#but its easy to feel a sense of isolation and alienation and know you can't do anything about these big axis of oppression

[adrianasunderworld]

I absolutely adore the idea of Yuu going to White Ash Institute to get away from NRC's chaos, but my mind couldn't help but go to a more angsty place :') so enjoy my 1 am ramble Yuu practically LEAPS at the opportunity to get away from the crap she's been through at NRC and, honestly, I don't blame her. Would it KILL the boys to just give her a second of peace? Really? After all she's done for all of them? So Yuu zips off to WAI first chance she gets. Her classmates there are friendly, her classes feel easy without Ace and Deuce to distract her all day, and the Headmage actually does her job. Everything finally feels calm for once. Too calm, honestly. Once the fear and excitement of moving to a new school wears off, Yuu starts to notice a strange hollowness she hadn't felt at NRC. A gap between her and her peers that wasn't there before. Some girls chat about current trends or celebrity gossip. Others prefer to talk about TV shows, movies, or books. Even in class they reference history that Yuu's never heard about or talk about holidays/celebrations that they all grew up with. Even things like spots and music is wildly different from what Yuu knows and loves. Yuu is suddenly faced with the fact that she's not from this world. This isn't her place, this isn't her life, this isn't her home. She's an outsider in every sense of the word. The other girls try not to comment on it, but it's clear to everyone that there's a definite gap between Yuu and the rest of the student body, especially to poor Yuu who feels almost abandoned at some points. Some girls try to help Yuu bridge that gap in what little way they can, but there's only so much that can be done for something like this. And as much as I want to put my faith in WAI, I know high school girls well enough to know that some of the girls are probably making Yuu's life even worse with gossip or drama that makes the other students want to steer totally clear of Yuu. At NRC, there was always some sort of chaos or crisis that Yuu was facing with the boys that kept Yuu busy. She never had time to think about her place in this world, and through the chaos she at least felt like there was something there between her and her classmates. But at White Ash Institute Yuu finally has to face the isolating truth that she never really belonged in this world to begin with, and maybe never will. After all, It's not like you can just magic away that alienating feeling or study away that kind of isolation.

You right you right. I think Miss Yuu going to White Ash as its own arc would end, as these things tend to do, with Yuu realizing Night Raven is where she belongs. White Ash is too peaceful and normal, and Yuu is anything but. It's like when someone spends their whole life at war and they don't know what to do when that war is over. No one expects anything of her at White Ash. No one needs her help. No one asks anything of her. Yuu is so accustomed to doing everything that she doesn't know what's next.

She can try to fit in. Her new friends do their best to make her feel welcome and wanted. To distract from the home sickness. But then they excitedly talk about going to the movies for the final installment of some beloved franchise. Swooning over actors she's never heard of. And Yuu is once again reminded that she is a stranger in a strange land. At least at NRC she knew where she stood. Her place in the student body as the prefect of Ramshackle was unquestionable. It was a weird sense of stability. At White Ash she was another student. A girl with no home to go back too.

Also yes, Cristalería does not tolerate bullying. But that just means the particularly mean White Ash girls are a special brand of discreet and sneaky. Cristalería can't exactly punish what only looks like a bad attitude. Or a rumor with no clear source because conveniently no one knows where they heard it first. And as the only magic less girl who was at an all boys school? The gossips love Yuu.

Now it's a matter of whether or not Yuu is willing to stick out her time at White Ash or if Night Raven will have her back.

#twisted wonderland #miss yuu #the white ash intitute #twst yuu

[team7-headquarter]

Sincerely think Sakura was wasted as a vehicle to show the horror of war and violent environments to the common people. Let me summarize:

You know how sometimes you get a glimpse of how rich people live, or how it is with families with militar roots, or with famous or political relevant people? That alien feeling that they are living in their own world and even though they are humans like you, it's like the were completely different?

Most clan kids were born into the cycle, exactly like Sasuke and Naruto. It is the pressure of such heritage what isolated Sakura since the beginning because she doesn't get it. She can't, even if she read a million books and witnessed the lives of her bestfriends fall apart, she'd never know how it is.

And I think it was there, in the manga, but it got swallowed by its context and it slides from our brains, a miniature of a monster among giants.

There's an specific tragedy in the way Sakura tries to hold the story she knows together in her hands. It sips into the Team 7 dynamic and it weighs on each of them. Naruto tries to hold the pieces of their world together for her and Sasuke's sake and she tries to stop Sasuke's life from further falling apart (she can't, it doesn't work like that) and then Kakashi is never late to catch her, knowing she is always the witness, maybe relating to the awful feeling of seeing bad things happen to the people you love without being able to protect them.

