#there were like. No good references for arahabaki | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

originalaccountname · 1 year

Note

Sorry to bother you but I’ve been getting into BSD and Chuuya’s my fave, but I’ve been seeing some contradictory things in fanfic so…

Does Chuuya actually have a god sealed inside him? I thought it was just like his power without limitations and was dubious of those takes, but since eldritch beings can apparently be a thing (and not an ability), I think it could be plausible either way.

Though even if it’s not I can see why people would use that route for some good angst.

This is not a bother at all! This is something I very much like to talk about

if you're really new I do recommend you go read both "Dazai, Chuuya, Fifteen Years Old" and "STORM BRINGER" light novels (but SB especially), not only are they great books with Chuuya as the focal point but they will help answer your question in depth (you can buy the English translations but I can help you find the translation online if that's what you need, just message me again)

The short version is that Arahabaki being an actual god, a separate entity from Chuuya that has a personality/a voice/desires, is a common fanon trope, but not a canon fact. The truth is more complex and much more fun, lore-wise, in my opinion

And now the long version, because I'm passionate about this and this is my excuse to deep dive into it (spoilers for Fifteen)

In Fifteen, Chuuya says this:

Chuuya himself presents "Arahabaki" as nothing more than pure power. No thoughts, no personality, but powerful for sure.

That phrasing in Fifteen created a lot of confusion I think, talking about gods as real but also not:

But I think it's more of a symbolic reference, talking about immense power that seem out of this world. Because in practice, as Chuuya said before, "Arahabaki" is simply raw power, not an entity. You can't pray to it, it can't understand you, it can't perform miracles (which is why he knew the Old Boss couldn't have been brought back by Arahabaki and it was all nonsense from the start)

I'm also putting part of the blame on the anime, where they decided (while not being exactly wrong either, out of context it's weird) to illustrate Chuuya "floating in a bluish-black darkness, surrounded by a transparent seal" and being pulled out by a hand:

like this:

When, if you actually reread that part in the novel with knowledge about Storm Bringer, it's actually this moment that was being referred to:

Which brings us to Storm Bringer! (heavy spoilers I'm serious)

"Project Arahabaki" was the Japanese government's attempt to create an ability weapon from an individual. They wanted to craft a singularity that could be used multiple times, thus granting them access to power that should not be accessible normally. They based their research on what France had discovered through Verlaine. The objective is to create a massive energy output through a self-contradicting ability, for which you need a vessel:

Chuuya is the device. "Arahabaki" is the massive energy. That massive energy can control gravity to the point of being able to create localized black holes! N implied that part of the lab's work for the Arahabaki Project was to modify Chuuya's body to be able to withstand the constant gravity effects on it so he doesn't just die. Chuuya's normal use of his ability doesn't seem to have any drastic effects on him, and his physical resilience (to getting hit, stabbed, poisoned, shot, electrocuted, to going through a black hole) does seem to imply they did succeed at least in part.

And this bit here explains why "Arahabaki" was the chosen name for the project; unexplained phenomena across History that can be linked to an ability going haywire, but were attributed to god-like interventions at the time. So you're a funny little mad scientist, you read research papers from another mad scientist that named their own creation after a mythological monster, and you decide to do the same with your own local folklore.

But!

There's still something to be said about how "Arahabaki" is a singularity, and therefore, has its own set of rules. Chuuya does loose control, Chuuya does regress to a sort of destructive instinct while under Corruption. But "Arahabaki" is still no more than an ability singularity. Here's what is said about Guivre and Arahabaki:

They are both singularity life-forms. They exist because they are singularities; outside of it, they are nothing. The inner workings of abilities are still mysterious, but most of them have a link to their wielder's desires. For example, Atsushi's Tiger is there to protect him, a mirror to his will to live no matter what. Verlaine's Guivre is similar:

Guivre was a beast born out of Verlaine's loneliness and resulting hatred. He felt deeply alone in not feeling/being human, and through Pan's (his "creator") special "programming" of Verlaine's ability, N was able to trigger the true form of his singularity with that flare gun and metal powder, which took the form of Guivre. It's what the hat was supposed to prevent, but Verlaine had already lost it by then.

