#i don't know what possessed me to write this other than the autism

[kouyou-arc-when]

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

[peachseashell]

Hi :)

Can I request Xiao and Wanderer (separately) with an autistic s/o pls? Gender neutral reader if it's possible thank you!!

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗ Special to me

Xiao and Wanderer with an autistic s/o

Gender neutral reader

Genre: fluff

Warnings: food textures (sensory issues), reader is kinda emotional and Introverted, Wanderer is kinda toxic and possessive, mentions of anxiety.

Notes: I was actually so excited to write this because I love these characters and I'm also diagnosed with autism so it makes me so happy writing about something that I can easily portray! So thanks for your request ml 💕

Xiao

- He has little knowledge of human and abilities and basically anything about them apart from they work, eat and sleep. He never really fussed over it much until he met you and learned that you're quite different from all the other mortals he's encountered.

- You have to teach him about your needs, preferences, feelings, opinions as he doesn't always understand. He's scared that he won't know what to do when you're in an emotional state because he knows you feel things differently from others.

- I feel as though Xiao is a good listener and can sit in silence while you ramble on about anything you want, even thougg he may not understand a single thing about what's coming out of your mouth. He's also learned that he needs to be careful how he words things in case you misunderstand or take his harsh words to literally.

- This may just be me, but physical touch is something I'm not particularly fond of at all and I don't know if this is an autistic thing or just me. But anyway, Xiao's more than happy to give you your own well deserved space and alone time; though sometimes he can be very touch starved in my opinion.

- However, if you don't mind affection I can see Xiao warming up to you and leaning in closer and resting on you. This affection is mostly displayed during inside areas, usually when you're both very calm. Bedtime is when you can catch him most vulnerable and cuddling up to you like a snug bug in a rug.

- Xiao understands your eating issues and that sometimes your picky. You both share the dislike of certian textures and flavours, not just food but the feel of objects as well. For example, if a blanket is too scratchy or fish is too slimey, or shoes are too squeaky. Sensory issues are probably something he has in common with you.

Wanderer

- I feel as though Wanderer is very educated on this topic. Even if he is a puppet, I think perhaps he must of come across an autistic person and became curious, therefore leading him to want to learn more about it during his time as a fatui harbinger or maybe at the Akademiya.

- 100% remembers your likes and dislikes, never forgets them; keeps a secret diary all about you because he loves you so much. Buys you things to help with fidgeting and stress whenever you're distracted and loves hearing you ramble on about the littlest and strangest topics.

- No matter how confident he may be that he can look after you. He's helpless in a situation when you're completely exhausted and panicked or upset. Lets you shout at him to be honest because he knows it's not really personally against him. This may sound cruel, but he may leave you to let it out on your own in case he upsets you even more, the best thing he thinks to do is give you space.

- Of course after he'll cook you your favourite meal and dry any spilt tears, isn't he just so dreamy? Doesn't like to admit it but he loves it when you have nobody to turn to but him because he's the only one who understands. Holds your hand when you're nervous whenever you two go out and the anxiety takes over you.

- will hunt anyone down who makes fun of you for any habits, preferences or anything you have that makes you slightly unique; he just hates people who can't accept that disabilities aren't something to joke about. he just doesn't want to see you hurt because of someones stupid opinion, it makes his non existing heart twist and break.

#fanfiction #genshin impact #genshin impact x male reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x female reader #x reader #wanderer fluff #wanderer x female reader #wanderer x male reader #wanderer x reader #scaramouche x female reader #scaramouche x gender neutral reader #scaramouche x male reader #xiao x gender neutral #xiao x fem!reader #xiao x gender neutral reader #xiao x reader #Xiao x male reader #fanfic #x autistic reader

[dark-twist-fairytales]

Okay, well, I guess this is as good of a time as ever.

Ninjago AU's:

(Plain text: Ninjago AU's:) All of these have been swirling in my mind for A WHILE. No, some of them literal years! I'm going to go through this one by one, give details, and tell more while also naming them.

Dragon AU (Original)

(Plain text: Dragon AU (Original))

This AU has been with me for years, and has since gone through MAJOR changes. Which is why THIS is going through the Original version of the AU

-Loosely based around the movie, as it had been created around this time (think 2017-2019)

-High school sort of AU

-Dragons were hunting for the 'ninja', aka, elemental power users

-Only those with the elemental powers could see THEIR dragons wings

-Dragons were hatched/raised together by someone, taught a human form, and left to fend for themselves after their passing.

-Knew basic skills and what their goal to find was.

-Cole was a baker. I don't know why this was such an important detail, but it was.

-Incompleted, lead to a dead end, original won't be worked on, but a wonderful memory nonetheless

Royalty AU

(Plain text: Royalty AU)

Ninjas were royalty instead of ninjas! Everyone had their own kingdoms to rule as either kings, queens, princes, or princesses!

-Kingdoms loosely based around elements

-Loosely based after Tournament of Elements, only Lord Garmadon and Lloyd are.. Well, Lord and child

-There was a previous side-blog dedicated to this, but the original has since been deleted (nothing was actually on it, don't worry)

-Revamp blog can be found here: @royalty-ninjago

Dragon AU (ReMake)

(Plain text: Dragon AU (ReMake))

This is the current version of the Dragon AU! A lot of changes, a lot of major bringings, and so much with this AU that I just Love.

-Loose college based AU

-Cole's working to become a teacher. Zane a doctor, while working alongside Misako at a museum. Jay's an inventor and you can pry that out of my cold, dead hands. Kai's partially dyslexic (barely having a proper education as a younger kid), but working to be a blacksmith instructor.

-Nya's there, don't worry. So it Lloyd!

-Yes, there are still dragons! Don't worry about where.

-This AU is being written down, so not TOO much will be spoiled. Chapter 1 is about.. Maybe halfway done with?

Possessed? Jay AU

(Plain text: Possessed? Jay AU)

This came from a really weird fact pointing with @ninjago-autism-hours , and being written down. This will eventually be posted to Ao3 when completed and linked.