I think it also plays a role in how hated is Sakura in the fandom. She represents an ugly truth full of ugly feelings none of us want to experience. The term "useless" fits her not in the context it's often used, but in the way we all are useless against the wheel of our lives. She can't interfere and people get frustrated with her, they rage and reach their catharsis through her, because no one wants to think what if they were in her shoes and like her, they weren't capable of changing things.

It's easier to focus on Naruto and Sasuke, two characters that have the tools to transform their narrative landscape. But when I think about the horrors of our modern times, it's Sakura point of view that I think about. The common people.

Imagine being stuck healing one person at the time, while the place gets flooded with bodies and the almost death. Imagine being stuck with slow training and even slower advances, because you are physical disadvantaged and takes thrice the tries to reach where your friends are. And you are smart and you know you can make it, just not as fast as they can.

How many times in your life were you stuck on a similar situation? If you city got bombarded today what would you be able to do? How many times someone ended a friendship with you and you were incapable of stopping them? How many times did you faced someone you love getting a terrible illness? Do you still hate yourself from the mistakes you made when you were a child? Would you do anything for a chance to support the ones you love?

Naruto is a lot about the big things. Genocide and wide discrimination, the type of love and violence that would drench you with pain. But Sakura is so tiny... Not fit at all to be a shinobi at heart, easy to tears because it is heartbreaking. She becomes a medic, a choice that makes perfect sense for her.

In that sense, maybe Hinata would be a better heroine for the story, that's truth. But I still think that Sakura, if better worked within the narrative, would have been an amazing addition, offering a peripheric pov capable of complimenting both Naruto and Sasuke.

#sakura haruno #naruto #naruto shippuden

[calypsolemon]

it would be disingenuous to act like there aren’t opinions I held as a young ace about the sort of issues the ace community face that I disagree with now, and there’s attitudes held in factions of the community that I once defended that I now believe to be kinda offensive (partially due to the fact that I also realized I am gay and trans), but like.... I will always be extremely critical of people who assume those bad opinions are core to the ace identity, rather than caused by either misunderstanding from differing queer experiences, or general ingrained bigotry from like... existing in Society. There are absolutely times when aces can be hostile and bigoted towards other sexualities, due to the false perception that those sexualities are more widely accepted than they are. But like, there’s equally times when queer allosexuals perceive aces as privileged in areas they most definitely are not. It’s almost like the tendency to punch down instead of up is incredibly common amongst all minority groups, bc we all live in a world where its easier to vye for the temporary acceptance of our oppressors than it is to fight them. That’s not an excuse for bigoted behavior, but targeting the identity itself as if its the cause is playing the same game. Nobody serves to benefit from community infighting except cishet people.

#ace discourse #only using the tag bc i constantly forget to trigger tag these for someone i hope this works for u #also i reflect a lot on opinions i held when i was younger #and oftentimes its less that i disagree with them on the whole but rather i just had the wrong idea about like #what was causing the problem #or the wrong approach to a solution #you know all the nuance and shit #like assuming my sense of alienation came from individuals expressing their sexuality #and getting mad at that instead of looking at how sex is literally used to sell us shit #or how sex is used as a tool of control in almost all axis of oppression #by either oversexualizing or desexualizing people against their will #those are the things that contributed to my sense of isolation #not people empowering themselves by taking control of their own sexualities #but its easy to feel a sense of isolation and alienation and know you can't do anything about these big axis of oppression #but look at some rando blogger talking about sex positively on tumblr and get mad they're not being ace-inclusive or some dumb shit #i wont pretend that those attitudes were never encouraged by some members of the community bc they most definitely were #but there's stupid people in every group #and equally there's always been asexual people who have fought against those attitudes and had a more nuanced understanding #and its frustrating to like #have this ignored. to have people assume that the problem is just that all ace theory is bad and based in queerphobic rhetoric etc etc #and not that like a bunch of dumb 15 year olds still figuring themselves out and feeling isolated might make some uninformed decisions #of who the real cause of their problems are #and say some dumb shit

[leonawriter]

I really want to go into a deeper analysis of Dazai but I can't bc I don't really explore the series much outside of the various fics. But seeing your thoughts on how Dazai was the one who helped change Kunikida, and your earlier post on how BEAST Dazai is even more isolated than canon Dazai, do you have any meta on how the power "No Longer Human" actually affects Dazai and the people around him?

