The Nine Of Swords Is A Minor Arcana Tarot Card, Also Known As The Lord Of Cruelty. (…) If This Card

hypothetically how big of an overlap does the limbus fandom have with the bsd fandom ……. And how would this hypothetical overlap feel about fyolai and ryofaust …………… asking for a friend ………..

Are you ok with being tagged in posts? I'm working on a fan ID of sorts and wanted to credit your contribution to lu-is-not-ok's sin analysis for the reasoning behind the resistances. If not, should I just mention the handle without tagging (like with a /)?

sure, go right ahead

probably the only post I’ll ever make about that one anime called Bungo Stray Dogs

Originally this post was supposed to be a reply via reblog to this post, but it got a bit too sidetracked and I felt bad for hijacking OP’s post like this. 

Initially I was just going to say this through the comment section of the original post, but then I realized that I have way too many thoughts to fit into the small word limit of a tumblr comment.

Anyway, that’s why I’m posting a screenshot of the original post rather than just reblogging it. I don’t want to derail OP’s original points or hijack the post and go off topic.

@chaosgranted​ you’re right and you should say it. I’m just gonna elaborate on this topic a bit. Gonna scream into the Tumblr void with hopes that the void won’t scream back.

<long ((and mostly negative)) rant about Dazai, so. Read at your own discretion>

I know I already commented on OP’s post a hundred times, but this got me thinking about the subject and now I can’t stop. So lemme burden you all with my never ending stream of thoughts on this matter.

Before I get into this rant, I wanna clarify something. I do, in fact, like Dazai as a character. I think he’s very interesting. I enjoy when he shows up on screen. This isn’t something I’d say for most other characters, who I’m more neutral about.  

That being said. Pretty much everything about how the fandom portrays him and views him annoys me so, so much.

As OP states here, what he does (leaves Chuuya unconscious and vulnerable in the field after promising to bring him back) isn’t just harmful or mean, it’s borderline cruel. And if it was done by any character who the audience wasn’t obsessed with, that character would be burned at the stake.

Think about Shirase (who I love, but that’s its own thing). Some people like him, a bunch of people hate him, a bunch of people have no opinion on him because he’s not a major character in the anime. Regardless of his Light Novel counterpart, Anime Shirase is justified enough in his own right. Let’s be real, the Sheep (including Shirase) were acting in self defense when they betrayed and stabbed Chuuya. They genuinely believed that he was an immediate threat to their safety. They genuinely believed that if they didn’t kill him, he’d kill them, or sell their information to the mafia, who’d shortly thereafter kill them.

Unlike Dazai leaving Chuuya behind when he was at his most vulnerable state, the Sheep stabbing and betraying Chuuya is not only justifiable, but understandable— and can anyone truly say that they’d do any different if they were in their shoes? I know I can only speak for myself, but if I truly and genuinely believed that someone was about to kill me or kill my closest friends, I would do what it takes to protect both my friends and myself.

The Sheep are somewhat vilified by the fandom (in the rare moments when the fandom remembers they exist). If Dazai had done the same— if Dazai had tried to kill an innocent person because he truly and genuinely believed that that person was about to kill the ADA, not only would he be forgiven instantly (which he should be, as I previously mentioned that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do), but there wouldn’t be even an ounce of discourse over whether or not he’s justified.

Now, I understand the concept of liking “problematic” characters. (Tbh no character is “problematic”, whether or not the character is a good person is irrelevant, if the character does “problematic” things then that’s literally just how they were written and also intentional and also says something about them as a character. It should be called “good writing”, not “a problematic character”.) I understand the concept of liking the antagonist, heck my whole blog used to be me justifying Edmund from King Lear. Of course I never said he was a good person (because OH MAN HE WASN’T), but I found him very intriguing and so I would rationalize his actions and try to see things from his POV.

The difference between liking or justifying an antagonist and what the bsd fandom does with Dazai is that Dazai isn’t an antagonist.

The closest Dazai comes to filling an antagonistic role is in flashback arcs, which is the only time when his actions aren’t chalked up to “haha Bandage man is doing his thing again!”. When Dazai manipulates the Sheep into betraying and stabbing Chuuya, it acknowledges that Dazai is filling a bit of an antagonistic role there. That scene isn’t played off a  a joke— there’s no comedic undertone in how it’s portrayed. As opposed to when he leaves Chuuya in the field and it goes “haha look at Bandage man always being so silly and goofy!”