Ignacia Curse AU

(Plain text: Ignacia Curse)

I have named this AU finally!! You can find the information here!

Headcanon X Show Crossover AU

(Plain text: Headcanon X Show Crossover AU)

This one is self explanatory: My headcanons for the ninjas meeting themselves in a crossover.

Ninja-less AU

(Plain text: Ninja-less AU)

Once again, a little self explanatory, but more in depth than you think.

-Wu never finds the Ninja, despite trying to. Lord Garmadon is still 'Lord', and is still destined to destroy Ninjago, with Lloyd trying to stop him.

-The four OG's work on themselves and their own skills;

-Kai becomes a skilled blacksmith after years

-Jay becomes a spontaneous/on-the-spot inventor/mechanic and creates many things, ranging from cars to jets

-Zane becomes this sort of grey area of a 'Jack of all trades', yet still dedicated to helping people out

-Cole becomes an infamous hit man. No, I'm serious, that's where my mind went to for Fole, and it stuck.

-Lloyd somehow ends up in Cole's care, crossing paths before the snakes could be released, so the whole Pythor thing doesn't happen...

-Or does it?

-Can't remember details, but Pythor gets released. The 'ninja' have connections with each others, yet are so disconnected, you'd never think they'd know each other!

-They do. Barely.

-Morro also gets released, but instead of possessing Lloyd, zeoh just.. Kind of vibes with Cole and Lloyd, but most often gets left in Zane's care.

-There was a lot to this and I loved it a lot. I need to write this down.

Mute Kai AU

(Plain text: Mute Kai AU)

A more what if: Kai was a mute

-Pilot would be changed MAJORLY. The dudes wouldn't know Kai's name until Nya said it!

-Actions become words to the Ninja, and so often, Kai will motion in a really basic way to confuse someone, and then Jay pops up like 'Oh, yeah, we can absolutely go get something to eat after this', or Cole saying 'No, I think you're confusing Mystake with the other tea lady.'

-Just that. Mute Kai. There's a scar on Kai's neck that glows gold at random points, but no one ever says anything about it.

-Nya actually knows sign language, and has taught the others bit by bit so they can actually hold a conversation with Kai. By the time season 3 rolls around, they all know sign language and finger spelling.

+Jay's both offended and accomplished by his sign name (first starting as just 'talks a lot', but changed to 'electric boom', or something like that)

Dragon Kai AU

(Plain text: Dragon Kai AU)

If Kai was a hybrid of human and dragon. There's a LOT on this already, check the tag 'dragon kai' or 'dragon kai au'

Bizzaro Verse

(Plain text: Bizzaro Verse)

There's already a good bit about this out in the tags 'bizzaro verse'.

#ninjago #lego ninjago #ninjago au #yeah there's.. a lot here. some not in full details for reasons #please ask all you want i love these aus- #dragon kai au #bizzaro verse

[orbleglorb]

alright let's do meganparker for some of the fun ones: 3, 12, 13, 21, 27, 45, 49

oh joyous day i get to be insane about them for a bit

adding a readmore b/c it's a bit lengthy

3. What was their first impression of each other?

parker was initially sort of... nervous? they were rivals. he didn't know this until he saw a tabloid about it. so he's like "oh no :( she hates me :(" but also sometimes leaned into the bit for fun. because it was ridiculously easy to make her frustrated by just playing blaseball. and then she starts like, talking to him, and he's initially suspicious. he was like, "nobody would come up and talk to me and try to get to know me if they were not pranking me." so he was a little cold initially. megan, who has just broken up with clare for the 10th time since high school (and keeps promising everyone it's final), is... okay wait i have images (IDs in alt, lmk if they don't work).

so like. yeah she's normal

12. Do they have a difficult time when separated from each other, or are they fairly independent?

parker has a difficult time away from megan. megan doesn't have a difficult time away from parker, except for occasionally worrying that he's "found someone better." megan is kind of parker's shield and safety net in a lot of social situations. megan is also a little overcontrolling and she worries what will happen if she's not there to "save" him.

13. How do they keep in contact when they’re apart? Do they write letters, talk on the phone, or simply wait out the time?

phone! they're both moving around a lot, so letters aren't practical. sometimes they'll leave notes for each other in luggage or lockers before they go to wherever it is they need to go. megan jokingly faxed a message for him to his mom's office once and the coin nearly killed her over it, so that's the last time that happened.

21. Do they enjoy domestic life?

alright. so this one is complicated.

for the most part, parker enjoys domestic life. parker would make such a good house husband. he really just wants to do mundane tasks all day and then just chill with someone in the evenings. like one of the images above says, he just wants to sit on the couch with someone while they watch TV and let out sad little sighs for no reason. he craves normalcy and routine (The Autism), and just wishes that his biggest problem was like, how to file his taxes, and not that he kills anyone he gets close to.

megan is more of a "live fast die young" kind of person. she doesn't want to grow old and wants to keep adventuring and going out late/coming home early. she's spontaneous and stubborn, and once she's decided she wants to do something, she'll do it. and she'll drag whoever she wants along with her. she doesn't take no for an answer really well (and parker doesn't GIVE no for an answer very well). she can't stand being in one spot for too long and just wants to travel and see the world and party until she dies. parker would rather die than go to a frat party

27. How do they say “I love you” non-verbally?

parker: going to crowded places/parties with her, doing chores for her, baking for her, bumping his head against her shoulder (he's shorter than her).

megan: listening to him ramble about spiders, watching documentaries/doing other "boring" things, remembering his favorite foods and periodically ordering them for him, kissing his forehead or hand.

45. How do they support each other? How do they rely on each others support?

um. teehee. they have a codependent relationship. parker left his mom's house and really had no idea what to do with having his own agency for the first time in his life, and just like, got in a relationship with someone who was also possessive and overbearing and demanding (although megan's nowhere near as bad as the coin). parker relies on her for security; he has learned his entire life that everything he does is wrong, that he can't trust himself or his emotions, he's "insane" and "makes stuff up," and he could never be independent. megan relies on him for assurance and consistency; she needs someone who won't leave, no matter how bad things get for both of them. eventually, it gets bad enough, and he DOES leave. and it fucks her up.

