Yo…. When Jet Breaks In The Tea Shop And Accuses Zuko And Iroh Of Beinh Firebenders….

not to worry mutuals, I’ve recruited a halfling to detect any and all spike traps on your dashboard, just make sure not to scroll too fast so he has time to find them

I like the show version of Chishiya, and here’s why.

I love manga!Chishiya, but he always felt pretty one-dimensional to me. His backstory is one of parental neglect, similar to Arisu. Chishiya basically fails to develop a sense of empathy (unlike Arisu, who just has ye olde Main Character Syndrome). He decides to enter med school because he thinks that a profession where he saves lives might actually help him grow a Give-a-Shitter. Spoiler: it doesn’t.

Manga!Chishiya is an emotional flat line. He doesn’t care about other characters because he can’t. I remember thinking that he had a lot of the same traits as a serial killer. He viewed the world through nothing but intellect, and other people were either nonexistent or pawns to be used to further his own ends. Even the idea that maybe being responsible for the lives of others will help him grow some empathy is a chilling one.

That’s cool. I actually really like those kinds of characters. I also think there are enough characters like that in the story. Characters who you look at and think, “Okay, yes, you are terrible.” The big problem is that it makes his weird self-sacrifice with Usagi absolutely senseless. Like, it came out of nowhere. There wasn’t any sort of satisfying build-up where I felt like, “Okay, yeah, this makes sense.”

His updated backstory adds a dimension that wasn’t present in the manga version. Rather than simply lacking empathy for other people, you can actually see the moment in which he makes the conscious decision to turn it off. He has this light bulb moment where he realizes that the world is a cruel and unfair place. He realizes that allowing himself to feel for other people is only going to hurt him in the end because he’s powerless to change the systems that are actively harming them. It’s better to protect himself and survive.

Chishiya is a selfish character, but the idea that his selfishness stems out of a desire to protect himself from pain gives his character some actual depth that was always missing for me. It also makes the King of Diamonds game a lot more meaningful. Kuzuryu went through the same exact thing, but instead of turning off his feelings, he paralyzed himself with a moral dilemma. Where Chishiya chose to treat all human life as equally worthless, Kuzuryu couldn’t stop looking for some value to assign, whether that was to ease his conscience or to inform a sense of justice he was desperately trying to find.

I really, really like how that dichotomy played out.

I also think it’s interesting that Chishiya feels a lot more psychological in the show. He’s clearly highly intelligent in both the manga and the show, and maybe it’s just Murakami’s performance, but there’s something more sinister to him. He’s clearly developed some sort of friendly relationship with Kuina. He displays an ability to be playful and seems to genuinely be extending an offer of friendship to Arisu (up until he sells him out for one corn chip). Seeing how he can make these connections that feel genuine to the people involved (unlike his manga self who is pretty universally despised) and still be willing to fuck those people over for his own survival makes him feel a lot more menacing to me.

This ability to flawlessly manipulate and betray also means he has a deep understanding of human emotion, which is illogical by nature. In the manga, Chishiya says outright that he isn’t suited for Hearts games, but show!Chishiya feels tailor-made for them.

It’s also interesting that in the manga, he seems to get harsher and more isolated. By contrast, in the show, he feels to me like he softens episode by episode. It really struck me in the Jack of Hearts game when he said something about his partner dying because he was too kind. On the surface, you could take it as a typical judgy Chishiya comment, but there actually appeared to be a glimmer of sadness, or envy, or regret. Or all of the above. Or maybe it’s just Murakami Nijiro’s face that made me think that. Either way, I think it was smart of the showrunners to throw him in that game.

In the end, the King of Diamonds game pushes him to the realization that he really is envious of people who have the ability to be kind. He’s envious of people who can make the selfless choice. And it’s not because he can’t be. It’s because he’s closed himself off to the vulnerability that allows a person to make that kind of decision. You can’t truly save others if you’re always protecting yourself.

So, he saves Usagi to try to become that person. And I don’t feel it was out of character at all.

Absolutely fascinated by the Fairy Walrus Discourse. Naturally, I have a take:

This actually is also a fantastic illustration of a truism about Telling Stories that we all implicitly know but rarely acknowledge aloud: the improbable is far less believable than the impossible.

When you invoke the impossible, you silence the critically thinking, reality checking, lie detecting circuitry. Simpler rules reign supreme.

The Walrus, however implausible, is a thing which is real, and so whatever narrative you imagine either precedes or follows the reveal will be constrained by the envelope of the possible.

This is a webbed site all about Narrative.

The person answering the door to a Fairy is in a fairy tale, and frankly most of us would be overjoyed to find ourselves in a fairy tale. Fairy tales have sensible rules, structures we understand, tropes we love and hate.

