#this is post-Storm bringer

[sensitiveheartless]

Skk having their first kiss ❤️❤️❤️

I’m so sorry I thought about making it sweet but all I could think about was them being really really dumb teens

[sabh0]

Got a request on insta to draw those two ehehe (i will have to work on Murase's design a bit more one day but anyway) love those two sm Let's ignore the fact i posted yesterday, i love posting and i'm too impatient to wait days aughhhh

[port4shippers]

I have to give props to Chuuya. The fact that this man has canonically lost three whole friend groups (The Sheep through betrayal, the Flags to Verlaine, and those killed by Shibusawa during the Dragon Head Conflict) throughout a 3-year period, then loses his partner (Dazai) and has no idea where he is or if he's alive for 3-4 years...

You have to admire his mental fortitude, because he's relatively well adjusted for how much shit he's been through. (Not even counting his status as a government experiment and his existential crisis on whether he's human or not.)

[piedpip3rrr]

Stormbringer [CODE 1] (wip)

[originalaccountname]

I made some funny comics a little while ago about the potential effects of Fukuzawa's ability on Chuuya's, and how it perhaps could make it revert to a pre-Arahabaki state.

I realized later that some of you lack the context for where that came from, and that I might be creating confusion, so this is a (hopefully) comprehensive walkthrough of things we learned in Storm Bringer that lead to this conclusion.

tldr; The lab created "Arahabaki" by manipulating an ability into a destructive force. That ability existed before the lab, and the nature of that ability is heavily implied to be the power to enhance other abilities through touch.

Explanation and sources below (so you can judge yourself) ⬇

- spoiler warning for Storm Bringer, hopefully written in a way that you'd understand even if you haven't read it yet -

In Storm Bringer, Chuuya meets the scientist that was responsible for Project Arahabaki, Professor N.

Project Arahabaki, N explains, was the Japanese government's secret project to create an ability singularity they could have control over and freely use as a weapon.

What are singularities? Singularities are what happens when abilities clash in specific ways and create a new, unforeseen reaction. The easiest way to create a singularity is to pit two contradictory abilities against each other to create a paradox; examples included the ability to always deceive and the ability to always perceive the truth, and to have two ability users who can see into the future (*coughs* Oda and Gide) try to one-up each other. The result is usually much more powerful than the original abilities on their own.

Some singularities are said to have been explained as god-like interventions, because of their often destructive nature. This is what inspired the name "Arahabaki", after the mythical being (here's a post of the subject and I'll it link at the end too) These events are described as very rare.

Like mentioned in that passage, there is another way to create a singularity: to have a single ability user use their ability in a way that contradicts itself. This is what the lab was trying to do.

For that explanation, Professor N gives an example. He first shows a video of a child, whose face is hidden from the camera, holding a coin (described as having a certain melancoly to it), with a moon and a fox engraved on it. The video is from one of the lab's tests. The child is made to recite some activation lines, which are directly taken from one of Nakahara Chuuya's poems, Upon the Tainted Sorrow (which does mentions a fox, as a fun fact).

The coin then starts glowing, the glow turns into a black mass, and from there the experimentation goes bad: the coin starts attracting things and absorbing them, the space gets distorted, the child's vitals flatline, panic spreads and someone calls for an emergency stop, we hear a scream. The video ends.

N explains that the child in the video had the ability to enhance the ability of others. That child then used that ability on themselves, effectively enhancing the enhancement which enhanced the enhancing, in an infinite loop. That loop created a lot of energy; the surplus of energy was so intense its mass deformed space (physics!) and it created a black hole.

Here's where it gets tricky: N claims that child died during that accident, that the child was absorbed by the black hole created by their ability. We never actually learn their identity.

But N is a lying liar who lies; he said about one and a half truths the entire book. The only reason he was telling them any of this was that he thought he'd get rid of all of them within the next few minutes. His objective was always to regain control over Chuuya, his pet project.

Plus, during the epilogue, we learn that Chuuya was assumed to have died during the war. That's what his parents think. That's what is officially recorded.

Furthermore.

Project Arahabaki was based off French research papers; someone else had done this kind of experimentation before, and their result was Verlaine.

-

Verlaine's gravity-manipulation is a singularity. Better yet: Verlaine also has a Corruption state, named Brutalization. Their abilities are the same, because the lab copied the techniques that were used to create Verlaine when they worked on Chuuya.

Here's a passage of Dazai nullifying Corruption, at the very end of SB:

"The self-contradicting skill, which was supporting the energy of a singularity". This passage confirms that the source of Chuuya's ability is, in fact, like the child's and Verlaine's, if any doubts remained. "[...] weakening the singularity's output. It wasn't long before it returned to its normal state, and the Gate closed." The Gate refers to releasing Arahabaki, it's basically a limiter, just like the passage above when talking about Brutalization. When Dazai nullifies Corruption, he gives that limiter the opportunity to come back and seal Chuuya's power away again, but does not stop the singularity, only allows it to go back to its stable state.