49. Do they keep secrets from each other?

absolutely. megan hooked back up with clare at some point while she and parker were on a break. she also will never admit that she is scared of his mom, or that she's scared in general. she will never admit that parker's scary when he's mad and she wishes she could override the instinct to escalate situations because holy fuck he's scary when pissed.

parker will never tell her that she does things that remind him of his mom (at least, he doesn't until they get into that final big argument). he won't tell her that she makes him uncomfortable sometimes and he wished he was listened to more, even though it's "not really a big deal." he's never told her who his father is (Namerifeht) and lies whenever she asks. he will never, under any circumstances, admit that he's fallen out of love with her and in love with someone else to her face, because he can't help but think that she would trap him or hurt him (she wouldn't, but the fear is persistent). he doesn't even say it when they break up.

#blaseball (organizational) #parker macmillan #megan ito #sorry to the ppl who follow these tags #asks 4 sasha #megparker

[unknownths]

GET  TO  KNOW  THE  MUN.

WHAT  MADE  YOU  PICK  UP  THE  MUSE  YOU  HAVE  ?   autism probably

IS  THERE  ANYTHING  YOU  DON'T  LIKE  TO  WRITE  ?  aside from the like. illegal and morally reprehensible stuff i'm not very good at writing action since i don't do it often, so i skirt around it lol. if i were going to write for more than a hobby i would probably practice and get better at it and hate it less. i also just don't really find cheating as a plot device interesting or sexy lol but i can't really think of anything that's a super hard no for me

IS  THERE  ANYTHING  YOU  REALLY  ENJOY  WRITING  ?   hurt/comfort makes me want to eat glass /pos

HOW  DO  YOU  COME  UP  WITH  YOUR  HEADCANONS  ?   autism again. no uh i just. idk exist. i'm possessed or something probably. my mind just wanders. sometimes i black out and my phone notes are full of headcanons. i'm super normal about it

DO  YOU  WRITE  IN  SILENCE  OR  LISTEN  TO  MUSIC  ?   varies based on how overstimulated i am LMAO a lot of the time i'll write on my phone just in notes or on a google doc because that's what i have energy for, so that's usually silent. if i'm sitting down to knock out a bunch of drafts i'll usually pick a playlist of the character i'm writing to get me in the zone :)

DO  YOU  PLAN  YOUR  REPLIES  OR  WING  THEM  ?   i want to say i wing them but truthfully i think i plan most of it. not like hardcore planning, but if a thread is going somewhere i've usually had some sort of conversation with the other writer about the general direction of the thread or our muses' relationship whatever that may be. i don't like to have everything super plotted out usually because at that point like.... why am i writing it if i've already let it rotate in my head for 10 million years, but sue me i like some structure

DO  YOU  ENJOY  SHIPPING  ?   I'M A WHORE. LET THEM KISS.

WHAT'S  YOUR  ALIAS/NAME  ?   My middle name technically haha. I used to go by the name of one of my first ocs, but then i started writing her on tumblr and it got weird, so i started using my middle name which then got shortened to christie. since i'm a performer i've also had to think about my stage name a lot, and i ended up including it in that which is kinda fun

AGE  ?   22 baby let's gooo

BIRTHDAY  ?  September 29, same as my Aether and also Annie @actstogether <3

FAVORITE  COLOR  ?   It used to be orange but tbh? Green has kinda been the vibe lately

FAVORITE  SONG  ?   it's either francesca by hozier or fake out by fall out boy, i don't think anything else even comes close to those

LAST  MOVIE  YOU  WATCHED  ?   dune part 2! for once i've seen something recent lmao i don't watch a lot of movies but my dad loves dune so i had to watch the first one and then he dragged me to the new one last week

LAST  SHOW  YOU  WATCHED  ?   like casually i think it was psych, as far as like binging a whole series i'm not sure

LAST  SONG  YOU  LISTENED  TO  ?  red wine supernova by chapell roan don't look at me like that

FAVORITE  SEASON  ?   i dont even know anymore bro. spring maybe?

DO  YOU  HAVE  A  TUMBLR  BEST  FRIEND  ?   i have a crew :^) my little gay people in my discord server <3

tagged by: @mischiiefs hi mak xx tagging: well u see. mak also tagged the rest of the aforementioned crew so if you wanna do this go for it i can't stop you-

#ooc › christie ╲ i don't even have my own attention.

[sylviareviar]

Why does it feel like Sylvia's only character trait is Autism?

I'm sorry if it seems that way to you, but autism is such a wide and varied spectrum that there isn't only one way to describe or portray it. Moreover, autism is something that affects one's life in a variety of different ways, and Sylvia represents how autism affects mine. If you believe her only trait is autism, that doesn't tell me anything, because to have autism, you must possess many specific traits, and those traits sometimes overlap with other mental illnesses such as ADHD or OCD. Not always, but sometimes.

From the way you worded this, I don't feel as though you're trying to be hostile, and so that's why I'm answering you publicly, Anon, but try to understand, this is just what life looks like for her. If you're sick of it, you're welcome to leave and unfollow me. Unfortuantely, for someone with autism, it's impossible for us to just "leave" if we get sick of seeing the world the way we do, because that's just how we live.

And like I said, the way autism affects me and Sylvia is not going to be the same as the way autism affects someone else. There is no one way to describe someone's character just by labeling them with autism, because it's such a broad thing that can often be overlooked by other elements of life. In Sylvia's case, sometimes she doesn't understand emotions or societal rules not just because she struggles to pick up on it, but also because she's in a whole other country, and autism combined with culture shock makes it difficult to blend in well.

I would not portray a character with disabilities I know nothing about or cannot relate to because I would be doing both the character and their disability a complete disservice. Since I have autism, I feel as though I have a right to speak about my personal experience with autism, as well as my experience around others whose autistic behaviors differ from mine, and my journey to try and understand them.