Chuuya's Arahabaki is probably similar. Its first apparition was when Rimbaud tried to absorb him and use his ability for himself, and any subsequent use is linked to grief and survival. Basically, if they're their own entities, they are still born in a specific context and deeply linked to the original ability user's character. And Arahabaki? Only exists if Chuuya uses his activation phrase to get rid of the limitations put into place to prevent him from exploding:

More about about Corruption: SB is kind enough to give us an explanation on how the nullification process works, right here:

Chuuya's self-contradicting ability makes him able to control gravity through the sheer amount of energy it creates by permanently interacting with itself. It is kept under control through the use of an activation phrase, O grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again, which, after being either said or thought by Chuuya, will open his "Gate" (which I'm interpreting as a blocker put in place by the lab so the singularity doesn't just kill him, like those poor people they mentioned existed through History), and by opening it, "free Arahabaki's true power" (aka Corruption). When Dazai uses his ability on him, the base self-contradicting ability is nullified, which cancels out the singularity taking place, which stops Corruption and allows that "Gate" to close again. The red markings are there because they're cool and fun.

To conclude, I'll let Dazai do the honors:

bonus: what does that mean for Chuuya's ability?

bons 2: Perceived timeline of Chuuya's past and what happened to to create confusion around his humanity

877 notes · View notes

s1lv3r-4rt · 7 months

Text

FUN FACTS FROM STORMBRINGER BECAUSE I'M INSANE

also SB SPOILERS OBVS!!!

ALSO TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR: MENTIONS OF DEATH, MENTIONS OF MURDER, MENTIONS OF TORTURE, DESCRIPTIONS IF HALLUCINATIONS, SEMI-GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF GORE, DESCRIPTIONS OF TORTURE! DO NOT READ IF ANY OF THIS MAKES YOU UNCOMFY!

-the hat chūya wears during 15/just joined pm is NOT the same hat he wears at 22! he wears verlaine's now! because arahabaki is a bitch!

-doc went to school (at least med school) somewhere in north america! so he probably knows english!

-our chūya is very highly probably the clone! and n is his dad!

-if our chūya isn't the clone, he's not an orphan! we see him watching what seems to be his grandparents in the epilogue!

-his bike is from albatross!

-paul verlaine is actually arthur rimbaud's real name, but rimbaud gave it to our least favorite french assassin when he found him!

-rimlaine canon! (irl verlaine and rimbaud were dating/fucking i will NEVER not bring this up) (because bsd generally keeps relations accurate from irl (like dazai, oda, and ango hanging out at bar lupin))

-if you didn't know, verlaine trained kyōka and gin!

-bsd mary shelley is a scientist who made adam frankenstein! she is also so skrunkly and so swag!

-dazai is a fucking faggot! ("i'm always thinking of ways to annoy chūya.") (I CAN SAY THAT I'M BIROMANTIC AND HOMOSEXUAL AND TRANS I PROMISE)

-dazai, at least from 15-16, lived in a cargo container for transporting cars! he only had a bed, a fridge, a lamp, a desk and chair, and a spare light bulb! all the more reason to burn mori at the stake!

-shirase moved to britain! his and chūya's goodbye was really sweet after what they've been through!

-before becoming an executive, chūya was in charge of taking care of gem smugglers! which was dazai's job before rank climbing! silly little gays!

-chūya has a scar from where shirase stabbed him, as well as a scar on his right wrist with unknown origins (i think it's unknown reading the epilogue was a fucking blur)!

-verlaine is batshit! he was in the trunk of a car with a corpse (i think, he might have been sitting on the trunk lid/door thing)! and then said "*pops open trunk* this bad boy can fit so much lippmann"! and it was described horrifyingly! (smth along the lines of "he watched the body roll out of the trunk with a wet thunk. the body that was lippmann." i will shank asagiri and the translator i read it from /j) also! he open alb's fucking chest! his rib bones were just out in the open! doc's entire lower half was missing!

-pianoman's and iceman's bodies aren't described (lippmann's isn't either, but from the wet thunk we can infer), it's only noted that they're there and in the pile with alb and doc, but we can imagine the bullshit verlaine had to do to get those two down because! pianoman was the leader of the flags and was this 👌 fucking close to becoming an executive! and iceman murders people with his bare hands, fountain pens, hell, i'm pretty sure a table was on that list!

-adding onto that! at the funeral, chūya tells adam that it took the mortician 8 hours to get the bodies even presentable!