The same goes for Dazai’s treatment of Akutagawa in The Dark Era arc. When he shoots at him, attempting to kill him with no knowledge that his ability can theoretically stop the bullets, it’s not played off as a joke. However, in the dungeon scene, Dazai says that his new subordinate is “far superior” to him, and the show plays it off as “haha Bandage man made Emo kid angry!”, even though what Dazai meant by “far superior” is that Atsushi got lucky enough to be taught by Present Day Dazai, and so he’s more mentally stable and more sure of himself than Akutagawa, who’s still very clearly getting over the trauma of being literally brainwashed mentored by Mafia Dazai. Ability wise, Atsushi and Akutagawa seem to have equally strong abilities. The only thing that Atsushi has that Akutagawa doesn’t is a semi-healthy mindset. And you know who’s responsible for both of their mindsets….? This statement ( “..far superior..”) is the equivalent of punching someone in the face and then calling them ugly for having a black eye.

But the show keeps playing off Dazai’s outright cruelty to the people around him as a literal joke. And “he’s on the good side now!!”, so, to quote a song we all wish we could forget, How bad can he possibly be?

I think the first real sign of Dazai’s, for lack of better terms, tendencies..,, is in the second episode. That was the point where I was like “Oh. So he’s an asshole.” In that episode, Atsushi states that although he’s grateful for Dazai’s help, he’s not interested in joining the ADA. Dazai tries to pressure him into joining but he politely refuses. Dazai then makes it seem like he’s about to get him an interview for a different job, when suddenly he drags him into a supposed bombing and seemingly forces him to put his life on the line for an organization that he wants nothing to do with.

Atsushi is a kid who can hardly stand up for himself. I’m surprised he even turned Dazai down in the first place, but that just goes to show how badly he wanted nothing to do with the Agency. After discovering that it was all a test set up from the start— a test which he passed, now making him qualified to join the ADA— he still remains unwilling to join. Now what does Dazai, our resident master manipulator, do? He makes sure to give Atsushi a friendly reminder that sure, he doesn’t have to join, but if he doesn’t he’ll surely either die of starvation on the streets or be captured by the cops for his horrible tiger crimes against humanity. At that point of the episode I was like “ah. A manipulative asshole. Lovely. I’d like to see him get punched in the face.” (And thanks to Kunikida he does get punched. Not often enough for my tastes, but whatever.)

If you’ve never watched BSD and are only learning about it from this post, you’re probably thinking “but Edette, this guy is clearly a horrible person. And I understand that people simp for him, but just how delusional do people have to be to pretend none of this ever happened?”

Well there’s a very simple answer to that, my friend.

The whole show plays off his.. ah, let’s call them “silly little shenanigans”.. as just that. Silly. Little. Shenanigans. It shows him being manipulative and using every innocent person he comes alone to advance his own goals in one way or another. But that’s all perfectly fine! Because the show says it’s actually really funny, so it must be, right?

As OP says. Chuuya trusted him. Chuuya listened to him when he told him to activate his ability which nearly kills him. Chuuya was willing to throw his life away, endure pain beyond anything anyone could imagine, all on the hope and trust that this person he shares so much history with will be there for him and protect him when he’s left in his most vulnerable state.

But Dazai uses corruption as a tool. He uses Chuuya as a pawn to win the battle. And if you want to argue that Chuuya’s not a pawn but a knight or queen or some other chess piece then fine. Nice chess analogy. You do realize that’s irrelevant, right? Either way, as he says himself in 15, he’s not a king. He’s not the piece that will be protected at all costs. And no matter what piece he is, he’s just a game piece, just like everyone else Dazai comes across, and Dazai is the player.

And after the battle is over? Well, his pawn is of no use to him anymore. So good job Chuuya, you did it, you won. Soukoku won. But only one half of Soukoku gets to enjoy the victory.

For the record, I do believe that Dazai cares about Chuuya beyond simply being intrigued by him. I do believe that he wouldn’t have folded his coat and left it where he could find it if the person he was fighting alongside was just anyone. But that’s not even close to the bare minimum of what Dazai should have done. This is just a testimony to what sort of person Dazai is. Even with someone who he arguably cares about, he still treats him this horribly.  

And

It’s

Played

Off

As

A

Joke.

Spoilers for the ending of the Mersault arc in Bungou stray dogs season 5.