And for the record, Sylvia has many hobbies as well. She draws, sings, and enjoys writing, especially practicing her Japanese and Russian writing skills (sometimes in cursive, for the latter). She also does have a backstory, but it's a bit dramatic and triggering, so I don't often focus on it unless someone goes though her Palace. As for her Palace itself, it is a culmination of childhood trauma and depression and anxiety, other "traits" you could say she has.

If you're referring to her weakness, the whole point of her being here and being interactable is to put her on a journey to get stronger, both mentally and physically. Maybe I'm just not active enough on Tumblr so Sylvia comes off as shallow and depressing, so weak she literally can't do anything for herself, but I do have plans for her to get stronger. Already she's gotten much stronger than when she first started, and I've managed to integrate her well into the world of Persona 5.

I hope this is a sufficient response. However, I must warn you, if you end up sending me more things in my inbox with the intent to berate my character for being bad, I will ignore you. I don't intend to cause drama when I'm just here to have fun and cope.

#🌸 ~ out of character ~ 🌸 #🌸 ~ anon asks ~ 🌸 #tw: drama #maybe #tw: ableism #i think?? #idk i'm tagging this post just in case because I don't want anyone to get hurt reading this

[captainkurosolaire]

I know I tell you this all the time, but always remember that you are loved. You are doing amazing, even if sometimes it doesn't always feel like it. Bad days are just bad days and they are allowed to happen. It doesn't mean you have regressed and undone any progress <3

I'll be here to cheer you on and remind you not to be hard on yourself!

Truly, I greatly appreciate all you are to have such a genuine soul in my corner. I'm glad to have long lasting people to know and especially friends or followers, mutual, anyone that's shown support over this journey.

I'm someone who's very tenacious. Stubborn and extremely rough around the edges, it's a lot of character faults. Being overly tough on myself is kind of how I've endured all that I do.

It seems like in-order for me to ever be my prime self, I have to possess and maintain passion and I've gone through it all, in-order for me to maintain that, I have to challenge myself and push and set very ludicrous expectations.

To get more personal about it all. I've got multiple incisions and surgeries that just tore to shred my body early on and left me with a body that's nearly four decades more than it should be. I've got some mild autism, and ADHD. Used to have to be Homebound and even with special schooling, I struggled even lasting ten minutes in a sitting position which was often supposed to be three hour sessions. I never can maintain control of normality.

The one thing that was my glimmering beacon was writing and creating. It's all I've managed to keep in my actual joys.

When you're linked to passion and once it diminishes, it's really not viable for a lot of people to stick around or handle a star that's destined to fall. So eventually even though I really like long-term RP there aren't many who can tolerate that type of thing or even a friendship, I learned that overtime, and it makes sense when someone is often met with silence when I descend what's a point of it in orbit. I struggle, even wanting to put into that ordeal and I've diminished considerably in a lot of aspects.

Blame is to myself and really no-one in particular, nor am I trying to do anything out of sympathy. This just me explaining better my entire process, it's easier to understand something when maybe a vivid picture is put into perspective.

Dealt with having to accept a lot of things, quitting stuff outright, It became much easier for me even to not dabble in pain medicine for my main rare colon disease. As all that did was hamper me further and I didn't ever want to be reliant or be dulled.

So I've gone through nearly a decade on my own path learning trying to figure out what I could even replace. Then in the form of writing I was able to literally find a therapeutic way to not only divert my focus if my passion was strong enough, I could even have mastery of myself and work on aiming better beyond my faults.

Ever since then It's been a process, a lot more to the entire road. But ultimately just gradually climbing up in challenges, doing more, figuring out all this time in Tumblr more about myself and limits and just having a place to lay it out.

Last year, I performed with every bit of my heart a tribute strongly for my first real friend and wanting to send that energy into the writing I did and despite it all being my hardest obstacle yet and I actually crushed it. For those three month's I really did experience living after a long distance from it.

I owe it considerably to meeting someone like you who showed me all the makings of a friend and identified it and many others.

I can't promise not to be hard on myself. That's just how I need to be wired. But I also learned just as many bad days they're also paramount so I can build up an incredible one eventually.

But I know with people like you real genuine hearts, I can be relieved of a lot of stuff and be myself.

Typically when I deplete, I just go dormant cause I don't want to bring that or a lack of energy that would dampen anyone. I'd rather be positive and bolster people up cause I've found a lot of people kindred to me. That also motivates me. So that's why I often choose to just go solitude and stockpile up and hibernate until I've had enough recovery.

After tasting a sample of that feeling during and after the three month's last year, I want a year to just go out and really express every single day and Tribute this entire thing to myself. Give back all the time's I couldn't hang or stay consistent to anything prior.

#asks answered #probably tl:dr

[make-me-imagine]

Wow, 8k?? Congratulations!! 🎉 If you don't mind, I'd appreciate a LOTR and The Hobbit ship ☺️ And possibly a drabble for LOTR with the 'first kiss' prompt if that's okay!

I'd probably prefer a male ship. I'm really short, like 4' 10" and chronically ill with Rheumatoid Arthritis, Autism, Dyspraxia and a bunch of other stuff. I love writing and drawing. I'm a people person but I definitely need my alone time, I can only handle so much social interaction in a day. I love cryptozoology and science too. I really hate possessiveness and I'll need someone who doesn't mind accomodating me. I'm pretty excitable and funny but can have a hard time because of my chronic illnesses. I can infodump about nearly any topic since most of my time is spent researching things that interest me. I get nervous in relationships and am easily flustered too

Thanks so so much, I hope you have an amazing end to your week! Take care of yourself and drink lots of water hun ❤️

Thank you!~

I hope you like them~ Since you asked for a drabble for only the Lotr ship, I gave you headcanons for The Hobbit ship :)

Lotr:

I ship you with Legolas.

I think Legolas is very caring, and understanding and would never push you. He also enjoys his alone time, and would not mind when you needed your.

Runner Up: Samwise

--

'First Kiss'

As Legolas spotted you in the distance, a smile spread across his face. His whole journey back, he had been excited to see you. Your relationship had been growing, but before Legolas could truly tell you how he felt, he was sent off by his father.

