nevelearie

[nevelearie]

Hi everyone,

I found an interesting article about nose, ears and throat problems may be linked to autism. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

A new study finds that young children experiencing recurring ear and upper respiratory problems may be at greater risk of receiving an autism diagnosis later on. The findings could shed more light on the origins of the neurodevelopmental disorder.

There is no single cause for autism. Instead, scientists believe it is a combination of genetic, environmental, and biological factors. Autism is called a spectrum disorder because it affects individuals in different ways and to varying degrees. Previous research into the origins of autism has pointed out a relationship between the condition and ear, nose, and throat (ENT) issues such as ear infections, “glue ear,” and sleep-disordered breathing.

I’ll leave the article down below so that anyone can read it. I hope many of you found this interesting and informative.

Autism Awareness Month

[nevelearie]

hello kiku. wondering if this may be autism regression

i'm finding harder to do "normal" things, deal with loud noises, talk to people, do basic things like shower or teeth. will go through week long low talking periods, and will have shorter no talking periods almost every day. then parents get angry and i go back to "normal" but w/ severe distress and discomfort and fatigue and still can't do some stuff.

sorry if this is hard to understand and sorry if this question is rude or unwarranted, feel free to not answer

Yeah that sounds like it to me. Autistic regression also often happens alongside autistic burnout.

Autistic regression is when you lose skills you previously had, the amount of time it last depends on a lot of factors.

Autistic burnout is when you have less tolerance for sensory input, less energy for things especially if they aren't related to special interests, tiredness, ect.

Both of these things generally occur because needs aren't being met, that could be lack of accommodations, having too much you have to do, not enough rest, not having sensory needs met, ect.

And then other things come into play.

In Kiku's case Kiku's apraxia doesn't just make speech hard, it makes all motor skill related things hard. When Kiku is burnt out or beginning to get burnt out Kiku gets stuck in motor loops more often (repeating an action and not being able to stop, it's different from tics though.

Kiku's tics are jerky and erratic and generally random unless triggered, but Kiku's motor loops are smoother, and repetitive in a different way than Kiku's tics, and they generally aren't random (they are usually whatever Kiku was doing, so making a sound or doing a certain movement, just more times than intended).

Kiku's sensory issues get worse and are more easily triggered.

Ect.

Regression and burnout in autism often occur together. Regression is related to skills (speech, washing your hands, tying shoes, ect) and burnout affects energy levels, sensory tolerance, stress tolerance, and other things.

But yeah it sounds like you are dealing with regression and possibly burnout.

"Normal" things are harder to do because you're needs aren't being met. Not having your needs met makes it hard to do other things.

It's probably going to be a good idea to get access to an aac app, because communication is the goal. Removing stress from needing to talk can help reduce speech loss.

Also try to figure out what you're sensory issues are and accommodate them, however you can.

Kiku wouldn't have made it through highschool if Kiku hadn't snuck ear buds and an mp3 player into school and listened to it while working and sometimes the teachers just let us listen to music.

Also small stim/fidget toys can help. Anything that will fit in your pocket.

Of course be safe. If it will get you in trouble that's not helpful.

If you have any other disabilities, try to figure out accommodations that will help with that.

Because autism affects how your brain is wired, things that aren't related to autism can still affect and be affected by autistic burnout and regression, so it's important to take everything into consideration. Of course this takes time, and since you are stuggling it might take longer.

The best course of action would probably be to get an IEP if you can. Or just talk to your teachers and parents and see if they can accommodate you. Kiku didn't have the knowledge to do this, so everything that Kiku did was sneaky 😅

If you don't journal that might be a good thing to do, and make a list of what you deal with and what might help. Of course if it's overwhelming, start with one or two things, like a specific sensory issue or a specific problem.

But it's also good to figure out what is caused this and not just treat the things that are happening because of it (are you overworked? Do your parents not understand and are to hard on you? Are you dealing with internalised ableism and not accommodating yourself? Do you not know how to accommodate yourself?, Ect). There is often underlying causes that you might not be able to see right away.

