About Cowboy Bebop, Old People Music, and Weathered Winds

I’m writing this blog entry on the 31st July which means we’re more than halfway through the year and in honesty, it’s pretty cuckoo bananas. It's much colder now, but it hasn't phased me as much as it once had. As things grow old, a few new things have entered my life in exchange: Cowboy Bebop (because of a childhood MLP animation), the habit of trying to turn over stones, and truly trying to take everything one day at a time.

It’s kind of daunting—when I’m forced to think about it—how little time I have before mock exams, and it’s like hey! Slow down! I have like seven things to revise all at once, some with 2-3 papers of completely different topics! But then I remember that whatever happens, happens, and I’m just going to do my best. 

I try not to think about the pressure of my own expectations, or the fact that I am not the most polished student you’ll ever cross, but I have enough skills at winging things and doing the best I can with what I have, so I try to not to approach my academics with the thought of “I need to be perfect!” because then that's an empty purpose—and I’ll quickly burnout. Even then, more often than not, I’ll step back and see a gaping, absolutely hair-raising, existential void whenever I voyeur over my own aching, sleep deprived, bloated, cramped, and sedentary body and look at the workload hounding on my back. Because, Jesus, I’m dropping a good portion of these subjects by next year (biology, chemistry, algebra, and history—I’m still picking a fight with geography right now for my subject selection), so what’s the point? 

Of course, I want the satisfaction of relishing in the fruits of my labour because of how high I’ve chalked my personal expectations, but the point remains brighter than ever. And yet, I want to do my best simply because it feels good, and because I want to. I’d rather do my best, and retain the mindset that I don’t have to be insanely smart or anything because that’s just boring; I want time to prioritise myself, my hobbies, and whatever. At least I’ll be able to grant myself that satisfaction in the future, because learning to trust myself and not pay it much mind is a tricky but necessary lesson to learn. 

A very awesome photo I took early June, or something?

I haven’t been writing lately. Aside from the creative writing internal, I’ve simply not touched any WIPs, my notes app, or come up with any new funky phrases. I acknowledge, now, that I’m simply far busier than I have ever been—I just haven’t noticed, because I’ve always regarded my grades with immense importance. I’ve let go of trying to rattle the poet out of me, because I need to prioritise living, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted ever since I resorted to placing pen to paper in 2022 when I genuinely didn’t know and couldn’t live. 

Now that Cowboy Bebop has entered my life because of MLP, “old people music” has also entered my life once again and making a comeback from year 8 because that anime reminds me too much of The Beatles, and other existential song there is from the 60s-80s.

More specifically, I find myself having Mr Tambourine Man (Live at the Newport Folk Festival. 1964) by Bob Dylan on YouTube on repeat because when I listen to it, it makes me think that everything is going to be okay.  The following verse (being so impactful for little me that I stuck it to my wall with other handwritten pages of other lyrics that I found profound) listed is perhaps the one that has stuck to my side the most in the past years: 

“And take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind / Down the foggy ruins of time / Far past the frozen leaves / The haunted frightened trees / Out to the windy beach / Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow / Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky / With one hand waving free / Silhouetted by the sea / Circled by the circus sands / With all memory and fate / Driven deep beneath the waves / Let me forget about today until tomorrow”

There’s a lot of things that don’t make sense to me even to this day, but I won’t be surprised if I do some sort of 10 page analysis with my personal anecdotes and poetic musings embedded into it, because Bob Dylan is the reason why I believed I was an ISFP when I’m the most Ti-dominant loser you’ve ever witnessed and he’s perhaps a cornerstone to the development of my writing. Questions like, why a tambourine? Why are you asking a percussionist to play a song for you? The lyrics sound beautiful and far away but what the hell does it all mean? And it’s these questions that make it all the more better, because regardless of its seeming disjointed narrative, after all these years of attaching this song to the side of my waist and letting it rest in the in-betweens of my ribs, this song is a narrative about longing, looking to the past, youth, sorrow, and all the fun stuff I think about when I’m away from school, and the sky is wide, and the world is ahead of me and I’m not demarcated by schedules, by 5 class periods, by my grades, by what my teachers think about me, by how many extracurriculars are marked in my report. It’s a song that—to its very core—transports me without even physically hopping in a getaway vehicle and out to the countryside, where the shattered lights of the city aren't in the distance, and there’s hardly any streaks of cars or really fucking loud and arrogant  motorbikes. 

