dazai approaches life with the idea that wanting anything is pointless because it will be taken from you
chuuya keeps losing everyone important to him and yet he keeps going, he finds new friends, he keeps living as his own person
in a way, chuuya's life is like a confirmation of dazai's bias; any time he has something good, someone important to him, a connection, it gets taken away from him
and yet unlike dazai, he doesn't give in to despair
and i think that might be one of the reasons dazai finds him interesting enough to care about. because chuuya actively challenges the way he sees life itself just by doing his own thing. he doesn't go out of his way to talk dazai into seeing value in life, and i think this is the sort of language dazai has an easier time speaking
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Do we just keep telling the same story forever? Meta on OFMD S1E7 "This is Happening"
In this S1E7, two characters--Ed and Jim--have to answer a simple question: Am I ready to tell a diferent story?
At the start of the episode, Ed's framing his time on Stede's ship as "sitting idle." He's thinking about preparing for the next adventure, whatever that may be--the next chapter in a story he knows and understands. Because there are rules. A ship has only one captain.
When Stede tries to prove that Ed can tell the next chapter in that story without leaving the Revenge, Ed is pretty unapologetic in his disdain. But he does come along, even while moaning and complaining.
And Stede's just trying to tell the same story, too. What he imagines a pirate's tale is supposed to be, not what it actually is. He doesn't recognize the difference between nonsense and truth, he's so caught up in "entertaining" Ed that he doesn't realize he needs to feed Ed.
But in fairness to Stede, Ed has a poor grip on what he really wants as well. When he fantasizes as he flirts with Stede, he's not imagining a swashbuckling adventure. He's imagining opening a restaurant. He's half in his old life, and half out.
Lucius, the unemotional observer, figures all this out of course.
He sees that Ed is absolutely very receptive to Stede, and that Stede is crazy about Ed. But Ed is caught up in who he's been, without seriously considering how to move forward in this story he's in now. So Lucius confronts Ed. He points out that Ed's story as it is going now ends one way: pain and loneliness. And he asks if Ed wants that.
Stede didn't want Ed to leave, so he told a story about treasure hunting. And Ed doesn't want to leave and be alone again, so he tells the story too. And by telling that story together, Ed and Stede find their way to the same place: beginning a new chapter. Imagining a life they can live together, without devaluing or overwriting anything that came before.
It sounds nice, although it's shallow (Ed's not going to be happy as a pirate, Stede is bad at telling this pirate's story and he'll never be a successful traditional pirate). But it's still a hopeful story, because they're still moving forward. Right on the edge of telling a different story.
And resolving in the opposite direction is Jim's plot. Jim's story is relentlessly upbeat and funny in this ep, but it's a tragedy through and through. Jim, like Ed, is half in their old life and half out. Has been with Olu for more than a year, without actually doing anything, while keeping him at a distance.
And it turns out they were "raised by a nun to be a killing machine." That Nana projected all her own trauma and righteousness onto Jim, and passed cruel judgement when Jim says that they already killed "the only one that matters." When Jim suggests that they might have moved on, and be ready to tell another story.
Jim regresses in this episode. They let Olu walk away instead of telling a new story with him, one where he's their family. They take the petrified orange as a sign that they should go back to being who Nana told them they were, to being obsessed with revenge. But really, it's more like a warning of what they'll become if they cling to the same old story.
It's sad. And it's a painful foreshadowing of what awaits Ed and Stede when they falter on the path forward, when they think their past defines their future. When they tell someone else's story, instead of their own.
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I know the brainrot is strong but I really can’t shake the idea that Ed&Stede are gonna get married - whether it’ll be in this season or the next.
Because… just imagine if they’d keep the wedding toppers that Ed stole.
(I mean Stede would probably cry out of the sheer wave of emotions that would hit him as soon as he’d find out about them… come on, the guy couldn’t even decide on a flag and instead hung all of his crew’s designs up like a dad who pins his kids’ drawings to the fridge)
And eventually there would be a parallel shot of the time Ed stole them from the straights to “current day” where the painted versions are sitting on a brand new wedding cake and as the camera zooms out we see them at an improvised altar on the Revenge, holding hands and smiling like the goofy head-over-heals in love idiots that they are.
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Maybe we’re getting a protagonist switch. Maybe Dazai will be Chuuya’s Oda
Hm well. They don't have that kind of dynamic (and Chuuya doesn't really need that kind of push that Odasaku gave Dazai) and Dazai isn't the protagonist... but it would be kind of interesting if injuring Dazai (if not outright killing him) would be the event that would kickstart more focus in the main manga on Chuuya and the whole "his will not be an easy path". I previously thought something would have to happen with Mori (I still kind of think that) but this might just be enough to get the ball rolling.
I actually theorized months ago that having Dazai "die" temporarily might be interesting from a story standpoint and for what it means for our characters. If Chuuya believed that he killed him? YIKES. I can't see him handling that well, though no doubt, he'll push his feelings down and soldier on. Perhaps this could set up some Atsushi and Chuuya interactions? Pretty please?
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