they find you, Paul.”

He nodded, crouching down in front of the cage, hands gripping the sidebars. “I'm aware of that.”

That made you freeze.

So it was an all-or-nothing situation? If your probability of getting out of that alive was slim, now it was just ridiculous.

“You need to learn a lesson.” He said, unlocking the cage and crawling in. As much as you tucked yourself in the corner, he was still able to touch you, he was still able to be desperately close. “Beautiful, beautiful, Daisy... Why'd you hurt me like that?”

Daisy.

Daisy…

“Daisy... I did everything you asked me too. Why'd you leave me with him? The bad man? Why?”

The bad man.

Daisy and Caleb Knox, those were Paul’s parents.

At the age of nine Daisy left Paul to Caleb's care and ran away. She was never found.

It's always better to go ahead with the instructions. Play into his fantasy.

“I'm— I'm sorry,” you croaked out, testing the waters.

“Are you really?”

“He made...” Taking a deep breath You felt your tongue heavy and your head spin. You would pass out any minute. How much longer would you handle without food? You can't remember the last time you ate. “... he made me— do that. I wanted to protect you. I did. But he didn't— he didn't let me,” your breath was shallow and you felt yourself floating.

Stay awake.

“Liar.” He mumbled after a while. “Liar!” You didn't expect the slap when it came. The force made you stumble back, pressing your eyes and groaning in pain. “How can you keep lying to me after all these years? You slut! I was alone! With him!”

“I understand,” you replied, shakily, licking your lips as the copper taste filled your tastebuds. “But— but you love me. Don't you?” Opening your eyes, you realized he was a little farther than you expected. His eyes stared right into your soul with a kind of regret and disgust you had never seen. “You were always a good kid, Paul... Would never hurt your mom. Because you're good. Aren't you?”

A lot of things were at stake there. your life, mostly. If you as much as stepped into his anger then you would be done for.

In a blink of an eye he was in front of you again, “I am. I-I I am, mom.” Mom. That's good. He's falling for it. You could save your vomit for later.

Then, you saw the belt. The same one he uses on the victims for the final kill.

Death wasn't a thing to be afraid of. It's simply another part of life. Or, for the believers, eternal life.

You have never been scared of death in your twenty-five years of living. Not when the situation was related to you, at least. Which was completely different if someone on your team got injured badly, let alone your boyfriend. You didn't know what it was that whenever you were in danger's ways, no fear would kick in, only the nice feeling of adrenaline running through your veins.

However, this wasn't like most cases. You knew this one would break you to the core. You would never be the same after that. If you even get the chance to say after this case. Spencer had this experience. He had been abducted and tortured by Tobias Hankel; you've seen how the trauma affected him till this day.

You wondered if Spencer thought if he would get out alive. You wondered if, at some point in that cabin in the woods, he contemplated death as an alternative. Because God knew you were considering it.

✫・゜・。✫・゜・。

Aaron Hotchner marched forward to the backyard of the Knox Mansion as Derek Morgan went in through the backdoor. Spencer Reid and Jennifer Jereau were ordered to enter through the front door.

The two-story manor carried a sense of luxury, although the smell was of something rotten from years back.

It was clear that the inheritance Paul Knox gained from his father had vanished as it had come. The house was almost in ruins, the strong smell of mold all around the walls immediately hit the newcomers. Derek and Aaron met inside close to the living room.

“It's all clear around the kitchen, Rossi,” Derek said, looking around and studying his surroundings. He quickly covered his nose when the smell reached his nostrils. “What is that smell?!”

“I don't know,” Rossi replied, kicking a knocked-over chair. “ There's been a struggle.”

Derek nodded, pointing towards a line of blood leading to the kitchen. It ended there.

“We're running out of time.” Spencer walked in the kitchen with JJ on his trail. “This is useless. She won't be up here. The camera Garcia hacked showed a dark room and it pointed to a door. Possibly the only way in and out.”

JJ nodded in affirmation, shoulders tensing. “Maybe a basement? There's no guest house, right?”

“There's a basement outside.” Rossi clarified. “Hotch is searching there. JJ and Reid search the second floor, Morgan and Prentiss you take the attic. I'll check that ridiculously big greenhouse outside.”

“It's not a basement,” Spencer said, cursing under his breath. Everyone stared at him confusedly. “That was not a basement. It—It looks like one. It's supposed to look like one but didn't you see the bottles and the shelves in the footage? And the liquid when she—” he sucked in a breath. “That's a wine cellar.” He concluded. How couldn't he have seen it before? It was being thrown at his face.

✫・゜・。✫・゜・。

Hotch stepped towards the wood doors, drawing out his gun to tear apart the locket.

