#nobody doing this like rimlaine

[celestebunnie]

Okay so you know how Rimbaud and Verlaine exchanged thier name? That's so emotional for me 😭😭

The first thing anyone who meets them would know about them is thier partner's name

To grab thier attention they have to call upon thier other half

They were never really separated they always carried a part of the other with themselves in form of thier name

How rimbaud always felt empty without his memories and one of the plot point was that the name rimbaud was mistaken as randou

So he didn't had his other half with him

Neither in name or memories

And how many times do you think Verlaine got called during those 8 years and he was hit by the memories before everything was shit

How he now carries his partner in his heartbeat and name

He would never let him be forgotten

THE FIRST THING ANYONE WILL KNOW ABOUT RIMLAINE IS THIER PARTNER'S NAME

EVEN AFTER DEAD WHEN STRANGERS PASS BY THIER GRAVE THEY WILL READ THIER PARTNER'S NAME

THEY ARE SO SOULMATES

I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE 🥺😭

[diagonal-queen]

The Moon and the Sea

♡ pairing: Paul Verlaine x Arthur Rimbaud

♡ synopsis: After a hard day, Verlaine finds solace in the arms of his partner.

♡ wc: 1.5k

♡ cw: Stormbringer spoilers(?), Rimlaine are extremely sad and gay

note: "i want to write a oneshot about some really beautiful but tragic gay men but i cant think of anything" i said to @small-chaos. they replied "Everybody talks about the moon and the sun but nobody admires the beauty in the relationship between the moon and the sea" and then this brainchild was born. thanks bestie <3 i would also like to shoutout @gettinshiggywithit for helping me complete this when i ran out of brain power, thank you lovely 😚😚 apologies for errors and I hope you enjoy x

The early winds of autumn were warm and gentle, relieving busy Parisians of the sticky summer humidity as the changing season set itself in motion. The sounds of evening began to die down, leaving only the rustling of brown and orange leaves in its wake. Yet, one man hadn't been privy to this particular noise, as all his windows had been closed as soon as he'd first entered the apartment the week prior. All he could hear was the crackling of fire and his own chattering teeth.

Rimbaud found himself growing colder by the minute. That night, he sat shivering on a sofa right before the fireplace, with a thick fluffy blanket wrapped around him. Despite the fact that he was also clad in several layers, a thick grey coat, a large scarf, mittens and earmuffs, he still felt like he might succumb to hypothermia any second.

He wanted nothing more than to leap into the fire itself, but he sat as still as he could and waited. Verlaine was supposed to be back soon, and when he knew that he was alright he would be able to go to their shared room and sleep (somewhat) soundly. That was what he'd planned, at least.

After hearing the sound of the door unlocking, Rimbaud bowed his head as Verlaine entered the apartment and closed the door behind him. He momentarily glanced at his partner, before doing a double take in shock.

Verlaine looked...dishevelled. He wasn't so dishevelled that a stranger may take notice and ask him about it, but for Verlaine, even a loose strand of hair was unusual. Rimbaud immediately knew something terrible must've happened.

"Paul, you...!" Rimbaud sat up, eyeing Verlaine who didn't seem to want to return his gaze. He silently walked, or rather stumbled, over towards the couch where his partner was sitting.

Rimbaud had never seen Verlaine act in such a way. Sure, he could come off as aloof from time to time, but today he didn't seem bothered to hide the fatigue he was feeling. Even his complexion seemed paler.

Verlaine then kneeled on the sofa, before his whole upper body flopped on top of Rimbaud, who let out a soft grunt at the impact. He tried to adjust his posture, but now that Verlaine was slumped on top of him he found it difficult to move.

"Are you alright?!"

"I'm..." Verlaine pushed his hat off his head, letting it fall to the ground by Rimbaud's shoes. "...I'm tired."

His umber eyes seemed unfocused, staring somewhere Rimbaud couldn't see.

"What happened to you, Paul?" The raven-haired couldn't help but feel concern bubbling inside him, and the question came off with more urgency than he'd intended it to. Not that it mattered- Verlaine never seemed to care about things like that.

Verlaine didn't answer for a moment, just letting out a breath that he seemed to have been holding in for a while. His face contorted into a slight grimace.

"...Paul?"

"...I don't want to talk about it now."

In spite of his worry, Rimbaud didn't press him further.

The room was bathed in a golden hue from the fire before the couch they were draped upon. It subconsciously gave a feeling of comfort to Rimbaud, who suddenly noticed how tranquil the atmosphere was despite the fact that he was trapped beneath Verlaine's roughed-up form. He realised that he wasn't shivering so violently now. He was still cold, of course, but Verlaine acted as a soothing source of warmth.

Rimbaud's gloomy eyes gazed down at Verlaine, whose eyes had closed by now. There was no blood on his person, of course, but his slightly dishevelled blonde hair and wrinkled clothing weren't any less cause for concern. For something or someone to have even a slight effect on a creature as powerful as Verlaine...

Rimbaud steadily moved his gloved hand and, after a moment of contemplation, placed it atop the back of Verlaine's head as gently as he could muster. Verlaine didn't react. Rimbaud let out a deep exhale, and cautiously ran a hand through his soft golden locks.