Speech regression in autistic teens and young adults is really common, like really common. Kiku is one who deals with this and Kiku has met others. It's so common that Kiku has heard of SLPs just going "oh yeah that happens a lot". But it's not openly talked about much.

If you want to know more about AAC and speech loss/regresson/speech and language disability specific stuff feel free to send in another ask.

[nevelearie]

Analysis of BSD Tanizaki (Character and Theories) in Reference to Real Life Tanizaki Jun’ichirou

By popular demand of (1) person in the comments of a post I’ve made briefly touching on this subject, I have compiled all of my thoughts on the portrayal of Tanizaki Jun’ichirou—and by extension, Naomi—in Bungou Stray Dogs in reference to the works of the real life Tanizaki Jun’ichirou-sensei (who I’ll be calling Tanizaki-sensei to differentiate from his fictional counterpart). Disclaimer that I don’t have the academic background to write as an expert on this subject. I will be citing all of my sources in the text.

Tanizaki-sensei (1886-1965) was an author who was well known for writing about sexual obsession and fetishes, and the exploration of Japanese versus Western culture in his works. His female characters were particularly reputable for having strong personalities (drawing upon the dofuku - “poisonous woman” or femme fatale troupe), and frequently fulfilled the domineering role in sadomasochistic relationships with men. This recurring theme is most likely the basis for Tanizaki and Naomi’s relationship in Bungou Stray Dogs.

In a similar vein, motifs such as dreaming, delusions, and fantasies (oftentimes of the erotic nature) frequently appear in Tanizaki-sensei’s works. This could be the basis for Tanizaki’s illusion projection ability, “Light Snow”, which is named after Tanizaki-sensei’s great novel, Sasameyuki (1948), also known as The Makioka Sisters, the title of the English translation, which was changed due to the nuance of the original title being difficult to convey in English. 

Going on a slight tangent here, Tanizaki-sensei also wrote a handful of works depicting blindness, such as A Portrait of Shunkin (1933) and A Blind Man’s Tale (1931). In these works, blindness can be interpreted as a metaphor for blind devotion and obsessive worship of one’s love interest, even to the point of martyrdom. For example, in A Portrait of Shunkin (1933), the character Sasuke destroys his own eyesight for his vain mistress, who did not want to be seen after an incident destroys her beauty. Tanizaki and Naomi’s deep affection for each other is reminiscent of these themes (Tanizaki’s willingness to throw away his morals for Naomi, Naomi taking gunfire in Tanizaki’s place).

Unfortunately, we aren’t given any other concrete pieces of information about Tanizaki or Naomi that can be reliably connected to something in regards to the real life author…

Keep reading

[nevelearie]

The thing to remember about plurality is that it’s not, like, an objectively real fact, there’s no material aspect to it. You can’t cut into a person’s brain an identify “ah yes this bit is the host and this bit is the defender and this bit is the little,” there aren’t literally a bunch of little people in your head. Whether or not you’re “really” plural really just comes down to whether conceptualizing yourself as a system of distinct entities is helpful for dealing with the difficulties you’re having. It’s true if it’s useful. Before I conceptualized my violent intrusive thoughts as coming from the combat angel in my head trying to protect me, I didn’t have any way of making them stop if they were happening at an inopportune moment. Nowadays if someone makes me feel threatened and my head fills up with images of doing harm to them, and that phenomenon happening is distracting me from whatever I’m trying to do, I can just ask Veronica “hey, could ya chill out? I’m trying to focus here” and she DOES. Is there “really” a girl in my head who gets angry on my behalf when someone’s mean to me? Well, she listens when I ask her to calm down, so I guess there fuckin is. It’s true because it’s useful.

[nevelearie]

Chapter 105.5 Thoughts: Control, Manipulation and Partnership

Or, how Chuuya is actually the most qualified character to land a victory over Dostoevsky.

I just want to preface this with: I think Chuuya has woken from the brainwashing. We can't see his eyes, he's holding his hat again, and look at the progression of his face and expression from the last few chapters with him (these are in order btw from left to right).

