Kafka Asagiri, 2018 // Bsd Chapter 88 // Takuya Igarashi, 2023 // Bsd Chapter 121.5 // Kafka Asagiri,

GO KICK THEIR ASSES!!!

Okay but, Atsushi leapt forward. He was sliced from behind.

He should have fell onto his front, he should have been faced down when he hit the ground.

And yet, as he falls he somehow manages to turn over.

To turn towards Akutagawa, to keep his eyes on him and not the thing that just killed him.

His eyes that plead with Akutagawa to be safe, the hand that pushed Akutagawa away from danger still stretching towards him, are the last things to go.

With the last of his strength in the physical world, Atsushi fought to know he'd saved Akutagawa, fought for him to be the last thing he saw.

Hrm hrm today I’m having thoughts about Kuina and her overwhelming Lost Boy vibes and how like. You NEVER GET Lost Girls like that. Narratively, she is The Girl Who Didn’t Grow Up. She will always be eleven and perfect, immortalized in memory. In Zoro’s mind, she is forever just a little bit older and a little bit taller than him. Even now when he remembers her, he pictures her face from an upward angle. She will ALWAYS be “older” and yet she will NEVER be more than eleven. I want to know what was happening in Zoro’s head when he turned 12 and realized he was older than she would ever get to be. I just. All the vibes, give them to me. This is one of the things that just gets me every fucking time!!!

(Sabo is also positioned like this, and is a fairly straightforward example up until it gets subverted by him ACTUALLY GROWING UP. Sabo is what happens when the lost boy grows up and it’s fucking FASCINATING.)

I think the key thing is, in order to be a "lost boy" narrative and not just a tragically dead child character, there needs to have been an expectation of greatness. It's not that little girls don't die in fiction, or that they aren't mourned. But this particular type of narrative emphasizes the specific grief of the loss of incredible potential, which isn't a thing dead little girl characters usually get. They're usually narratives about the loss of innocence or the fragility of life and the injustice of mortality, and Kuina has a little of that - how unfair it is for her life to be cut short. But it's also the bit of, if you'll let me get lyrical for a moment, you could have done so much more if you only had time.

as people grow up, one of the things we have to deal with is the loss of the possibilities of what we could have been, because we can only become one of our possible selves. Even if you become great, even if you're happy, even if you made the best possible choice, you still have to make that decision that to become this I must give up on becoming that. Lost Boys don't ever get to become, so they are enshrined with all that potential still in them. All of the people they could have been, all of the paths they might have taken.

(A thing that drives me crazy: balancing the grief of growing up with the grief of not-growing-up. The tragedy of becoming and the tragedy of never getting to become. The dozens of ghosts of possible selves that every adult carries around with them. Not relevant to the current discussion, but still, a thing to think about!)

There's also the fact that she gets set up with a projected character arc - we can see how she might've grown and dealt with her insecurities and overcome the obstacles in her path, but she'll never get to do it. And Zoro can take their shared dream on himself and make that his responsibility, but he can't resolve her emotional baggage for her, because that's not how that works. And we don't know! Maybe she wouldn't ever have managed it! But Kuina-the-confident-adult is just one of the many possible people she'll never get to be.

A self indulgent Koala redesign :)

Going for something cute that has the ability to look normal among mid to upper class civilians in case she needs to mingle with nobles, but just a bit more militaristic and practical for fighting! Thinking of doing a layer by layer breakdown for her outfit as well

Okay, so Chuuya needs reading glasses but he decided to switch to contacts sometime after SB and usually only uses his glasses at home. Which is fine and works out great.

Except Chuuya needed to wear the vampire contacts at Meursault. And he didn’t bring glasses with him out of habit. He can’t read anything.

The red contacts already made it hard to see in general but he can’t read anything while wearing them (the only consolation he had was that he also couldn’t see Fyodor’s smug face when he thought he controlled him). Then afterward he’s shoving his face close to his phone and squinting to try to see if he’s gotten any news about Yokohama while trying to also text anyone he can to speed up their extraction.

Dazai, trying to hack computers to contact Ango: You know you can make the print bigger so it’s easier to read, right?

Chuuya, also a total grandpa when it comes to phones: I can what?

Cold hands, warm embrace

My Journey to Escape the War in Gaza

My name is Abdelmajed. I never imagined I’d be sharing my story like this, but life in Gaza has become unbearable. I am a survivor of the war here, and in the blink of an eye, everything I once knew—my home, my safety, my community—was ripped away from me.

The war has transformed Gaza into a graveyard of broken dreams. The buildings that once stood as symbols of life and resilience are now piles of rubble. Every corner is filled with the echoes of explosions. Every moment is shrouded in uncertainty. There is no security. There is no stability. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Basic needs have become luxuries. Food is scarce. Clean water is even scarcer. Hospitals are overwhelmed and under-resourced, and there is almost no medical care to be found. Every night, families go to bed hungry, praying they’ll wake up to see another day. The cost of basic necessities has skyrocketed, and it’s become a daily battle just to survive.

I’ve seen things I never thought possible—standing in long lines for a piece of bread, rationing every drop of water, and watching my people suffer in silence. I have lost everything—my home, my safety, my dignity.

Escape from Gaza is my only hope, but it’s almost impossible without financial help. The cost of evacuation is far beyond my means, and without support, I’m trapped in a warzone with no way out.

I’m reaching out to you now, in the hopes that someone, anyone, can help. I am not asking for luxury. I am asking for a chance—just a chance—to live. A chance to escape this never-ending cycle of fear, destruction, and loss. A chance to rebuild my life somewhere safe, where I can begin again, where I can find hope once more.

Chuffed

Help Abdelmajed Escape Gaza and Rebuild His Life

My name is Abdelmajed, and I am a survivor of the war in Gaza. Everything I once knew has been taken away—my home, my safety, and the people

Any amount you can give will help me get closer to safety. Even the smallest donation will make a difference—it could be the lifeline I need to survive. If you are unable to donate, please share my story. The more people who hear it, the better the chance that I can find the support I desperately need.

Your kindness and support mean the world to me. You’re not just helping me escape a war; you’re giving me a chance to live, to rebuild, to breathe again.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for caring.

Vetted by @gazavetters

The conversation between Atsushi and Dazai in this chapter is so important, because this is clearly not Dazai, at least not the real one. The real Dazai is still in Mersault, almost on the other side of the world, this version that Atsushi is talking to is just the same hallucination from the last chapter, a fragment of Atsushi's subconscious taking the form of someone he trusts, respects and admires to give him the information he needs to move forward, even if it is information that he already knows but does not have enough confidence in himself to follow. The conversation at the end of the chapter is not only about the dimension of Ame-no-Gozen, but also about Atsushi himself and his relationship with his past. In order to reach the core of Ame-no-Gozen, Atsushi must learn to navigate between the past and the future, both in the dimension of the divine being and in his own history. I believe that from this, Atsushi will be able to discover more about the tiger and about his own past, perhaps find out something about his parents, and about his connection with the book and Fyodor, but for that to happen he needs to let himself confront his past, and understand (or accept) his place and role in this world.

Well... this really doesn't seem like a good sign

Frobin really looked at Bonney and said "we're your parents now"