When I look back, it’s a song amongst the other 60s music cornerstones (Nowhere Man and In My Life by The Beatles) that has always provided comfort—especially during the liminality of navigating the parting of childhood into stupid early teenage hood in which I was trying to find my people, and most importantly, myself. Woven in the trills of the harmonica, the stomach-aching guitar, the unique sound of Dylan’s voice, there’s an aged breeze that has probably travelled across the world and has returned to me that I have not felt for a very long time to tell me: Look how far you’ve come! Which is awesome, and it’s wonderful to be reminded how I used to feel—because folded and folded and folded and folded in the bottommost fibres of my coat pockets are my old issues, pains, and realisations that although seem very, very stupid and small in the grand scheme of things, I manage to find sympathy somewhere in me for younger me because yes, these issues were small, but so was I. 

Healing takes a very long time, and maybe it’s lifelong, but things are becoming a little lighter nowadays. 

Spiderman: Across the Spider-verse review

CW/ Spoilers for Spiderman: Across the Spider-verse 

A still from Across the Spider-verse (2023)

Spiderman: Across the Spider-verse is a stunning animation movie produced by Sony Animations, telling the narrative of Miles Morales through strong creative choices in the story it targets to tell. Taking on the concepts installed by its predecessor, Into the Spider-verse, Across the Spider-verse is the sequel sandwiched in a promising trilogy with its guaranteed successor, Beyond the Spider-verse. And yet, it does not sell itself short as a “half of a film” at all, but rather takes immense pride for everything that it is; relishing in all of the elements that Into the Spider-verse has asserted itself to be. The amalgamation of excellent teamwork of more imaginative and distinct spider-entity designs, soundtracking, and animation collectively portray a fascinating interpretation of the spiderman franchise that generations have grown fond of over the years. This sequel takes every bone laid out by Into the Spider-verse and expertly continues to flood in its creativity and storytelling. And after watching Across the Spider-verse, I take undoubtful confidence in responding to this confident film that it was phenomenal and does not sell short as a hand-me-down sequel. 

For estranged creatives similar to me who have been swept into an industrial interpretation of life or have lost that tight grip in creating over time, Across the Spider-verse is like a whiplash when you witness the fruits of artisans who have decided to take their passions into their career and produce such stylised films like this. And it shows, as the movie is lapped with nuances that only visuals and auditory designs can portray; nuances that would simply fall flat through the delivery of dialogue. Within the junction of these creative mediums that enhances this movie, the audience is stationed into this promising experience from the beginning sequence bursted with captivating distorted credits and an evocative monologue provided by Gwen through a drum solo. This introduction solidifies the themes and motifs that we’ll witness to flourish in the following 2 hours and 16 minutes. 

The character development and the characters the movie decides to develop is strong and evident in its thorough research. As the shift of emphasis on Gwen’s character in this movie was wonderful, other previously introduced characters in the previous movie consequently fall in the background—but with good reason, as other strong spider-entities do not constitute for their absence, but rather further expands the possibilities of spider-verse, not just for the sake of clustering new characters. Gwen’s emphasis rises as she stands firmly beside Miles, as we gain a broader understanding of her identity as the story relishes in the dimensions of her universe through a gorgeous, evocative watercolour style harbouring inspiration by the scene in Cinderella (1950) in which the evil step sisters shred Cinderella’s dress apart. Other instalments of new characters that expand the spider-verse by Into the Spider-verse include Spider-punk / Hobie Brown, who thrashes into the narrative through his bold zine-like appearance, an electric guitar, and punk-rock inspirations, or the bright Indian Spider-man, Pavitr Prabhakar who brings a charming and brilliant cultural twist on spider-man as he introduces us to “Mumbattan”, a portmanteau of Mumbai and Manhattan. The antagonist of the franchise is also introduced, Miguel O’Hara, and in honesty, he was insane. The movie does not shy away from the authoritative position of his character, and for what his role and character is meant to represent and with the story it wants to tell, he fills those shoes exceptionally well. Additionally, the overarching villain, "The Spot" is cuckoo bananas and his character design succeeded in evoking disturbed and unnerving emotions within me despite his goofiness in the initial parts of the movie.