The small room the two were temporarily staying in, an apartment in an old Haussmann-style building located on the outskirts of Paris, was silent. They had become accustomed to moving around as frequently as their job required, and had never bothered to modify any of their living spaces to feel more homely. Rimbaud only cared about where Verlaine was, and Verlaine didn't see much merit in interior design. Yet, something about this place felt inherently intimate, or so Rimbaud thought.

"...Rimbaud?" Verlaine suddenly mumbled. Rimbaud cast him a glance, his face half obscured by blueish shadows while the other half glowed in the yellow light.

"Hm?"

"...I heard something in passing a few days ago," he began, almost as if he were unsure of his own words. "It was about love."

"Love?" Rimbaud creased his eyebrows, perplexed. If one were to ask him anything that Verlaine may bring up in conversation, love wouldn't have been in his first thousand guesses.

"Yes, love...I heard someone compare the concept of soulmates to the sun and the moon," Verlaine continued with a faint voice. "I don't quite understand it."

"Well..." Rimbaud's tone was slightly shaky. "You know the phrase 'opposites attract', don't you?"

Verlaine let out a small noise but Rimbaud couldn't tell whether it was affirmative or negative. Regardless, he continued.

"It means that two people who are different from each other are likely to have a better relationship. The 'sun' person would usually be more outgoing and cheery, while the 'moon' person is more introspective and quiet..." He bit his thin lip and then added, "Not unlike you, Paul."

Verlaine shifted slightly, his hand perching itself on top of Rimbaud's chest.

"Not unlike me...?"

"That's not to say that introspection and quietness are bad things," Rimbaud quickly spoke. "I just mean that...they're traits that suit you well. The 'moon' caricature as a whole suits you well, in fact."

"The moon..." Verlaine muttered to himself. "So far away from the rest of mankind...perhaps I am like the moon."

Rimbaud wanted to comfort Verlaine, to reassure him that he wasn't far away from anybody, especially not him, but the words wouldn't form on his tongue. He felt as if he should have been better at this by now; after all, it was far from the first time they'd had this type of conversation.

"If I am the moon then you're the sea." Verlaine suddenly announced, snapping Rimbaud out of his train of thought.

"The sea?" Rimbaud repeated, quietly. "...I don't understand."

"The sea is complex, full of mystery. You can never predict the force of the ocean's waves as they crash on the sand," Verlaine breathed, as if he were reading a poem. "You are deep and dark, Rimbaud. You're full of undiscovered secrets...and..."

He lifted his head up, lidded brown eyes staring straight into Rimbaud's. "We might be opposites, but I don't think you're a sun."

Rimbaud's breath hitched in surprise. He couldn't tear his eyes away from Verlaine's, whose tired gaze still burned right through him.

"Every day I survey you from afar and it feels almost like you glow when I look at you. How strange is that?"

The black-haired man couldn't tell whether or not Verlaine's question was rhetorical or not. Even if it wasn't, he probably wouldn't have been able to come up with a coherent answer. He was frozen in surprise, unable to break the tense silence between them.

Verlaine's hand moved from Rimbaud's chest to his cheek, gently cupping it while his thumb began to rub circles over his soft, pale skin. The blonde man seemed to be in some kind of fatigued haze.

"The saddest thing is how unattainable you are. But I know that if I were ever to fall..." Verlaine leaned forward, his breath tickling Rimbaud's face. "You would be there to catch me, wouldn't you?"

Then, without giving him the chance to answer, Verlaine brought his lips to Rimbaud's. His grip on Rimbaud's cheek tightened ever so slightly as he deepened the kiss, almost smiling when Rimbaud placed his hands on his back and squeezed.

"Paul-" Rimbaud tried to start when he pulled away, wanting to ask if they should be doing this or if it was really alright, but Verlaine just placed a finger to his lips.

"Shh..." the corner of Verlaine's lip turned up. Rimbaud's cheeks flushed red, and he quickly dove back into the kiss.

Aside from pulling apart for air every few seconds, the pair remained in their gentle embrace until Verlaine eventually pulled away, leaving Rimbaud breathless, and laid his head down on his chest.

"I'm tired, Arthur..." he said, before closing his eyes. Verlaine must've been exhausted- he never called Rimbaud by his first name. It made his heart skip a beat; something he hoped that Verlaine didn't notice.

With the state he was in, Verlaine probably wouldn't remember this in the morning. Rimbaud decided that unless he bought it up first, he wouldn't say a thing about it, no matter how much he wanted to.

And thus, the pair never spoke of that night again. 

taglist~ ♡ @gettinshiggywithit, @fyodorhatr, @flower-of-darkness, @bejeweledgirl

[lnkedmyheart]

Like, I get the whole issue people have with Yosano, based on a woman who was fiercely independent, being saved by 2 men. But do you realise that Yosano is an actual child with serious trauma and literally no one in BSD ever saves themself?

Who saved Dazai? Mori kept him from offing himself, Chuuya made him want to live, Oda gave him a much needed push, Ango and Taneda gave him a chance outside, the agency

Who saved Atsushi? Dazai, the agency

Who saved Akutagawa? Dazai.