I'm not completely sure how he did this, but I chalk a lot of it up to sheer stubborn determination on Chuuya's part, mostly because it's funny and he was clearly fighting back before Dazai's speech. However, I find it likely the speech did contain some kind of code - others have pointed out how "Goodbye!" might be a reference to the original author's last unfinished book and we know skk's codenames for things generally are based off their real counterparts' works so, maybe he'd already broken out of it, maybe there was something in there that gave him the final push - who knows at this point honestly? Either way, it means Chuuya had the capacity to break out of the vampire curse on his own and that's incredibly funny to me for many reasons but mostly:

Fyodor: "Bold of you to assume Chuuya's ability can't overcome flooding."

Dazai: "Bold of you to assume Chuuya's personality can't overcome brainwashing."

But really, this highlights something interesting here, both in what Chuuya's role is ultimately intended to be in this arc, and in the way Fyodor and Dazai manipulate and value others in very different ways.

I've said it before but it bears repeating: we already know that Fyodor is an excellent long-term planner, while Dazai is effectively able to counter him because Dazai shifts into thinking like his opponent. They're foil characters for a reason; they're both highly intelligent, manipulative, and willing to play the long game for the sake of winning against their opponent.

Thing is, I also stand by the idea that personality-wise, they're not similar at all - and that has serious implications for the people they are connected with. The build-up to the prison escape arc really highlights this. Some examples:

Chapter 46: Fyodor believes that all people are sinful and foolish and that his goal is to remove sin. Dazai believes that all people are sinful and foolish but asks what's so wrong with that.

Chapter 64: They decide to have a "super-happy chit-chat" about their problems. Dazai's solution to Fyodor's issue with his lazy subordinates is to get them to think lazing around is a bad thing so they will put in effort of their own. Fyodor's solution to Dazai being unable to woo the waitress is to isolate her from her job, house and family so that she can only rely on Dazai.

Chapter 77: Fyodor believes god is perfection and harmony, and thus that the people capable of change are the superior ones with most control. Dazai believes god is the accidental and illogical and believes it is the ordinary people who fight and live in that uncertainty who create the greatest change.

So, what's happening here? Fyodor's manipulation is shown to be very exacting and direct. He leaves no room for error and regards people on a hierarchy - God above all, himself as a servant of God's will, and the sinful and foolish humans he has little regard for. Dazai's manipulation involves manipulation of the situation, and is often indirect. It involves people coming to the conclusion he intends for them to on their own. And from his later dialogue with Sigma, we see he doesn't regard the world in that same kind of hierarchy.

Now, look at the way Fyodor picks an item and Dazai picks a person when starting the game. Look at the way Fyodor refers to Chuuya respectfully but brainwashes him entirely and mocks Dazai for not being worthy of "using" his ability. Look at the way Dazai is a complete ass to Chuuya but ultimately lets him make his own choices (begging people to take note of that moment in Stormbringer where Dazai cuts himself off to correct his referring to Corruption as Arahabaki's true power to Chuuya's true power).

So, the actual strength Dazai has over Dostoevsky then, is not really his strength at all, it's the strength of others and their choice and willpower to act in the way they believe is best. It's the only means of getting a leg up on Dostoevsky, otherwise they will continue to go around and around in circles forever.

And Chuuya is the best candidate for finally throwing Fyodor off his game.

Firstly, let's just establish something: no matter how mad he is at Dazai, he's not going to side with Fyodor, not willingly. Fyodor threatened the Mafia in the Cannibalism arc by attacking Mori, first of all. I doubt he's forgiven him for that. Secondly, Fyodor embodies everything Chuuya can't stand about Dazai, at the very least, younger Dazai - the manipulation, the lack of consideration and connection with others, the callousness and lack of regard for life.

Well, perhaps he's not quite as irritating. +1 point for Dostoevsky I guess?

But lastly, it is more advantageous for Chuuya at this point to help fight against Fyodor, especially since most of the Mafia has been vampirized by his organization. Helping the Agency stop the terrorist plot will help the Mafia by extension by undoing that. And we know from Stormbringer that no matter how much Chuuya is personally hurt, he considers taking out the threat to his people a higher priority. Always.

