#this isn't exactly a rimbaud post but still like

[rimbaud-fan-page]

*snorts the Stormbringer light novel*

So you see the reason it's confirmed that Chuuya is the original in the end is because despite that fact and everything he hears from the Flags and Rimbaud and Dazai, he still views himself as inherently inhuman which is why he allows himself to be weaponised, and if we look at the other characters heavily featured such as Adam and Verlaine, we see that they too hold contradicting views about themselves to what their reality is, so really the message of Stormbringer is that one's own self image is more important than the views of others-

*collapses*

[si1v3rtr33s]

general info for bsd because people seem to not know a lot!!!

•the main story takes place in 2012!! that is the year it started publication, and it has never been stated otherwise, so it is very safe to assume that the story is in 2012!!!

•that means that...

-age 15 takes place in 2005

-stormbringer/dragon's head conflict take place in 2006

-dark era takes place in 2008

•please for the love of god chūya is not always the second choice. the flags, kōyō, and verlaine all place him above everything, or at least most else. the flags went against direct orders from mori to help chūya find out more about his past. kōyō took chūya in to make sure that he didn't become another dazai. verlaine not only killed people chūya care(s/d) about, but he shot rimbaud, his partner (and the love of his life ahem cough cough) in the back to keep chūya away from the government. hell, dazai put a large portion of the pm in danger to confirm chūya's humanity. chūya is not just the "second choice" character that a lot of people make him out to be.

•dazai sucks!!! (/hj)

•poe is not just a soft emo anxiety boy!!! he CANONICALLY planned ranpo's murder for 6 or 7 years (i can't remember)!!! he is obsessive in an unhealthy way!!! while i'm glad that he and ranpo are friends now, and their ship isn't nearly as bad as some others (toxicity wise), he is still not a good person!!!

•fukuchi can burn in hell!!! (/srs)

•rimlaine canon!!! (look at my stormbringer fun fact post on @s1lv3r-4rt which i most definitely need to remake for this acc with fully accurate info)

•kunikida is, or at least at some point was, attracted to women!!! (58 marriage conditions, which are highly implied to apply to women)

•gay marriage is not legal in japan!!! just keep that in mind!!! does the pm care about this law? probably not!!! but do keep it in mind for the more law abiding characters!!! (or don't; bsd isn't exactly realistic. you can make these bitches gay by law if you want to, i won't judge)

i have so many autistic thoughts about these motherfuckers please ask me about them please they are clinking around in my skull like a dvd logo please take them please /lh

[cousticks]

what makes arthur rimbaud your favourite bsd character?

Alright this is the first of my set of asks I'm answering today. And also possibly my most fascinating. Rimbaud is a character I post a lot about, sure, but I'm really curious as to what makes you think he's my favorite? If anything, from my profile, I'd expect someone to assume its Verlaine.

Now, as to why he's a compelling character I like to write posts about? That I can certainly discuss. And its gonna be long, so I'll put a break in here.

Here's the thing. I don't anymore, but when I was first introduced to Rimbaud (when S3 came out) I absolutely hated him. This was back in 2019, but boy oh boy. That's the thing though, he still made me have a pretty strong emotional reaction, even then, before I'd even read the novel.

I want to detour for a second and talk about one of my favorite classes I've taken, with my favorite literature professor. The class itself doesn't matter here, but for it, we read Gone Girl. And if you've never read Gone Girl or seen the movie, all the context you need to know is that almost every single character in that sucks. They're all terrible people. And the next day I came into class literally stomping and screaming about how much I hated how it ended, and everything leading up to it. And my professor laughed and told the class about how after she'd seen the movie she was so mad about it she kicked a wall coming out of the theatre. She had the same reaction as me. And that's exactly why she taught that book. I still think about it often, because really, it was incredible how much emotion I got from it. I was downright pissed. And that's how I knew it was, in my opinion, well written, to get that much out of me.