But now he had returned, and he was more than ready to tell you and show you how he truly felt.

As you sat underneath your favorite tree, reading your favorite book, you heard the sound of soft footsteps approaching.

Looking up, your eyes landed on the smiling face of Legolas. Your heart jolted in your chest as a wide smile appeared on your face.

"Legolas!" You said with excitement as you began to rise.

Quickly approaching you, Legolas did not let you rise entirely before he pulled you into a hug.

You let out a soft laugh as he gripped you in his arms. You hugged him back, excitement filling your body. Pulling away from him a few moments later, you looked up into his eyes.

"I'm so glad you're back"

He smiled adoringly down at you "I'm glad I am returned."

Reaching up, he gently caressed your cheek as he stared at you, you felt your ears burning hot and your heart beating heavier in your chest.

"I cannot tell you how much I've wanted to see your smile since I left. And how much I wish I had not left before I told you truly how I felt."

You were uncertain of what to say. You knew how he felt, as you felt it too. And you wished you had said something yourself before he left, but you were too afriad.

Finally finding your words, you smiled softly. "I know how you feel Legolas."

He smiled as he moved a bit closer to you "Then let me show you."

Slowly leaning down, he cupped your chin in his hand as he pressed a soft and gently kiss to your lips. Your face burned hot, but you felt happiness jolt through you as you returned the kiss.

Mutual affection and love radiated through both of you as you held each other, glad to finally be together again, and fully open to how both of you felt.

-------------------

The Hobbit:

I ship you with Kili!

Kili adores your kindness, and fun sense of humor. He is drawn to those who are intelligent and kind, so he would be very attracted to you quickly after you met.

Runner Up: Besides Legolas; also Bilbo.

Headcanons:

Kili is always there when you need him, at the drop of a hat. He holds you comfort and happiness in high esteem and will do whatever he needs to make you feel cherished and loved.

Any time Kili goes off on a short adventure (often with his brother), he writes you letters. Even if he cannot deliver them. He will give them to you once he returns so you can read them, knowing he was thinking of you along his journey.

Kili finds it fascinating and impressive how much information you can retain, and you are always the first person he comes to with a question because he knows you will always know something about it.

He is protective, but not possessive.

Kili likes that you are easily flustered, in the sense that you always react when he flirts with you. He thinks it is cute.

Anytime your pain is flaring up, Kili will help you however you wish. A hot bad, a cold press, leave you alone? Sure he'll do it, as long as it helps.

#ship #ships #8k ships #milestone ships #follower ships #lotr ship #hobbit ship #hcs #legolas drabble #tolkien-fantasy

[sjwormlight]

What is Christianity?

My entire life, I had been raised Christian, and while my family (thankfully) wasn't super restrictive (with me mostly as I'm the youngest) but still had its quirks (I was not allowed to read harry potter until I was 15) and my parents apparently thought I was demon-possessed? But they didn't try to exorcise me with brutally insane and abusive tactics. No, they just took me to church, hoping that the music, people, and scripture would be enough. And thankfully, I wasn't too wild; I just really hated church. Why did I hate church? I'm SO glad you asked! I hated the music; It was too loud. (i went to Free Chapel in Gainesville ga look it up) . I hated being around that many people. I hated being around children I didn't know (context, I was bullied in elementary school). I hated being that uncomfortable, and you bet your ass my parents had to bribe me to get me to go to church some days. I was diagnosed with autism at 17 years old after insisting to my parents that I needed therapy and fighting them on the benefits. I did not have a choice in going to church. So what is Christianity? It is a cultural icon with a long history steeped in martyrdom, Manipulation, corruption, ableism, oppression, fascism, colonialism, racism, the list is endless almost. And I know that a lot of these things are just human fuckery. I know pagan cultures were guilty of much the same thing. Everything you see with modern Christianity is not at all new. But where it becomes inexcusable is when you just ignore or deflect from it. And since Christianity took hold with emperor Constantine, I can tell you it's gotten a lot worse. It was like that when it took hold of Rome. But what appealed to these people psychologically to transition from paganism to Christianity? And what's keeping these people in the modern-day in this hellishly oppressive religion? So modern-day cults are an excellent way to look at it because I can tell you it's the same ALL across the board. Some churches are just a lot subtler and not as insane as what you see with Jonestown. They understand that they can get in serious trouble if they get caught. But they're still preaching damnation in the eternal fires of hell and their interpretations of the rules to stay out of hell. Unless they accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. Now I'm still new to the whole historical research of the religion. Still, I've read one book, 'God against the gods' By Jonathan Kirsch, and he brought up the point that pagans at the beginnings of Christianity joined because they were curious. The old gods were boring, and there was this brand new god. And as Christianity took over, hostilities escalated, and martyrdom was very popular for Christianity. But there is a likely chance these people were being coerced into martyrdom, like the Jonestown massacre and so many other modern Christian-centered cults (and that's basically all of them, actually) that forced their members into committing ... bye-bye mode. Preachers especially are excellent due to the societal perception that they are men of god and thus are to be trusted. And I want terrath to have this similar feel with its villains, this feeling that if you don't obey this guy, you will suffer. There is so much more than "It is gods will." The actual breaking down and into the person's mentality that you're trying to coerce. And to do that, you basically need to be trusted. And that is 100% what Christianity is. It is not forgiveness, compassion, or empathy. It has always been the opposite. It has always been this psychological minefield, and it's fascinating as hell. So that's why I've been holding off on writing the books because I've wanted to do my research. I'm still working on the study because there is a lot to unpack. I also want to have a clear idea of where EXACTLY I want to go with the characters, the mythology, and the series itself. I want it to feel more like Arcane and less like Harry Potter (let's be honest, my dudes, it's not that great, and she did NOT do a great job tying up her plots.)