(You could make the argument that he was told whatever Teruko told Atsushi and decided to join, but not only do I find this wildly out of character, but if that was the case then there would've been no reason to brainwash him.)

That said, I don't think this was preemptive "Dazai's master plan #3057", and in fact, I stand by the idea that Dazai had no idea Chuuya was going to be in the prison. It is very, very important to me that for the rest of this arc, no matter what Chuuya does, that his actions are his own. Not Fyodor's, not Dazai's, but his. And not just because I hate that he's being controlled right now and that freedom of choice has always been important for Chuuya.

But because it makes narrative sense.

The vampires are a bit silly, yes, but they represent the way Fyodor and Fukuchi think - humanity will commit atrocities. They cannot be trusted to make their own decisions. They want to make a world that is free by... mind-controlling people so their plans work without a hitch. In short, they choose, on behalf of others, to sacrifice human autonomy for peace. So, if we are going to turn this arc around, we need to have characters breaking out of that control and thinking for themselves, in spite of the uncertainty of the outcome.

We already see this with Atsushi in the last chapter! He finally takes initiative and makes that choice to leave the room when he doesn't exactly know what the right thing to do is. And this is also why I don't think Teruko is wholly convinced by the DoA either - she lets him go. She gives him the freedom to choose what he does with that information.

Another one of the focus characters here is Sigma. Sigma is a guy who has no past, whose humanity is questioned, who keeps being used by organizations for his valuable ability, who has no home but desperately wants one... oh wait. Remind you of anyone's younger self? This could go one of two ways: Chuuya fails to assert his autonomy, leaving Sigma to learn from that failure, or, Chuuya succeeds in asserting his autonomy, leaving Sigma to learn from his success.

I think it, by necessity, has to be the latter. Sigma's at a tipping point right now, and I think seeing someone try to assert their freedom only to fail would damage him greatly. And I think it's a waste of Chuuya's character honestly.

Chuuya needs to assert his autonomy in this arc. Not just for thematic reasons but because I can think of no one else who can effectively break the "super-genius stalemate".

I keep hearing "Dazai knows Chuuya" in response to Fyodor calling their bond shallow, and that is absolutely true! But Chuuya also knows Dazai. Incredibly well. Odasaku knew Dazai's soul, but Chuuya knows Dazai's mind, knows his strategies and ways of thinking without even needing words. What's more, Chuuya has thrown off Dazai before and done what he didn't expect him to.

Which is nifty, because Dazai and Fyodor think a lot alike. Chuuya is in a unique position to thwart Dostoevsky because he may actually be able to predict him to a degree. Chuuya can absolutely land a victory against him, and it's excellent because it would be completely unexpected to Fyodor, who apparently thinks Chuuya's strength lies only in what his ability has to offer and not much else.

But listen. This also can't be skk's plan. I need Chuuya to sideline both of them. Both for the sweet, sweet catharsis of putting those two idiot geniuses in their places and also because I need Dazai to have screwed up. He wasn't wrong about people making their own choices in uncertainty. People need to assert their autonomy to create change. Dazai can't be wrong in this regard.

But with going ahead with the trap to drown Fyodor despite also having to drown Chuuya when he promised not to let him get killed... this needs to have been a mistake, otherwise the value of Dazai's emotional speech to him is diminished.

I want Dazai to try to laugh it off. I want him to say he always knew Chuuya would escape and then for Chuuya to deck him because "no, the fuck you didn't".

I really think Dazai hoped Chuuya would make it. Do remember that Chuuya was one of the first reasons young Dazai decided to try giving life a chance. The fact that he flashbacked to all his key memories with Chuuya says a lot. But his survival was no guarantee and it seemed very unlikely.

So, Chuuya is faced with the fact that Dazai nearly sacrificed him to kill Dostoevsky and save his new Agency friends.

And I hope he finally gets mad. I hope he finally expresses hurt on his own behalf for once. I hope they are forced to break their status quo that they have carefully maintained by not talking about anything ever. I hope they are pushed to uncomfortable places and that it is Chuuya who finally spurs this development.