Who saved Kyouka? Her mum, Koyou, Atsushi

Who saved Ranpo? Fukuzawa

Who saved Chuuya? The sheep, Dazai, Mori, Adam, Rimlaine

Who saved Sigma? The DoA, Dazai, Atsushi

Who saved Lucy? Atsushi, the cafe owners who gave her a job

Who saved Koyo? No one because she completely stopped trying after her hope shattered.

Who saved Verlaine? Rimbaud, Mori

Nobody in bsd exists in a vacuum. Insisting that Yosano, a deeply traumatized child being saved by another child and a man is somehow an anti woman choice is honestly weird to me because being an independent woman doesnt mean you cut off entirely from men. Ranpo and Fukuzawa did not save her from her initial circumstances, she did it herself, they simply were there for her to give her a home.

The issue with bsd and Asagiri's writing comes more from there not being enough women in his story. But that in no way means his women are weak or reliant on men. Yosano was given a home by a father figure and his adopted kid. She has never needed anyone to save her since.

[kunikidas-lost-glasses]

BSD college!AU headcanons pt.5

TWs: crying, mentions of bad chronic pain days, Dazai-typical mentions of sewerslide, thoughts about sewerslide and SH, mentions of OCD, mentions of child abuse, mention of heart palpitations, very slight mentions of breaking down, mentions of panic attacks

Despite everything, they all obviously aren't as mentally fucked as in the canon universe in this.

Pairings: Kunichuuzai, Mushiranpoe, Shin Soukoku, Suegiku, Shibufyosiggol, Montcott, Bramcraft, also it isn't specifically mentioned that they are together/married but married!Rimlaine

Fyodor and Dazai are besties/ childhood best friends in this. Nothing more or less.

---------------------------------

Jouno and Tecchou are engaged in this

But like nobody knows. They don't keep it a secret though

Nikolai actually cries or at least tears up a lot. He just tries to hide it most of the time since back in the orphanage from which he fled as a child, crying was seen as showing weakness and it usually ended up with the caregivers screaming at him so by now he tries to act all goofy and cheerful when he feels the lump in his throat again and when he feels that his eyes start to burn again.

He still starts to cry/tear up often and easily

The shower drain in the shower of Fyodor's, Nikolai's, Sigma's and Shibusawa's dorm is regualry clogged with long white hair

Sigma actually fishes his hair out of the drain after he showered/washed his hair but especially Shibusawa doesn't do so

Shibusawa is usually so chaught up in his thoughts that he forgets to fish his hair out of the drain or he is simply too lazy to do so.

He also finds getting the hair out of the drain disgusting so he simply doesn't does it which is a problem since he has the longest and thickest hair out of them.

Nikolai genuienly just forgets to fish the hairs out. He is like four steps further in his mind already after leaving the shower and is working on autopilot then.

Shibusawa generally blocks the bathroom for up to an hours since this man has a like 15 step long selfcare routine (skincare, taking care of his hair, make up, washing himself in general, styling his hair,etc.)

Fyodor, Sigma and Nikolai love thier boyfriend dearly but this sometimes drives them insane. Especially when they have a thight schedule.

Dazai often hang around at Nikolai's, Fyodor's, Sigma's and Shibusawa's dorm, lying on thier bed and chatting with Fyodor while the latter is sitting on his desk, working on his PC.

Chuuya gets at least three calls a week by his older brother Verlaine in which the latter is checking in on how Chuuya is doing and asks if everything is alright or if he has to come over to kick some asses

Chuuya thinks it's a tad annoying. Especially since he's 22 by now and not a child anymore and also since he can kick asses himself perfectly fine

Kunikida thinks it's cute/nice that Verlaine cares so much about his younger brother

Arthur Rimbaud is more chill about the whole topic. He chats with Chuuya regulary but not really to check in how he's doing but more in order to gossip with Chuuya

It's not like he wouldn't care about Chuuya, he kinda raised him too after all and knows him since he's 6 years old, but he trusts Chuuya enough to tell him if something is seriously wrong and he also thinks that he himself is able to tell if something is wrong.

Arthur is more of a chill and funny "parent" in a strange way. He's calm but he can be so damn sarcastic and is able to roast people in ways were they struggle to find a come back

He's calm yet chaotic and chill about a lot of things and Chuuya loves it

He's also more open minded when it comes to Chuuya's relationships and gives his parters a chance while Verlaine wants to strangle Dazai since the day he first met the other

Bram owns a grey nightgown with small little, realistic looking bats printed on it and he loves it

Fitzgerald is the funny, chill yet weird buisness management professor

Sigma can't decide if he likes him or if he finds him annoying/if he makes him uncomfortable

Fitzgerald made a joke about Sigma's name at least once

Fyodor sometimes dances with one of his boyfriends in thier dorm

One time he danced with Sigma to one of the latters favorite songs when Sigma had a bad day

One time, Fyodor took the lead while Sigma leaned his head against Fyodor's shoulder, closing his eyes and letting himself feel safe and comforted

Dazai just randomly bursting into Fyodor's dorm at the most random times is a thing (Dazai has key to thier dorm for whatever reason just like Fyodor has a key to Dazai's and Chuuya's)