This franchise, to its very heart, is a narrative about breaking boundaries. Not only in the phenomenal people who push the boundaries of their disciplines to create a unique experience, but this theme underlines the entire narrative itself. We can observe this in the “canon events” which are introduced to us by Miguel O’Hara. It is these cornerstone events and experiences that create this predestined framework one must follow in exchange in fulfilling the role of becoming an entity of spiderman. And yet, despite the myriad of spider-entities we witness, there are elements that make them unique and implement their own indirect statements towards the overarching narrative of the identity of spiderman, and what certain elements amount to a canonical spider-entity deserving of that title. Evidently, this is portrayed through the primary conflict between the antagonist Miguel O’Hara, the hierophant of the orthodox spider-narrative, and the divergent nature of Miles Morales’ character. We can identify how they serve as each other’s foil through observation of the character and animation designs of both the characters, with Miguel’s brawny and established presence in juxtaposition to Mile's agility and flexibility. This plot serves as an analogy for the wider world, as reflected in the universal dilemma of “not belonging” in the face of the “status quo.” The film takes society's collectively fixed mindset in its hands and shatters it against the sidewalk—whether it be as a general statement for a challenge that everyone must face at some point, or whether it be a comment on how people should loosen up when it comes to renditions. 

(A very gushy, quick note, as well: The handlement of the metaphysical is not in any way tacky in contrast to previous superhero films such as Multiverse of Madness, which I have not watched, but I’m not an all round movie-goer and I just know it’s bad.)

With that said, there are enough stunning aspects of this movie that everyone from any demographic can grasp on to experience and enjoy it in their individual ways. Whether this experience can be obtained through the narrative itself, the visuals, the soundtracking, the character designs, etc, it’s without doubt that many hearts, passion, dedication, and efforts have been placed into the creation of this movie and that there is something in it for everyone, even if you aren’t a spider-man or superhero movie enjoyer. I say this as a person who has never been enrapt in superhero movies in general, and yet, I was breath taken by every single action scene in this movie as it was dynamic and not just brawn or primitive. 

To be in the middle of the revolution of animation is quite magical. We can see the impact its predecessor has on other animation films in the horizon, such as the already released “Puss and Boots: The Last Wish” or “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” who relish in their respective stylised styles. I should probably slip “Arcane” here, considering the amount of positive reviews and comments I’ve heard about it. It’s incredibly gratifying to witness how this Spiderman trilogy revolutionised animations. 

As it was said, and forever must be, the Spider-verse as a whole is the official face and demonstration of the possibilities that animation as a genre can reach. The narrative itself embodies the rejection of the status quo, as Miles Morales, a pronounced “anomaly” undergoes the process of being aware of his worth of spiderman regardless of the daggering enforcement of the framework of becoming spiderman. It is definitely worth the experience for at least one time in your life—because as we follow Mile’s story through an adventure of the insane lengths that animation can reach, it can honestly make you believe that everything is possible. 

SONYA: What can we do? We must live out our lives. [A pause] Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya.

I haven’t written a blog post here in a while. It’s kind of strange. I changed — that’s to be expected. The same old: Everything goes through thousands of folds of death and birth and death and birth. It’s new then old then new then old. Some new things happened. I made a lot of stupid decisions, and I don’t think I can scrub myself clean off it, but I trust time will do it’s slow rinsing. For the meantime, I’ll dip my hands in the river. I know there are some consequences and a million regrets weighing my body right now. I think April pushed my life downhill, and this is the first term holiday I’m carrying my own weight. 

I don’t want to be like who I was back then. It feels strange slipping back into this way of life when I had experienced a different way. But then again. Then again, I’m sure a lot of those people who I came across during that different way don’t really remember me much, and even if they did, well, I suppose my stupid actions bear consequences. I just never anticipated how onerous those consequences will grow into the size of a baby on my back. 

But it’s hard — carrying these regrets. It’s a part of life. Just that: a part, like a limb, like a lung, like a heart. It’s necessary, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t hard to carry. At least it’s not unnecessary, like the coccyx (ergo: the tailbone). Anyway, I’m learning a lot right now. Words don’t mend everything, but it’s a start. I still feel like a massive mess inside, and everything that happened still disgusts me and I’m forced to contend the question: How can you even live with yourself? everyday. But I have to. I need to. 