Let Chuuya break the stalemate between Dazai and Dostoevsky. Let him shatter the status quo that him and Dazai have kept going for year after year.

Autonomous action in the face of uncertainty is necessary for change.

[nevelearie]

do i write better at 4am in the morning or is that just because my assignment deadline is closer

[nevelearie]

Hey if you're not physically disabled and just ND, please don't say "cr*ppling," or any variations thereon, since it's ableist toward physically disabled people. "Disabling," and "incapacitating," are two better words to use instead.

(It took me a while to figure it out; anon was bothered by this post.)

Okay, sure, I’ll try to do that. That said, I want to encourage people engaged in anti-ableism efforts that take the form of asking people not to use certain words to put their energies elsewhere. Firstly, I think they make the disability advocacy community inaccessible to a lot of people, since having to relearn which words are “allowed” is overwhelming and particularly difficult for people who have limited access to words in the first place.

Secondly, every time I’ve seen this implemented it…hasn’t made anyone less ableist? People who scrupulously remove “crazy” from their vocabulary in favor of “irrational” still treat the people they’re talking about like unpersons. Often the recommended replacement words are just as good at suggesting “less valuable person” as the words they replaced. I think there’s some value in asking “does our use of words surrounding disability to mean ‘bad thing’ come from a place of treating disabled people like tragedies?” and often it does, but that doesn’t mean that challenging that mindset is as easy as changing out the words. Thirdly, I think it emphasizes the wrong concerns. I saw a newspaper headline the other day saying “the president’s plan will be a crippling blow to the economy” and one about the “crippling burden of student debt”. I’d think that the fact the president’s plan includes making it harder to get SSI, or the fact disabled students are way less likely to graduate and likelier to end up in debt, is a much more urgent problem than the turn of phrase used in the headline. 

Lastly, it seems like the anti-words advocacy often pretends at a false consensus in disability activism. There are physically disabled people who are bothered by that newspaper headline and those who are not. There are mentally ill people who are bothered by use of crazy and some who couldn’t care less. But no one ever says “hey, that word bothers me personally because people have used it to be mean to me”, they say “it’s ableist towards physically disabled people,” as if all physically disabled people agree on this (or as if the ones who disagree are just obviously confused poor souls and don’t merit a mention). “There are physically disabled people who dislike the phrase ‘crippling anxiety’ and there are physically disabled people who don’t care and there are physically disabled people who have, themselves, described their anxiety as crippling” is much more accurate, but less compelling.

[nevelearie]

neurotypical feminism

A couple people reblogged my brief complaint about neurotypical feminism yesterday to say “yes, someone finally described the thing” and a couple other people reblogged it to say “huh, what?” so I thought I’d expand on the thing.

An advice columnist tells a man with crippling social anxiety that an anxiety disorder is nowhere near as bad as being a woman, so “get a fucking grip and do not come to feminist blogs for comfort about this issue.”

Some people say “#yesallwomen experience street harassment and fear of men!” A woman says “as a visibly disabled autistic person, I’m desexualized and treated like a genderless unperson. and, no, I don’t experience street harassment and I’m not hit on.” Another woman says “as someone who was abused by women, I feel much more comfortable around men than around women. Women scare me. Men don’t.”  They are ignored, or yelled at for derailing.

Making fun of men for dressing badly, struggling with hygiene and being socially awkward is okay, even though disabled women who struggle with the same things keep on saying “when you joke that way about disabled men, I feel unsafe.”

An autistic woman talks about how her disability gives her some strengths in her field and a perspective on it that isn’t represented in sexism in STEM conversations. She argues that listening to autistic women in tech might make us better at fixing the gender gap. A bunch of people explain to her that she is femmephobic and has internalized misogyny and just wants to say “I’ve got mine, so screw you”. 