Honestly, I think the thing about No Longer Human is that in spite of what some people say about “abilities affect their user so NLH makes Dazai colder and more emotionless” (yes, I’ve seen that around) I don’t think that’s how it works. 

What I will say is that I agree on how NLH as an ability stems from Dazai’s feelings of being cut off from society; in all of his books he talks about this, and in the book No Longer Human more than most (I’ve read that, Setting Sun, and Otogizoshi, but I’m aware of several of the others too). This translates into how his ability affects his interactions with other people.

I think Dazai probably sees it as distancing him, in several ways. The most obvious of which are twofold - one is that it’s such a powerful nullifying ability that anyone who might touch him would have their power, and a part of their own self (as seen in Dead Apple) restricted and taken away from them. They’re effectively brought down to normal while touching him, and they’re also powerless. The other is that because of how powerful that ability is to hurt others and also to render them incapable of defending themselves, he would likely have been wanted by any number of organisations had he approached any, or even if they’d been aware he might have been bought away from whoever he was with, whether it was the Port Mafia or anyone before Mori.

Because of this, it’s easy to say that many ability users, even if they’re not against touching Dazai in a general sense, would be very self-aware of how much, and when, they touch him. Which would clearly affect a person’s view of themself. Quite aside from his own unrelated wish to hide most of his body from sight (which I see as him covering up scars), there’s a distance there, almost an imperceptible barrier preventing him from normal contact with others.

That said, I think an interesting and important thing about No Longer Human is that it is equally capable of both destruction and salvation. Much like its owner.

The first time we see his ability being used, it’s against a rampaging Atsushi, and he then ensures that Atsushi has somewhere to stay and to belong. Atsushi was afraid of the tiger, but Dazai wasn’t, because he didn’t need to be, and effectively saved Atsushi from the tiger. Later on, we find out about how he used his ability while training Akutagawa, and we’re made aware of other ways in which it makes him powerful... but we’re also shown two more cases where he saves people - in how he saves Yokohama by destroying Q’s curse, and how he brings Chuuya back from Corruption. And even back when he was fifteen, it was his nullifying ability that saved his and Chuuya’s lives.

So with that in mind, it’s also important to stress that no matter what effects it might have on both him and others in terms of alienating him, he also willingly uses it to save people, and they rely on him to do so, at that.

That last part is interesting, because I feel like this is something that reminds me less of who Dazai was in life, less of what he wrote, and more of his impact on others through his writing. 

This is seen in how relatable his works are to many people, despite how “unlikeable” the protagonists are. Despite how immoral they are. How imperfect, how flawed.

A perfect example of this can funnily enough be found in another series that stars Dazai as a character - Bungo to Alchemist. I don’t play the game, I don’t tend to get involved in the fandom, but I have watched most of the anime and plan to finish it. It follows the idea that the authors are brought out of their own books, and have to fight to protect other books, so that they aren't destroyed by taints/corruptions that would change and destroy them.

About halfway or several episodes a least in, we see a different setting than usual. We’re following a guy who’s getting to know someone he met on a bus, who was reading The Setting Sun. This person at one point later tells him that Dazai’s books “saved” them, and made them feel recognised. In one ending of that story, an ending where Dazai’s books had vanished and were no longer in anyone’s heart, that person committed suicide, with the implication that the feelings they’d had via seeing something they could recognise in Dazai’s works had helped them carry on living. I’d go into more detail, but it’s been a while since I last watched that episode. 

When what had been making the books disappear is dealt with, the events that had ended in that person dying are reversed, and they stay alive, and that is what this reminds me of. NLH is representative of both Dazai’s own feelings of isolation, but also the effect he has on other people where his own flawed nature touches the people who feel the most isolated, and makes them feel that they aren’t alone.

And maybe, that last bit is why out of all the characters in BSD, Dazai is the one who has become the fandom darling instead of Atsushi (even though we love him too). Dazai is someone who by his very nature doesn’t expect people to appreciate him, but because of the way he is, he attracts people to him who feel just as “unliked by society.” 

His ability requiring touch makes people wary of going near him, but those who do are the ones who most need to be saved, and who are the most like him, in many ways.

#bsd #bsd dazai #suicide mention #it's fictional but even so

[pseudodeepwords]

beast

Content warnings: discussions of isolation, loneliness, and mental illness.