Of course, silly scenarios like, shit, what if this comes back to me in the future? What if my past comes back to bite my back? What-if’s cluster my already cluttered mind and I don’t know where to put down all of this weight. I’m not sure what to do. I’ve already seeked God. But, I must live. What else can I do? People like me have probably done worse things. Teenagers do terrible things, embarrassing things, regretful things. That’s simply within my nature. I don’t mean to dismiss anything I’ve done with futile and frail excuses, but it’s a little reminder, I suppose. I suppose. I suppose. 

Anyway, I’m watching the kdrama twenty five twenty one right now, and it’s such a lovely series. The age gap got me raising my brow my miles, because it reminded me of something in the past. But, it was pure and it was messy in all of the right ways. Maybe I should write about it if I have time. 

I’m trying to cling onto myself now. I’m trying to cling on. 

i took a train to jerusalem

I cried in an empty church today & it reminded me of when

I took a train to Jerusalem & found that it was a city of shattered tea

lights spilt from last summer/ the world was rotating the wrong way/

shard-sliced, bare-boned & throbbing/    we keep walking anyway

 

we’re travelling so quickly; I thought I saw myself melt in the windows,

into the blue that laps

                                               upon blue/

who knew how hungry time becomes, i never realised the clocks

were craving for something, too/   gravity does not promise graceful falls

 

6pm: get off the train,  into a station i’ve only witnessed

in the rain that permeates my body during dreary days &

fear holds a dagger against my clavicle,    thumb against

my cupids bow   and oh how

 

the skeletons beneath the dirt rattle in response

how my ancestors are tucked in the folds of night/  how

God does not forsake us/ how fate

found us/    three things stand out in my stupor/

 

i.         there’s a seraph sleeping in ninefold winds. she sighs out a dream:

keep walking, sweetheart. we’re starving dogs searching for salvation.

ii.        there are no stars tonight, & i realise it’s because we swallowed all of them

iii.      the moon is leaking/ oh no—it’s dribbling down my shirt/

(will you clean it up for me?)

i met an angel & before i     approached him, i slipped

anxiety like a belt, then asked with my hands

heart and heavy:     hey, do you know how to get to the other side?

or because i’m sick with sensitivity or because honesty bruises

my knees:     i got on the wrong train,      i think i’m going to cry

 

i met an angel today & they left      me in tears—not because they left

but because they left & my heart swelled into an amorphous animal

which slipped out of my tear glands in the form of my mother’s weeping

& the blades of my shoulder shudder like the earth beneath/

 

litter lilies across the concrete & crack a good laugh

it’s terribly june & we’re nearly back      to where we began

i could have captured a photo, but there’s bliss-

fullness in forgetting, in letting go of the world

how to let go of the grass you’ve been clinging on for

four summers/ how to let go of—

 

and i sit on the curb cause it's the prettiest night, with no one else in sight

SEE WHAT HAPPENS. THIS IS A QUOTE THAT I SEEM TO LIVE MY LIFE BY, AND I DIDN’T REALLY REALISE IT UNTIL NOW. IT IS 8:56AM. 

I APOLOGISE IF YOU ARE READING THIS AND YOU HATE ALL-CAPS, BUT I HATE ALL-CAPS TOO, AND I HATE WRITING SOMETIMES, TOO, SO MAYBE IT CHECKS OUT. I WROTE A FEW MONTHS AGO ABOUT HOW WRITING IS SOMETHING LIKE BEING SOFT ENOUGH FOR SOMEONE TO STAY, AND ROUGH ENOUGH THAT YOUR WORDS WILL CALCIFY INTO MILK-ROT TEETH AND SINK ITS JAWS INTO ITS READERS FLESH. I HAVEN’T BEEN SOFT AT ALL LATELY, SO THIS WILL SUFFICE. I DON’T MEAN TO HURT YOU. I ONLY MEAN FOR YOU TO STAY. 

I AM PLANNING TO GO TO THE LIBRARY TODAY. I HAVE NOT STUDIED PROPERLY FOR THE PAST WEEK, AND I FEEL LIKE A VESSEL. KNOWLEDGE, I KNOW, IS THE ONLY THING KEEPING ME ALIVE WHICH THEREFORE MEANS LOVE IN SOME WAY OR ANOTHER.