I feel like these have a thing in common. That thing is winning political points with the suggestion that your opponents are disabled, as if that’s good for women. That thing is dismissal, erasure and contempt directed at any women whose experiences don’t fit the narratives, experiences that are specifically often not shared by disabled and non-NT women. That thing is an insistence that the harms to disabled and non-NT people (through advocacy that erases and dismisses them) is negligible compared to the harms done by misogyny to abled NT women, and that complaining about this is therefore itself a form of misogyny. That thing is the repeated insistence that asking feminists to accommodate disabled people and especially people with anxiety or scrupulosity disorders is an unfair and sexist demand for emotional labor. 

If the failure of NT feminism is ignoring anyone whose narrative doesn’t fit, we’d fail just as badly in the opposite direction if we generalized about all disabled and non-NT people. And I’m sure there are some who are reading this post and going “no, haven’t noticed that”, and their experiences are real and valid too. But there are quite a few disabled and non-NT people whose experience of sexism is strongly shaped by their neurotype. And many are not comfortable in a space where “haha does your mom do your laundry” and “don’t use your crippling social anxiety as an excuse, it’s not that bad” are common. Or where womanhood is defined and fought for as a collection of experiences that we don’t share. 

[nevelearie]

HAPPY NEW YEAR

[nevelearie]

so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god

#for my gacha pulls

[nevelearie]

what i read in sept/oct 2022:

(previous editions) bold = favourite

class, race, & labour

socialism for the rich

farmed: why were so many black children fostered by white families in the uk?

blunt-force ethnic credibility (via @noodledesk)

gender, sexuality, & intersectionality

what ethiopia can teach the us about abortion rights

saying goodbye to my chest

she helped expose girls do porn, but she can never outrun what it did to her

what #metoo changed in hollywood—and what it didn’t

politics & current affairs

from temples to offshore trusts, a hunt for cambodia’s looted heritage leads to top museums (pandora papers)

google is quietly providing ai technology for drone strike targeting project

welcome to demokrasi (türkiye)

more bullets, more bloodshed (haiti)

meth is turning fiji from a tropical paradise into a narco’s playground

behold, emperor xi (china)

the world’s newest republic (barbados)

history, culture, & media

france’s nuclear colonial legacy in algeria

the utopian machine

does tiktok empower autistic people or pigeonhole them?

unboxing, bad baby and evil santa: how youtube got swamped with creepy kids content

[nevelearie]

happy first of december

[nevelearie]

The thing with Tanizaki Junichirou is that he isn’t boring, we just know next to nothing about him and why he’s the way he is. We know that he doesn’t consider himself brave, and that he claims that his ability isn’t suited for combat, which is actually severely underplaying his talents, if not an outright lie, because Light Snow absolutely is useful in combat, though we’re rarely shown this in practice, because Tanizaki tends to avoid direct combat. Unless Naomi is threatened, in which case he’d literally burn the world down to keep her safe.

credit to easygoingscans

Disregarding the squicky nature of their implicit relationship for a moment, Tanizaki’s devotion towards Naomi borders on obsessive, surpassing the extent of that which could be normal between either siblings or lovers. We can only speculate what kind of upbringing would have caused this.

We only really see glimpses of Tanizaki’s true capacity a few times. But it’s not just his ability that’s downright terrifying (crashing a civilian truck into Steinbeck, almost assassinating Mori during cannibalism), but his personality too. Tanizaki is always teetering on the edge of morality; he makes the conscious choice to be on the side of good, but he canonically offered to join the Port Mafia in Yosano’s place, which says a lot about what kind of person Tanizaki is. That’s not the kind of offer anyone could make if they were truly opposed to committing atrocities. Rather, Tanizaki making this offer is telling of the idea that although he understands where the line between right and wrong lies, he wouldn’t have second thoughts about crossing it, given a half decent reason.

I could argue than Tanizaki has roughly the same amount of ethical integrity as Dazai, that is to say, none at all. Their employment at the Armed Detective Agency happens to be a result of their conscious choice to be morally upright, in contrast to someone like Kunikida, who could probably never offer to join the Port Mafia, even if it were for the sake of an friend, due to his strict moral code.

