yeah i get you, i feel personally like dazai is the least interesting thing about chuuya if that makes sense? and vice versa, chuuya is the least interesting thing about dazai to me. i’m just bored by them as a pair. no hate to the shippers but it’s an unsellable ship to me, i cannot be won over. funnily enough tho i WAS on board with vampire chuuya, i did find him being “turned against” dazai/the ada and non-vampire pm very juicy, and the idea of chuuya becoming reduced to a mindless “monster” was really interesting to me thematically for the same reason it was interesting to see akutagawa this way before bram semi-unlocked his brain. the “chuuya was faking it” reveal honestly is my least favorite storytelling decision asagiri has done in all of bsd cdjdjfjdj. like i can get a lil bit of flavor in fyodor’s hubris at not even considering such a ridiculous plan but overall … not a fan of it. bc as you said it DOES kind of turn chuuya into convenient plot armor and i think that is just a bummer. also same, i liked stormbringer a lot, and i like the dazai-centric stuff a lot. 15 honestly is my least favorite bsd ln cjdjjd. i don’t dislike it overall, i think there is good stuff in it, but i remember reading that asagiri was asked to write a chuuya and dazai novel by kadokawa and … it kinda shows a little to me that he is writing it bc he was asked to lol. like that’s true for beast also, he was asked to write a story about sskk, and i love everything there. and it’s also true that ultimately the ask for a skk story led to stormbringer which i love, so overall not mad he wrote 15. just not my fave. i am more interested in dazai’s relationships with … literally everyone else cjdjjdjd.