#so yea #I cant sleep #at all #and ive been thinking about it #and tbh psychology is fascinating as fuck #tell me your horror stories #tell me your christian stories #let out your trauma #and breath #we got this #fight me harry potter fans

[polyamorousmisanthrope]

📷I took five minutes to vacuum my closet the other day. It was part of my routine cleaning, no big deal. It was just a quick thing to check off on my cleaning list. I removed some boxes of stuff in the bottom, a few pairs of slippers, and vacuumed. I replaced the stuff and went on with my---

No. I didn't.

No, I looked at the bottom of the closet in a state of shock and burst out laughing.

I have spent a large portion of my life trying to get organized. When I was a child, "cleaning my room" really did mean tossing everything I could think of where to put it in a closet so that it looked tidy when Mom poked her head in. I was the child with the cubby under the desk in grade school so stuffed with papers and junk that it was simply impossible to add or find anything.

This level of disorganization bothered and embarrassed me. It really hurt and made me feel like a failure.

As a teenager, my backpack also became a mess of papers, random items, books, and paraphernalia (no, not that kind. In many ways, I was hopelessly square)

As an adult, it wasn't much better. My desk was full of bills to be paid, papers I didn't want to face, things that were vaguely sentimental but not enough to display anywhere. My closet?

That was still the place where I hid stuff I didn't have a place for but wanted the room at least to appear a little tidy.

How long from a stuffed closet to a tidy closet?

It took about thirty years.

I wasted a lot of that time, though. I addressed it in cycles. "Starting now, I'm finally going to get organized!" I'd spend several hours a day over a few weeks cleaning, organizing, and playing possessions Tetris with my home. After a month or so, know what? The house would look great!

Then, inevitably, the house would no longer look great. I'd clean the kitchen well enough to prevent food poisoning, but more than that? Not so much.

Ever done that? C'mon, it's okay. We all have.

Being tidy over time is all about consistent action.

You can, indeed, get the house clean with heroic effort, just as you can work really hard to train for an athletic event.

The problem comes in when you do something intense for a short period. As I mentioned in my last post, heroic effort is unsustainable.

Several of my favorite housekeeping systems (Flylady and Unfuck Your Habitat) talk about starting very small – shining your sink or making your bed. They are so right!

It's not about getting tidied or organized quickly. It's about developing consistent habits. For a lot of people, that's enough.

But for some…

Executive dysfunction can interfere with consistency.

If you have organizational or distraction issues, habits may not be enough. Autism, ADHD, and a host of other neurodivergent issues centered around executive dysfunction make it hard to do things that seem pretty obvious to the neurotypical person. What? You need to wash the dishes after a meal? No kidding. Go do it!

As I was writing this article, I broke for dinner. Guess what is in my sink right now?

I thought about it, got up, scrubbed the pan a little, realized it needed to soak some more, and sat back down here to write. Sure, sure, I'll get to it after I finish this, no biggie. But if my sink was full of dishes other than that pan, if I had laundry on my sofa, a desk drawer full of unaddressed bills, and my phone beeping that I needed to get up and get my car to the garage to get the brakes done, would I be getting back to that pan in any reasonable amount of time?

*Hollow laugh*

People with executive dysfunction issues can find their problems painful.

Maybe some people laugh and think it's cute to be disorganized. It never felt cute to me. It hurt because I had a hard time doing what I wanted to do. I was utterly desperate to get my life under control. Completely and utterly desperate from the time I was nine years old. That's a heavy load.

Jokes about executive dysfunction aren't cute.

I know the whole "squirrel!" joke about distractibility is mean to make people feel better and okay with themselves. I never wanted to be okay with chaos. I wanted the chaos to stop. It hurt. It interfered with accomplishing what I wanted to. It was exhausting. It used up time I wanted to spend on other things. I wanted a clean canvas so that when I jumped from obsession to obsession to obsession, I could feel like I was using that time intelligently rather than as a distraction from things that were bothering me.

Late fees, court cases, and lost jobs aren't cute, either.

There's an ADHD vlogger that I really like named Jessica McCabe. She's brilliant and adorable, and being a little bit of the manic pixie thing is part of her brand. It gets people to listen to broad issues of executive dysfunction. People will accept and listen to that stuff sometimes and find it palatable if someone is small and young and cute. (She's a LOT older than her looks or mannerisms would indicate, by the way).

So, the brilliant part. Quite sure McCabe knows what she's doing with that because sometimes she drops the adorable thing. The pain of being disorganized or having a hard time directing attention is very, very clear. If she weren't so cute, it would be unlikely as many people would listen to the important things she is saying. There's more to her than cute by a long shot. (And don't get me started on the sexism of it).

But that whole "cute" thing about disorganization. It's not so cute when unpaid bills land you in court. That has happened to me. With money in the BANK, that has happened to me! (Or without money. *shrugs* That, too). It's not cute when you have to buy a car at interest rates that are close to what you'd pay on a credit card. Yeah, that's happened, too. That we're in good financial shape now is a miracle.

There is a cultural narrative of *giggle* *giggle* "I'm so distractable!" to try to ameliorate the pain of being disorganized. Know what? It's not funny. It hurts.

Proscriptive solutions won't work.

I use a Bullet Journal just about with the out-of-the-box method that Ryder Carrol posted in that first video he did about it. I tried it, and it clicked.

Know what wouldn't have clicked? Someone making me do it when I was fifteen.

This is where you, if you have problems with executive dysfunction, might wonder if I can provide an answer for you. Know what? I can't.

I can say, "You need a Bullet Journal." I mean, I'll think it. I wouldn't say it. Know why? It won't necessarily work for you.

What I will say is that you need to find methods that work for you.

"Okay, smartybrat," I hear you cry, "if you can't offer a solution, what do I do?"

Create systems that support you

This is going to look different depending on how you think. Does a beepy reminder go bing! and prompt you to do stuff? Do you like to have a menu of tasks that you choose from depending on how easily they grab your attention in the moment?

What primes you to take action?

What plans have you followed through on (c'mon, you do have some if you're alive past 20), and what about them made you feel good?

