Reading IWWV Was Such A Journey. While I Did Enjoy TSH, It Never Broke Me Like IWWV Did. The Book Is

Everyday I feel like my country failed me, and many others who couldn't do what they want because their country still lives in the conservative 1900s.

The many stages of depression: (TW)

Depression is one of those feelings that a lot of people have experienced at least sometimes in their lives. It is quite correct to state that everyone at one point in their life have been through it or will go through it. Some get depressed more than others; it could be due to environment, abuse, loss, bullying, mental disorders, stress, poor health, etc.

It is something widely experienced but not widely explained. The mystery of why depression happens to certain people can boil down to their psychological state but should not be considered the single parameter for its existence. Depression like cancer can happen to anyone regardless of any amount of money, status, love or psycological wellness they have. And like Cancer you can't just tell someone with depression to just ignore it or say they are overreacting.

As someone who goes through bouts of seasonal depression and lives in a place where depression is not even considered "real". I have broken down depression according to personal experience into 5 stages.

I am not a medical professional ( I do want to become a psychologist) or someone who can give advice on this topic. But as a patient of depression for around 2 years I can give a little insight into it. Just because I said there are 5 stages doesn’t mean it has to be these stages only, or in the same order.

Here it goes:

1. Anger: just like the stages of grief I always thought the 1st step towards depression starts with anger. It could be outbursts, sudden rage, irritation, annoyance, physical reactions such as intensive urge to kick or punch something (I always have days when I want to burn buildings down and kill my classmates). These reactions can be due to the sudden change in mentality we get before full blown depression kicks in. When we just hate every thing. Everything is stupid. Everyone is being annoying. One of our 1st reactions to anything upsetting is to be mad about it. Depression is not an exception. Anger is where you start. When you start to blame everything around your for causing the pain you are going through. This stage is very important, it is always good to take out your anger before it becomes too much. During this stage I am at my peak of annoyance and can be diabolical.

2. Paranoia: the stage that continues what anger started. This is when realisation kicks in that something is wrong in your mind. You can become paranoid of everything around you. Why is my friend ignoring me for 5 minutes? Why did my parents became quiet when I walked in? Why does it feel like someone is watching me? Why can’t I trust anyone? This is when you are at your peak in terms of insanity. I have been in this stage for the most part of my depressive episodes. Especially as an intuitive, paranoia can be disturbing and harmful to your mental health. It makes you question silly things that don’t even matter for the sake of increasing your blood pressure and start to isolate you from social life. That’s where stage 3 will come

3. Withdrawal: not the withdrawal due to addiction. This is when you start isolating yourself from others. Paranoia put the seed of doubt in your mind about people and how you don’t want them to be near you. People can be a problem sometimes. And this stage is just what being isolated means. This is also the stage people are the most familiar with, because it is often what depression is portrayed as: isolating yourself from other humans as way to build a wall to protect yourself from what paranoia caused. During this time I stop taking calls from my friends, family, anyone. I stop messaging or replying. I often stopped eating with family or having lunch at school with my friends. As an introvert this stage isn’t even that hard, but there is a difference between the choice of isolating yourself because you don’t like to be around strange people and the want to isolate from people you care about.

4. Sadness: the most well known stage of depression, some people mistake it for the definition of depression, which is so wrong. After isolating yourself, you become vulnerable. This is that stage of vulnerability and mostly when people start to have negative thoughts (suicidal thoughts). Sadness itself can’t be explained that well, other than that it leads negativity, hopelessness and the lack of interest in anything cheerful. When I get into this stage, my depression is the most apparent to other people. This is when my mom steps in and ask if things are wrong. And I say #fine when I am so not. Sadness can manifest in tears, coldness, increased self awareness, intrusive and harmful thoughts etc. This is one of the hardest and longest stages to overcome. Yet not as harmful as the next one…

5. Numbness: let me deep breathe before this……this is the most dangerous stage of depression. Every stage before this one had some sort of emotion in it. Anger, paranoia, withdrawn, sadness. But Numbness is the lack of any emotion that can be experienced, even negative ones. You lose all your hope. All your wishes and goals. Everything becomes a barren wasteland of nothingness. The lack of emotions is the worst thing that can happen to you. Just like how you die when your heart stops beating, having numbness to emotions will as in many cases lead to death. Unfortunately, this is the stage when most suicides take places. The inability to have any interest in life and getting overwhelmed from the fact you stopped living the moment you stopped feeling. Have I been in this stage? Yes. But since I am alive there must be a way out of it.