3

2.

1.

.

Going back and reading the Mersault arc again.

My favourite little detail foreshadowing the twist at the end...is Chuuya's hands.

No I'm not kidding.

Chuuya's outfit has changed from what it usually is.

He's not wearing his gloves.

For most of the arc he's in, his hands remain in his pockets.

When fighting Rimbaud years ago Chuuya said to him:

"Wanna know why I've been keeping both my hands tucked away this whole time? It helps me stay rooted when I'm afraid I'm gonna lose myself."

It's why he takes his gloves off when he activates corruption.

But here Chuuya's hands are tucked away in his pockets, just like they were before he joined the Port Mafia.

He's still in there.

He hasn't lost himself.

The other thing I love is that while Chuuya's outfit has changed, he's still wearing his hat. The hat that Mori gave him when he joined.

It's a clear sign that he's still with the Port Mafia.

But Fyodor doesn't know Chuuya, he doesn't know the significance of his hat nor why keeping his hands tucked away mean.

Fyodor doesn't trust people.

That was his first mistake.

His second was thinking he could ever control Chuuya Nakahara.

「Ranpo, Mushi, Seishi」 – Tales from the Burgeoning World of Japanese Mystery

After re-reading Bungou Stray Dogs and with better understanding of the history behind the figures of Japanese Literature, I find myself falling further in love with the Perfect Crime Arc of the BSD Manga.

In a span of three chapters, Mushitarou went from an unknown to one of my favorite mystery authors out there. An outcast of the detective novel world often disregarded due to his pedantic and frankly bizarre way of writing his stories.

Further reading about his life made me realize that this arc is a complete recreation of a section of Mushitarou's life, the other authors he interacted within his short career and an everlasting impact between giants of the Early-Showa Detective Novel scene. It is shocking how Asagiri and Harukawa conceals and works with the details of the story so well, blending in so many different parts of his life into the manga.

The Lineup

To get a better feel of who the three main figures are in this story, I must first introduce the three main authors of this story.

Edogawa Ranpo (left), Oguri Mushitarou (center), Yokomizo Seishi (right)

Edogawa Ranpo (江戸川乱歩, 1894 –1965) was a detective novelist who made a name with his many detective novels which made him a key part of the mystery novel landscape even up to the modern day. He is most well known for creating the character of Akechi Kogorou who first appeared in The Murder on D Hill (D坂の殺人事件) and would later star in many of his novels.

Oguri Mushitarou (小栗虫太郎, 1901 - 1946) was a detective novelist who was known for his bizarre writing style. His use of difficult kanji along with furigana guides for many of his stories makes his works some of the most difficult works to read in Japanese. His most well known work is The Black Death Mansion Murders (黒死館殺人事件) along with the detective Horimizu Rintarou.

Yokomizo Seishi (横溝正史, 1902 - 1981) was a detective novelist who was a master of the 'honkaku' mystery genre. His work The Honjin Murders (本陣殺人事件) and detective Kosuke Kindaichi continue to be a staple of modern Japanese pop culture.

The Making of a Genre

Misery (無惨) by Kuroiwa Ruikou (黒岩涙香) is oft regarded as the first Japanese mystery novels which brought the genre into the public consciousness. A simple murder mystery tale of gambling seemingly gone awry. From this spark then came numerous authors such as Morishita Uson (森下雨村), Ooshita Udaru (大下宇陀児), Hamao Shirou (濱尾四郎) and an up and coming author named Edogawa Ranpo.

Ranpo made a name for himself with the publication of The Two-Sen Copper Coin (二銭銅貨) in 1923 which made him the undisputed 'king' of Japanese mystery novels. With this influential position, Ranpo's comments often brought attention to many other authors working withing the genre. Along with this, magazines geared towards younger readers such as Shin Seinen began to become popular as the youth of Japan became enthralled with tales of mystery and adventure.

The Perfect Crime — The Story and the Arc

Out of all of the arcs in Bungo Stray Dogs, I feel like the Perfect Crime Arc is one that nails the heart of Bungou Media at best; a transformative work about authors and their works, how they treated one another and how they stand in the world of literature. Many of the characters in BSD are very much based on their real-life counterparts such as Dazai and Ooba Youzou of No Longer Human (人間失格) and/or The Flowers of Buffoonery (道化の華) fame. Ranpo and Mushitarou both are great representations of their works and style but more importantly, their relationship tells of their time as mystery novelists.