I HAVEN’T BEEN TALKING TO GOD LATELY, BUT I HAVE BEEN LOOKING UP AT THE SKY A LOT MORE. ON THURSDAY, I WATCHED THE SUNSET WITH MY FRIEND BY THE PORT AND THE SKY WAS STRANGE AND WEIRD, BUT IT WAS PRETTY AND IT LOOKED LIKE THE SKY LEAKED OF PEACHES. LIKE GOD HAD PEELED PEACHES, AND ITS JUICES WERE DRIPPING FROM HIS FINGERS BECAUSE MAYBE EVEN GOD IS MESSY AND MAKES MISTAKES. 

WITHIN THIS OSMOSIS, MY FRIEND ASKED ME WHAT I WAS THINKING. FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT DAY, I DON’T THINK I WAS THINKING ABOUT ANYTHING. NOT ABOUT THE HORRORS THAT WAIT FOR ME IN MY SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECT MESSAGES, NOT THE FACT THE WEATHER IS WEIRD AS HELL, OR MY UNCLEAN ROOM THAT STILL HOLDS THE CORPSE AND ASHES OF THE PAST VERSIONS OF ME THAT I HAVE FAILED TO HAUL OUT, OR — I DON’T KNOW. I DON’T KNOW. BUT I WAS NOT THINKING, AND THAT NIGHT, I RETURNED HOME IN THE DARK, RETURNING HOME THROUGH THE FRESH NIGHT THAT HAD DAWNED AS QUICKLY AS IT HAD DISSOLVED THAT MORNING. 

I DON’T KNOW WHY I AM WRITING RIGHT NOW. I GAVE UP ON MY NEWSLETTER AGES AGO BECAUSE I HATED HOW I WAS AWARE OF WHO WAS STAYING AND WHO WAS NOT, SO THIS BLOG WILL BE GOOD TO ME BECAUSE OF HOW MUCH I AM UNAWARE OF WHO STAYS AND WHO DOES NOT. SO EVEN IF YOU CANNOT COMMENT AND YOU STAYED, WHETHER I WAS SOFT OR ROUGH ENOUGH FOR YOU TO DO SO, I THANK YOU. I HOPETHAT MY WORDS REACH OUT TO YOU, IN SOME WAY OR ANOTHER. 

STAY SAFE AND WELL. AND THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU. 

Art is honesty, and honesty is love, and love is a life well-lived.

There are moments in this world in which I forget that I am in it. I always look at the sky and it is not how I imagine it to be, nor is it exactly how I remember it last time. But I know that it is the sky, because of how it is April, now, and come May, I will be deep in my sweet sixteens. But I haven’t been feeling all that sweet. I don’t think I am a sweet person. I am tough on the edges and sour everywhere else if you squeeze me enough from my torpor of sadness. 

I repulse at the tiniest things, the small things (figuratively and quite literally), and sometimes I get so swept away by it that I forget to look up at the overwhelming blue. I read somewhere on twitter in which one of my favourite writers quoted that “blue is love” and never have I agreed more to a statement. I forget how much love there is in this world, that we quite literally inhale the sky above us, how it keeps us alive and cradles this flawed world like a babe. 

I told my friend with the heart of the world in my palms, that sometimes, the way that I see the world can be beautiful. I tilt my head as much as I can to see it sideways, in the way the world works. I always take a wooden spoon to carve out some part of my day to write, because this is what I stay alive for. Even if my words are always unspooling like untamed yarn, my hands are burning with crushed stars. Even if these no-good words are always liquid. Even if it falls through me like rain, like a July downpour. Even if I cling to this fleeting feeling against my bones, knowing that it will go like it always has and always will. 

It’s been raining a lot more lately, but it’s been raining regardless of the margins of the seasons here. The world is truly broken with a bleeding heart, like a trembling, lonely mother. The oceans are rising and it rains in summer. An August without him is coming, and I know that it will be strange, not sad. 

I’m trying really hard to be good, to love the world as I should. To find gratitude, not greed. To take my vulnerabilities and accept them for as it is. 

Yes. The sky is not blue today, it is raining today, and I am ruined and worn. But truthfully, this world can be beautiful, sometimes. It can be beautiful. 

____

Music that I adore and have been going cuckoo bananas over lately.

Northern Downpour by Panic! At the Disco.

This song specifically means so much heart to me due to how much it reminds me of July and August of 2022, of finding a way outside of isolation, of reaching out a hand. The lyrics are so warm, despite the title of "downpour". It's a song that reminds me of renewal and rebirth. It's autumn. Winter will whirl in with ease.