When I said 5 stages of depression, it was meant for those who sadly ended their lives because of it. Stage 6 is for those who made it out alive.

6. Acceptance: again like the stages of grief Depression ends with acceptance. Accepting your problems (I am the problem it's me!), accepting yourself as a problem, accepting help from people who care for you and accepting the little hope left deep down. If you made it to this stage, you are capable of doing anything you want.

Note: You are worth it! (Can't believe I AM saying this) And if you are going through depression or anything related to that, remember that one of reasons to stay alive is to pull revenge on all the people you hate. Maybe in future you can show your haters that the reason they hate you is beacuse of how strong willed you are. You don't have to prove your talents. You don't have to accomplish things to justify your existence. You are here for nobody but yourself. Be selfish, be a bitch and live out the best life there is.

Henry: I have a plan!

Richard: you always have a plan, bless you.

Francis: does this plan involve murder in any way?

Henry:......I no longer have a plan.

Richard at the beginning: I want to study the classics, the arts and languages with Julian and his group of beautiful pupils.

Richard in the middle: I want to help these crazy people murder their best friend who is annoying.

Richard in the end: I...just want to sleep for ounce.

✨ My BSD hot takes/unpopular opinions ✨:

1. Identifying BSD characters as Queer, is not problematic. STOP being so Heteronormative. Gay characters are not gonna kill you.

If I see another "BuT tHe ChArAcTeRs nEvEr SaId tHeY aRe GaY" I would bomb you 💣/j

2. Skk/SSKK/Fyolai/other popular ships, exist because people like it. If you don't ship them, don't engage with their content. Not all shippers act crazy and toxic. Stop blaming everything on shippers.

3. Atsushi/Kyouka is problematic, stop justifying it with "only 4 year age gap". Kyouka is a CHILD, ship her with Kenji if you want. Atsushi, like a normal 18 year old would never look at a highschool freshman and date her. Even if they date in the future, he knew her when she was younger and they had a sibling like dynamic. Lucy is a way better love interest to Atsushi (Don't know if this is an unpopular opinion tho, but I saw some people justifying it 😐😐😐)

4. DAZAI IS NOT EVIL. HE IS FAR FROM EVIL. He is, despite being super popular and the face of BSD, the most mischaracterized and villified character. Morally grey characters exist??!!!

5. Mori is a way worse person than Dazai ever was.

6. PM members get a free pass for any heinous crime they commit by being hot or babygirl-ified (still love them tho, we do not often discuss how bad their actions have been, you can like criminals and acknowledge they are criminals in fiction. I would add DoA to this too, but it's worse with the PM)

7. Akutagawa's abuse of Kyouka shouldn't be forgotten just because Dazai abused Akutagawa.

8. Mori emotionally manipulated and abused Dazai when he was a teen. Just because it wasn't physical, doesn't mean it was nothing.

9. Atsushi is NOT a soft boy, he is way bitter, salty and sarcastic than we give him credit

10. Poe is important to Ranpo and their friendship/relationship is wholesome as hell

11. Ranpo and Yosano's friendship is way better than them being in a relationship in the future

12. FukuFuku is better than Fukumori (imo!!!!)

13. Buying real authors work after watching BSD is actually a really good thing, since more Gen z kids (or other people) will read classics

14. There are layers to Atsushi and Akutagawa relationship/rivalry, and they have the MOST important relationship (not meaning romantic, just in general) in the entire canon.

15. Kunikida and Yosano could be a power couple

16. Fyodor is not a great villain (yet)

17. Nikolai CARRIES the DoA

18. Sigma shouldn't be in the ADA, he needs a happy home, family and some time to adjust to normal life

19. Q and Elise are both underused characters and could become a great dynamic

20. Ango deserves more love, the amount of pressure and stress he deals with is INSANE

21. It's OKAY if everyone joins the fandom for Dazai or skk (I did at first too!!)

22. Higuchi is annoying as hell. I do not get her hype, I like her but not as much as most people (just personal opinion, do not flame me 😭)

23. Everyone in The Guild is forgettable or boring (except Fitzgerald, Poe and Lucy. I like Louisa, but I forget her all the time)

24. Hetero ships are just not that great/interesting in BSD to me 🤷🏻‍♀️ (except maybe AtsuLucy or rare pairs) and female characters are not best utilised, I wish they play more major roles (can't wait for Agatha to arrive!!)