Despite all of this, we know nothing about what made Tanizaki this way. We know that he used to be a student alongside Naomi, but that’s about it. Tanizaki’s innocuous previous profession tends to misdirect our thoughts away from reading deeply into Tanizaki. It creates an illusion of normalcy, you could say. But, upon second glance, it’s bizarre that Tanizaki could get written off as boring or simple, by both the characters in the story, and by us, the readers.

I think there is a lot of shots in the dark I could make at what kind of tragic backstory Tanizaki has been keeping secret, but I am going to conclude this post on an open ended note: What is Tanizaki hiding?

[nevelearie]

Genuinely don't think I've seen anyone talk about chapter 25 as a pivotal moment for Dazai so I'm gonna put this out here because I think his reactions here kind of negate that whole omnipotent Dazai interpretation which I hate with every fibre of my being.

Firstly, he's like, clearly caught off guard here. And don't try to tell me he wasn't, because this is just one instance of his genuinely horrified reaction to Q's release and when he realized what was actually going on with Atsushi, Naomi and Haruno.

Him being caught off guard carries significance here because you'd never catch him screwing up this bad later in the series - which is exactly my point.

I wrote a post earlier about how I don't think Dazai really is very much like Mori or Fyodor at all, and I stand by that, because their motives are different. Tldr for that post: Mori and Fyodor are ambitious and proactive, while Dazai is empty/numb and reactive.

What this leads me to believe is that Dazai is less a chess master like those two and more of a contingency planner - he's so good at "predicting" because he is uncannily good at thinking like his opponent and then planning for literally any possibility under the sun he can come up with. He's no gambler. Everything and everyone is practically (and unknowingly) micromanaged. It's almost paranoid in a sense, and I definitely think it's a trauma response to something he went through that we don't know about yet - after all, he was more than capable of this before he even met Mori.

...which brings to me to Mori's influence here. It's straight up like Dazai forgot how willing Mori is to gamble huge risks for a good outcome. It's like he forgot the mafia could be a real threat to his best-laid plans.

Going to throw out a wild claim here that I don't think is actually all that baseless - I think it's widely assumed that Dazai molds himself to what he needs to be (true!) but I think this misses the idea that he is also easily influenced by the mindsets of the people around him (see: the difference between Entrance Exam Dazai and early manga Dazai, the whole "the longer he was in the mafia the darker and more incomprehensible he became" thing from Stormbringer, how dark his eyes get in the prison sections with Fyodor, etc.). I could go on, but for the sake of not making this post too much longer, let's assume this is true because it suddenly makes sense as to why he failed to predict Q but predicted other events much later that were inherently more difficult to predict:

He was in the wrong mindset. He was thinking like an Agency member, and dare I say, he even got a little complacent. He started to get used to not having to manipulate every last variable - he was removed from a toxic environment - only for Mori to pretty much instantly fuck that up in one scene.

Let's also not forget what happened the last time he miscalculated Mori's intentions.

The consequences of this blunder could've been a lot worse and he knows it.

In his mind, thinking like an ADA member wasn't good enough to stop a potentially awful outcome - awful outcomes that could bring him pain. So, he goes back to what he knows - think like the demon prodigy. Think like Mori. Later on, think like Dostoyevsky. Because it seems to me that he believes as long as he is still working for the light that it doesn't matter if he uses these horrifically manipulative and inhumane methods of getting there. But he is wrong. Darkness within the context of good intentions is still very much darkness, and it hurts people all the same.

In the very next chapter, Dazai arranges Ango's car accident. And he only gets worse and worse throughout the series as he regresses back into his paranoid darkness that manifests as this omnipotent facade - his safety net that ultimately prevents him from developing in a positive, more human direction.

