#Arahabaki is a largely forgotten and mysterious deity so I just did a lot of storytelling with the bits of info we are given!

[chaosbled]

Headcanon time!

If Chuuya buys something that turns out not to be what he wanted/expected, is he the sort of person to return it for a refund or does it just count his losses and buy something else instead?

What is Ara's biggest vice? Does it impact or interfere with his life in a negative way?

1.

Okay, this took me forever to answer but only because it actually touches on a big part of my portrayal of Chuuya, that being that he hates waste, & tends to be extremely responsible with his money, at least when it comes to buying things for himself. For starters, growing up on the streets from age 7-15, he obviously didn’t have money practically ever. He’s learned to budget very well, he knows where every dollar he makes goes and has multiple bank accounts and budgets for all aspects of his life be it recreational, culinary, wardrobe, work expenses he eventually gets compensated for, and even investments and savings that he never touches.

Also a product of his upbringing, he saw just how wasteful people can be. Millions of yen worth of food gets tossed out in Yokohama every year, just from the restaurant / grocer industry alone, which doesn’t include private residences. He saw that. He’s dug through dumpsters behind popular restaurants before, found packages of food one day passed expiration that hasn’t even gone bad yet, and kept his Sheep fed with it on many occasions growing up. Because of that, Chuuya has a few hang ups that could be considered virtuous by some, or unhealthy by others, depending on how you look at it.

Chuuya doesn’t throw food away if he can help it. It happens maybe twice a year, usually only when he’s very busy and doesn’t pay enough attention to what’s in his cupboards. He’s a busy man as one of only two currently active Executives doing field work at the moment ( hi Verlaine in the basement, rest in piss Ace ). He does a lot of meal prep for the sake of saving time, so already he buys food in certain quantities and portions it out. If on the off chance he has food in his fridge he knows he won’t finish before it will go bad or he ends up not liking it? He donates it. He’s an adventurous cook and loves to try new recipes, but he doesn’t always like everything he gets, so once a month he’ll bring a few big bags of snacks plus perishable food items down to the local homeless shelter. They know and trust him by now, but if for some reason it’s something they can’t accept legally due to it being open or something, he’ll bring it to work and leave in the break room for his colleagues to help themselves.

Long story short, he was extremely food insecure growing up and it’s honestly a contributing factor in his history of disordered eating, so he doesn’t throw away food unless it’s inedible / dangerous. He doesn’t hoard food, he won’t hold onto something he knows he can’t use, but he won’t toss it if it’s still good and someone can make use of it. The same thing applies to other purchases. He gets a lot of luxury brand clothing and some of that stuff has no returns or exchanges in their policy. If he can’t get a refund, he donates it or gives it to someone he knows can use it. Whether it’s food, clothes, furniture or electronics, if it’s something that can reasonably be made use of by another person, he’ll rehome it because he knows what it’s like to see people throw away things that kids like him could have really used growing up and he thinks it’s an irresponsible waste to toss out good food. If he were religious, he’d even call it a sin.

2.

Oh boy, ARA. My baby. My little trash demon of a god. My first instinct is usually to say his biggest vice, if we’re going classic vices versus virtues, is wrath. He’s wrathful. Just like his father Susanoo-no-Mikoto, he’s rebellious at heart, but he was never a bad or wicked god until his relatives began pushing that image onto him. He used to be a deity of metalwork, protection, seafaring and foreigners ( immigrants ). He can heal the sick and cure or ease ailments of the lower body, especially the legs, but also the eyes. Many blacksmiths suffered facial and eye injuries in their work so some sources even say he could cure eye illnesses and diseases.

He only became wrathful after losing the faith of the people that worshiped him as the old religion was pushed out in favour of the more modern syncretism between Shintoism and Buddhism. Having his family turn on him and losing his sphere of influence, worship wise, did a number on his mental state. That’s when he started inserting himself into wars and conflicts, mostly out of spite for his family whose kin were often on the front lines, but also curiosity over humans. His first real act of wrath and the moment that led to him getting expelled from his aunt’s kingdom was when he empowered the opposing side in Emperor Jimmu’s conquering of Japan. Jimmu was ‘chosen’ by his ancestor, Ara’s aunt, Amaterasu, to rule Japan which involved colonizing and wiping out the small ruling tribes that made up the land. Ara sided with those tribes and wound up falling in love with a Prince ( a chieftain, really ), Nagasunehiko, in what is now Osaka. Itsuse, Jimmu’s brother, was killed in a skirmish which invoked Amaterasu’s wrath. She considered Ara’s siding against godly lineage an act of treason against the Heavens, more or less, and permanently expelled him much like she did his father centuries ago before Susanoo underwent trials and earned her forgiveness.

Because of this incident, Ara lost his human lover and was branded a wicked and evil god of misfortune. The wrath he gained from that has never truly left him. In the modern day, he copes by basically being a disaster. Sex, drugs, drinking, fighting, causing trouble, he fills the void he experiences that way, but despite his general dislike for humanity he’s far more disgusted by what he sees as his family’s willingness to profit ( gain power from their faith ) yet stand idly by watching them suffer, sometimes encouraging it. His family, in his eyes, are selfish hypocrites. They treated him like an outsider then had the nerve to scorn him when he behaved like one. He’s basically come to terms with being disowned but he can’t forgive them for not even intervening when he was captured and experimented on by humans, which poses a danger not only to humans but to deities too, as we saw from the explosion he caused in Suribachi when Chuuya’s gate was forcibly opened and wiped out an entire settlement / military base.

He wants to tear down all of Heaven with his bare hands and shove a sword through Amaterasu’s chest, show her and her family the amount of mercy he was given when he was ejected with no way to protect himself for thousands of years: none. He spent centuries trying to find a way to end his lonely suffering only to be captured by sheer luck, by human scientists and subjected to a fate worse than hell for decades until two twink French spies with issues pried him / Chuuya out of confinement.

So yeah, wrath is definitely his great sin, but his chosen vice is more or less all of them, insofar as he can use it to mask his actual suffering. He tends to drop the playboy party mask around people he knows can see through it, such as Dazai, or people who know his true desires for revenge such as @giftandguile’s Fyodor. Funny enough, though Ara thinks it’s hilarious, he gets along best with people who hold some traces of inhumanity or who see themselves as outsiders - see Dazai, Verlaine, Chuuya, Fyodor, and even your specific portrayal of Jono.

He knows what it’s like, now, to be physically human by all outwards appearances while knowing you couldn’t be more different from those you speak and interact with every day.

#These were good questions that made me think a lot! Thank you! #eating disorder // #homelessness // #food insecurity // #toxic family // #injury mention // #murder // #death // #implied suicide // #Please note this is not meant to be a historically accurate depiction of Japanese mythology! #Arahabaki is a largely forgotten and mysterious deity so I just did a lot of storytelling with the bits of info we are given! #PAST || You’re Part Of A Machine; You Are Not A Human Being { CHUUYA } #HEADCANON || Spilled Ink { CHUUYA } #PAST || Nothing But A Drop Of Water In The Vast Ocean Of Time { ARAHABAKI } #HEADCANON || The Forgotten God { ARAHABAKI } #torture // #experimentation // #medical abuse //