A Walrus on your doorstep is just one more giant reminder that the world is a maelstrom of chaos, incomprehensible in its complexity, full of moving parts which obey no narrative. It’s another dose of “what fresh hell is this?”

A Walrus on your doorstep is a burden. A Fairy on your doorstep is an escape.

Again

Rise and shine Adam

you're probably wondering, where you are?

Cultural Anatomy: Sokka’s Choker

From what I’ve researched, chokers were traditionally worn by some Native American tribes rather than by the Inuit, who traditionally preferred looser fitting necklaces. But Sokka’s particular choker is identical to traditional Alaskan Inuit bracelets, which are made from walrus or whale ivory.

Which means that Sokka might just be wearing a bracelet as a choker. And I can’t think of anything more perfectly Sokka than using an item for something beyond its intended purpose. I can totally imagine how the whole thing started:

Mother Kya: “One day, when Katara gets married, I’ll give her this necklace that Gran-Gran gave to me.”

Lil Sokka: “No fair! Why don’t I get anything?”

Hakoda: “Sokka, this necklace is for girls only.”

Lil Sokka: “Fine, I’ll just make my own necklace.” *ties his bracelet around his neck and immediately starts choking*

Gran-Gran: *sighs* I’ll get more string…

One of my favourite things about Mori and Fyodor projecting onto Dazai is that they keep thinking he's exactly like them when... no??? He's not???? At all??????

Idk maybe I interpret Dazai differently but while Mori and Fyodor are clearly Dazai-foils, I just can't see them as really all that similar.

Sure, strategy-wise, they have a lot in common. They're also all relatively unbound by such things as morality and have few close people - feeling lonely for the most part.

But what gets me is... Mori does what he does because he is an ambitious leader. Fyodor does what he does because he has an ambitious dream. Both are after a way to make the world/city better according to their visions and are prepared to go about darker means to achieve this.

Dazai... doesn't really have any ambitions? They all have eerily similar lines of thinking and ways of dealing with and manipulating situations and people, but their emotional cores are completely different.

Dazai is not ambitious. Dazai is empty. What's more, he's kind of lazy and only really motivated to take action on someone else's requests/orders - otherwise he's actually a really passive character imo. He took orders from Mori in the mafia, only intervened in the DHC because Chuuya got mad, and left the mafia and helps people in the present day because he made a promise to Odasaku. All his strategizing and planning is retaliatory, rather than proactive like Mori or Fyodor. I think the only time we see Dazai planning proactively is in Beast, but even then, that's not some lofty vision for the world/city, that's a desperate plan to save one single person.

This is a huge part of the reason why I think Dazai's threats to kill Mori and take over as the boss were complete bs. Why would he want that? That's more responsibility. I don't see why he would have any desire to lead the mafia outside of Beast.

But because Mori expects Dazai is just like him, and this is something he would do in that situation, he accepts it, putting him and Dazai in this uncomfortable stalemate where neither has complete power over the other. So it has a tactical purpose, yes, but it's far from ambitious.

What's more, Mori and Fyodor are shown to have no compunction with sacrificing people like pawns, even people close to them. Logic wins out, at all costs. Dazai is not good at sacrificing. He's selfish. Once he has something or someone, he's loathe to let it go. If he is significantly close with someone, emotion will actually win out in the end (Odasaku). Dazai is afraid of loss.

So, yeah, they are all amoral brilliant strategists who are isolated from most other people but their motivations are completely different. In all actuality, I think Mori and Fyodor have a lot more in common on that note than Dazai ever did.

So, let me guess– you just started a new book, right? And you’re stumped. You have no idea how much an AK47 goes for nowadays. I get ya, cousin. Tough world we live in. A writer’s gotta know, but them NSA hounds are after ya 24/7. I know, cousin, I know. If there was only a way to find out all of this rather edgy information without getting yourself in trouble…

You’re in luck, cousin. I have just the thing for ya.

It’s called Havocscope. It’s got information and prices for all sorts of edgy information. Ever wondered how much cocaine costs by the gram, or how much a kidney sells for, or (worst of all) how much it costs to hire an assassin?

I got your back, cousin. Just head over to Havocscope.

((PS: In case you’re wondering, Havocscope is a database full of information regarding the criminal underworld. The information you will find there has been taken from newspapers and police reports. It’s perfectly legal, no need to worry about the NSA hounds, cousin ;p))

Want more writerly content? Follow maxkirin.tumblr.com!

The Language of Messed-Up Kids (who never bothered to talk)

⚠️ blood and weapons

Obsessed with tiktoks of high school girls doing Steve Harvey cosplay. My favorite genre of video tbh