My husband doesn't use a Bullet Journal. He plans his day using a calendar app. If there's an interrupt to a task, he'll move it to another free time. When you first try this, I strongly encourage you to multiply your estimation of task time by at least four until you get good at estimating how long something will take. If you have executive dysfunction issues you're struggling with, I'd bet at least a nickel that you're not good at estimating how long things take yet.

What stops you from taking action? Can you remove the interrupts?

A simple example would be to take the dirty clothes hamper's lid off if that's enough to discourage you from tossing your clothes in the hamper. Still, I'm not talking about "Tips 'n Tricks" here. I hate tips 'n tricks! They're like taking a Tylenol when you cut off your leg. You need to extrapolate that to life systems to support how you want to live.

Your system is useless until you define "good enough."

I could skip the next two or three times I need to vacuum my closet, and I wouldn't care. If I get to it every year or so, it's absolutely good enough. "Good enough" means I address my paperwork file once a week and clear it out. I don't have to do it every day unless I feel like it. "Good enough" is walking for five minutes on the hour around my living room until I get my 10,000 steps in. I don't have to walk for three miles unless I want to. "Good enough" is spreading up the bed and tossing the shams at the head. I don't have to bounce a quarter off the damn thing unless I get a wild hare to do that sometimes. Don't give yourself an image of perfection you have to attain, or you'll do nothing.

It's okay for "good enough" to change

Remember how it took thirty years to get to vacuuming a closet? There was a time when that chore wasn't on the "good enough" list, and ya know what? That's fine. Have your "good enough" be slightly, but only slightly, ahead of what you're currently doing if you want to make improvements. Incremental improvements over time, and I mean decades, are pretty dramatic when you look back.

Good enough can stay good enough

My exercise parameters have me getting in an average of 10,000 steps a day as measured over a month. That is never going to change. If the Spirit moves me, I'll do more. But I'm not going to keep raising the bar over and over and over. This is it. I'm good. I'm maintaining.

It takes decades to get your life in order. What small thing will you do today?

#executive dysfunction #adhd

[muse-stellium]

1, 4, 6, 13, 25 !

𝑅𝒫 𝑀𝓊𝓃 𝒬𝓊𝑒𝓈𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈 │💜💙💚

1 -  What is your favorite trope to rp?

I've mentioned a few times I think that I'm an absolute sucker for the turned evil trope lol so other than that umm.. definitely the found family trope c: 💕 I’m eternally soft for that one lol.

4 -  What old character would you love to bring back?

aaaa! I made a post about this a few days ago but I've been seriously debating reviving a muse I wrote years ago ; Prue Halliwell from Charmed. Her and Nina have so much in common - down to the odd details like ruined her sisters wedding, dad issues w the sisters, brainwashed / possessed by ancient deity, dabbled in the assassin world etc. - but when it comes to their morals and other big issues they couldn't be more different, so I feel like she'd be a great addition on here. Plus I just miss her ;A; my Wicca Wonder bb.. The only reason I haven't yet is because from what I've seen the Charmed fandom on here can be.. very hit or miss 😅. Everyone seems to have very passionate opinions and there's a whole reboot vs original war going on rn that I don't want any part of lol.

6 -  Name 3 things you love most about your muse/muses.

Nina: 1) Woman went from being the Zaibatsu's unwilling experiment guinea pig to the de-facto leader QUEEN 2) She isn't afraid to call people out on their bs 3) Cold woman who has a fondness for a cartoon cat 🥺💕

Kunimitsu: 1) Powerful icon / Yes she blind, yes she dealing with an immune disorder, yes she kicks ass. 2) Intelligent air conditioner engineer by day, fox thief by night 3) just her style / concept in general. I've always been a sucker for 9 tailed foxes and characters related to them lol

Saga : 1) half Norse God - half Scottish blue haired magic lady 2) This woman’s sass is almost on par with Nina I swear 3) the fact that this woman can get away with anything just by claiming "that's how the story goes". Literally got a canon gay character to adopt her 30 something year old ass by saying "the story says I need political power in your kingdom and I can't exactly marry you so-" (bonus  4) she has a talking crow sidekick. How can you not love a character with a talking crow sidekick?) 

13 -  Is there one trope you can’t stand?

I answered this one here 💜💜, but I thought of another one: the trope where characters with Autism have to be this super intelligent, socially awkward, or/and cringey character. ene  no.

25 -  One thing you’d like new roleplayers to know?

About me: My muses be scary and intimidating, I be not. I be shy bb ;v;

In general: as a writer who joined the tumblr rpc after writing elsewhere, I know the tumblr rpc can seem very intimidating. Things are a lot different here than elsewhere. There's a lot to learn, but also a lot of kind and talented writers willing to lend you a hand ;v;

#✧･ﾟ:*𝐹𝓊𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈*:･ﾟ✧ - Dash Games / Asks #listen..I may be socially awkward but that doesn't mean we all are lol

[stimtoybox]

Your blog is safe haven for me. It means so much it makes me tear up!

Oh, anon. It means everything to me that you said that, it really does! I’m tearing up!

The horrible thing is that I don’t have a good, easy answer for you. I wish I did, but I struggle with assertiveness in verbal conversations, especially when I feel unsafe. I’ve been bullied by my family my whole life for my autism. For needing to have the same pillows to be able to sleep. For not eating a varied amount of foods. For finding things too loud. Right now I’m in a kind of quiet war with Mum because she can’t understand that I don’t just dislike her perfume - it makes me sick. Because she doesn’t hear me when I tell her it does make me sick (as in she hears the words but they don’t fit her worldview, so they don’t have meaning for her) it looks as though I’m being nagging and demanding when I ask her not to wear it. That lack of comprehension, that feeling that I am being demanding, results so often in teasing or just blank refusal to accommodate us.

The terrible, tragic, utterly unfair truth is that we can’t make someone else understand. There’s a high chance that this may not work, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about that. We can’t make someone else listen. We can only try to present the information in ways they’re more likely to accept, but if they don’t, anon, this is not your fault. Some people will not understand, no matter what we do.

