#this is separate from their general 1930s verse that my current baccano interactions are set in

[rhpsdys]

i finally developed my full baccano! verse for raine, so i'm detailing that below.

most of this was originally conceived by @closedcoffins over on this post, && i've just expanded on it now that i'm, you know, reading baccano!

in the 1700s, raine was living in italy, an accomplished musician of the baroque era, playing in opera houses around the country. they still identified as female at this time, && it was uncommon (nigh unheard of!) for women to play music publicly. however, this isn't the only thing that set them apart.

raine was an alchemist. raine's studies were focused on the use of alchemy as a simple aide, a way of amassing additional power that might be of use in an uprising against the house dormentaire — which is how they met maiza avaro. they were not practicing alchemy publicly, despite lotto valentino being full of alchemists, out of fear of it interfering with the music career they'd worked so hard to build.

but when the group of alchemists pursuing immortality fled for north america on the advena avis in 1711, raine went with them. they drank the liquor with the others, && obtained perfect immortality without it ever being their true desire or goal.

upon arrival, raine cut ties with the surviving alchemists, desperately wanting to simply make a fresh start && live under the radar. they traveled for a while, only staying in touch on occasion with maiza, if only to confirm on occasion that the other was still okay.

eventually, in the mid-late 1800s, raine settled back in brooklyn, new york. during this time, they had mostly abandoned alchemy as a practice, focusing primarily on a music career. while women were starting to become more prominent in classical music, particularly in opera, it was still difficult to make a living, especially as an immigrant ; despite having been there for over a century, raine did not have all their proper documentation at this point. after all, they should've been dead a long time ago, && the raine whispers of the early eighteenth century seemingly no longer existed. in order to make life a little bit easier, they would disguise themself as a man at auditions (something they'd often done over the last century simply for survival's sake). they wore this manufactured identity through the birth of their new career. they played with the recently-founded new york philharmonic, && was later hired as first chair violinist && concertmaster at the original metropolitan opera house.

somewhere along the way, raine began to realize that this identity was not just a disguise — it was who they were. there was no real terminology for this identity at the time, but it didn't matter, as they never told anyone except for maiza.

it was a simple request, enclosed in a letter postmarked november the second, 1883: to m. avaro: my dear friend — it's been a long time. i've just moved to manhattan, to be closer to my work. please meet me for dinner. there is a matter i'd like to discuss with you. yours, r. whispers

raine told maiza everything about what they'd been feeling, their disguise, && the idea that had struck them while playing faust at the opera house — there had to be some alchemical process that could permanently alter their features, to give them a more masculine appearance. for the first time in close to two centuries, raine was prepared to become an alchemist once again. at maiza's suggestion, they re-established contact with begg garrott, another alchemist, whose work as an apothecary made him especially qualified to help with this. what the pair ultimately developed together, after decades of work, was something like a precursor to clinically-distributed hormone supplements — in other words, alchemically-created testosterone.

it began, not unlike the immortality liquor, as an elixir to be consumed. the biggest test was not whether it would work as conceived, but whether it would work on an immortal body.

the answer? it did.

&& so over the course of the next couple of years, from approximately 1908-1910, raine "transitioned". it was an incredible feeling.

after that, they got back to work again, more confident than ever. raine left the philharmonic ( which they had gone back to when the opera house closed down for a season due to a fire ) && began playing in broadway pit orchestras. in 1926, they were hired as a teacher at the juilliard school of music.

around this time, or shortly thereafter, raine found themself surrounded by a small community of people like them, how they'd found each other is somewhat of a mystery, but the fact remains — these individuals, like raine themself, were experiencing discrepancies between their assigned gender && their identities, && raine had the seemingly magic cure for the dysphoria it caused.

so raine went back to work, distilling the elixir for a more widespread distribution, as well as concocting an alternate version, which would act as an artificial estrogen supplement. in the midst of prohibition && the 1932 drug and the dominos plot, raine is engaged in their own drug trade, though for (in their mind) much nobler cause.

a few things of note about this verse: raine would have been using she/her pronouns up until the mid 1800s, && he/him after that, up to the present. however, for my own comfort && out of respect for their character, i will only be using they/them pronouns to refer to raine, && ask that you do the same. however, if your muse themself is referring to raine, they are welcome to use whichever pronoun set would've been appropriate for the time period. additionally, i may be aging raine down slightly, to the physical age of 38 — given the time period in which this verse begins, it feels impractical for them to have been as old as 46 when this story begins. now, of course, they're well over 200 years old. ( this is subject to change. i may feel differently about it later on. ) finally, i want to work eda into this somehow, but i'm not sure what makes the most sense, so that's a problem for a later day.