While Ranpo continues to enjoy mainstream fame not only within but outside Japan as well, Mushitarou is often relegated to the less-mainstream, some would call him your 'favorite's favorite'. But there's a big reason as to why Mushitarou's so much less well-known in the west and it boils down to his writing style. An "absurd" use of furigana, stretching the limits of the Japanese language with an example below from his magnum opus, The Black Death Mansion Murder Case:

Heavy and difficult kanji along with the furigana of various foreign languages, a writing style derided by critics such as Sakaguchi Ango who called it as 'imitating the worst aspects of S. S. van Dine'. This quirk would also be adapted into the Bungou Stray Dogs manga as some of Mushitarou's dialogue is written the way the real-life Mushitarou's writing style

Mushitarou's connection with Dostoevsky may have also been derived further by the story of The Perfect Crime (完全犯罪) which sees Russian characters such as Vasily Zharov who was the leading character of the story.

The story behind the publication of Mushitarou's The Perfect Crime is the main inspiration behind the story of the Perfect Crime arc.

In Spring 1933 Oguri Mushitarou, then a young and new author, submitted a 600-page mystery novel script to Kouga Saburou (甲賀三郎). After reading through it, Saburou dismissed the script saying that it was far too long; recommending Mushitarou to submit something shorter. With this recommendation in mind, Mushitarou submitted the first draft of The Perfect Crime to Saburou which impressed his peer greatly. Saburou however, still felt as if it'd be something difficult to pitch to publishers and even considered enlisting the help of Edogawa Ranpo to get it published.

Saburou then went on and decided to send the draft to then editor of the Shin Seinen magazine, novelist Mizutani Jun (水谷準) who took a quick look and then dismissed the work entirely, putting it to his desk drawer and quickly forgetting it. Shin Seinen was at this point a hub for popular literature for young boys with detective and adventure novels galore with authors such as Yumeno Kyuusaku (夢野久作), Unno Juuza (海野十三) and even Kouga Saburou himself publishing their works in the magazine. Starting from its New Year 1933 issue, they planned to include at least a 100-page one-shot story from various authors.

Yokomizo Seishi, who was at this point one of Shin Seinen's star writers, got sick with hemoptysis which lead to the cancellation of one of his stories which was to be published in the July 1933 issue of the Magazine. With this, the July issue had lost its main story; that is until Mizutani Jun, who was in a scramble to find a replacement, remembered the manuscript which Mushitarou had sent in. He quickly realized that the script was about the length needed to cover for the issue and quickly read over the work. Mizutani then also assured Yokomizo that he should take a rest instead rather than forcing himself to write.

The following is the editor's note written by Mizutani for the publication of the story:

The 100-page "The Perfect Crime" was written by a complete newcomer. This month's edition was supposed to be written by Yokomizo Seishi, but the author suddenly became ill and was unable to write, so this work was substituted for him. As you will see upon reading it, this work is a truly excellent work of detective fiction. Readers may like or dislike the setting or the descriptions, but I hope you will read it to the very last line and congratulate this newcomer on his future prospects.

The Perfect Crime was indeed Mushitarou's debut work, its publication taking center stage and substituting the work of one of the most popular mystery novelists of the era. The fact that the work was deemed "worthy" to substitute Yokomizo's work itself is already high praise.

Yokomizo then also commented with the following after reading the story written by Mushitarou:

"Who could have ever found such a powerful pinch hitter*? Even if I had been in good health, I was not confident that I could write a masterpiece as fascinating as 'The Perfect Crime.'" *A Pinch Hitter is a substitute batter in baseball.

This publication marked the beginning of Mushitarou's friendship with Yokomizo. The two of them met in a bar where Mushitarou said that "Because of your illness, I was able to debut much faster." To which Yokomizo responded with "Don't be silly, you would have debuted regardless whether I was sick or not." Mushitarou then continued saying "That may be true, but regardless the opportunity came quicker because of your illness." Yokomizo then promised, "All right then, next time something happens to you, I'll be sure to cover for you."

The two would be separated for most of the war-time, with them writing letters back and forth about detective novels while continuing to publish works as Yokomizo fled to Okayama due to the outbreak of World War II. Despite Yokomizo ever hardly sending any correspondence during this period, he continued to reply to letters sent by Mushitarou. In early spring 1946, Yokomizo received a letter from Mushitarou saying that he was going to fully devote himself to writing full-fledged novels which Yokomizo agreed with.