From all that, we can say that Chuuya's ability wasn't always gravity manipulation, but that it was another, unconfirmed ability that was exploited in such a way that it became a permanent, stable singularity that allowed him to have control over gravity.

-

Bullet point recap:

Chuuya's gravity manipulation comes from a singularity, like Verlaine, like that child;

You need a self-referencing/self-contradicting ability to create that singularity;

Such an event is rare;

There is a substantial amount of time spent describing a "random" child that was experimented on during the war;

That child created a black hole through their singularity;

That singularity was activated using a passage from Nakahara Chuuya's poems, while holding a coin that references it;

That child supposedly died;

Chuuya's parents think he died during the war;

N is a pathological liar with an agenda.

So no, there is no "confirmation" that Chuuya's ability was ability enhancement before the lab took him. But an author writes a story with an intent, so I am asking what Asagiri's intent was when writing all this, and if perhaps we weren't indirectly given the answer already.

-

What is Arahabaki (Fifteen and Storm Bringer lore, with too many citations)

My own perceived timeline of the true events behind Storm Bringer (was originally gonna be part of this part, also with too many citations)

[originalartblog]

Actually I really like this one I'm posting it on its own

(from here)

[shittydazai]

can’t stop thinking about this storm bringer quote in regards to uh. current events in the manga

[echoofmidnight]

So BSD season 5 episode 11 is ending, Chuuya, Dazai and Sigma are trying to finally escape the prison and get stopped by Fyodor. It could never be that easy, he starts monologging about how they won't win and then--he falls over. Behind him are three figures, bemoaning the fact that somethings never change and the mighty Soukoku are lucky they were bailed out.

Sigma stares on confused and Chuuya looks shocked, and Dazai sighs, "Hi guys."

Adam, Verlaine and Shirase stand at the entrance of Mersault and smile.

The title card "Bungou Stray Dogs: Stormbringer" appears on screen and the season ends.

The next day a Stormbringer movie gets officially announced.

[kyouka-supremacy]

Stormbringer plot but it's told by someone who hasn't read a word of the novel only according to the details gathered through my dash

There's a dude called Verlaine and at some point he tried to assassinate the queen of England for no particular reason and everyone finds it both concerning and awesome

Chuuya used to be a lab experiment before joining the Sheeps... I think.

Verlaine was either Chuuya's fellow lab experiment or a scientist doing experiments on him. Maybe both?

Verlaine and Rimbaud were lab partners in experimenting on Chuuya. I'm not sure what the connection between the two was but I'm sure there WAS a connection

Btw Verlaine and Rimbaud had SOMETHING going on. Something gay going on.

So basically after 15, Chuuya who's now in the pm joins a club of people that were all experimented on called the Flags™ and they become this super knit group of friends

A LOT of “am I human??” Chuuya angst like half novel feels like it's about that at this point

There's a spy? Who works for the government? And sorta babysits Chuuya and the Flags I think???? Their name is Adam and I love them tbh

Dazai comes at some point and fucks shit up idk

Mori tells Dazai he can't die because that way it will be a double suicide with Chuuya (this part I know for sure)

At some point Dazai says the line “I want Chuuya to suffer like a human being” which is a line raw as fuck tbh

There's a epic final battle against Verlaine where Chuuya renounces to know if he ever was a human being... Except reader is made aware he was a human being anyway

Verlaine finds out he's Chuuya's brother and he doesn't want to kill him anymore? Verlaine has a “there was a BIG mistake” kinda moment

Verlaine stays as a mafia executive with the job of training new recruits. He got very depressed because his misunderstanding may have caused the death of Rimbaud. He now lives in a basement.

[backpackevil]

I AM BACK WITH SKK ART BABY LETS GOOOO

{click for better quality}

+Close up

My beloved traumatized teenagers<3

[am-a-disappointment]

Chuuya asking the flags why before anything else when they gave him the documents they'd found about his past, because chuuya isn't use to getting something for free, people give him stuff in order to use him and he's unclear on the terms of friendship and he's shocked that the flags are going to all this trouble cuz they're his friends and they care about him... I need a minute

[asachuu]

A lot of people are talking about Arthur’s age right now to the point even I know about it from under my rock, but instead of stating the obvious and simply assuming everyone is in on everything already, I’ll just ask this: what is actually so unbelievable about him being 27? I’ve heard folks say that it would mean he would be 15-16 at the time of joining his organization, which is indeed correct, but somehow, this comes as a surprise or something unacceptable, and I don’t understand why? The two literal fandom favorites, Dazai and Chuuya, met at fifteen years old when one was a mafia member already and the other joined at the same age, and no one seems to find that unbelievable?

Anyway, since I have my two cents on this matter, I have to shove the rest of this under the cut, but please bear with me here.