If Bram has a horrible pain day, he stays at his dorm, lying in his bed, not going out or to any lectures and tries to survive the day somehow

Lovecraft also always comes over then

He is at Bram's dorm most of the time anyways

He will bring Bram some books, makes him tea and keeps him company

He knows that there isn't much to make his partner feel better/ to ease the pain but he's still there for him

Often Bram just tries to sleep it off, just like he does with everything else which plagues/bothers him and even theny, Lovecraft will stay by his side, often falling asleep too but still being avilable whenever Bram should need something

Sometimes Bram starts to cry silently out of frustration and pain and while he hopes that Lovecraft won't notice it, the other will always notice it

He then asks if there is anything he can do and if there isn't anything he will simply ask Bram if it would be okay if he lies down next to him, holding him

If Bram gives the okay, he will lie down next to the other, hugging him carefully, not touching his legs and pelvic bone at all, not wanting to cause any more pain and lets Bram cry silently

They don't need any words then. Lovecraft being there is enough then.

Often Bram ends up dozing off when the pain gets a bit lesser and since he is exhaused from crying and usually Lovecraft dozes off right after making sure that Bram is asleep and as well as he can be in such a situation

Each and every time Jouno and Tecchou are in the cafeteria together, there will be a huge discussion about Tecchous food combinations

It's kind of entertaining to watch

Mushitarou has heart palpitations which come from him being stress 90% of the time and from his OCD and they get worse whenever he has a lot of stress again

When Chuuya gets very emotional, angry or irritated, his french accent gets audible and can get pretty thick

Dazai thinks it's adorable

Chuuya dropping french curse words here and there is a thing

Ranpo and Jouno often wear noise canceling headphones in the cafeteria if it's super crowded

All of them are either majoring or minoring in litrature so they often suffer together when they have short deadlines or ask each other what they've wrote for a creative writing assignment

Poe and Chuuya check each others poems

They surprisingly get along super well

Chuuya and Ranpo don't really get along though

Sigma sometimes bakes way too much cookies and brings some cookies to other dorms

Poe can be quiet sarcastic when he's in surroundings where he feels safe

Poe basically trained Karl to also function as a service animal so now he's not only a friend, pet and collegue to him but also a big help when he's getting a panic attack again

Karl will start to nudge Poe and pull on his clothes when the latter is too chaught up, spiraling in his thoughts to notice that he's starting to have a panic attack again

As soon as he is aware of what's happening, Karl will go and search for Ranpo or Mushitaro (or both) and will drag on thier clothes, nudge them and will even bite them in thier ankles if necessary (Poe didn't thought him this. He started doing this himself. Poe scolded him once for it but he keeps doing it when they aren't realizing what's going on or if they won't pay attention which happens rarley thaught.) He then shows them where Poe is.

As soon as they are taking care of his owner, he will bring Poe a bottle of water and some sweets and will proceed to cuddle and lick his cheeks or hands then.

Sometimes he also lies down on his lap as if he's trying to calm down and comfort Poe

If they are in public, he will also get super defensive and tries to keep people who aren't Ranpo or Mushitaro away from Poe

After Mushitaro joined thier relationship and after Karl started to accept having to share Poe with yet another person, he surprisingly started to act them same way when Mushitaro was getting a panic attack or was close to breaking down again

Atsushi spends a lot of his free time at the cafe down the street where his best friend Lucy is working

He spends hours chatting with her, lets her rant about rude cutomers and helps her out sometimes

Louisa is also often in the cafe, visiting her girlfriend

Lucy will always make herself some free time for them

She will always ask Louisa how she's doing, how college is and if anyone dared to bother her

She can and will waltz into the college and she will absolutly destory any person who dared to make Louisa feel bad

She also always praises her girlfriend, makes her her favorite drinks, gives her her favorite pastries and also tries to stop her from overworking herself once again

She is a bit lesser soft to Atsushi (or to any other person who isn't Louisa) but that doesn't mean that she wouldn't care about the other

If she knows that Atsushi will visit her at the cafe again, they will have "coincidentally" his favorite pastry in store and if he forgot his money at his dorm, she will give him the meal on the house "but just this once!"

It will always be "on the house" then

If Atsushi is struggling with college stress, she will roast him for choosing to go to college instead of starting to work like her but she will then offer him support in her very own ways

In general, she supports the most of them during exam season and cares about Atsushi's and Louisa's friend group greatly

She is also the reason why Atsushi, Dazai, Kunikida, Chuuya,Fyodor,Nikolai, Bram, Lovecraft, Steinbeck, Louisa, Higuchi, Gin, Akutagawa, Sigma, Shibusawa, Ranpo, Poe, Mushitaro and Yosano are allowed to make thier study sessions on fridays and why they are allowed to stay there, even after the shops closing hous, especially during exam phases

Atsushi sometimes brings Akutagawa or Akutagawa and Gin with him to the cafe

Lucy doesn't really like Akutagawa a lot but as long as Atsushi is happy she doesn't mind

Atsushi loves watching series for kids when he's stressed

Dazai sometimes doesn't trust himself while showering at all, especially not when his mental health is worse again, so he sometimes manages to ask Chuuya or Kunikida if they could sit in the bathroom while he's showering so that they can jump in if he tries or does anything funny