After the war had ended, Yokomizo went back to the literary world where he would discover that Mushitarou had passed away suddenly due to Methyl poisoning in a telegram and Unno Juuza would later explain to him the full extent of Mushitarou's untimely death. This death shook Yokomizo and he was unable to do anything for the next few days, especially due to the letter sent by Mushitarou, clearly passionate about his coming works.

Due to Mushitarou's sudden death, Yamazaki Tetsuya (山崎徹也) who was the editor-in-chief of the magazine Rock needed someone to replace Mushitarou's work for the upcoming issue. Yokomizo, who was in the middle of serialization of "The Honjin Murders" in the magazine Houseki decided to 'cover' for Mushitarou and published "The Butterfly Murders" in the magazine.

"I was no match for you"

Edogawa Ranpo at this time as the mystery novelist of the time. Ranpo at this point had met and known many other mystery novelists from Ookura Teruko and once, even met up with Oguri Mushitarou as he wrote down in 40 Years of Detective Novels (探偵小説四十年)

According to Ranpo, the two of them met once in 1946 and in this conversation Mushitarou said to Ranpo, "Edogawa-san, it seems at the end I was no match for you." to which Ranpo then replied, "Not at all, you're a better writer than I am." Which was of course replicated at the end of the arc.

The Characterification of Oguri Mushitarou

In her paper 'No longer Dazai : the re-authoring and "character-ification" of literary celebrity in contemporary Japanese popular culture', Jaylene Laturnas describes the process of Characterification (キャラクター化) as follows:

Character-ification refers to the act of turning anything from living beings to inanimate objects and abstract concepts into characters via anthropomorphism and personification (gijinka) or caricature (deforume).

Bungou Stray Dogs of course, is of course, a series that takes these authors and characterizies them in the gijinka form as stated by Asagiri himself in a 2014 interview. While most characters in Bungou Stray Dogs are 'gijinka' of their works and characters, Mushitarou occupies an interesting space as his actions and characterizations leans heavier towards the real author and the events within his short literary career. There's a clear degree of difference between how Mushi is portrayed in the series in comparison to his other fellow authors as it leans so much closer to real-events than any other author has been depicted in the series (arguably, Kunikida's turbulent relationship with Sasaki Nobuko may be the closest thing but enough creative liberties have been taken to completely differentiate the real person and the fictional character). Even the ending to the arc with Ranpo's deduction of what actually happened is in reference to a real event between the two-real life authors. It makes me want more of this rather than the arc following these 3 chapters.

The depiction of Mushitarou's friendship with the already-dead-Yokomizo in the series is just excellent, I do think a core tenet of their real-life friendship is their willingness to do anything for one another, stemming from that fateful meeting through their debut. It makes sense how in the series that this willingness is taken to the very extreme. Real-life Yokomizo's illness and BSD Yokomizo's illness parallels one another in the sense that it both brought Mushitarou into the limelight, a 'debut' for both real-life Mushi into the literary world and a 'debut' for Mushi the character in Bungou Stray Dogs. His ability being named after his debut novel is also just like the cherry on top, every layer just perfectly slotting in so well.

To examine the characters' real-life and re-contextualize it in such a way that it fits the Bungou Stray Dogs framework, I honestly would like more of this going forward and I can only hope it does happen.

Afterword

I am so so very sorry this article took a while to finish, many sources are only in Japanese and for many of them I had to verify it. Along with graduating, job-hunting and also visiting Japan earlier this year, I was too busy and I overshot when I was going to finish this.

I can't help it though, I really do love Mushishi and his silly antics and his works have somewhat inspired me to write again too. I still plan on doing deep dives like these though I want to try and write about authors not in BSD.

Until then, adieu!