25. Some fan theories/arts get the story better than "canon" stuff at times. Fanon is NOT always the worst (sometimes enjoyable when the canon gets too dark or sad)

26. Toxic ships are okay in fiction as long as they are legal. Humans like toxic things, we consume it like junk food 💅🏻

(These are all personal opinions of mine and do not matter. Feel free to disagree. But, do not hate or be toxic!!!! 😇😇😇😇)

(PS: I compiled all these because of posts I have seen in, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter and sometimes Tiktok. These aren't really abt you Tumblr folks. I meant to post this on reddit but did not have the courage or mental strength lol)

I don't know about other characters but if there was a TSH adaptation on screen (which I hope is directed and written by Donna herself) then my fancast for Julian is Steve Carrel.

Julian is charismatic and friendly, all knowing or at least seeming so, a talker, a mystic type of person. He isn't young but has young features and greying hair but still handsome. He is supposed to make you want to listen to him all the time and Steve Carrel just exudes that energy.

*after dinner*

Atsushi, confused: what are you doing Ryuu?

Akutagawa: planting the tails of shrimps to grow them into new ones

Atsushi: h-how is that possible?

Akutagawa: Dazai-san taught me this, it is going to work, you will see.

Atsushi: you can't believe him he was ly---

Chuuya, shuts Atsushi's mouth: don't say things that will discourage a child and stop their imagination

Atsushi: but he is just wasting his time!

Chuuya, shaking his head: let him experiment and find the truth out himself, it's a learning experience for him.

Atsushi: w-where are you going now?

Chuuya: to beat the shit out of Dazai

Atsushi: understandable.

Julian: where's Bunny?

Richard: doing stuff

Julian: where's Henry?

Richard: trying to stop Bunny from doing stuff

Julian: where is Charles?

Richard: trying to stop Henry from stopping Bunny from doing stuff

Julian: Camilla?

Richard: trying to stop Charles from stopping Henry from stopping Bunny from doing stuff

Julian, sighs: let me guess Francis is stopping Camilla?

Richard: no, he got tired of all this, drank a lot of vodka and took a nap

Julian: then why pray are you here?

Richard: I am trying to stop you from stopping Camilla from stopping Charles, from stopping Henry from stopping Bunny from doing stuff.

Julian: I can't believe I pay the college for shit like this....

⚠️ SPOILERS CHAPTER 113 ⚠️

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WTF DID I JUST READ? WHAT WAS THAT!

Let me just organise my thoughts:

The old men Yaoi was expected but it still killed me

The last panel was so chilling and traumatic with Aya's cheerful words and Fukuzawa's expression 😭

Why wasn't Fukuzawa holding Fukuchi in his arms????

SIGMA IS ALIVVVEE

WHERE IS NIKOLAI? Did he go to bury Fyodor's hand or smtg?

FYODOR AND BRAM HAVE HISTORY

So that MF is immortal or really really old or smtg

There's NO way an immortal being like Fyodor dies by a helicopter falling on him!

Before dying (allegedly) Fyodor had mentioned "that man" as his rival before Dazai, could it be Bram? 🤔

Bram serving as usual 💅

Sigma looked like Sleeping Beauty (maybe you should have kissed the Princess instead of throwing him down 15 times Chuuya 🙄)

Fyodor has more Jesus allegories

Dazai wasn't in Fukuzawa's thoughts about the ADA..... maybe he is going to transfer to PM and the reason Chuuya was sent to rescue him was because they were going back to Mori together

NO AKUTAGAWA UPDATE (come on this was his birthday week 🥺)

CHUUYA LOST HIS VAMPIRE TEETH AHHH

WTF IS FYODOR? WTH IS GOING ON WITH HIM

I have so many more thoughts but mostly-----I really want to track down Asagiri to ask him wtf is going on here

I can't understand anything

I'll go and watch some yt shorts

This is all too much for my brain to process (I understand Sigma now)

The setting of TSH confused me at first. I thought it was taking place in the 50s as Richard's language sounded very pretentious. Then there's no mention of any pop culture making it hard to pin point which decade it takes place in. Then slowly we start to see that it's not that old with more mentions of new things. Despite that I wasn't sure when it was happening until I found out that Henry didn't knew that moon landing actully happened so it was probably in the 70's or 80's.

I wish Henry had lived long enough to find out there's 8 planets not 9. He reminds me a bit of Sherlock and how neither of them concerned themselves with whatever was happening in the world and cared about only what they thought was important.