Of course they will never deny the request and join him in the bathroom, not looking or judging him

Usually Chuuya sits on the floor with his back against the shower door, playing video games on his Ninentdo or working on his tasks for college while occasionally asking Dazai if everything is okay in there or just randomly chatting with the younger

Kunikida on the other hand often sits on a chair somewhere in the bathroom or also sits on the floor with his back against the shower door, working on his tasks or fixing some issues in his schedule

He never rests tbh

As soon as Dazai is taking way too long, the water is on for way too long, Dazai goes a bit too quiet, they don't hear any movements anymore or as soon as something feels off, even if it's just Dzaai's voice if he replies to something they said, they will get alerted, put away whatever they are doing and knock on the door, asking if everything is okay. if Dazai won't reply they will ask if it's okay if they can come in or go in.

This was only the case once though and luckily nothing dangerous happened. Dazai had started to get too chaught up in dark thoughts and was close to breaking down so Chuuya turned off the water, gently got Dazai back in the here and now, calmed him down, carefully wrapped him up in soft towles and took him out of the shower where he sat him down on the bathtub and tried him off before leading him to thier beds, brining some pyjamas and informing Kunikida about what happened

The other came to thier dorm immediatly, where Chuuya was currently lying in bed with Dazai, holding the other and caressing his back, trying to cheer him up a bit

Kunikida then lied down next to Dazai, hugging him too and asking him how he was doing

They spend the rest of the evening lying in bed, talking about lighthearted stuff and talking shit about people while cuddling thier boyfriend

Nikolai loves gossiping with Sigma while he is doing his make up

He is always super curious about what happened at the casino again

Nikolai and Sigma love playing animal crossing, just like Dazai, Ranpo and Atsushi

Dazai is basically only causing chaos on the islands of others though

Chuuya, Kunikida and Dazai play so much video games together

When Dazai found out that Bram's name was actually Abraham and that "Bram" only was short for it, he was pretty dumbfounded and acted all offended afterwards because how could Bram not tell him such a thing

Bram was basically just like "What"

He infact never told anyone besides Lovecraft. Dazai only found out because he saw Bram's student ID

Not that he wants to keep it a secret tho.

[cousticks]

Can you expand on Rimlaine in your zombie au? 👀

oh i sure fucking can. warning for self destructive behavior a little greater than canon because i did some rather messed up things to make them work!

I kind of gave them a bit of a "you're the only person in this town crazy enough to handle me" dynamic but more of as a quarantine measure because nobody else wanted anything to do with either of them. My explanation of how I translate their abilities and dynamic into this universe is kind of long so I'm putting this under a cut!

so, i spend a lot of time in this au trying to translate everyone's abilities into an ability-less zombie au. rimbaud's ability in translation kind of got broken down into two main parts: compartmentalization and control. in an ability, this is his ability subspace, and the manipulation of the rules within it.

now. we know rimbaud is kind of nuts. we also know that in canon he's used his ability to keep himself "alive" when he should have died.

you're probably reading this going okay cou, that's cool and all, but where's the zombie apocalypse part? well, resistance to death, compartmentalization, and control? rimbaud is going to survive several zombie attacks. in the most fucked up way.

i've mentioned my zombie virus's function is, among some other diseases, based upon rabies. rabies spreads pretty slowly in the body, through nerves. so if rimbaud gets bitten? he's not going down so easy. compartmentalization and control - he just fucking cuts off a solid chunk of whatever part of him just got bit before the wound has a chance to spread then carries on. (note: i do not know if this would work with real rabies nor do i recommend it. this is science fiction! i do what i want!)

so we've got rimbaud, who just lops off chunks of himself when he gets attacked to survive. he develops a bit of a reputation for this. after all, in canon, he's a powerful ability user. why wouldn't he be of high reputation (with people a little afraid of him) in this world, too? he's known for having ways of "dealing with" zombies.

now, verlaine. he, like chuuya, is an experimentally "cured" zombie (not cured. still zombie. just... staved off.) he's still dangerous and unstable to a point. the experimental cure is rather miserable and not super effective (most just die when its attempted). he's still very much infected with the zombie virus, but it won't be getting much worse, save for occasional "slips" of fun zombie brain moments (not fun in the slightest). shoutout to @/squidsandthings for giving me another virus type to look into for ideas on how these slips work!!! i love taking inspiration from real life diseases to make this work.

so after verlaine gets essentially thrown to the wolves after the zombie treatment, he gets passed off into the care of pretty much the only guy who can put up with someone that's just a zombie with a still functional brain, aka rimbaud.

yes, verlaine has bitten rimbaud a few times. this is fine though. remember how rimbaud literally gives himself up for verlaine at the end of stormbringer? i'm carrying that over, here, with rimbaud literally being willing to chop bits of himself off to keep verlaine around. and in return verlaine is the only person around not dismally horrified of rimbaud... Doing That.

i wanted at least someone to be kind of happier than in canon somehow in this universe so i'm allowing rimlaine to at least get to stay together without that separation they have in canon. but also one constantly runs the risk of killing the other either accidentally or out of necessity.

i also really wanted to create the rimbaud & dazai parallels of "immunity" of a sort, though rimbaud's is a distinctly different flavor of immunity since its very self-wrought.

so there you have it! that's the rimlaine zombie au dynamic. they're both miserable and having a bad time but at least they're having a bad time together. (fun fact! they can't like. kiss or anything. because, like rabies, the zombie virus can be spread through mucus membranes ((like mouths!)) i can make them as canon as i want and it still doesn't do either of them any good! <3)

[asachuu]

Alright, BSD/AO3-related “confession” time, although this shouldn’t have really become a confession.

