Nostalgia | Dazai Osamu

this fanfic was insane and so was i

Quick trigger warning: themes of s*lf h*rm, r*pe and domestic abuse. I'm going to be talking about my previous struggles with these themes.

For those of you who have read nostalgia I please ask you to give this a quick read if you can handle those themes.

hello all nostalgia readers! It has been many years! This is aspen writing after 4 years.

I haven't really forgotten about this fan-fiction- It is like my child. I'm waiting until it hit 1M reads so every now and then, I pop back just to see how it's progressing. As proud as I am for writing a hefty story and sticking to it... After going through some comments and rereading parts of my fan-fiction, I just want to address a few problems I have with Nostlgia.

A few things to address first- I'm 21 years old now.

I've been through shit. I've learnt many lessons and I've matured a lot. I'll be learning for the rest of my life, but I'm a complete different person now then when I was when I was 17 because of what I have learnt through many life lessons. I finished writing this fanfiction when I was 17 years old and it took me probably about a year or so to write. I started when I was 16.

16 year old me never had a relationship and didn't see herself as worthy of much. I didn't think I was pretty. I was a people pleaser. I didn't want to cause attention or complain. I self harmed. I feel like a lot of these quality of being an anxious, low self esteem, really BAD way to go about things as a teenager translated into my fan-fiction.

I agree with mostly everyone in the comments section. Dazais and y/n relationship was toxic. Throughout the fanfic actually. It's not toxic as in physically abusive or stuff like that, but mentally the relationship between them is insane. He leaves her for 4 years. She's immediately in love with him afterwards. She screams. He leaves again. They love each other again.... The relationship is all over the place.

I totally forgive myself for this- I was a child who had no first hand experience of a real relationship... just what I thought was real from reading other fan fiction and writing what I thought was an interesting story. I didn't know what I was writing was toxic or not a healthy relationship. I honestly thought to myself if dazai did this to me (E.g things he did in the fanfic to y/n) I'd be okay with it because I love this character. WHICH IS TOXIC!!!!

So don't be surprised when I tell you I went through a domestic abusive relationship after writing this fanfiction.

In 2021... 2 years later, but I would say I was the same person.

It was hell. I was crying over this boy every single night, arguing up until 3am/4am all because I thought I had hurt him and I had to make it up to him. My self esteem was so low, I didn't realise this person was manipulating the SHIT out of me. He would throw things at me, scream at me, get drunk and refuse to leave my bedroom before I had apologised to him. He would trash my room. Tell me to change my Instagram profile picture as he didn't want his friends to see me as the 'anime girl' (I had a manga pp). He would shame me in public, and also sexual abuse too but I'm not up for going into those details. I called the police on him for being violent with me. It lasted for 8 months. I left him and got back with him during this time.

I did this because I was so lonely I just wanted to cling to someone. I did it because I believed him. I did it because I believed I had to make him feel better and beg him not to leave me.

God it disgusts me to this day. Idk what disgusts me more, him, or ME for being with him and being manipulated by him.

The university offered to kick him out, DEPORT him from my country and send him back to his after he bursted into my uni dorm at 3am (we argued because he wanted to go get more drinks and I didn't because we agreed to watch my favourite tv series attack on Titan, he was drunk and started saying he didn't want to waste his time doing that and I went to bed because I wasn't dealing with his shit).

I said no to that offer because I was too nice.

God I fucking regret that every single day. I still beat myself up on the inside for it. I would do anything to get that cunt out of the country and ruin his life and watch him rot in hell or beat the shit out of him myself.

Anyway. That's some author lore for you.

Y/n was a little pussy with no self respect. I was a little pussy with no self respect. Both had messy relationship.

Point is I'm trying to make is that the view I had on myself is the same view y/n had on herself. This is BAD.

I can see this now. Y/n was so easy to fall for dazai after he did some toxic things to her. She kept going back to him. She kept crying over him. I lived through this now and I fucking HATED it. It traumatised me for life.

But I have changed, and I can now see the toxicness in this fanfiction.

I don't take anyone's shit anymore. My last boyfriend overstepped my boundaries.  He was there throughout all my pain with my abusive ex. He started to eventually do the same to me and commuted one sexually abusive act. I dumped him without a second thought after he disrespected me. No hesitation. I didn't love him anymore. Even though we had a year of good memories, he was pushing my boundaries and disrespecting me knowing it would make me sad.

(Don't settle for boy/people like this my dear readers)

I don't want younger readers to think this is normal. If you haven't been in a relationship before, I don't want Dazai and y/n relationship to be an example.

I've had plenty of relationship experience now and tbh, for the first time ever I'm HAPPY with myself.

I love being me. I feel confident. No boy could hurt me because I laugh in their face if they do.

If I was to rewrite this now this fanfic would have finished in 2 chapters. Y/n wouldn't have even looked at dazai or messaged him back. She wouldn't have cried. She wouldn't have even bothered to hit him because that's too much effort and time wasted on him.

Or, y/n would have left the mafia herself to become a better person and met dazai in the agency. Dazai would have helped y/n with her ability as a mentor and y/n would learn to like Dazais weird traits and realised even though he's a bit silly, he's very strong and serious which she would like.

I kinda wanna write a healthy relationship fanfiction. I kinda owe it to myself too. I want y/n to love herself, I want her to know her worth and not waste time on people who try and bring her down. I want it to be realistic too as fanfic is SO SO unrealistic.

I want it to be a good example, to readers that never had relationship, or readers that might not like themselves or see them as worthy, and hopefully make them feel better about themselves.

I will be labelling this fanfic as toxic. Because it is. I'm sad that I wrote a toxic fanfic because I really don't like them... but it is. I have accepted and acknowledge that.

I promise you readers I'll write a healthy fanfiction. If it's not please roast the shit out of it.

I know a lot of people wanted a Chuuya x reader so perhaps that might be on the cooking list.

Anyways...

Love yourself everyone. You are WONDERFUL and unique. Don't settle for anything that makes you unhappy. Be confident. Treat yourself. Don't think too hard on imperfections- everyone has some anyway. We are probably only here once so make your life as happy as you can- if someone or something doesn't make you happy it's not worth your time.

I hope I can give you better fanfiction in the future. I love you guys so much for actually reading it all tho. If you guys do manage to read this after so many years I'll be so happy.

Aspen, over n out ! See u in the next fanfic !