The Great Catsby

ALMOST DONE!! When writing these sort of "climax" chapters it became more and more apparent that I like verbal climaxes rather than action ones.

The conflict ended up being (and will continue to be) a conflict involving words more than anything physical, and part of that is because I really like writing dialogue. It's kind of a problem that defined my writing in grad school and that I've tried for the most part to deal with by writing more visually and with more action, but sometimes I just...go for the dialogue. It's because I can't picture things in my head visually that well without seeing them in front of me (kind of like needing references for drawing but like...for memory) BUT I can hear people and dialogue pretty clearly for the most part. So characters start talking and thinking a lot.

Not that the stuff they're trying to deal with in this fic is something that can really be solved by violence. Chuuya's existence until now has been defined by what he can do, and while Dazai comes at things from a planning pov he also is involved with a lot of violence. There is a lot of action in BSD and not a lot of talking, which is another reason why I tend to make them talk. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I did enjoy writing it. Needless to say, there will be more talking.

 IT'S HARD! I was thinking about this the other day because I think someone somewhere mentioned something about Kouyou's characterization being so different in fics to what is presented in canon, except it also isn't. I can see where that interpretation comes from, and it makes me think about why she's so hard to write, and it isn't just because she doesn't have a lot of screen time. 

She's a very contradictory character! She shuns love and says things that imply that people can't leave the darkness. She tries to keep Kyouka in the Mafia, but the way she does it is to frame it as though she cares about her in a sort-of-motherly way if your mother is abusive and manipulative. But then she also recognizes that the ADA is a better case for Kyouka and lets her go, and seemingly accepts the transition. She is pretty (deadly) calm and refined in a lot of scenes, but in the scenes with Kyouka she is vicious and more openly emotional. She's really selfish, almost to an extreme, until the point where she's not. She comes across as older than she is -- she's actually pretty young when you think about it. The flashback of her trying to escape shows how young and vulnerable she used to be when she was in the Mafia. 

So, it becomes hard to write her. Should she be written with an emphasis on the motherly part that cares for other people? But that comes from selfishness, as we've seen with Kyouka. She's a terribly lonely person who lost a lot and doesn't want to let go of what she has. So should the focus be on her cruelty? Even with her cruelty, she can also be kind. I do think she genuinely cares about Kyouka and from brief glimpses it seems that she cares about Chuuya (although we don't know exactly how she acted around him when he was younger except for one snippet from Fifteen.) How much calmness and refinement and deadliness should there be, and how and when should the vulnerabilities and emotional breaks be shown? How old should she act and how much of the young girl who is lonely at heart should come through? Because she was definitely given a lot of responsibility before she was old and she, like everyone else, had to become an adult way before she was actually one. 

And then there is also the problem of a lack of screen time. 

I've written her more often lately. She is actually one of the harder characters to write, and I think only a handful of Kouyou's I've read have felt like they could be her. She's a really fascinating character, but like many of the fascinating BSD characters doesn't appear a lot. That being said, it gives us a lot to explore about her, and I'm kind of interested in doing that even if it's not in a fic that focuses on her (because that kind of fic sounds terrifying -- and I actually did write one recently and it was in fact terrifying to write). I would just have to figure out who I think she is first. 

Learning Curve ( words) by TheGreatCatsby
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Dazai Osamu/Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs)
Characters: Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu (Bungou Stray Dogs), Tanizaki Junichirou (Bungou Stray Dogs), Tanizaki Naomi
Additional Tags: figure skating AU, Ice Dancing, twizzles everywhere, those are some nice twizzles, Fluff, oda isn't in this fic but he's still dead
Series: Part 4 of Revival
Summary:

Dazai and Chuuya aren't ice dancers, but they're willing to take lessons from them.

 Thinking about my figure skating fics: I’ve never paid attention to nationals before (aside from US nationals in 2014 and 2018) so I didn’t realize that Japanese Nationals had 29 men competing…which is a lot…that’s like 5 groups of people (Russia had 3 if I’m doing my math right.) That means the whole thing is 4+ hours long, and I never thought about where Chuuya would’ve been injured during that whole time.