While my works over on AO3 are occasionally quite dark, the full extent of which is entirely subjective, yet still one I could describe as such objectively, I do sometimes try to water a lot of it down out of fear I’m starting to sound “edgy for the sake of it”, as nonsensical as I personally find that description. Though I’m aware the thought process goes against what I personally believe on these matters, I still don’t want anyone to look at anything I write and assume it’s nothing but a mindless pile of brutality treated without proper seriousness and/or something to exaggerate for “no real reason”, and I often find myself worrying whether or not it’ll come off as such, even though I understand each author has their own visions and motives, me included, and not everyone will assume those correctly, nor will people ever universally agree on them, enjoy the content or even have the willingness to accept the mere existence of art that isn’t pure or sanitized, therefore one shouldn’t feel anxious over this when nobody owes any sort of explanation or justification for their creations to strangers anyway, but…let’s just say I’m still trying to get past that. Unfortunately, I suppose spending too much time around audiences who consider going into any type of ever-so-slightly darker territory in one’s works as an act only terrible, cruel individuals would do may have had its long-lasting effects…but I digress.

There was one work which was initially meant to be entirely unfiltered, “uncensored”, if I should say so, and that work was meant to be what would eventually become both A Second Chance and No Retakes, given the two are merely two varying iterations of an alternate universe I wanted to create for the ship I’m writing about. I suppose it’s the third, never spoken about version of it, and although there are four to five total versions as of today, this one in particular had almost made it through, had I not completely washed everything I were to include away just a few days before I got to writing my “first” fic. In fact, it was precisely the fully clean version which became A Second Chance; the series is essentially only different in its beginning, past and subsequently the way said past would affect what was happening, yet the more general events stayed intact, unlike No Retakes which is still not being too truthful to its original introductory disclaimer as of the last update.

Now, I felt like I had to tidy this one up, and if I am to be honest, it was mainly thanks to my only “enthusiastic” audience at the time always focusing on any sadder element of my writing and pinpointing how much it ruined the whole work, which was…a rather demotivating experience, aside from all else I could say about it. Considering this was a work I would be posting publicly with the intention of actually having others see it and associate it with this chain of accounts instead of someone’s random throwaway I could just ditch at any time, and not only that, this would also be something of great personal importance to me, I didn’t want to discard what I assumed to be my only chance at making something I could look back and be satisfied with. There is certainly far more to this story, but all that is to say, I didn’t want— and frankly couldn’t even afford— this to be dismissed as someone’s “horrible” work with such “unnecessary cruelty” in it, or however else it would have been described.

Even after a long time, after I had started publishing far more “risky” things, such as my whole Rimlaine-related series, and detached myself as much as possible from an audience which would ultimately never find any enjoyment in what I actually wished to be creating and would only serve to bring me down or make me dislike my own content, there was one thing I didn’t change my mind on, and that was feeling as though I still wouldn’t have been able to write the original concept of the ChuuArt series/fic/etc. I had in mind, even after everything I had written by that point and even after many chapters of No Retakes. In fact, I changed my mind a mere four weeks ago, which is the only reason I’m writing this.

If you’ve never heard me describe what the original consisted of, I’ll have to slightly disappoint you this time as I definitely don’t have enough confidence to actually state what it could have been, but as is probably very obvious, it wasn’t for the faint-hearted. I feel as though it’s no exaggeration if I say it was far more dark than every single Rimlaine fic I have ever written combined. I don’t believe I ever considered it “unreasonable” or any other such descriptor, not even when I was too afraid to write it, though— in truth, I sincerely believe both A Second Chance and No Retakes are extremely unrealistic and don’t represent practically anything I had been envisioning. Right now, I’ve decided to see if it’s possible for me to rework the outlines for the latter as it’s obviously very far from done and nobody apart from me would know what the original was meant to be, steering it a little bit closer to its long-lost predecessors, but even if I do manage to pull this off, the concept has been lost from the very beginning, and nothing can replicate it unless I somehow wholeheartedly try to overwrite people’s memories.

Of course, not stating it directly doesn’t mean I can’t imply it, and I will have to, just for the sake of what I’m trying to get at. The initial premise was always having Arthur survive the events of Fifteen, that much is obvious, and while there is one other version of the AU in which he survives on his own accord without any interference from the Port Mafia, the rest of them did require him to fall into the organization’s hands. Now, here is where I feel like ASC/NR completely fail at being anyhow logical, and this has hit me more than ever recently, though I’ll explain why afterwards, despite being somewhat confident that you could figure it out even without my input from here.

