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winepresswrath · 2 years

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I need your thoughts about the AU in which WWX accidentally kills JC and can’t bring him back in any way while JYL is still alive and has just lost JZX to WWX :) I literally adore JC but I want the AU where he and JYL swap places in the narrative so badly it hurts :) like in her mind JYL knows that WWX didn’t do any of that on purpose and still loves him but he still killed her baby brother and husband and there’s gotta at least be a lil tiny piece of her that is never going to forgive him for that :p

She's got many of the same problems Jiang Cheng has (keep Jin Ling alive, try to understand why happened, cope with almost everyone you've ever loved dying horribly, figure out how to deal with someone you love killing other people you love before they themselves die) but a wildly different personality and skillset. She's also a lot more personally invested in Zixuan, and he's the person who Wei Wuxian is most responsible for killing, even if I can't imagine her being thrilled with Wei Wuxian losing control of his powers and hitting Jiang Cheng with a zombie before massacring a bunch of their disciples.

As you said, it's going to be relatively easy for her to decide that Wei Wuxian would never do anything of the kind either deliberately or as a consequence of a lack of care for their family, but I think that does maybe lead her to blaming the demonic cultivation, especially if she extrapolates backwards from what happened at Nightless City and concludes that the problem is that Wei Wuxian was not in control of his power. She doesn't have Jiang Cheng's temperament or his resources but she knows how to work the system to get what she wants and I do think she'd feel responsible for her family unleashing something dangerous and easy to abuse on the world, so she's up to something. The Jiang probably do lose their place as a great sect and the Jin are absolutely trying to or succeeding at locking them down as a vassal sect and trying to use Yanli to do it, but maybe she has more direct communication with and influence over them if they're not seen as a threat? Honestly I can see her being one of the avenues Huaisang uses to attack Jin Guangyao, because if she finds out her brother in law is doing demonic cultivation in her son's house she's going to do something about it. So I'm thinking subordinate(ish) Jiang Sect where she acts as a kind of unofficial liaison between them and the Jin, and there is a complicated web of loyalty going in both directions where she's working with them to achieve some of her public safety goals and promoting their interests when she can but she's still not quite one of them anymore. Enter Wei Wuxian!

One of the fun narrative tricks MXTX comes back to a lot is people behaving unreasonably towards Wei Wuxian in situations where some degree of anger or suspicion would actually be very reasonable. People tend to either forgive him unconditionally, be too busy being evil to have legitimate concerns, or handle their anger in a way that makes it reasonable for him to simply peace out and refuse to engage. I do think Yanli would forgive Wei Wuxian, especially if they managed to talk it out, but I don't think he can avoid something of a reckoning with her when he comes back to life because he does actually owe her an explanation more than he owes anyone else and he doesn't have the (reasonable) excuse of being more on stabbing than speaking terms with her. Whether he actually tries to deliver that explanation I think depends on whether we're talking novel or drama- he has technically already tried once and it didn't go well. CQL Wei Wuxian makes a good faith effort but is thwarted by the plot, Novel WWX I think tells himself it's futile and pointless and she's probably over it so he'd just be reopening old wounds until she's right in front of him like what the fuck A-Xian. It is not actually a comfortable or fun experience for him in either scenario no matter how much she forgives him because he does feel profoundly guilty and he's not distracted by being mad at her. I also just think he'd handle Jiang Cheng dying on a battlefield shortly after he hit him with a zombie very badly. Like he handles Yanli very badly also, but it's a different subset of bad. Not necessarily worse, but that's his shidi he promised Madame Yu and Jiang Fengmian to protect and he tore himself open for and then he went and hit him with a zombie and maybe permanently disadvantaged or imperilled the Jiang and it's just a different scenario if he can't come back and at least be like "well the Jiang are prospering so that one thing worked out and I don't have to feel shame or obligation about it."

#Wei Wuxian #Jiang Yanli #Wei Wuxian does scream I can't control it very loudly on the battlefield #I think that on this basis it is very reasonable to reevaluate your opinion of demonic cultivation #if you happen to be a person on that battlefield clutching your sibling's body #sometimes we get new information and we change our minds accordingly #anyway this is part of why Jin Ling is the best #he gets mad and he struggles and some of his complaints on the dead parent front are legitimate #and when he forgives Wei Wuxian it's a choice #good stuff good stuff

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idratherdreamofjune · 3 years

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@sunheart wrote in her tags on another post:

Genuinely hate being alive ... I completely understand on so many levels why you would hate being a woman. Its horrible. And then as a Christian there's this whole really ugly dynamic- that i know is probably a lie i just haven't worked out how yet- that we're the 2nd best. The afterthought. The mediocre option. Almost everything in life men are better at and it's hard to believe it's just cultural- math logic leadership writing cooking writing physical activities on and on, and women are good at being Nice :) Which ok i like being nice but it's like that's my only option I feel like any other impact i might wish to have upon the world will be paltry in comparison to what i could do if only i was a man. I feel incompetent. Irrational. Emotional. Obnoxious. I feel like I'm supposed to be a plaything for the beings that were *actually* created to be in harmony with God like I'm not supposed to have a connection with God- only through my husband which what does that make me as a single childless bitch? I can't even fulfill the main point of my existence. Jesus interacted with women but did he care about them like he did the men? David and John were named his favorites not Deborah or Hannah. And like i said i'm sure none of that's true but i don't know how and it feels awful. hate it.

Hopefully others have shared encouragement on this already, but just in case I wanted to give some thoughts. Please know that if I sound riled at all (and I’m going to try to avoid that) I’m not upset at anyone who feels this way but am deeply upset by the enemy’s lies that so many are hurt by. As a younger believer I did struggle with some of these questions myself, and for a long time it was difficult to reconcile these concerns with the promises that God loves me.

Your instincts are right - it is a lie that women are second best. And before I go any further let me also agree that yes, we are physically weaker than men and have other weaknesses too. But since when has weakness meant that someone is any way “less than” others? Men have weaknesses too, just different ones. That’s the nature of humanity: every person is a mixed bag of strengths and weaknesses. I’ve never heard before that men are better at cooking?? My dad literally struggles to cook a hotdog in the microwave and has never touched a grill in his life. And okay men may (possibly, not sure on this one either) be inherently better at math, but which gender is drastically underrepresented in the nursing field? I suspect there are fewer male teachers, too, though not as huge a disparity. Men are more prone to recklessness and violence - part of the reason married men live longer (gotta get that stable influence). Again yes men are physically stronger but have you watched ballet dancers (oooh i mean ballerinas, sorry there’re so few ballerinos that I forgot to differentiate) or female gymnasts? Nothing “less than” there! The famous Proverbs 31 woman is a good insight into Biblical support of female abilities and value: “strength and dignity are her clothing”, “she opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” “Let her works praise her in the gates.” (The gates were essentially the city hall or forum of ancient Israel.)

Going back to the beginning - women were created second, true. But did God not know His own plan? He was always going to create women. And the really amazing thing that I learned in the last couple of years is that, when God says He’s going to make Adam “a helper” (Hebrew ”ezer”), that’s the same word that is used to describe God’s actions for His people throughout the Old Testament: - Exodus 18:4 “The God of my father was my help.” - 1 Samuel 7:12 “Ebenezer” means “rock of help” and is a memorial of Yaweh’s help. - Psalm 30:10 “Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me! O Lord, be my helper!” - Psalm 115:11 “You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord, He is their help and their shield” - Psalm 121:2 “My help comes from the Lord” - Hosea 13:9 “‘You are against Me, against your helper.’“

It is a common word for “help” used in other settings, yes, but the fact that it’s used of God illustrates that this is no poor or second-rate role. Helping - aiding - supporting - incredibly important! In fact this article I just found puts it this way:

In two cases it refers to the first woman, Eve, in Genesis 2. Three times it refers to powerful nations Israel called on for help when besieged. In the sixteen remaining cases the word refers to God as our help. He is the one who comes alongside us in our helplessness. That's the meaning of ezer. Because God is not subordinate to his creatures, any idea that an ezer-helper is inferior is untenable. In his book Man and Woman: One in Christ, Philip Payne puts it this way: "The noun used here [ezer] throughout the Old Testament does not suggest 'helper' as in 'servant,' but help, savior, rescuer, protector.'

Moving on to the New Testament, and the topic of John, who is known as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. John is the one who wrote the book which tells us that (under the direction of the Holy Spirit, yes) and he only uses that wording as a title, in place of his name. Nowhere does it say he was the favorite disciple, or even most loved, just that he was loved. To me it seems more as if John is saying “Jesus loved me! Can you believe it?!” It has a feeling of awe and thankfulness as opposed to superiority.

Getting into marriage specifically, I do believe that a wife should be under the headship of her husband ...mainly in the sense of letting him have the last word on decisions and plans. This is in part due to differing areas of strength, and in part because in some situations it’s better to have a family leader - most groups of humans need a leader, and following an assigned (or picked) leader does not make one inferior. All that being said, a wife should be able to provide input, advice, and feedback to her husband, who should take into strong consideration his wife’s needs, insights, and concerns (Ephesians 5:25-29).