-chūya is a really good pool player! he's repeatedly called the "undefeated king" (or smth) by the other flags! the only person who could beat him was adam, and adam's a robot! chū's been playing for the least amount of time, as well as being up to 9 years younger than the others (pianoman was the oldest at 25, iceman is next oldest but we don't have any exact ages except for pianoman), so i guess he's just really good at playing with balls! (hehe)

-lippmann is a famous, FAMOUS actor! he is repeatedly referred to as attractive by the narrator and even doc! it's said that any woman falls for him, and if he were to dress as a woman, the men would fall too! we love an icon!

-lippmann also comments that chūya could/should join him as an actor if he leaves the pm!

-the flags were VERY well known before their deaths! lippmann was basically the face of the pm! iceman was a very well known assassin! albatross was the head of transportation! doc was the best doctor the pm had! pianoman was, again, LIKE 30 SECONDS AWAY FROM BECOMING AN EXECUTIVE! the only less well known one was chūya!

-and that was immediately revoked when he defeated fucking GUIVRE! HE DEFEATED (and to the public/government, killed) THE KING OF ASSASSINS! WHEN SAID KING OF ASSASSINS WAS A FUCKING GODZILLA BOOTLEG WITH THE POWER OF LIKE THREE GODS IN ONE BODY! it is outright stated that every single person in the pm knew of and respected chūya, and this was before he became an executive! he was 16!

-speaking of! he was 16! he had to watch as his brother murdered every person who mattered to him (except for dazai iykyk)! it doesn't matter that adam came back (epilogue)! he had to watch someone who is supposed to care for him destroy his entire life! verlaine is the one who unlocked chū's gate (the ability to use corruption/singularity form)! he is the one who broke chūya down to his fucking base, build him by about 0.5%, then break him even more! he had to learn that he may not even be human! he had to watch his original melt down to his bones before attempting to murder him! that's horrifying!

- speaking of... that^! the original(?) chūya was... let me just summarize it! he was in a cylinder of some kind of liquid, which n drained. that resulted on og chū starting ti fucking suffocate because he'd been in that shit for like- 9 years? maybe even longer! so he started dying. n gave our chū the remote, which resulted in our chū getting og chū out of the cylinder, only able to hold him as the flesh melted off of his fucking bones. imagine that. watching someone (almost) identical to you, your original, melt into nothing. the only thing left being the mush his skin turned into, his clothed skeleton, and the scientist who did it to him.

-hehe! verlaine murdered n by stepping on him (as guivre, but honestly if verlaine wanted to ste-)!

-while in the lab being tortured, chūya has some hallucinations! dazai being a little shit, shirase blaming him for everything that happened to the sheep (and he was joined by the sheep members for a moment), then the flags! the flags, mainly pianoman, told chūya that it wasn't his fault (i think) and that chūya needs to keep going! then verlaine pops up, and chū thinks he's a hallucination until he frees chū!

-speaking of chū's torture! he was chained to a wall with shackles that had barbed wire on the inside, stakes through bullet wounds that would electrocute him, and tubes in his back administering poison(s)! it was genuinely heartbreaking to read as chūya's screams filled mot only the room he was in, but also the entire lab!

-albatross is the one who taught chūya to swim!

35 notes · View notes

chuuyrr · 2 years

Text

untouchable

bungou stray dogs x gojo! reader

masterlist of infinity

╰➤ CW(s): possible spoilers for bungou stray dogs, mentions of gojo satoru's cursed technique, mentions of violence, fight scene references gojo's fight against sukuna and jogo respectively, jujutsu sorcerers via mentions of elders, family and conservatives are also referenced

╰➤ PAIRING(s): mostly dazai x reader & chuuya x reader

╰➤ WORD COUNT: 3,612

hello there, kindly view the masterlist of infinity in order to get a sypnosis of what this bungou stray dogs x jujutsu kaisen crossover of sorts is all about! likes, reblogs and comments are highly appreciated, enjoy reading :) ♡

"boss? you called?"

the orange-haired individual entered the wooden doors of the ever so familiar room that was illuminated by the light outside of the glass pane. every time he entered this room, nakahara chuuya found himself recalling the very first time he was brought here at the age of fifteen. it takes him back to when he and port mafia were after arahabaki, only to find out that the god of chaos had merged with him, presumably at the age of seven. it brings him good and bad memories at the same time. he had found a place to belong, yet he had lost people along the way.