Sources used:

坂口安吾. 「推理小説論」 「新潮　第四七巻第四号」 1950（昭和25）年4月1日発行

小栗宣治. 「小伝・小栗虫太郎」 『日本探偵小説全集6 小栗虫太郎集』付録〈創元推理文庫〉（東京創元社、1987年）所収。

水谷準. 「作家をつくる話――なつかしき「新青年」時代」 新青年1985年2月新春特別号第32巻第1号

横溝正史. 「小栗虫太郎に関する覚書」

江戸川乱歩. 「探偵小説四十年」

Laturnas, Jaylene "No longer Dazai : the re-authoring and "character-ification" of literary celebrity in contemporary Japanese popular culture" (2023) UBC

朝霧カフカ & 春河 35 "【特集】 文豪で遊ぼう: 「文豪ストレイドッグス」原作者 & 漫画家インタビュー" 2014年4月

no hiding The Good Stuff in the tags ;<

*clutching head* rodya and meursault would have such a good dynamic actually

I wonder if rodya would initially see meursault's indifference as like. a simpler version of her own feigned carefreeness and as a deliberate attempt to place himself as an outsider... only to realise that No, he really Is just Like That. and then she gets annoyed because it turns out that people who don't care about anything don't seem to be any fun.

(ofc he does actually care about a lot of things, just not necessarily his grander place in the world lol)

idk. nihilism vs absurdism. fun duo 👍 rodya would find meursault's genuine comfort with being a speck of dust in the universe baffling, while he would probably find her desire to assert her own importance pointless, but they could probably bond over little things like their shared desire to live in the present and appreciation of/indulgence in earthly joys. and meursault would probably listen if rodya wants to rant about anything without asking any uncomfortable questions. I think they could appreciate each other's presence.

Alright so part two of my explaining BSD french authors:

Arthur Rimbaud !

This is the boy. Looks young, right ? That's cause he's seventeen in this. (Funnily enough, he's exactly the same age as Verlaine's wife. Verlaine, though, is 27 at the time they meet. Yeah, I wasn't kidding when I said he was a piece of shit.)

Rimbaud is kind of THE poet of teenage rebellion. He was born in 1854, under Napoleon III to place him back in his historical context. He wrote quite a bit in opposition to Napoleon, actually.

His father is absent at first, and then not here at all later. He has... A complex and complicated relationship with his mother. He gave her a disrespectful nickname, she was seen hitting him several times (although at the time that's hardly surprising...), but at the same time when he asked her to go see him in London (at a time where the trip was very expensive, and she'd never left France in her life before that) she came, and his sister described him then as "the happiest I'd ever seen him". She's often seen as the source of his inner anger and rebellion.

What he hates for sure, though, was living in his house, with his family, and especially in his hometown, Charleville, which he despises.

He's especially known for having fled his house a lot, as in several times a year, for several days every time, walking during the day and sleeping on the road during the night. His most famous poem, "Ma bohème" (unstranslatable title because "bohème" is a french concept, but it basically means living your life day after day, in communion with nature and/or your dreams, often with an artistic dimension and no money whatsoever - also has travel connotations because it derives from "bohemian"), actually talks solely about that.

He wrote from his fifteenth to his nineteenth birthday, and was - still is - seen as a genius, being one of the most influential french poets ever despite having written for only four years. He was famous for being uncontrollable, and it translates back to his style : he took extremely traditional forms and changed their rules. (Which weirdly enough actually kinda fits with Rimbaud's ability ??)

If we ever have a Baudelaire in BSD, know that his character will probably look up to him, seeing as Rimbaud is usually seen as continuing Baudelaire's legacy of completely revolutionising french poetry. His two most famous books are "A Season in Hell" and "Illuminations", his last one. His literary movement is symbolism, invented by Baudelaire, characterized by melancholy and an attraction to the ethereal and mysterious. Rimbaud himself thinks that "the poet must search and describe the unknown" and, well, too bad if he sacrifices his sanity. He's also one of the first after Baudelaire to write prose poems.

He stopped writing, forever, at twenty, after the Verlaine fiasco. Actually, he wrote "Illuminations" directly after, then gave it to Verlaine so that he could get it published instead of doing it himself.

That's where his life gets really weird. He tries to learn seven different skills and languages while traveling everywhere, fails, his sister dies and he shaves his head for her funeral, is forced into the military to fight in Java, then deserts, gets hired on a boat on his way back and becomes a sailor, then tries to get hired in the American Navy, doesn't get any answer, goes in a circus then a factory, and all of that while traveling everywhere in the world in the space of about three years.

Nobody knows where he was for the nine months after that - and during all of this, everyone who knows him is hoping that he gets back to writing poetry - and then he goes home to help his brother with his farm before leaving, AGAIN. He walks from France to Italy, then gets in a boat to Alexandria, where he works in a construction project to manage the workers. This keeps going for about eleven more years, so I can't list everything this guy did : we'd need a whole ass novel.