The lie that women cannot be connected to God outside of their husband is refuted not only by all the vibrantly faithful single or windowed Christian ladies of history (Amy Carmichael, Gladys Aylward, Mary Slessor, and Elisabeth Elliot are some of my favorites) but also Scripture itself. When Christ spoke with the divorced Samaritan woman the disciples were shocked not because she was a Samaritan but because she was a woman (John 4:27; she was shocked on both counts - John 4:9) - I hope they got used to it because Jesus spoke with women a lot. Despite the culture of the time, Jesus clearly had very warm and caring direct relationships with Martha and Mary, Mary Magdalene, and other women. Anna the Prophetess in the temple had been widowed for decades and was serving God alone “night and day” (Luke 2:37). Incredibly, in a culture where women were looked down upon, the Lord chose women to be the first to discover the empty tomb, and Mary Magdalene to be the first to see the risen Christ! I love that passage so much (John 20:11-18).

Another example is when Jesus stopped on His way to heal Jairus’ daughter (i.e. He put aside a powerful man’s urgent request) to lovingly interact with the woman who’d suffered bleeding for years - a terribly personal and female problem (Mark 5:21-35).

To try to wrap up, I’ll return to David in the OT, who was a “man after God’s own heart”. But again, it doesn’t say that he was actually a favorite - it does say David was chosen by God though, to lead Israel and establish the family from which Jesus would ultimately come. You know who else was chosen? Esther - “for such a time as this”. Once she realizes the task she must complete, she tells Mordecai how it’s going to go, and “Mordecai then went away and did everything Esther had ordered him.” Esther gets a book named after her and is remembered in the holiday of Purim to this day. Also note that Esther was married to an unbeliever. Likewise Ruth was chosen, as a young foreign widow, to be part of the Messiah’s kingly line. As an aside, my favorite thing about Ruth’s story (besides all the faith and beauty of it) is the simultaneous deep respect and protectiveness Boaz shows towards her (okay enough mush). Anyhow what it comes down to is that God chooses and loves both men and women, and both have a place (singly and married) in His plans and kingdom. See also Galatians 3:28 “ There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

This post has all over the place, and I probably forgot a bunch of things I wanted to add (if anything else comes to mind I’ll add it later), but I hope it’s been encouraging. Yes I’ve struggled with some aspects of how women are portrayed in the Bible, but what I shared above, plus the love and blessings I’ve known as a single woman are more than enough evidence that we are known and loved. If anything is unclear or anyone has any questions please speak out/send an ask! Anon asks are on too. Also if anyone wants to add or amend anything do so without hesitation!!

#marriage #women in the Bible #Book of Ruth #Book of Esther #singleness #Scripture #lies

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youtiaoshutiao · 4 years

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传闻中的陈芊芊 thoughts

i haven’t been very active lately but i just came on to say, i binged on the romance of tiger and rose / 传闻中的陈芊芊 and have 2 eps left and i love it SO SO MUCH. i was expecting some pure crack but beyond that, i really ended up catching much feels for it?

and i think beyond the outlandish hilarity of some of the scenes and the cheeky meta, it’s actually a pretty decent drama with its plot and character motivations largely dictated by logic. i have to commend the scriptwriter nan zhen 南镇 for the entire set up of the drama (and it’s her original script!!! which is so rare in the industry nowadays run over by book adaptations - i mean i love those too but i still think it’s an easy way out for production companies when they adapt books with established fan bases). it’s actually really clever of her because all plot holes/flaws in world building can easily be attributed to xiaoqian’s lousy scriptwriting abilities?

i really did become quite impressed with the plot as the episodes progressed haha. the conflict and plot thickens as xiaoqian, now as qianqian, with the mindset that she’s not part of this story at all and that she’s interacting with a bunch of characters on paper, continues to engineer plot machinations trying to steer the plot in the right direction to get to the end so she can return back to the real world. and you slowly see how that just devolves into complete chaos and plot twists when surprise! she IS part of the story, she IS interacting with these characters and they are influenced by what she says and does! so you have her original male lead hanshuo, destined for the female lead chuchu, falling in love instead with her and changing his entire plan because of that. you have chuchu, the original female lead, slowly growing more unhinged as she perceives qianqian’s actions and words as callous and uncaring and outrightly antagonistic towards herself and as her resentment builds when everyone seems to shower affection and attention on qianqian still.

adding on to that is, how xiaoqian as a scriptwriter views and perceives her characters? some characters like hanshuo, she clearly constructed with much care and love, as seen by how she knows exactly how to make hanshuo happy and doesn’t want to upset him in the initial episodes (which caused him to fall for her like a devoted puppy). yet it seems like she either didn’t grasp fully their character motivations/personality/how their character is moulded by their backgrounds? which is why she probably didn’t see how the inherent difference with which her mother treats qianqian vs chuchu would lead to jealousy and resentment seeping in and poisoning chuchu’s heart. and her visualising han shuo as a murderous calculating career-driven male lead aka the male lead of eastern palace clearly runs contrary to how he is total putty and has barely hurt a fly ever since he fell in love with qianqian.