He tried as much as he could not to make a sound as he walked down the basement doors. If the smell in the house was bad, down there was suffocating.

“Paul, Paul listen to me! I'm sorry that I left, I'm sorry!”

He halted, surveying the area carefully. It was dark, but his weapon light helped him have a grip on his surroundings. That had definitely been your voice.

“Is Carina here?”

There was a pause.

Carina Grace. One of the missing girls, probably the eighteenth victim of Paul Knox.

“You told me I wasn't alone before, is she here, too, Paul?”

That was a bold move. Hotch knew what you were doing, despite the situation you were still doing your job, but this wouldn't end well.

“You have never been alone.”

Your crying out made him approach fast as he followed the sound. That place could fool anyone by the sight of it before you entered. The wood doors made it look like a small corner, but Hotch could see it as a masked labyrinth.

He kept aiming his gun ahead, entering a room of what he supposed was a wine cellar. Slow and steady steps guided by his instincts; his eyes surveyed every corner of the room until three tall shelves came into sight— and a shadow reflected by the sunlight that entered the only small window in the room.

His eyes narrowed when he saw it move and the silhouette of a gun was pressed to its hand. Hotch swiftly hid behind a near concrete pillar just as the man shot twice in the previous direction he had been in.

Idiot. Aaron mentally cursed, eyeing the only part of the room he hadn't checked yet, behind the shelves.

He saw a glimpse of metal. The UnSub was armed.

“Found her badge and bullet proof vest up here, Hotch.” JJ's voice rang through the radio. Loud enough for only Aaron to hear, thankfully. “The perimeters are being checked but I don't think—” He could hear the strain in her voice.

“The wine cellar isn't clear, yet.” Hotch said with his tone contained, eyes glued to the UnSub's shadow. He hasn't moved. What was this asshole planning to do? “He's here. Block all exits.”

“What about her?”

“She's here, too,” Hotch replied to Reid, squinting at the moving silhouette.

“You're in the basement, aren't you?” He breathed out at the sound of Emily's voice.

“Yes.”

“I'll meet you there.”

“There's another body here and he's armed.” Be careful.

Emily spoke to someone else and then he tuned everything out.

✫・゜・。✫・゜・。

“Spencer!” JJ tried to pull him back but he yanked his arm out of her reach, sprinting towards the backyard. “Would you calm down? You can't barge in like this!” She hissed in frustration.

He turned back and said through gritted-teeth. “If it were Will, would you be calm?”

She blinked at him, opening and closing her mouth in shock. “I—”

“You know how I feel, you've been there, so why do you keep asking me to calm down?” Spencer spat out.

JJ silently approached him by the entrance, swallowing the guilt her whole body was drowning in. “I'm sorry. I'm just trying to make you think, alright? Spence, she needs all of us. She needs you, so we need to think straight. Our goal is to get her out.” Alive.

“Do you think we can?”

He asked softly, voice small.

She squeezed his shoulder and widened the basement opening. “Yes, we can.” She stepped in, turning to him before he could enter. “Don't step away from me. We don't split up, ever, deal?”

That was something she always said whenever they were paired up in a situation like that. And that's when Spencer noticed that what he suffered didn't just affect him, but everyone else around him.

“Okay.”

✫・゜・。✫・゜・。

Hotch had finally caught sight of you. He could see your frame in a corner of the wall, the sunlight didn't help him visualize anything, it was too minimal. He didn't know whether you were awake or— he couldn't see. “Paul, do you think your mother would be proud of that behavior? Killing women? Hurting them?” He needed to get closer and for that, he had to get inside his mind.

“You don't understand,” Paul said calmly. Hotch hears beneath that contained tone, he was a walking time bomb. But they were on countdown before your location was even found, the team knew who Paul was, they knew how he escalated in the last weeks, and they knew his weak spot, too.

“You're right,” Hotch said, craning his neck to the side when he saw your voice. More like a whimper. Low, discreet, but there. You were alive. And he intended on keeping that way. “I don't understand. I didn't go through what you did. I was not left in a house by someone that's supposed to care for me. I was not left to a parent that never loved me.”

Silence.

“Paul. She deserves everything you did to her. Every beating. Every truth spat out on her face. Every day locked up here. She was supposed to be a good mother back then, why is she trying now, after all.”

“She never loved me.”

Bingo.

“Is that what you think?”

There was shuffling around and then a gun was pointing directly at him, but Hotch had a shelf to cover behind. Paul was finally in his aim, vulnerable. Not yet.

“Do you think people change, Agent?” Paul asked him, cocking the gun at him mockingly. He then looked back at you, tongue moving across his lips slowly. “I don't think so. That's why I didn't kill her. Yet.”

