I've been thinking about Old Boss, Dazai and Mori a LOT, as of late; and I think it would be neat if Old Boss' madness made Dazai so miserable, and that he too thought the only way to stop it all was to kill him. Except this thought made him feel trapped and even more miserable, so much that he tried to drown himself. But he got lucky: he met Mori. A person who can do the job meets a person who can provide the enterance and the cover, isn't it grand? (1)
Hey, sorry it took me a little bit to get to this. I was in the middle of exams and I wanted to make sure I gave your ask a proper answer.
You know, it's really interesting to me - you've outlined this version of events, which is different to what I think went down but I can't really refute or support anything because we just don't know enough.
It's insane how little we know about the mafia in general, actually, given how many of the supporting cast members are a part of it. We get mentions, sure, and little tidbits of info but not nearly as much as we get for the agency. I wonder why it was so important that the mafia be a part of Natsume's framework over any of the other criminal organizations in Yokohama. Is it influence? Power? Or is there some other reason we don't know?
I'll try to lay down what we know for certain, and particular inferences we can make leading up to the old boss's assassination:
The Old Boss:
He was the boss during the chaotic years directly after the war and likely during it as well
He threw the city into turmoil, especially in the slums, through such orders as "killing a bunch of redheads because one vandalized his car" or "poisoning the inhabitants of an entire building because he thought a rival executive might be there"
The end of his reign was so terrible that he turned the city's inhabitants against each other in a kind of Orwellian dystopic "report your neighbours for dissent" command
He has history with Dazai ("If only we could chat about old times" line from Fifteen)
He was suffering from a kind of paranoia from his illness and his orders became increasingly more erratic and needlessly violent, culminating in his ordering of the deaths of anyone who opposed the Port Mafia on his deathbed (roughly 8 years ago)
Mori:
He was a medical doctor during the tail end of the Great War, roughly 14-15 years before the events of the main story (when Yosano was 11 years old and he was 26)
He drafted her with the intention of creating an Immortal Regiment and appears to have advocated for the use and manipulation of abilities to turn the tide of the war
After the war, between 12-14 years ago, he worked as an underground doctor with Fukuzawa as his bodyguard - he was already acquainted with Natsume at this point (they both refer to him as sensei) and interested in establishing Natsume's Tripartite Tactic
How he came to be an underground doctor is not known - was he disgraced after what happened with the soldiers on Tokoyami Island? Was he purposely trying to work his way into the mafia?
12 years ago, he fought with Fukuzawa to try and take Yosano back for his plan to overthrow the Mafia (he was 28, Yosano 13, Fukuzawa 33, Ranpo 15)
Somehow he became the old boss's personal physician. I literally do not know how he managed this.
8 years ago, he approached Dazai, as seen in the recent Fifteen manga adaptation, as his physician, and promised Dazai a painless death if he agreed to "help with one little thing" (which is clearly to be a witness for the death of the old boss)
Dazai:
He wandered for a bit at some indiscriminate time, where the Sheep made an offer to join them. He refused.
His youngest appearance is 8 years ago when he is 14, in the recent Fifteen manga adaptation, where he is shown secured to a hospital bed after attempting suicide - it seems likely this was not his first attempt. He meets Mori for the first time in this scene.
He somehow is close enough to the old boss to be a valuable witness for Mori, someone whose word would be believed by the mafia. He was already suicidal for unknown reasons and was assigned the current mafia boss' personal physician to treat him. Hirotsu assures Mori that Dazai "understands why he did what he did", as though Dazai would have some reason to be angry with Mori over the old boss's death. Higuchi's "your blood is mafia black" line. If it weren't for the fact that he was not part of the mafia at that point, and had apparently not seen death up close before the murder of the old boss and the events of Fifteen, I would say it's practically a given that he's a blood relative of the old boss, perhaps even the "rightful heir" to the mafia. However, given the conflicting info I just gave, I really can't be certain.
His eye is focused on in all adaptations of the scene with the death of the old boss. His eye goes dark in every single one. (The original chapter 30 manga panel is interesting because it looks like the darkness is seeping into it...)
There's so little here for how important this event is. Just as we still don't know much about the great war, we still know very little about the mafia and the old boss - even Mori and Dazai are still very much mysteries.
With how much we still don't know, I think the story may end with us cycling back to the mafia and finally learning the answers to all these questions that were introduced so early in the game. At least I hope so. Thanks for the ask!
81 notes
·
View notes
Sexuality and labeling is weird and I want to talk about it.
This is all focused on my own experiences.
Honestly, I have no exact reason to post this, especially since I have homework that was due yesterday that I still haven’t finished, but oh well.
Back when I was really active on queer spaces (I genuinely used to be one of the moderators of a pretty large Amino. I spoke with so many people about so many things. It’s impressive that I even managed to do that), I used to really investigate as many labels as I could. I knew about so many obscure gender, romantic, and sexual identities just for the sake of helping other people find their own.