and there are characters too like her mother that she originally clearly just wrote in as characters to steer the plot forward, and in-world, she is clearly stricken when she realises how they have emotions and hidden depths beyond what she fathomed - like when her and her mother had that semi HTHT after she stole the dragon bone and her mum stayed by her bedchamber to watch over her all night. and another example would be su ziying - she’s so happy to see him when he appears as in that moment she’s viewing him from the lens of the scriptwriter of this story and she knows he’s going to push the plot forward. but seeing him and his actions actually playing out - she gets irritated by what he does and also his actions actually do end up affecting her, because she is in the story too!!!

and moving on from that, as the plot further progresses, another spanner is thrown into the mix when she realises that male lead is really really in love with her! and would give up everything for her! and... she too is in love with him!! and this changes things too because while initially all her actions were to push the plot to move forward the way she originally wrote it so that she can head back, now she’s actively trying to push back against the flow of events, as she’s now emotionally invested in this and doesn’t want the male lead to die as per her original script.

the play out of all these was really really entertaining and gripping to watch?? i was legitimately bowled over by how affected i was when all the angst came in, because it really felt like it made sense amidst all the crack and was well set up? and throughout it all, the actions of all the main players in the plot made sense and were logical, even the secondary leads chuchu and peiheng. haha idek if i’m ascribing too much credit to this whole plot, maybe it’s really just meant to be a cracky fun time and i’m too into it HAHA.

there’s also the set up of huayuan city being a matriarchal society where basically the roles of women and men are reversed. it is really v trippy!!! and An Experience to see scenes like men being harrassed by women, people tittering at other men for not being covered up enough in public, wares that can increase your chances of birthing a female heir being peddled on the streets. initially i was kind of apprehensive as to how it was going to play out. now at ep 22 where they’ve gone to xuanhu city which is patriarchal the conversation regarding gender roles and gender equality is continuing!! but i shall reserve my thoughts and comments till the entire arc plays out.

but beyond all that, the drama is just so much fun fun funnnnn!!!! i loveddddd seeing how this drama about a scriptwriter getting stuck in her own script had scenes interspersed with storytellers on the street retelling qianqian’s exploits and qianqian’s regular meetups with the storytellers/opera writers to discuss how the plot of the drama was going or even the scene where hanshuo and peiheng went to the opera house for their male lead showdown and the opera characters were there saying all the rude things they wanted to say to each other. such fun meta?? breaking the fourth wall?? satire?? idek LOL i just know i enjoyed it thoroughly

and lastly, apart from all the thinky thinky stuff, i’m thoroughly charmed by the otp HAHA. i loveeeee qianqian so much and zhao lusi is soo effortlessly adorable and natural and charming in this role that i can totally see why everyone from han shuo to her mother is enamoured by her. i actually am really curious also to see how qianqian before xiaoqian transmigrated into her body was like - seeing how her servant didn’t seem to have any whiplash from an extreme change in personality suggest that maybe qianqian wasn’t all that different from xiaoqian?? and probably might not have been that spoilt/callous/havoc-wreaking as everyone perceives her to be?

and han shuo too is SO entertaining and funny and darling - when he first came to huayuan city he’s all “i’m cunning and smart and i’m going to MANIPULATE EVERYBODY for my/xuan hu city’s benefit” and “i want chen qianqian to die with ten thousand arrows through her heart!! i want her to be stabbed by knives three thousand times!! not a single time less!!!” and “do you think i don’t dare to kill you?!”. then he falls in love with her and instantly he’s all puppy eyes and utter devotion. IT’S DELICIOUS. ding yuxi really makes staring at your FL like she’s the only one in the world an art form. and as one comment on a bilibili mv said regarding han shuo’s supposed bloodlust, “han shuo, up to this point you’ve only killed one horse” HAHA

(keep in mind that it’s not even that han shuo ordered the killing of this horse, it was his subordinate that killed it on his behalf, and han shuo was Not Happy about it after that!)

together the otp are even more adorable!!! it’s teeth rotting fluff but yet it comes off very earnest and adorable without being cloying. i was literally clutching my heart and grinning at the screen dopily at some scenes. and even though the otp dynamic and character setups are not really the same, the way the two of them bicker and act like children around each other kind of remind me of yongqi and xiaoyanzi from hzgg for some reason lol.