I presume people are mostly shocked for that reason, though do correct me if I’m wrong— I do see how it could be inconceivable to think of his whole entire background, memories, memoir and so on as being attributed to a 15-19 year old instead of someone far older, but if that’s due to any other reason than it simply not meeting expectations thanks to some former headcanons, I’m not too sure why. Obvious Fifteen parallels aside, it’s not as if BSD is some light-hearted series where characters going through incredibly harsh events we cannot even imagine have to be of legal age and in perfect circumstances to be able to handle it— I suppose some could be wondering about that aspect, but it would match up with the whole feel and plot of the story, and no part of it feels out of place. I’ll admit I used to believe Arthur was 36-37 at the time of his death as I didn’t know of his age either, but upon seeing he was a decade younger, I didn’t exactly think it to be nonsense for the sake of him being “too young”, and not to mention, this would also mirror his IRL counterpart, being 16 at the time of meeting Verlaine— which you absolutely could say is too young, considering the entire story between them, but it did happen, and BSD is based on the real-life authors after all— so I don’t see any argument against this which truly makes sense, all things considered.

That aside, I will say that Arthur’s canonical age specifically matters to me, unlike some other characters’ ages, and perhaps my reasoning could be a shared one that contributes to some of this confusion, and that is because it does change the perspective of Fifteen/Stormbringer to quite an extent. I had a whole post drafted about this already a week ago, but it seems to be even more relevant now, so I’ll just throw a part of it here and the rest in a reblog to not derail too much.

In my opinion, if one is to read Arthur’s memoir from Stormbringer, it feels much different to think of it as written by an adult as opposed to a teenager, purely because of its content— the character who has no family to return to, no loved ones or friends or even personal feelings he is allowed to have due to his job, the one who is overjoyed to finally have a partner whom he could make any difference to and who is already prepared to be forgotten after his death anyway, is not actually fully grown up, which maybe some are having a hard time accepting, I’m not too certain.

To me, this view on the story is indeed a lot sadder, especially if one is to consider his only partner betrayed him at 19 instead of whatever other theory could be in place, alongside all else I won’t be mentioning here as I believe I wrote a long enough essay about those two as is, but I don’t think any of it is strange or odd-sounding. If I may, in my personal opinion, I actually believe it makes far more sense, and not because it once again would align with his IRL counterpart even here— no, rather considering his behavior in Fifteen of desperately trying to find a way to remember his best yet only friend, likely because he hadn’t had anyone by his side from such a young age and clearly latched onto the first person he could have had alongside him, which could be a fully applicable theory even if you hadn’t seen the pair in any unrequited romantic contexts that could have been his motive. Does it make the story far more sorrowful? Yes. But does it make the story nonsense and unbelievable? Absolutely not. At this point, I would be so much more surprised if he wound up actually being 37 as I and what I suspect is a decent amount of others guessed at first, because in that case, I would somewhat understand the other side to my arguments— I still wouldn’t agree with them as I never did, even in the past when I didn’t have any extra information, but I could potentially see where they’re coming from at the very least.

I’ll just briefly acknowledge that perhaps some saw the memoir implying Arthur being more of Paul’s mentor at the time, being much older and wiser than him as would be expected, but I don’t think this was ever anyhow highlighted in the novels to make it clear that Arthur could be considered as such entirely— it was only said he would be the one to raise him, which I admit would not leave me assuming the given character is 15, but all things considered, it still aligns with everything above. I also have to acknowledge that in Fifteen, he is referred to as an “older” member of the Port Mafia, but I believe that refers to the eight years he spent in it, and was not meant to be an indicator of his actual age at the time, although compared to Chuuya and Dazai back then, perhaps 27 could indeed be seen as older in a very relative sense. Still, neither of these things are a direct contradiction to his supposed age, and while I’m not here to “prove” he’s 27 or 37 or whatever else one could assume, since I don’t have any other source of information other than the S3 guidebook and don’t have any reason to come up with alternative theories, hence why I choose to trust it unless official sources state otherwise, I’m only here because it surprises me how many people are shocked by this, as if many other characters in BSD weren’t in the same exact age range at the time of drastic or serious events happening around them/to them. I assume that, for some, this is merely something which goes against their personal headcanons or is just wholly unexpected, with nothing more in-depth sitting behind it, at whom this post is not aimed whatsoever, but I saw some saying it doesn’t even fit into canon at all, which…how, exactly? Because I don’t see it at all.

[minimafioso]

"How long can I endure this?

I can endure it forever, of course. For all of eternity if I have to. I can do it because I’m me.

But why would I?"

[port4shippers]

Was it just me or did anyone else feel like the true plotline of Stormbringer was the contest being held behind the scenes about who was going to end up as Chuuya's adopted father?

[strayai]

reading 15 and sb has made me infinitely weaker to soukoku fanarts and infinitely pickier with skk fics

[originalaccountname]

I may be making stuff up. But. I'm just saying.