Naturally, there is absolutely no reason for Arthur to have been entirely safe and intact until meeting Chuuya in any iteration (…maybe aside from that one exception, but I think you’ll get what I mean more specifically), and no horrible living conditions I place him in are even remotely comparable to what I believe an organization such as the Port Mafia would do to a traitor if he were to be kept alive for any reason instead of immediately assassinated, as implied in Fifteen. I will give off somewhat plot-important spoilers here for No Retakes, so please beware, but NR tries to give some flimsy reasoning for this as I seemed to have become more and more self-aware of it while writing the initial outlines— I thought that perhaps, if Arthur regained his memories and could have potentially held some valuable information about other organizations, it would have made sense to try and keep him alive and well, and while it would have definitely been more straightforward for any PM member to just…let’s say…“standard-mafia-procedure” the information out of him, nobody would have had any reason to do that if he’d either been completely unconscious or he forgot everything again, right…? And one more “spoiler”, although it’s been slightly hinted at in the fic itself already and I heavily regret giving it such little relevance— even that much didn’t sit right with me, so he doesn’t escape entirely unscathed, but nonetheless, all of it is extremely tame, in my opinion. (Spoilers end) It feels more like a last resort to attain more realism points which simply aren’t really there, or so I believe.

The original, however, went all-out with this “realism” I so speak of, and I’ll just say that every variation of this AU has a five year gap between Fifteen and its present at the very least, but in both I’ve written about so far, Arthur isn’t particularly conscious for any of those five or more years. In that version, for one reason or another that hasn’t been properly worked on before being discarded and turned into one of the newer ideas, he’d been reluctantly kept alive, but not a soul would have given him the luxury of just leaving him be for ages until he would have most likely rotted away like in ASC, or until he’d woken up again like in NR. I believe everyone can have their own interpretation of my words here as I don’t even know how I would type this out in the first place, but essentially, at that point, Chuuya wouldn’t have simply carried him away for the sake of it or been tasked to watch over him, it’d be more of him just outright saving whatever was left of his life. I’m sure that anything one could imagine here would also lead to an obvious difference between how this AU’s Arthur would act, as opposed to both AU versions of him currently existing, yet to write all that simply felt…wrong. Not wrong because it didn’t make sense and felt like a pointless gore fest— the complete opposite, actually, but wrong as in, according to my mind and my mind only, something “too dark for AO3” or the BSD fandom as a whole. I probably would have had the tendency to overdescribe it as well instead of letting the reader make up their own mind, which would have added onto that factor, and I was too worried to even dare venturing there. Some of it certainly also had to do with fearing I wouldn’t be able to pull it off as a more amateurish writer, but it wasn’t the main driving force.

Now, anyone could sit here and tell me that my reason was complete bullshit, and I can’t believe I’ve only arrived to this conclusion myself so late. What led me to it, you may ask? Simple— Bungou Stray Dogs itself.

I’ve drafted this very post those four weeks ago when I changed my thoughts on these matters and just edited it to make it fit recent events, but at the time of writing this initially, I was only on chapter 40 of re-reading the manga, and that has been enough to convince me none of my fics, not even the original AU I had in mind, are “too edgy” for anything to do with BSD (and AO3, of course, I think that site has seen it all). Though I firmly believe no such thing even needs some kind of “justification” to be written in the first place, as for my observation, all of my harsher ideas would still be reduced to mere dust if compared to that or the light novels. There is not a single thing I could have ever written that would have gone “too far” by my own anxiety-driven standards, and even if I genuinely took that entire concept and wrote it to the full extent I’ve had in my mind, it would only be dreaming of being on par with something like Atsushi’s backstory or Q’s treatment, both of which are basically at the mere start of the manga. If not that, it would absolutely pale in comparison to the entirety of Stormbringer, for example, and if one was to put it simply, the amount of missing limbs, dead bodies, torture, on-screen and described gore in this series would make my own concepts…I want to say laughable, but it’d actually make them just a tiny bit more BSD-worthy.

Nothing I’m writing feels like BSD itself from this perspective, and I understand that I’m writing fanfiction— I’m in a space where people don’t always want to match the mood and tone of the media they’re making their own spin on, and there is not a single thing out of place if I make any of my works more toned down, peaceful and whatnot, but at the same time, there will also be nothing out of place if I don’t. Honestly, this may be somewhat clear already, but I don’t want to write works which are fully sanitized, clean and light-hearted only, and while yes, I believe a couple of those exist on my page, those aren’t meant to be the majority as that was never my goal to begin with. I didn’t even have one at first, but when I both actually tried to think of one somewhere along the way and reflected on all my old drafts and notes, the answer I got was to make the opposite of what I look for while browsing AO3 myself, ironically— as I don’t usually spend my time reading much, not even on there, I only ever read short fics that I can go through in one sitting which don’t leave me thinking about anything surrounding them and I feel as though I’ve read them from their true beginning to their true end, with the plot being only what was in the 4000 or so words I skimmed through rather than something much different, something I’ve only looked through a window into, and, simply put for what I think is my case, something far more pretentious than that, of course. Hopefully, there is no need for me to clarify I clearly do enjoy the shorter, less complex fics and am in no way trying to devalue them, they’re just not what I personally would like to write myself— I would be delighted if someday, I could feel as though I have created something which has a full, proper story in itself, and additionally, seeing as it’s BSD fanfiction, absolutely not have this story be one in which you could almost believe all the characters are regular office workers with rather mild problems in their lives. The only thing which is closest to this, yet which still fails to meet the former criteria, is probably all to do with Rimlaine that I’ve written, but that was not the initial plan, and now I’m seeing that it didn’t really have to be this way.