"i have an investigation for you."

chuuya sauntered towards mori ogai who was seated promptly in his velvet cushioned chair, holding a brown envelope. he took it without another word and opened it to find several documents, leading chuuya's brows to furrow together with interest and confusion, urging his boss to continue. the document chuuya held in his hands contained pictures and classified information all over japan.

"have you heard about sugawara michizane before, chuuya-kun?" mori quipped.

"no, i haven't." chuuya shook his head, his eyes skimming that was written all over the papers.

"sugawara michizane is considered to be one of the three most vengeful spirits here in japan. you could even say he is a god, just like arahabaki. he is considered a big shot in the japanese government. however, his whereabouts are unclear." mori continued, clasping his white-gloved hands together as his eyes darkened. "some of the documents you have are from rimbaud's. it appears that he, too, had been meaning to find and subsume sugawara michizane, not just arahabaki, in the past."

"are you saying sugawara michizane is alive?" chuuya's blue eyes widened.

mori shook his head, softly chuckling. "we don't know, not even the government does. check the fifth page for me, chuuya-kun."

chuuya nodded and skimmed over the front pages to locate the fifth as told by mori before he continued, "an ability user is rumored to be a descendant of sugawara michizane and they are said to be here in yokohama. however, we have lost our lead on that because of her."

the woman in the stolen pictures together with the documents appeared to have [color] hair with her eyes covered by a pair of black round glasses, making the color of her eyes unclear; she was always dressed in expensive brand name clothes that chuuya recognized due to his taste in clothes. the port mafia executive also took note of how the woman's stolen shots were taken in museums, cafés, and libraries in the city.

"she ambushed one of our groups the other day, stealing classified information from us, documents particularly about sugawara michizane and the said descendant. the documents you have on you are the only ones left." mori explained, further, eyes darkening.

"i highly suspect that woman knows something."

meanwhile, a reddish-brown brick building near yokohama's port housed gifted detectives rather than notorious mafiosos, who gathered in the fourth floor office;

"what a breathtaking woman! she looks so cool! do you think she'd be willing to commit a double suicide wit—OW!"

"focus on the meeting, idiot! do not interrupt the president!"

the weretiger let out a sigh as he and his fellow detectives watched kunikida strangle dazai with his bare hands after interrupting with his side comment. similarly to port mafia, the armed detective agency learned of the existence of sugawara michizane's descendant in yokohama from the special division for unusual powers, thanks to sakaguchi ango. the matchless poet user was discussing crucial information that the special division had from how the said breathtaking woman projected in the meeting room has something to do with sugawara michizane, including the descendant, due to reports of her infiltrating and ambushing organizations and such, including the mafia.

atsushi found himself thinking about the woman in question. it was incredible, almost terrifying, how she had accomplished so much in such a short period of time. no ordinary person could do that on their own. she was unquestionably a force to be reckoned with.

she may appear to be a simple woman who enjoys fashion, food, and art; the weretiger could tell there was something sinister about her, right behind the mask she wears, but atsushi was no ranpo-kun or dazai-kun to confirm that completely, especially given how little information they had about her. she, too, was skilled at hiding her identity and concealing her records.

‘could she have predicted this already by now as well?’ atsushi pondered.

"ugh, alright, alright." a huff escaped dazai’s lips as he raised his hands in defeat, interrupting the weretiger’s train of thoughts.

kunikida breathed a sigh of relief and released dazai's neck from his grip before clearing his throat and adjusting his tie. he strolled back next to fukuzawa, who was standing right next to the projected screen, allowing the boss of the armed detective agency, to resume his work. "as i previously stated, we will conduct a thorough investigation into this woman. we don't have a background on her because she has no records, but we've seen what she's capable of. everyone, proceed with caution."

with that, dazai, atsushi, kyouka, yosano, ranpo, junichiro, naomi, and kenji rose from their seats in unison, nodding curtly but understandingly to fukuzawa.