Circling back to Rimbaud, I didn't really have as strong of a reaction as I did with that book, but he made me uncomfortable. I didn't like him. (I had similar progressions with Dazai, where I used to absolutely hate him, and with Verlaine as well after my first Stormbringer read.) A lot of the characters I originally despised are some of my favorites now. They get some emotion out of me, they give me a reaction, they catch my attention. Sometimes hate makes you think about something far more than more positive feelings do. (Even if that hate later converts into something kinder.)

Rimbaud... isn't my favorite, as far as which characters make me happy or so, but he's very very interesting to me and I do love to think about him. When you think about the grander scheme of BSD, we don't know the full backgrounds of a lot of characters, they just kind of show up as they are and we don't know much about their lives before the series. Rimbaud, we actually know a good deal, about how he had to give up his family and be presumed dead to work as a spy. He's also a little different, because we get a really interesting insight to his inner thoughts via his journal in Stormbringer. We don't get such an open, honest look into a character like that very often in this franchise. Between his lost, memory addled appearance in 15 and virtually his entire life fleshed out in Stormbringer, I didn't hate him anymore. He was interesting. There was so much to work with, and his own motivations and loyalties were fascinating. I made a post earlier about how sure, he tried to kill Chuuya (and Dazai in association) but really, both he and Chuuya were looking into Arahabaki for similar reasons, to unlock their past. All of the times we actually see Rimbaud, he's not that much different from a ghost, including at the end of Stormbringer when he's akin to an actual ghost, but we learn so much about him through his journals and Verlaine's memories.

He's lost, he's trying his best to figure out who he is based on what he could piece together, he's trying to find out what happened to the dear friend he thought he killed, he's likely been a spy during the Great War since his early teens, and he and Verlaine's entire story in the background of Stormbringer is such a special shade of tragic.

So, anon, I hope you kind of got your answer here about why I talk about Rimbaud so much. TL:DR, its hard not to when there's so much to talk about.

[dreamsicle262]

behind the scenes for my fanfic 'like sheep to the slaughter' (pt 1)

i should really post more often so now is a good time than ever to fully discuss everything that went into the making of my most proudest work on ao3. this will be a multi-part series that delves into each chapter individually, and then later the work as a whole. if anyone is reading this, then im safely going to assume it's either someone who has read the fic itself or a mutual who has enough knowledge of it via me infodumping about it. anyways, on with the program.

alright firstly, worldbuilding. aka something that can only be properly explained outside of the fanfic itself.

the story i was going for was already established within a world where vampires existed, so maybe i should elaborate on the actual setting. it's the normal bsd universe, just with the pm hq being a castle that's more or less bordered by a forest. what makes this even more strange is that there is also the city (more specifically somewhere close to the slums, but not exactly the slums. a middle ground, if you will) on the side that's opposite of the woods, although it is a good distance away from the castle, making it seem like the place is surrounded by the forest. so while this place is where the vampires are mostly centralized and is referred to as the 'heart of the underworld,' it's nowhere near the actual center of yokohama. the skyscrapers that serve as the pm hq in the original series are still present, but have little to no correlation within the context of the story (although yes, the vampires still have some control over the buildings, as it is in their domain). the reasoning behind this is that everyone will assume that the night coven's hq is these tall, foreboding skyscrapers, when that's not the case. vampires, as a species, prefer to avoid coming into any sort of interaction with humans unless it pertains to feeding. very rarely will you see one interact with a human outside of blood drinking, unless they are in a position that is akin to public relations or any other sociable job that helps support the organization outside of mere crime. this is one of the reasons why the vampires are referred to as a 'coven,' as they have their own separate culture going on. the humans, of course, are still aware of the vampires' presence, but their lack of knowledge regarding their base of operations has lead to no uprisings happening within the past few years or so. there was a revolt at some point in time during the old boss' reign, but all conflicts pertaining to that have been quelled, and the old castle has long since been abandoned. the lore in my au is mostly the same in the canon universe but there is also canon divergence. case in point being rimbaud and verlaine still being partners. anyways, the humans have had to deal with vampires for many decades, and they have always had their numbers culled and their strength kept in check by the whole yearly offering thing. there really isn't much else to say about the au at the moment, but there is certainly a lot of lore ive thought about.