and apart from the otp, there are a whole host of supporting characters that are really very funny and adorable and entertaining to watch haha. special shoutout to both han shuo and qianqian’s subordinates who are HILARIOUS and plain Done with their masters’ nonsense (especially bai ji who really just wants to get shit done okay!! but his master just keeps on wanting to fall in love and date!!) there’s also qianqian’s older sister yuanyuan who is disabled and on a wheelchair, and with a sad yet somehow hilarious penchant for writing multiple drafts of her will. and her otp, su mu, a courtesan (yes the courtesans in this city are all male).

honestly i’m not sure where i’m going with this, i just briefly scanned through what i’ve written so far and lol seems like paragraphs of illogical incoherent rambling. I’m sorry it’s 5am over here i’m not really thinking straight T_T i just have a lot of feels for this drama okay ;_____;

#the romance of tiger and rose #传闻中的陈芊芊 #cdramanet #zhao lusi #ding yuxi #赵露思 #丁禹兮 #mine #drama watching #count the number of times i said the word funny... where has all my vocabulary gone lol

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aspoonofsugar · 4 years

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What do you think might hypothetically happen in the future to cause Chuuya to break with Mori?

Hello anon!

It is difficult to say for sure and the best I can do is to try and underline some themes which might be linked to Chuuya’s character and which might be used in a potential character arc.

As for now, Chuuya has received some focus, but said focus has yet to properly be finalized I think. That said, I think that the focus he received is coherent and fits with his character arc in Fifteen which is the work where he receives proper development (as he will in Storm Bringer oc). In short, I think that the two novels which tell his story are gonna be very important for the future of his character and so far what we know of him in the manga should be considered together with the info the novels gave and will give.

This is the premise I will use in this analysis. Because of this, I invite people to take everything I say with a grain of salt because in the end everything will have to be confirmed by the manga itself if and when Chuuya will be given focus.

THE GUILD ARC: SLEEPING BEAUTY AND THE DRAGON

If Q is Sleeping Beauty, then I would say that Lovecraft is the dragon keeping watch:

What is important is that both Q and Lovecraft can be linked to different parts of Chuuya he refuses to aknowledge.

Generally speaking, Yumeno and Lovecraft are two characters who are linked:

First of all, both Yumeno and Lovecraft are representative of the horror genre and they are both associated with the montrousity, but in different ways. Yumeno’s monstrousity is linked to the mind and to one’s interioriy, while Lovecraft is monstrous because he is not properly human and so he is far stronger than humans and somehow difficult to properly understand.

As stated above, they represent two kinds of monstrous and this is true also in regards to Chuuya.

On one hand Q is a victim of a system Chuuya is helping to perpetrate. His reaction in this scene:

is interesting for two reasons.

1) It is interesting because it seems to contrast his behaviour in Fifteen. As a matter of fact, Chuuya used to protect a bunch of children who decided to ally in order to fight a society which wanted to exploit them. However, as an adult Chuuya has become part of a group who does the exploiting.

2) It is interesting because it confirms a trait Chuuya has had since Fifteen and which has not changed since. This trait is Chuuya’s tendency to see others either as a part of his group or as outsiders. He is as ruthless against outsiders as caring to his people.

In short, it is interesting to see how Chuuya has both changed and not changed.

Chuuya’s change stems from this experience:

In Fifteen we are shown that Chuuya puts a lot of importance in trust, but ironically he doesn’t really understand it. As a matter of fact Sheep’s betrayal is born by the fact that both Chuuya and the members of Sheep are not able to trust each other in key moments:

The members of Sheep do not trust Chuuya’s allegiance and fall for Dazai’s trap, but at the same time Chuuya too is not trusting his comrades with his past. All in all he gives them zero explanation as to why he is so fixated in working together with the mafia to find Arahabaki. This is of course because in the end the relationship between Chuuya and his comrades was a superficial one despite how much grateful Chuuya was to them for having let him into the group and how much he cared for them.

In short, in Fifteen even if Chuuya talks about comraderie he ends up betrayed and he himself is not able to trust and to depend on his comrades. This is why he ends the novel by embracing a more utilitaristic point of view:

Sheep’s betrayal has shown him that a romantic vision of the world can’t always lead to a good result and that strength alone is not enough. This is why he chooses to swear loyalty to Mori who embodies a pragmatic vision of the world and strategic thinking.

At the same time, his choice to swear loyalty to Mori and so to put all his trust in him is interesting because the one between him and Mori is all in all a relationship ruled by a hierarchy. Chuuya is Mori’s subordinate and not really his equal exactly like Chuuya was the Sheep’s leader and not their equals. This is something Fifteen puts some focus on:

Even if Chuuya insists that he and the other members of Sheep all share the same amount of importance and influence within the organization, this is clearly false. All in all Chuuya is much stronger than them to the point that he becomes the one everyone depends on and that him possibly leaving the organization is enough to threathen the survival of the group.