"well, this just made my life more interesting."

after a long day, you found yourself relaxing at another cafe. you were craving sweets as you rightfully retrieved classified information worth huge amounts of money and apart from that, you've gained a couple more people after your tail, so how could you possibly not? you had a sweet tooth, other priorities besides these documents, and you deserved a reward or two as a pat on the back. you leaned back in your seat and flipped through the papers, scoffing bitterly at the thought of them getting involved in business. you didn't think those people could do any of these things.

one thing was certain: they all had wits.

you're originally from tokyo, but through your connections and espionage, you've learned about the people here in yokohama, particularly how the gifteds in this city were something special. you've also heard and read about three important organizations in yokohama, namely the military police and special division for unusual powers led by taneda santoka, the port mafia led by mori ogai, and the armed detective agency led by fukuzawa yukichi. as you know, they each rule the day, night, and evening as part of a tripartite framework created by a man named soseki natsume. you did your thorough research before coming here, so as to not come here empty-handed.

honestly, it almost made you jealous. the way tokyo was governed in comparison to yokohama was incomparable, resulting in your dislike and cruel attitude towards the elders. if only they had focused on maintaining peace and order rather than conserving traditions, then maybe you could have learned how to love your own city.

you ran your fingers through your hair, pressing the bundled papers against your face and inhaling deeply. you despised them; the thought of them attempting to affiliate or manipulate you by having you marry someone from one of the larger families for power and blood rather than love was revolting. it was awful to be the only one blessed with it, but it was far preferable to it falling into the wrong hands.

you shook your head and shoved the papers into the inner pockets of your high-neck jacket before reaching for the mug of coffee in front of you to take a sip and take your mind off it. "still, they don’t compare to me at all."

"really now?"

at that moment, your lips curved into a smile. you have already been found. you lifted your head and pushed your round black glasses closer to your nose as you faced a young man your age sitting on the opposite side of the table, dressed in a white button-up shirt under a dark red vest, a black choker, a black ribbon bolo tie held together with a small silver buckle, an open black cropped jacket with the sleeves rolled up at the elbows, black slacks, a black belt hanging off his right hip, and black low-arch shoes.

you watched him push his black hat further with his black-gloved hands, giving you a good view of his face, especially his dark-blue eyes, which were nothing compared to your eyes behind your sunglasses.

"you know, it's rude to stare, but i don't mind the attention," you said as you sipped the last of your coffee before setting it down on your table's wooden hard surface. "i'm impressed. i should thank you all for finding me, but i won't."

"eh?" a baffled expression broke through his face.

"i might have these glasses, but that doesn't mean i'm blind," you shrugged. "the port mafia is quite predictable; even little ol' me can see how you've surrounded the entire cafe. besides, i don't want to boost your ego."

"tch, well aren’t you quite the talker lady.” a smirk graced his lips.

you may not look like the person he knew, but your demeanor was uncannily similar to his. chuuya might have said something else if it hadn't been for your lovely mouth. even with your black sunglasses covering your eyes, you were stunning the closer he got to your face. your high-neck zip-up jacket, paired with a black miniskirt, stockings, and thigh-high heeled boots, made you look like a celebrity too.

you bit back, “of course, i wouldn’t want my tongue to go dry.”

“sadly, you’re just wasting your spit.” a frown faltered on chuuya’s face, but you could see a glint of agitation in his eyes. “hand over the documents you stole from the mafia and come with us or else.”

"oh, my! here i thought you were a gentleman." laughter erupted from your throat, causing a puzzled expression to cross his features. "yeah, that's going to be a no. the papers your little gang has don't belong to you or anyone else in yokohama. to be fair, i'm only taking what's mine."

“you’re running on thin ice, lady. alright, then. i’ll be nice. i’m not one to assault a pretty lady. what do you know about sugawara michizane? what's your connection to him and his descendant?” he continued, trembling gloved hands beginning to tremble. as a bright red glow surrounded his frame, his sense of restraint began to wane.

“you? a mafia executive interrogating me? get out of here, detective-wannabe. i ain’t spilling anything. you’re gonna have to try a little harder than that.” you stood up from your seat, shoving your hands into the pockets of your jacket.

“and i’m not running on thin ice, i’m dancing on it actually.”

and that’s when a nerve snapped.

the appearance of smoke followed by an explosion was enough to send the city, including the mafioso outside, into a frenzy. the armed detective agency rushed into the scene as soon as they heard the news. the entire cafe was a shambles, with debris and soot strewn about. as the weretiger swatted away and coughed up the dust in the air, his eyes widened in surprise, as did those of dazai, kunikida, and kyouka. there you were, the woman they were looking into, sitting casually on nakahara chuuya's back, your legs crossed over the other, him crouched on the ground, hands flat against the floor.

when you noticed the armed detective agency staring at you, you found yourself chuckling softly.