Not that I regret it too much, seeing as I could fix this if I truly wanted to— No Retakes was mostly born out of late regrets after I’ve fallen in love with that version of the AU and spent months wishing I had worked on it from the very beginning instead of having a thousand separate worries about it, all before I realized there were more people encouraging me to write it than people who would have insinuated I’d already written a ChuuArt AU and another “similar” one wasn’t necessary anymore. I could undoubtedly go back and show everyone one more of the originals, the one which would have rivaled every single work of mine in terms of just how dark it would have been, but I’m not sure whether it’s my ongoing WIP or general exhaustion stopping me more here, aside from the fact that I simply don’t have that much of a desire to do it when I could still try and pray to salvage said WIP a little bit and find a middle ground that doesn’t require me to start another project I will inevitably have no time to work on without getting too worn down.

Anyhow, I suppose I’ll get to looking through the outlines again, perhaps cut out some chapters on the way if I can and hope not to add more by accident. For better or for worse, while the reason should have probably been a bit different, I’m glad to be a bit less willing to censor half my works now that I’ve at least realized what media I’ve actually been using this whole time, and I’m hoping it will have some impact going forward as I really want to write what I alone want to write, not what people who don’t even care about my works want to see me create.

[linklethehistorian]

I don’t know how to explain this to other people, and it’s definitely something I’m probably only going to drop a mention of here just this once and then never again due to the fact that there’s literally no effective way to put this into practice in any way, shape, or form, but at least in my head, especially as Cherish’s author, VerRim and RimLaine are two entirely different things.

I mean, obviously I do tag/would tag everything from the fic related to either past BSD!Paul x BSD!Arthur, past IRL!Paul x IRL!Arthur, and current BSD!Paul x IRL!Arthur as both ship names because — at least in the broader scope of the Eng BSD fandom — anything related to Paul and Arthur as a ship at all goes under both names. That’s how people categorize and find it. It’s just how it works.

That being said though, although I do this and will continue to do this for that reason, in my head the two ship names are not synonymous with each other.

This probably stems mostly from the fact that in the earlier days of the Fifteen sub-fandom, VerRim was the only existing (Eng) ship name in existence for the BSD versions of Arthur and Paul, and thus I came to mentally attach that name specifically to them, as opposed to the much later development of the RimLaine ship name post-Storm Bringer, of which it took me many months to actually adjust to the existence and widespread usage.

Nevertheless, whatever the reason it ended up that way for me, as far as I’m concerned, VerRim is the ship name for BSD!Arthur and BSD!Paul, while RimLaine is the ship name for BSD!Paul and IRL!Arthur, as is the main focus of my fic. (And as for the two irl counterparts as a couple, even in the context of my fic, I don’t really have a concrete ship name for them in my head, though if I had to pick one of the two existing names for them, it would definitely be VerRim.)

Even setting my fic completely aside by acknowledging that nobody else in the world thinks this way or really recognizes anything other than the BSD-specific ship under those names as far as I’m aware, the two ship names still represent two completely distinct concepts to me within said BSD-specific ship — with VerRim occupying the generally more tragic, negative, canon-compliant, realistic end of the ship that a greater majority of people tended to have back during the earlier days of the sub fandom, and RimLaine encompassing the more canon-divergent, denial-induced fluff-and-happily-ever-after endings content that the fandom became so disproportionately fond of and exploded with post-SB.

Of course this is all just a weird tangent that literally no one is likely to care about too much, but…yeah, those are just my thoughts on things, I guess. I know to the outside world, there’s literally no distinction between the two and everyone just uses the names willy-nilly however they feel, and thus I’ll continue to tag accordingly, but yeah, that’s how my brain categorizes things, at least.

[lnkedmyheart]

Sometimes I have to sit down and breathe because its still insane to me that people are legitimately fighting over which ship is more likely to be canon. Best friends of 7 years who are fated to be something vs people who just met 10 minutes ago from opposite factions and being forced to survive together.

Like bro...neither is more canon. Both have their plus points. I dont give a shit about sigzai cause to me personally their chemistry is meh compared to all my other dazai ships and I sort of prefer sigma with atsushi anyway. And like you can't realistically call the sigzai dynamic better than skk, that is just not logical because there is 7 years of history with skk so I dont get the attempts to delegitimize skk as a canon dynamic. But at the end of the day the people trying to drag skk shippers because sigzai scenes happened or skk shippers feeling the need to respond to troll sigzai shippers who are baiting them are all so...

Neither is canon.

You know what IS canon? Whatever the fuck rimlaine have got going on even in Rimbaud's death.

And no, nobody has to poly ship them. You do you but stop trying to shut down an inherent problem in fandoms about harassment of shippers over prefered pairings by suggesting poly shipping. Just let people enjoy what they like.