He stays in Northern Africa for almost the rest of his life, although he travels quite a lot in that region and never stops moving. In France, he's still as famous as he was at 17, and several eulogies are written for him without his knowledge. We can also note that he does weapon trafficking, for a very short period, at some point. He writes to his family that he's "bored", of all things. He's described by the people he meets then as "smart, sarcastic, not very talkative, never talking about his past".

He then dies in Marseille, in his thirties, from cancer in his leg.

I'm gonna be honest : I don't like his BSD characterization. Rimbaud's a wild card, a chaotic teenager, as an author. I also ! Hate ! That he's Verlaine's mentor. But that'll be the next part, where I'll talk of IRL Rimbaud and Verlaine.

Previous and future parts are in the #IrlBSDFr tag.

re: Fyodor's goals / Logistics of the Book

tl;dr cause can't be assed. The actual end goal is irrelevant. The point of pursuing the book is attaining infinity of power to accomplish whatever, aka. instrumental convergence.

If you had one, what would you do? Naturally fuse yourself with it, without losing agency, while gaining power to warp out of trouble, be unable to lose consciousness, et cetera et cetera. All to make sure whatever you actually write into it cannot be undone.

As a sidenote: that what has to be written on the page (and implicitly, into the book as a lookup system) has to have story-like structure. However, what does it actually mean? What determines if this criteria is fulfilled?

There is an external - and thus ultimate - authority, making the Book mere admin console you can't use to modify the book itself. Outside of inflicting Death of the Author (in which case how Homestuck-y BSD has to get for people to notice....), not too spicy. A call to fanwork-action (already there with general structure & Beast) and/or rebuking externally imposed purpose (which some smaller opponent can set up just as well), sure.

It's in the eye of the writer - that is, if the book's user thinks it's story-like enough it'll works. But also - if something breaks the writer's suspension of disbelief, they cannot pick that outcome (see also BSD Beast?).

The 2nd option has more edge cases that just keep getting more ridiculous, so let's go:

If it's the writer deciding if the story is legit, it implicitly bakes into the new reality author's assumptions how the world works. What if their ideas have no internal sense in a way that can be reconciled; will it disappear in a puff of logic? Does the great winner turn the page and there's just this huge EAT SHIT, like a Junji Ito scarejump?

In Beast, the option of the world being unstable is brought up. In a deliciously meta fashion - because we the readers know it's fictional, there are now too many in the know and thus it in-universe dissolves out of sheer 4th wall break. But what is the in-universe explanation? The above? The existence of an alpha timeline, and this one only exists as long as needed for someone else to do a thing that will Grandfather paradox it out of the timeline? We already know Fukuchi stabbed from the future to the present, and can do so via self-erasing time paradoxes.

But what if the writer is, say, horror-brained and decides the setting should progressively be more terrifying and incomprehensible. In a way that breaks the very laws of physics that enable (human, since the book probably has sanity check of "will this result in an intelligent species capable of writing") existence. Everything is consistent within the framework of "what good horror story should be". By the previous logic alone, it should work nonetheless.

But what if! The horror writer finishes up the manuscript, hands it over to someone that runs on fluffy slice-of-life pieces and have them write it into the book? Maybe changing word choice here or there, without changing the meaning?

But! what! if! The original manuscript is 1) translated multiple times 2) old as fuck? that would mean the text itself is powered by multiple perspectives - of both the OG writer, but also every translator AND every translator's opinion on not only the text, but the text's context!

it just raises too many questions.jpg

if you're reading this, go trawl other reblogs to this post.

Like, I'm not gonna say that the X-Men and their various imitators are anything like a perfect allegory, but "it's a bad allegory because super powers really are dangerous" has never held water for me. Like, are we really just gonna uncritically accept the implicit assumption lurking in that argument that bigotry is only wrong to the extent that its targets lack the ability to threaten the status quo? Hand-wringing over whether certain minorities are inherently dangerous is – and, critically, always has been – a smoke-screen for the real conversation about who has the right to possess the capacity for violence, and you can't engage with that conversation if your opening move is to concede that the only legitimate victim is a powerless one.

>#unfortunately (for me. its probably a good thing for everyone else) i am not the writer and cant have that whenever you type something, you're a writer. Ao3 awaits >:3