You said something else but Hotch couldn't hear. He wasn't close enough. You weren't safe yet. Not yet.

The clock was ticking.

“For some people, death is just another way out.”

Everything happened so fast his mind didn't grasp it until it happened.

He heard a click. Then the sound of gunfire exploded through the wine cellar.

Paul Knox was on the floor, his head had two gunshot wounds on the forehead and blood leaked through it. Eyes wide open. He didn't see it coming.

Quick and effective.

A perfect aim to kill.

He thought it would be Emily at the entrance, gun pointing right at Paul's head. He's seen her frustration at herself for losing you that day, it was a matter of time until she snapped.

But he was met with Spencer Reid barging into the wine cellar instead. A stunned JJ frozen at the entrance.

Reid's movements carried no hesitation as he dashed towards the body, snatched the keys out of his pockets and stepped back to unlock the cage you were in.

It was foolish to check if he was still alive. Two shots to the head - that was the outcome Hotch didn't want. Paul Knox was supposed to go to jail for the rest of his life. Because of the victims he terrorized, because of the days he stole from one of his own that she would never get back.

“We found Carina.” Derek told him as they watched you being pulled into the ambulance. He didn't need to be told that they only found her body. Carina Grace had been missing for a month. “Same way as the other girls.”

“Safe to say he won't be dreaming about hurting anyone else.” Rossi made the comment as a body bag was transferred out of the wine cellar.

Hotch glanced towards Reid, who had just entered the ambulance by your side.

He would lecture him later. The only thing that mattered now was that you were safe.

✫・゜・。✫・゜・。

When you fluttered your eyes open, you quickly shut them again. The lights were strong and forceful. Light. Was this the sunlight? Had he dumped your body somewhere? Were you finally dead and this was your spirit floating over what was left of you?

You hadn't felt that cool air in days. It almost felt like air-conditioning. A soft fabric wrinkled between your fingers and your leg… you could move it. You could feel it. There was no numbness.

“Take a deep breath. It's okay, you're safe.”

You're hallucinating. Because what you were hearing didn't make any sense. It couldn't be. Your head was searching for ways to bring your relief. That's the only reasonable answer.

Reasonable. What about this situation is reasonable?

“You're safe,” He repeated.

You forced your eyelids open, despite the bothersome whiteness. The first thing you saw was Spencer, his honey brown eyes with heavy bags of sleepless nights around them, his soft smile that threatened to spill the sadness hanging over him.

You could touch his hand.

But the calm doesn't last for long.

“You're not here.” You snatched your fingers away.

This is not real. I'm dreaming again.

Hurt flashed through his eyes. “I am.”

“That's not you.”

“That's me, sweetheart. This is real, we got you out—”

“No!”

He flinched back, watching as the heart monitor went off. A group of nurses entered the room to check the commotion; it took five people to hold you down. He never saw you like that. That's anger, that pain. He'd never seen it in your eyes. JJ had to pull him out of the room otherwise he would stay there, frozen.

You weren't seeing him.

He provoked that nervous breakdown.

“Stop. Hey, don't do this,” he could feel air entering his lungs but his chest hurt. “Spencer, this isn't—”

“Don't.” He said shortly, shaking his head. “I shouldn't have…” He stared at his hands as if they had committed a crime, trying to blink away his tears.

“This isn't your fault, Spence.”

“I should've figured it out sooner.” He said, burying his head between his hands. “I do it all the time. Why couldn't I do it now, why couldn't I find her sooner?”

Sobs racked through his body and he felt arms wrapping around him some sort of comfort. He didn't feel it. He wanted you. He wanted to make you feel better, he didn't need to be taken care of. He didn't deserve it.

“It wasn't your fault,” JJ repeated, tightening her hold on him. “We were all in this. And she's fine now. She's safe.”

“She'll never be fine again.” He mumbled through her shirt. It physically pained him to see you like this, as if your mind was playing you. The worst was that he knew what that felt like. He wished he didn't. Actually, he wished that it was him instead. He'd go through it all again just to spare you of that trauma. That haunting pain that would follow you and make you doubt everything.

He didn’t mean that he didn’t want you to be fine, of course, he wanted it. That kind of trauma, however, doesn’t just let you go, it’s like a shadow looming over you, a tall ghost.

I should've found her sooner. He couldn't stop thinking that. I should've found her sooner.

An hour passed and nobody moved from the waiting room. They were anxious and on edge waiting for an update. Penelope had drifted off on Derek's shoulder a few minutes ago, Emily had bitten all of her cuticles as much as Rossi reprimanded her on it, Hotch would leave and come back with coffee refills and JJ had left a while ago to speak to Will and her kids. As for Spencer, he was just there. Not mentally, just physically.