I am assuming, anon, that you’re verbal enough to have a spoken conversation, although I think everything below applies for most other methods of communication. I’m choosing to focus more on verbal conversation because that, as wrong as it is, is largely the only sort of conversation these sorts of bullies accept and is more often the form in which you’ll be forced to have this conversation.

What I do know about assertiveness is this: subtlety and politeness does not help you get what you need. Hinting, suggesting, adding five pleases and five thank yous … the social rules we’re taught about being polite, respectful humans don’t teach us how to look after ourselves. Be direct, say as few words as possible and don’t bother yourself with their feelings. (They’ve shown that they care little for yours.) The best ever response to a cis straight dude lecturing me about how “that’s so gay” isn’t offensive was me snapping and going, “I’m queer. I don’t like it. Stop it.” No arguing, no debating, no explaining, no attempt to justify why I didn’t like it. He stopped, then and there.

(Note: “say as few words as possible” is unfair. ND communication tends to be indirect. We generally talk in many words, extra detail, repetitions and tangents. See this entire blog as a case in point! We should not have to master their preferred (direct) communication to be heard, but results are better for us if we can. I say this because I’ve done assertiveness training with a couple of different psychologists, and they’ve all taught me direct communication without ever acknowledging that my natural, indirect communication is valid - that the problem is the bullies’ unwillingness to comprehend me, not my method of speech. So I will acknowledge it here. We communicate just fine. They just choose not to understand us and force us to jump through extra hoops to be heard. And that is a thousand kinds of wrong, but it’s better for us if we can attempt to jump those hoops, in terms of effectiveness.)

When we hint and suggest, when we try to be nice about getting people to respect our health requirements, people have this strange idea that we’re not serious about it. People think that extra words and extra politeness means it’s not really necessary to accommodate our request - even though this thing is so important to us that we’re smoothing it over as much as possible in the hope that they accommodate us. This is largely because they don’t want to help us, so anything that isn’t direct bluntness is used as an excuse to not bother.

So we don’t give them those excuses. We say what it is we want. We don’t be rude, we don’t be aggressive and we try our hardest not to be angry (they’ll use all those as excuses to not listen to us, too) but we say what it is we need as simply and clearly as possible so they have the fewest possible excuses to avoid accommodating our needs.

If you’re dealing less with bullies and more with people who can’t comprehend how they’re creating a toxic environment for you, it really helps a lot if you can offer up a solution to the problem, something they can do in response:

“The noise from your game is bothering me. Can you use your headphones?”

“Your perfume creeps into the whole house. Can you spray it outside?”

(Please note: if the solutions are not workable for you, don’t offer them. But if their using headphones cuts down on the noise driving you to distraction, it’s in no way unreasonable to ask them to do this.)

If you can make these comments without judgements on the thing making your space unlivable (you’re making a bloody racket, your perfume stinks) this is more likely to work. Mum’s perfume smells like petrol to me, but telling her that makes her wear it more, not less. Take that from hard-earned experience!

If you’re dealing with bullies or there is no modifying action they can take other than to not do the thing, just tell them to not do the thing. Don’t try to justify; keep explanations brief. Don’t mock them, don’t rage at them, don’t accuse them of anything or get sarcastic. Try, as hard as you can, not to cry. (As a serial crier, this is incredibly difficult and ridiculously unfair, but my family has the magical ability to stop listening to me as soon as tears leave my eyes.) Just tell them directly what it is you want:

“I don’t like it when you tease me about lights. Stop it.”

“I need you to turn down the speakers.”

“You know why I stim. Stop turning it into a joke.”

“Don’t use this scent inside the house. It makes me sick.”

Be direct. Unless your stims are causing them stress/discomfort in some way (I do not mean NTs being bothered by ND people daring to be ND, but something like the sound of your spinner causing irritation) you’re under no obligation to compromise here. (All of this is impacting your health, comfort and safety. You don’t compromise on those things.) I do recommend that you pick your battles in the beginning: work on those things you truly can’t stand, and leave those things you can tolerate grudgingly for later on. Pick one thing, if that feels more comfortable for you, and start with that before moving on to something else.

Anon, this is going to be really hard. I’ve done this stuff, and I know it works, and I still struggle to apply it on a regular basis (consequently, the perfume). It requires communicating in a form of communication (verbal speech) that is genuinely difficult for us. Script it. Write it out in a journal. Practice speaking to the mirror, or a soft toy if you’re uncomfortable looking at your reflection. Practice speaking to a friend, if you have one with whom it is safe enough to do this. Practice saying (speaking, not just writing or thinking) the words. If you spend three weeks practicing saying the words each night, you might be surprised, one day, at how they just slip out when needed.

Lastly, this might not work at all. Bullies be bullies. It says nothing about you if they don’t change in response to direct communication. Nothing. Unfortunately, it’s all on them, because you’re already going to an extreme amount of effort here to try and communicate what you need (something you’re already telling them through words and voice and body language - you’re telling them; they’re just refusing to listen) in ways they’re more likely to hear. If they don’t? Absolutely not on you.

Anon, you are entitled to stim. If you’re not causing someone else or their possessions harm and you’re not being disruptive, you’re entitled to stim. It doesn’t matter if this is fidgeting with a fidget cube or swaying while you talk or windmilling your arms. Toys make our stims a little more acceptable, and that’s why they’re important, but they are not the be-all-and-end-all of stimming. You have the right to stim without enduring abuse (bullying is abuse) for being yourself. Absolutely.

Thank you, by the way, for this ask, because this was something I think I needed to write out and relearn for myself.

If anyone has any better advice for our anon, please comment. But, anon, we’re cheering you on, okay? Because you deserve to be safe, happy and accepted. You deserve to stim without being bullied. You deserve to live in a comfortable space. It’s wrong that you have to fight so hard for this, but the stimmers in this little corner of the internet are so cheering you on. And if I can’t make you safe anywhere else, I’ll try my hardest to make sure you’re safe here.

- Mod K.A.

#ask #anon #text #discussion post #stimming discussion #ableism discussion #abuse and bullying discussion #neurodiversity discussion #long post #very long post #not a toy #off topic #mod K.A. #queer mention