Like Real People Do by Hozier.

God, I love love songs, tender ones, specifically, because although I am aromantic and asexual, this is how I imagine love to be. To be vulnerable, to try my hardest to soften all of my harsh edges. Hozier songs sound so much like sweet summer sixteen.

My Lie by Zolik (Your Lie in April Intstrumental).

Your Lie in April never fails to remind me what I live for and why I make art. I love this show so much, and it's never never going to fail to make me cry and rethink my life choices and how I live in this world. And I don't think it's even the end of mortality at the completion of the narrative as we are shown. It's about mothers, of moving on, of spring, of first, adolescent love and learning to love the world despite, despite, despite. And I think that that is so wonderful. This instrumental specifically makes me heart wrench and my lungs tight but in the way that I am embracing this life that I have so tightly, I feel like I could cry.

BSD 105 thoughts

 MY THOUGHTS ON BSD CHAPTER 105

[REPOST FROM THE ACRHIVES, JANUARY 6 2023]

The newest chapter released only a day ago and I know by now that releasing something is going to be considered late but it takes me a while to wrap my head around things so I’m approaching this chapter now with the intent on reifying and grounding my thoughts regarding it. If you have anything else to add on and etc, I would enjoy reading it. My thoughts are very whimsy and I believe that how I interpret things is pretty loose, but solidifying it helps concrete everything for me so I am able to process more of the nooks and crannies of BSD content. 

The quality of the chapter despite the paucity of pages we received:

I’m impressed with Asagiri and Harukawa’s writing abilities to compact a considerable amount of details within perhaps the shortest chapter released within the franchise. I don’t have much to comment on it, however, considering that I am writing something out like this should speak within itself. So many layers and I’m looking forward to how this chapter will serve for the snowball of events I am expecting to come. (And an out of topic comment, I wonder how the Haikyuu fandom dealt with their monthly chapters. I read somewhere in which they were waiting every month for a singular receive? Man.)

Atsushi’s Hallucinations: 

[First and foremost, Atsushi. You need help. Here we have Atsushi having a complete mental breakdown and then we cut to Dazai and Sigma playing silly rounds of paper, scissors, rock. While I do appreciate and find it wonderful that Atsushi’s hallucinations are shifting from the orphanage director who abused him to Dazai, having hallucinations is still not exactly healthy! Anyways.]

One can interpret Atsushi’s sequence as two different things—whether this is Atsushi assorting through his external environments plethora of possible decisions or in an overwhelming influx of such that it’s less of him thinking of these possible decisions, but rather, a degrading chastisement with the paranoia of disappointing those around him and of being judged. For this thought dump, I’m going to be preening through these two possibilities and leave it up for personal preference of interpretations as I haven’t really thought about it any further to come to a solid conclusion behind the scene itself. I am open to any thoughts, objections, or anything please don’t consider this as a solid analysis LOL. 

The variety of characters featured within this chapter coming to Atsushi in characteristic advice is striking with the seemingly random appearance of Fitzgerald, however I would like to believe that this is a sign of growth for Atsushi’s character, despite how miniscule it may appear at first. This variety of seemingly out-of-nowhere characters (in order: Ranpo, Kunikida, Kyouka, and Fitzgerald) reminds us of the detail in his character that he is still learning how to think on his own, rather than having morals and decisions established and preset for him. Perhaps this could also stem from his fear of disappointing others and his lack of self-development, therefore, his reliance on other people as it would at least give him the security of structure. 

A human trait we do is copy and absorb, whether it be in the form of donning traits from parental figures, friends, our environment, etc, learning how to evaluate how we arrive at certain decisions. While everyone critically assorts through various conclusions and frameworks of thought borrowed from our objective relations to a rudimental degree, it’s especially imperative for Atsushi’s character development in order to flourish from his black-and-white morals that have been beaten into him by his abusive orphanage director. In this arc, instead of having the decisions and morals chosen and concreted for him, Atsushi has been isolated from the rest of the cast—ultimately stripping him of the structure of other people and completely bare on his own. Therefore, if this possibility is proven true, this organisation and evaluation of thoughts help give him more structure and certainty in his personal decision making in the long run.