In conclusion, it is interesting that Chuuya starts Fifteen by putting emphasis on the fact that he is not the leader of his group and so by refusing a hierarchical relationship with his comrades. However, in the end of Fifteen he fully embraces a hierarchical relationship with Mori and enters an organization which is all built on hierarchies and ranks:

This is an interesting change and we’ll go back to it in the last section of this analysis.

Let’s now focus on the parts of Chuuya which have not changed and on why they have stayed the same.

The reason Chuuya has not changed is this:

Just to be clear Storm Bringer might give us new information and change things (after all, it is supposed to end Chuuya’s arc in the past), but as for now, I think that it is safe to assume Chuuya has still to properly come to terms with his identity as Arahabaki, whatever that is. All in all he perceives himself as a mass of power closed inside a human body. This is why he needs to feel accepted by others in order to affirm his humanity. So he ends up joining large organizations and ties who he is to said groups. I think that a good way to illustrate this is to compare Chuuya’s way of dressing when he was in Sheep:

To the one he has now as a member of the mafia:

The two styles are so different that they are almost opposite. What is more, in both cases Chuuya ends up adopting a style which is almost stereotypical of respectively a street rat and a mafia member. Let’s also highlight that the story often makes fun of Chuuya’s sense of fashion:

And I like to interpret Chuuya being overly self-conscious when it comes to his appearance as a sign that he is actually trying to fit as well as he can.

In short, according to this reading, Chuuya’s sense of self is very frail because he struggles to reconcile the “monstrous” part of himself.

Lovecraft is symbolic of this part of Chuuya:

The manga doesn’t make it explicit, but once Chuuya’s background is known it becomes difficult not to compare Chuuya and Lovecraft. After all, both are linked to supernatural beings/forces since Lovecraft is clearly hinted to be one of the Old Ones and Chuuya is the safety device to keep Arahabaki in check. It is true that we don’t really know what Arahabaki truly is. It might be an old deity like Lovecraft is hinted to be or an artificial ability or a combination of the two. It doesn’t really matter because what matters if that Chuuya himself perceives this part of himself as something inhuman and monstrous. This is exactly what Lovecraft represents.

Even the fact that Dazai’s power doesn’t work on Lovecraft is interesting:

Despite how much it frustrates Chuuya, Dazai’s No Longer Human is what manages to keep Chuuya in check and what is able to bring him back when he is too far gone in his desire of destruction. However, Lovecraft is someone who can’t be brought back by Dazai no matter what. In short, he is really what Chuuya is mostly scared of becoming.

In conclusion, Chuuya’s battle against Lovecraft to save Q can be seen as a possible way his arc might turn out shown to us in a nutshell. Chuuya needs to save Q aka to act on his wish to protect those weaker than him that he has shown in Fifteen, but in order to do so he has to fight Lovecraft aka to face his own insecurity and vulnerability about Arahabaki.

THE CANNIBALISM ARC: OLD GRUDGES

In the section above it has been underlined how Chuuya has both changed and not changed since Fifteen. This section will instead try to figure out the entity of this change and how deep Chuuya’s transformation in Fifteen is.

I have talked of Chuuya’s role in Cannibalism in this meta:

In Cannibalism the leaders of the two organizations are out of commission. However, the two people who are supposed to temporally lead the two groups fail in almost opposite ways. Chuuya is too aggressive in his leadership and ends up in a trap because of his personal feelings, whereas Kunikida’s leadership is too weak. After all, by the end the majority of the agency prefers to fight the mafia head on together with Ranpo instead of continuing the investigation with Kunikida. And even when it comes to the investigation it is Atsushi the one who insists on it while Kunikida can’t choose between the two options given to him. We can say that Chuuya doesn’t consider other options and so doesn’t think enough, while Kunikida thinks too much to the point that he is stopped in his tracks.

What is more, the arc makes perfectly clear that both Chuuya and Ranpo are two people who still depend a lot from respectively Mori and Fukuzawa aka the adults who took them in as kids and that they see as role models. It is because of this that the two fight and this almost leads to the destruction of the city and of both organizations.

As my quote above makes clear, Chuuya ends up foiling both Kunikida and Ranpo in this arc. He foils Kunikida as far as their flaw at leading others is concerned and he foils Ranpo when it comes to their dependence on their respective leaders.

I have talked about the foiling with Kunikida above, so let’s now focus on Chuuya’s foiling with Ranpo.