[nevelearie]

akatsuki mvs because i dont create youtube playlists

「月下無双、紅の舞」 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEDUMyTtCZE)

「紅月いろは唄」 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzXJ3qDSryY)

「薄紅色の約束」 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqp-YeUTvE0)

「百花繚乱、紅月夜」 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTgVWlNAqoI)

「祭夜絵巻」 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JGrysl7flQ)

「斬 -決意ノ刃-」 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5FNODMnwv0)

BONUS: UNDEAD × 紅月「PERFECTLY-IMPERFECT」 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE4lFyA1h1o)

[nevelearie]

a list of translation archives of stories sena izumi is in HAH.

ballet (https://web.archive.org/web/20210817205557/https://ensemble-stars.fandom.com/wiki/Ballet/Epilogue)

dance on ice (https://web.archive.org/web/20210817154518/https://ensemble-stars.fandom.com/wiki/Dance_on_Ice/Chapter_1)

butterfly: (https://web.archive.org/web/20210817235901/https://ensemble-stars.fandom.com/wiki/Butterfly)

book fair (https://web.archive.org/web/20210818001819/https://ensemble-stars.fandom.com/wiki/Book_Fair)

duel (https://web.archive.org/web/20210817184849/https://ensemble-stars.fandom.com/wiki/Duel)

butterfly [event: dream of the butterfly] (https://web.archive.org/web/20210817235901/https://ensemble-stars.fandom.com/wiki/Butterfly)

horror night halloween (https://web.archive.org/web/20210817221253/https://ensemble-stars.fandom.com/wiki/Horror_Night_Halloween)

soirée in the canary hall [event: the songbird's song] (https://web.archive.org/web/20210826181836/https://ensemble-stars.fandom.com/wiki/Soir%C3%A9e_in_the_Canary_Hall)

checkmate [event: reminiscence - monochrome checkmate] (aka knights' backstory!!!!!) (https://web.archive.org/web/20210818145700/https://ensemble-stars.fandom.com/wiki/Checkmate)

and finally... Requiem. THE ONE AND ONLY. https://web.archive.org/web/20210817215501/http://ensemble-stars.fandom.com/wiki/Requiem

#enstars #izumi sena

[nevelearie]

;Where to read Enstars! Mainstory/Events/Scouts stories

Because I am a bit bored today and doesn't have the motivation to get back writing, I decided to share this a little information where you can read the Ensemble stars english translations that were taken down due to some copy-right and shit. I am fully aware that some of you must be absolutely devasted as hell, especially the newcomers who is still new to Ensemble stars. You will be grateful for the assistance I am about to give you, saving you the time it would take to search Enstars english translation, Anyhow- shall we get started fellas?

(1) Okay, In order to find the English translations, you must first search "Wayback Machine" this is where you are going to be able to read the translations (You can also read Enstars!! here, however the translations hasn't been finished because it got removed)

(2) Once you are on the website, the next step is you should do is search for "Ensemble stars wiki fandom" the english one okay? not that one from japanese one etc. Ehem- after you've done the search, the next thing you got to do is copy the link

(3) After that, you simply need to paste the link into to the search bar like in the image above. Then, for obvious reasons, you must click "Browse History."

(4) The moment you click it, you will be directed to this. It will display the years, months, and days that the Enstars fans updated the English wiki, along with any translations.

Step Five: Click the year 2021

(5) Scroll down to August, after that. the next thing you have to do click is day 18.

(6) Once you click the day 18, you will see this. then the next thing you have to click again is- 00:33:08. Please click the top option, okay??

(7) Blah, Blah, Blah. Once you've clicked '00:33:08' this will appear on your screen, click story, then click Ensemle stars(!) or Ensemble Strars(!!) Then it will show the mainstory, Event & Scout story and so forth. At that point, you could read the entire english translation of Enstars! with your heart contents, there is no need to struggle and hurriedly seek the translations on Google, pretty neat :DD

It will show you this when you clicked the Main Story

And then it will show you this if you clicked the Event & Scout story, all events and scouts are complete in Ensemble Stars! I think? Oh and btw you can read the Reminiscence event or scout in "Timeline"

(Note): That's all I have for now. I hope this was helpful and that I was able to explain it well. Let me know if you have any more questions. Please feel free to enquire in my blog. Goodbye!

(Edited Note): In all honesty, you don't need to follow all of these steps considering that I've provided the Link, Lmao. How stupid of me~ By the way, when you have a poor wifi connection, Way Back Machine frequently takes a long time to load. therefore I advise you that you need to have a high-speed internet connection.