The sensation of the beast is a strange feeling indeed. To feel like a wolf born into sheep’s clothing is a vicious thing, indeed. One never remembers pulling on the guise one wears, but it remains a guise all the same. Sometimes, it feels as though I could reach up, hand sporting sharp claws, and the firm flesh of my cheek would be no tougher than the rind of an orange and just as easy to peel back away from whatever lies beneath – maybe blood and bone and muscle or maybe something else entirely, something dark and strange and altogether Wrong, and then the wrongness I’ve felt for so much of my life would make sense. I call it the sensation of the beast; it feels as though something inhuman lurks somewhere just far enough below the skin for no one else to notice, but just close enough to the surface to make me fear the repercussions should it ever poke through.

The reality of the situation, that the particular set of trials and tribulations I’ve had the misfortune of experiencing have made me feel like my humanity is something that can be questioned or debated, is not lost on me. The beast that lurks is more likely than not a manifestation of anger, of isolation, of ostracization, all of which loves to develop like an abscess of the soul, but beastly is truly the best way to phrase it. I've loved horror for a very long time, and I'm a sucker for a good monster movie in particular. Monster movies are only as good as the monsters at their cores, and the creation of whatever twisted thing will go bump in the night is often one of the most fun aspects of the creature in question. Love and loneliness always make for the most intriguing of them, and loneliness I know well.

I would go so far as to say extraterrestrials in film are often of the same ilk. They aren't always monsters, but the line is often thin. Fear of the unknown, of the other, of something perhaps stronger or older or smarter than humanity just beyond where we can see can be scary, sure, but I've always personally been more curious in the concept than afraid of it. As time has worn on, it feels more and more like I might be an alien myself. Nowhere has ever felt like home. A sense of belonging is hard to come by when you're isolated and lonely and shy and strange as a child, and that doesn't lend itself very well at all to feeling like perhaps human isn't what one is at all anyways. Maybe the sensation of the extraterrestrial, the alien, is closer than I think, but still, the beast seems more fitting. The beast isn't always bad, is it? The beast wins the beauty in the end, if old fairytales are to be believed, but does one first have to find the beauty? Does someone have to deign to see the beast and to love it not in spite of its visage but with it in order to save it from the villainous reputation that tends to plague the title? Can the beauty be the beast too? Can self-love save you? Can you love yourself knowing you're the beast? Fearing yourself? I can't claim to know, not in good faith or honesty, but the questions don't allow themselves to go unasked. I just don't know how to answer them.

I terrify myself, not in the edgy 13-year-old "we live in a society" kind of way, but in the sense that sometimes, the thoughts that seem to pull themselves up into the forefront of my brain all by themselves reveal someone much more violent and cold and unfeeling than I think I am. I can feel myself clinging to people like a leech, I can feel the urge to sink claws and teeth I don't have into something fleshy and soft. I want to peel back the layers of skin and muscle and vein and artery that I wear like a mask and uncover whatever lies underneath, even if it's something hideously ugly and malformed, because at the very least, whatever horrible thing lies beneath the surface, it is more authentically me than anything I've been in my entire life, even if I end up being the only one who could ever hope to accept it. I'm a work in progress, and a monster movie in production, and an alien abduction story in reverse. and above all else, someone who fears that about them that is out of their control. The loneliness and the isolation and the anger and the ostracization and everything else that has ever curled malicious fingers around my throat or my heart cannot be tamed by willpower or medication or maybe even love, but good Christ, I would love to be proven wrong about that.

Maybe it's my terminal romanticism that makes me believe that someone can love the beast and in doing so tame it, or maybe it's naivete, or maybe a combination thereof, or something else entirely. I couldn't tell you for certain about that either. It feels possible, but a lot of things feel real that are ultimately illusions. Suspension of disbelief is as much a burden as a superpower, in that regard. The power to see it through to the end out of the burdensome hope that around the next corner is someone who won't leave when they see the scratches in the wall from hidden claws or the phosphorescent remains of the UFO that crashed in the woods.

Is there a point? Is there a point to the comparisons, or to the feelings, or to the sharing thereof? Is there a point to the fear? The anger? The loneliness? The trials and tribulations and the will to scrape off my skin and remove my innards?

That much I do actually know the answer to: yes, there's a point. It might not be a good point. I don't know that. But I do know that, at the very least, if I let the beast speak, if I spill its viscera across paper or word processors, its claws and its teeth feel far less sharp, and whatever lurks under the human outer shell shrinks further away from the light, and the less present it is in my person, the less I fear it. So here I am, once again, drawing the metaphorical blade across the throat I share with the beast, in hopes it chokes on the blood it exists under without killing me in the process.

So far, so good.

#essay