I guess that I was, in one way or another, searching for my own identity. At that point in my life, I would have described my identity as panromantic, asexual, and demiromantic. I was okay with that definition. I was someone who didn’t experience sexual attraction, and felt little romantic attraction unless it was to someone close, in which case, their gender or identity didn’t matter.
I liked finding labels for myself. Finding something in the gender department was a tad bit harder. I identified with pangender and liked it.
I drifted apart from the community and just stopped engaging in queer spaces like that all together.
I constantly debated whether or not I was more aroflux than demiromantic, so for a while I’d just use them interchangeably.
Around that time, I came out for the first and only time.
Hear me out, I consider these things important, but I’ve always had the idea that I’m just never gonna come out to anyone. I’d be fine with that. I’m me. That’s enough. I don’t own anyone any pretty words to describe my identity. (I did like the flags though).
This time I came out, I tried to do this same explanation, plus some other xenogenders and more obscure identities that I somewhat identified with, while adding the flags as well:
“I’m pangender, which means that I identify with all genders and with none of them at the same time. Between that pangender identity, there are xenogenders, which refers to genders that can’t be described in the usual “masculine”, “feminine”, and “androgynous” ways. I use neopronouns, which refers to pronouns other that “he”, “she”, and “they”. I use xe/xem pronouns and strongly resonate with them. I’m asexual, so I don’t experience sexual attraction. I’m panromantic, demiromantic, and aroflux, which means that I don’t experience romantic attraction, except for when I do, in which case it tends to be for people who I have a strong emotional bond with. This person/people could be of any gender. I don’t care about looks, identity, anything. Just personality~”
Fun fact, to this day, even after so many years of using xe/xem pronouns, not a single person has ever referred to me with them. None of my neopronouns. Not even once.
The reaction, of course, silence from the group chat.
Some questions. Other than that, nothing.
Honestly, people don’t expect you to go on and come out, identifying with microlables. People expect you to identify with the classic sexualities, all of those in the acronym. LGBT. (That’s why I like to extend that bastard as much as I can while still making it “socially acceptable” so people don’t look at me weirdly. LGBTQIA2S+).
Honestly, I don’t know what I expected. I had a similar conversation with a cousin. It’s was like 1am and we were chatting, and he said “oh, well, but we did need the “gay cousin””. I told him it was me, he told me that it was him. We just repeated those things for a while. Eventually, I genuinely asked him if he meant it. I told him I did. He told me he did. We came out to each other. I guessed his sexuality correctly, I explained each of my identities carefully.
Next time we saw each other, we talked about it. I came out, explained each label again. He hadn’t heard about a single one of them. I told him my preferred pronouns, my odd disconnect with my given name, and things like that.
He seemed to have forgotten by the next time. He referred to me with that name, which is fine, but the pronouns. Those hurt. I wasn’t gonna say anything though. It’s been years, I still haven’t.
Not so long ago, he came out to me. I accepted him, used his pronouns, addressed him by his name (which I don’t know how he spells, by the way, cause this is Latinoamérica and you can never asume how someone writes their name, we have like a thousand different ways to write each one). I came out again. I repeated my crisis with my name. My pronouns. Has he used them? I haven’t got a clue. We haven’t been able to speak one on one for a while. I miss him.
I guess that these experiences of coming out, plus an almost forced outing and an actual forced outing, neither of which I’m gonna expand upon, made myself look at my own identity differently. I started considering the identity of unlabeled.
I like labels. I liked labeling myself. It meant having a community of others like me. A space.
I started feeling disconnected from them, in a weird way, at least. Am I technically all of those things? Yes. Do those terms explain me correctly? Not really??
I’ve slowly just gone on to identify myself as me. I love love, I love everyone and everything. I want to have a relationship, marry, hell, maybe even sex. I don’t know. I like the idea of those things. I can’t picture myself as actually being in any of those, but I like to believe that they will come someday, and that I will enjoy them.
I love in a nonconventional way. For me, love is love, no matter whether or not it is sexual, romantic, platonic, or anything else.
My gender? It is yes and no. Everything and nothing. It doesn’t matter, yet it does.
I don’t understand, even after so many years of being in both the aro and ace spectrums, what the hell is “attraction”. I guess I just don’t feel those. Isn’t that the definition of both of those terms? Yes.
It’s truly been years, and until recently did I manage to open my eyes and tell myself “even without attraction, you can have a relationship. You can have sex”.
It was so contradictory to me. If I don’t have attraction, do I just not want those things? In my case, I do want them, I am attracted to the idea. Whenever it comes to people, it’s harder though. I’m terrified of people. I want a relationship. I want to have sex. I want to understand.
What even is attraction???
I identify as unlabeled, but I am in denial.
I am unlabeled, but only in my head.
Hell, not even there.
I’m not gonna come out to anyone as that. If anyone asks, I’ll make a simplified version of what I’ve always said. “Aroace and panromantic. Gender? Good question”.
Do any labels actually identify me? Yes and no. I’m disconnected from them. I want them to fit. They fit. But they don’t.
I’m me. That’s enough.
Is it enough?
I try each day to convince myself that it is.
I also don’t know.
-Mori (They/Xem)
12 notes
·
View notes