Though, regardless of whether this scene was this or that, it’s good to perceive this arc as one that has been challenging Atsushi’s schism-like morals; tracing back to when Nikolai explained the genesis behind the reason as to why he kills at the beginning of the arc; learning and adapting to live in a realm of a grey-reality. It’s just a matter of time to see how the following events will impact Atsushi and how he continues to grow throughout the rest of this narrative.

I would also like to bring attention to Akutagawa’s hallucination serving as a state of clairvoyance, paired with Dazai, with the simple instructions to ‘Go Outside’ (memes aside). Akutagawa appearing to Atsushi, and not coming forward as the volatile murder-on-my-mind Akutagawa in which Atsushi perceives, could serve as a resemblance for the subtle shift of perspective on Akutagawa. And perhaps Akutagawa appearing after Fitzgerald’s hallucination is resemblance of shinsokokou’s first villain in which they took down as a team. I have not really expanded my thoughts on this sends tweet. 

Dazai’s transparent behaviour with Sigma: 

In contrast to perhaps the pinnacle of Atsushi’s decision making (or maybe the first of many to come) in the previous panels, the chapter cuts to Dazai and Sigma playing rounds of paper, scissors, rock where poor Sigma keeps failing to win. Meanwhile, in the unforeseen background, Chuuya and Fyodor are drowning. Nikolai’s location remains unknown. Lovely. While it is a rather more calm situation than we expected, there are still enough tid-bids to pick here and there to develop some thoughts on. 

Once Dazai reveals that the game is no more than silly little ordinary tricks of time and tension, Sigma comedically (and rightfully lol) comments how they are glad that Dazai is not a guest at their casino (we adore you, Sigma. Number one priorities while Dazai is trying to hint his true intentions! [Affectionate]).  

Dazai’s transparency and semi-candidness with Sigma—or rather, tracing back to when Dazai chose Sigma as his ‘weapon’ for the prison game, really—has been intriguing me since. This entire section has allowed me into a spiral of the intangibility of Dazai’s character, however, that…discussion is for another day.

Considering Dazai’s style of manipulation (if you will), it’s a plausible probability that Dazai is going to utilise Sigma for a bigger-picture-plan that is yet to be revealed to us while simultaneously offering Sigma the chance to make a choice. In retrospect to Dazai’s previous techniques, in comparison to Fyodor, he always offers a sense of free will and individuality. While Dazai is highly likely doing some kind of manipulation tactic paired with this, it’s still a valid detail to take note of when contrasting the differences and similarities between Dazai and Fyodor. I had to reread a couple of general Dazai analyses posts throughout the internet to confirm my thoughts, and I do agree with the aspect that his style of strategy is a mixture of gambling (bearing similarities to Fyodor and Mori, a reflection of his days in the Mafia) as well as a lackadaisical-esque ‘trust’ (and if we are perceptive enough, trust is akin to gambling, really) in those around him to execute his plan which is simply his innate preference in terms of planning and strategizing.  If we compare Dazai to Fyodor, Dazai has a very human approach to his style of manipulation, which brings me to my next point that Dazai will offer Sigma free will concerning in action with the opposition of The Decay of Angels, Fyodor, and their goal of wiping out all ability users.

What I am looking forward to, if this possibility proves true, is seeing how Sigma would react and come to a decision through this decision, as Chuuya had once quoted that you cannot necessarily decline Dazai in those kinds of situations (I will look for this specific quote and return to this little post once I rekindle with BSD in its entirety). And perhaps a little bit of a stretch, but I won’t be surprised or taken aback either if Dazai is also intent on recruiting Sigma into the Armed Detective Agency, as he is resembling someone who is in need of saving in one way or another, therefore executing a sort of ‘killing two birds with one stone’ strategy because that is Dazai—the current Dazai who still carries the downpour of his Mafia days as well as the light leak of influence from Oda who took him by his shoulders and perceived him as no more than a human beneath Dazai’s Demon Prodigy persona.

It’s no doubt that Dazai and Fyodor were posed as foils ever since the two were introduced—right down to the colour palette of their character designs and their relationship being a direct reference to the conversation between Horiki and Yozo in No Longer Human in which Yozo comments on Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. With that literary detail in mind, it would be interesting if how Dazai perceives Sigma contrasts to Fyodor’s perception of Sigma, as well. I have not looked too much into this, but I will perhaps come back with a few extra thoughts to offer in addition to this possibility.