All in all both Chuuya and Ranpo are motivated by the desire to save an authority/father figure. They might go at it differently, but when all is said and done, they are both ready to sacrifice everything else just to have Fukuzawa and Mori back. We know Ranpo’s motivations:

All in all the agency is Ranpo’s home and a place where he has been accepted despite his quirks. We can infer from this foiling and what I discussed in the previous section that the mafia is the same for Chuuya. In the end, Ranpo and Chuuya’s conflict during Cannibalism has nothing to do with Yokohama’s future and which organization has to survive. It is simply a conflict born from personal feelings and desires.

However, by that point Ranpo has started his development, as I have written here, and he manages to use what he has learnt in the previous arc to his advantage:

Ranpo uses the connection he has made with Poe to fight against Chuuya. As I have stated in the meta I linked, the fact that Chuuya is dragged in a fantasy world is not something which happens by chance:

It is also interesting that both times Ranpo’s opponents ended up in a setting which challenged them by playing with their flaws. As it was shown above, Mushitarou had to admit his feelings for Yokomizo, while Chuuya who relies on his power too much found himself in a world without abilities.

These two situations occurred because Ranpo needed to win against his opponents, but at the same time he has been using Poe’s power which is representative of fiction in general to challenge people in a way which could have helped them grow.

Chuuya relies on strength and on his ability too much, so it makes sense that Ranpo brings him in a fictional world where abilities do not exist and that he forces Chuuya in a fight of wits. However, this is not the first time Chuuya has been warned about his over-reliance on violence and on his ability:

Fifteen is basically about Chuuya’s failure to win with only his strength and by the end of it he accepts the limits of his approach and chooses to depend on Mori to integrate the parts he lacks. However, after seven years he finds himself struggling with the same problem as before.

What is more, this is not the only thing Chuuya has failed to solve since Fifteen:

At the end of that story, Chuuya asks Mori what it means to be a leader and realizes the limits of his own leadership. So Chuuya wants to improve his leadership, but once he is given the chance to lead again after years he has still trouble with it.

In short, Chuuya has still the same problems he used to have in Fifteen even if he were supposed to have partly overcome them at the end of the novel. This means that Chuuya has not changed as much as it seems. This is the case because Chuuya’s change in Fifteen is superficial and doesn’t involve his most deep parts (the ones symbolized by Lovecraft):

Rimbaud’s words are meaningful on an existential level and Chuuya should accept them completely in order to go on. However, the fact that he has undergone a superficial change, but has kept his chore attributes suggests that he has yet to completely go through a complete transformation.

Finally, another example of Chuuya’s failure to grow is given by the comparison between these two scenes:

Chuuya claims that he is not motivated by old grudges, but in the end he loses specifically because he can’t overcome his contradictive feelings for Dazai. In short, he loses because he can’t let go of an old grudge.

Let’s highlight that old grudges are mentioned also in the Guild Arc:

What is more, they are mentioned in relation to Chuuya and Dazai’s partnership since their alliance is said to have the potential to make up for old grudges/can happen only if old grudges are overcome. The whole thing is interesting because all in all Chuuya and Dazai’s relationship is built on a mix of old grudges, affinity and deep knowledge born from the long time they were forced to spend together.

In synthesis, in Fifteen Chuuya has apparently changed everything. He changed group and ideology, he even accepted the importance of strategy and hierarchy, but he has not overcome the idea that he is different from others. This idea goes in the way of his relationships with others and of his own self-realization. From this, it stems that Chuuya has to solve his past in order to gorw and one of the most important parts of his past is represented by his relationship with Dazai.

CHUUYA AND DAZAI: THE DIFFICULTIES OF A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PEERS

Let’s have a brief summary of what was said up until now. I have argued that the guild Arc offers us an idea of what Chuuya’s objective should be, while Cannibalism shows Chuuya’s major flaws. In both arcs it is clear the importance Dazai has for Chuuya’s character. On one hand it is thanks to Dazai’s help that Chuuya manages to win against Lovecraft. On the other hand it is his anger about Dazai which leads Chuuya in Ranpo’s trap.

Because of this, let’s talk a little about Dazai and Chuuya’s relationship.

First of all, it is interesting how their relationship turns out in Fifteen, especially in comparison to Chuuya’s relationship with Mori. I have mentioned above that Chuuya swearing loyalty to Mori is an attempt Chuuya does to change and to integrate the parts he lacks. What is interesting is that many of those qualities Mori has and Chuuya values about him are qualities Dazai shares as well. As a matter of fact Dazai is even smarter and more calculative than Mori and it is precisely this which makes his combination with Chuuya so powerful. In short, Dazai and Chuuya are clearly complementary because they have opposite weaknesses and strengths and it is Dazai himself the one who shows Chuuya how dangerous his weaknesses can be. However, in the end Chuuya chooses to depend on Mori rather than on Dazai. This is obviously because of many factors the novel explores, but I would just like to highlight that an interesting difference between these two relationships is that the one between Mori and Chuuya is hierarchical, while the one between Chuuya and Dazai is not.