He needed to see you okay to function again.

“She'll need you.” He snapped around to Hotch's voice. At some point, his feet reached the end of the hall, a cup of water in his hands. He wasn't even thirsty. “She'll need you when she wakes up. More than anyone else.” His boss added.

Spencer knew what he meant by that. It wasn't just in the literal sense.

“I know.” He responded.

“Then you need to be there.”

Get a grip on yourself.

“I will.” Spencer swallowed hard, looking up at him. “I will.” He repeated, throwing the cup on the trash can and taking a deep breath. Hotch squeezed his shoulder reassuringly on his way back.

When the doctor called him back to the room, you were already awake.

✫・゜・。✫・゜・。

“Spencer?”

You croaked out, blinking multiple times to undo the blurred image of the long-haired genius.

“Hi,” he replied, lowering to the seat beside your bed. You oversaw his movements carefully. He looked shaken up but he mustered one of those smiles you were done for from the first day you walked in the Bureau.

“Can you tell me something?” You requested, clearing your throat. You didn’t trust your senses, but it sounded and looked like your boyfriend. Your mind couldn’t play sturdy tricks like that, could it?

Outsretching your arm long enough to reach him, you nudged his hand. He pulled the chair closer and intertwined your fingers. That was the first time you felt warmth in days.

“What about?”

“Something only you would know.”

Bring me back to reality.

He sighed, lifting your palm to his cheek. “You hate the color gray,” his eyes locked into yours as he recalled your words from a few months ago when you had revealed this to him. “It was your brother's favorite color. He wore it all the time. When he died, you could never look at anything gray because it would remind you of him.”

You stayed quiet.

“You hate when people keep telling you to wear your hair down because it looks pretty. You know it does, but you feel uncomfortable with the strands touching your neck. You love sunlight the same amount you love cloudy days – not thunderstorms, you’re scared of those. Especially lightning.” You let out a tearful chuckle to which he grinned. “You have a tattoo on the inner side of your left thigh, it's the page number and the line order of your favorite Norwegian Wood edition, your favorite book. You had a secret obsession with the theme from that animated movie…” his voice trailed off, a crease between his brows.

“You mean Let it go from Frozen?”

Spencer’s lips twisted in a pout, “Sorry if I don’t know that much about pop culture.”

“You’re hopeless at it, Spence.”

“I’m not that bad.” He rolled his eyes, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “How are you feeling?” He asked, eyes softening. You traced the tip of his nose, eyes scanning his features so you’d cement it to your brain.

“Better,” you replied. It was the truth. He nodded, brushing a strand behind your ear gently. “Thank you.”

Spencer lifted his chin to glimpse at you, disappointment draping over his gaze. “I didn’t do anything.” Disappointment at himself. The failure that he was during the case when you needed him the most. You furrowed your brows at the tear trailing down his cheek, drying it with your thumb. Reaching for his arms, you waited until he adjusted enough at the edge of your bed so you could rest your head on his chest. His heartbeat rang through your ears like a long-awaited tune.

“I know you did, Spencer. All of you did. Hey,” you tapped his chin so he could meet your eyes. “I'm here, aren't I?”

He frowned. “You almost weren't.”

“But I am,” you insisted. Your gaze darkened and you shifted on the bed causing the thin blanket to fall off one of your legs. You were all bandaged up, literally. “You know, I… I lost track of time. After the first two days I nearly went crazy. I knew you'd find me but I— I—”

“You don't have to talk about it if you're not ready.” Spencer reassured you softly. He saw the way you stared at your legs, it was the scars beneath the bandages that you were seeing. And the ones beyond your body. “I love you,” he mumbled against your hair, caressing your arms and cradling you into his hold. “We got you out. You're safe now, alright? I promise.”

You resigned with a long breath, burying your face in his shoulder. That heaviness brewing over your thoughts vanished under his touch, wrapping safety around you instead.

“I love you too, Spencer.” You said, curling into his side. Now that you knew you were safe, you could feel the exhaustion weighing down your eyelids. “Can you stay?”

He hummed, tucking his chin above your head and shifting on the bed for a better position. It wasn't the most comfortable setting and you two would probably — certainly — wake up with your backs hurting. But Spencer would do anything for you.

“I won't go anywhere, don't worry.”

That was what comfort felt like. You weren't dreaming. That was real.

The nightmare was finally over.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Isn’t it funny how day by day

nothing changes,

but when you look back,

everything is different. ”

[C.S. Lewis]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

sources used: [1]; [2]; [3]

taglist: @lilyviolets

#criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid angst #criminal minds imagine #countdown

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