All in all, Chuuya and Dazai are peers and this is why their relationship ends up being different from the other ones Chuuya has. As I have said in the first section, Chuuya’s relationship with the members of Sheep ended up being asymmetric because of Chuuya’s incredible strength. However, Dazai is not scared by Chuuya’s ability or by his prowess and manages to stand up to him using his wits and his own ability:

At the same time, Chuuya refuses any attempt Dazai makes to force him into a position of submission:

Basically, each one wants to dominate the other in some way, but since they are too good at such opposite things they fail to do so and their relationship maintains its equilibrium. In short, Chuuya is so strong that he survives Dazai’s schemes and Dazai is so intelligent that he can escape Chuuya’s attempts to hurt him.

It is precisely because of this equality that their relationship ends up being so conflictual and so potentially enriching at the same time:

In the end Dazai is the one who is there to listen to Chuuya’s past and not any member of Sheep. Similarly, Chuuya is there to hear Dazai express his will to live:

Even when it comes to “trust” which is such a key concept for Chuuya’s character, the novel emphasizes how Chuuya has to trust Dazai in order to win against Rimbaud. Of course this “trust” is complicated because both boys end up hurting each other respectively at the beginning and at the end of Fifteen:

In short, the relationship between Dazai and Chuuya is a double edge sword. On one hand they empower each other and this is why their combo is so effective, but at the same time they hurt each other. This ambivalence is something which happens both because they are so opposite and because they end up reminding each other of what they do not want to face about themselves:

This is Dazai and Chuuya’s first meeting in the manga. The ways they call each other is interesting and it represents what they can’t stand about the other.

On one hand Chuuya emphasizes how Dazai is obsessed by the idea of taking his own life. On the other hand Dazai mocks Chuuya’s looks and his clothes. They have both singled out each other’s major flaws and they are highlighting them. As a matter of fact Dazai’s major struggle is to find meaning in his own life, while Chuuya has the tendency to modify his looks to fit in. At the same time, though, their dislike for these traits of the other underlines something deeper they both try to hide from themselves.

On one hand Chuuya has a self-destructive tendency exactly like Dazai:

On the other hand Dazai’s wish is to connect with others and he is scared he can’t exactly like Chuuya:

Their similarities and differences are efficiently conveyed also through their designs.

As a matter of fact both Chuuya and Dazai wear things symbolic of the barriers and the limits they impose on themselves:

Chuuya wears gloves and Dazai wears bandages. Chuuya’s gloves represent Chuuya’s attempt to hide his inhuman parts. All in all they are nothing but something superficial which are meant to hide and suppress his destructive potential. Dazai’s bandages are representative of the barriers Dazai puts between himself and others because of his fear of being hurt. Both pieces of cloths show that Dazai and Chuuya hides parts of themselves from others.

At the same time, Chuuya and Dazai have also shown opposite behaviours towards another important piece of clothing they were given:

Chuuya keeps Rimbaud’s hat with a lot of care, while Dazai has left Mori’s coat behind. This opposite behaviour symbolizes their opposite reactions to the mafia and to their father figures as a whole. Chuuya clings to his (both to Mori and to Rimbaud’s memory), while Dazai is trying to cut all ties he has with his. It is probable that in the end Chuuya will have to finally make himself independent and to grow, while Dazai will have to finally face his past and resolve his unsolved issues.

How will the two of them do it?

I do not specifically know, but I think that it is clear Dazai’s arc revolves around Atsushi and Akutagawa who are the two most important characters linked to his arc. He will probably have to help the both of them and to solve his conflict with Akutagawa before the end. Through this conflict he may have to solve also his problems with the mafia in general.

As far as Chuuya is concerned (and we are finally arriving at your question), I think that whatever will happen to him it will have something to do with Dazai. After all, Dazai is the most important character in Chuuya’s arc, so it makes sense that in order to develop Chuuya will have to solve his contradictive feelings towards him. If he does so, Chuuya has the chance to finally grow, while if he doesn’t it won’t matter how much he changes superficially. As a matter of fact it will be just like him changing clothes and won’t lead to any substantial transformation.

Thank you for the ask!

#bsd #bsd meta #chūya nakahara #dazai osamu #chuya bsd #bsd chuuya #dazai bsd #bsd dazai #soukoku #bungou stray dogs #asksfullofsugar #anonymous #my meta

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