"she's sitting on top of a port mafia executive." kyouka's lips quivered.

"like it's nothing." atsushi swallowed heavily as he continued the young teenager's sentence.

chuuya spun around with an agitated scoff to swing at you with his sharp movements augmented by gravity and density, but you instantly vanished into thin air and reappeared behind his back at blinding speed, dodging each hit with grace.

"the armed detective agency is watching, so i'm going to have to show off a little," you said, pressing your back against the back of his arm as you found yourself standing behind him and leaned against him before facing his ear.

"you little piece of sh—the port mafia executive proceeded to send a flurry of sharp attacks towards you, raining hell on you, but you easily maneuvered each of his hits cleanly, that was until his subordinates began to shoot bullets at you in order to assist him after regaining composure. just as chuuya was about to land a gravity boosted roundhouse at your face with centimeters away from you, it simply remained halted in mid-air.

"what the?" kunikida's eyes shrunk. "that ability user can stop time?"

"no, look closely." dazai furrowed his brows, an intrigued smile gracing his lips.

"a force field?" was all chuuya could manage before being repelled by an unseen force.

you appeared to be floating in mid-air as you stood with your hand on your hip. your feet were no longer touching the ground. chuuya immediately stood up and lunged towards you, sending larger pieces of the ground towards you, resulting in another collision and the emergence of smoke, but just like before, as everything cleared out, he was halted, just as he was about to reach you and the pieces of debris had deteriorated.

"can't you even learn? ugh, this smoke." you waved your hand in the air.

"what's the meaning of this?" chuuya sputtered out, completely infuriated at this point. "i hit you! why can't i..."

"no, you didn't hit me; you simply touched the infinity that exists between you and me," you explained casually, shrugging your shoulders and pointing to the unseen force that existed between chuuya's red glowing fist and you. "see, you're not completely stopped, but the closer you get, the slower you go."

you flung the orange-haired boy away from you, towards his own subordinates, before turning your head behind your back to see a young man with mildly wavy, short, dark brown hair and narrow dark brown eyes, wearing a long sand-colored trench coat, accompanied by three more people behind him.

"oi, chuuya-kun! how long are you gonna take? need a hand?~" you watched as he yelled at the orange-haired person you had just attacked.

"idiot! shut up! i don't need your help!" chuuya spat out rather bitterly in response.

"yo, did you guys enjoy the show?" you snickered as you casually raised your hand and waved at them as if you were addressing a couple of close friends.

"i did, belladonna~ it's nice to see get his ass beaten every once in a while!" with stars in his eyes, the brunet known as dazai exclaimed, clasping his hands together.

"EXCUSE ME?!" you heard chuuya shout from a distance in the background.

"enough with the nonsense!" kunikida exclaimed, sighing at the idiots before sauntering over to you. "miss, i’m afraid you'll have to accompany us; you're being investigated by the armed detective agency."

"eh? i'm only getting what belongs to me." you tipped your head at him.

"you ambushed and infiltrated several organizations that hold classified information, such as the military police, special division for unusual powers, port mafia, and other underground criminal organizations in yokohama," kunikida continued.

"in my defense, your honor, those classified information do not belong here. yokohama needs to stop looking into tenman-tenjin." you folded your arms across your chest, "but, if you so desperately want them back, i dare you to come and get them from me yourself." you grinned.

"that we shall, belladonna." dazai replied darkly to your challenge.

you vanished from their sight at that moment, dashing away at breakneck speed, leaving them stunned. your speed was comparable to that of atsushi's beast beneath the moonlight form.

“atsushi! kyouka!” kunikida called out for the white-haired boy and twin pigtailed girl, to which they leapt in unison.

looking over your shoulder, you noticed the white-haired boy from earlier, who had the appearance of a tiger, as well as a female sword-wielding phantom on your tail. you came to a halt, a sinister smile on your lips, as they approached, only to collide with another infinity you had set up. with that, you lunged back at them, seizing the weretiger's neck and striking him down before conjuring a ball of luminous red orb with your finger tip.

"limitless: reversal red" you said just as the compressed ball of reversed infinity repelled both the weretiger and the sword-wielding phantom, unleashing an immense explosive force powerful enough to dematerialize the phantom and turn the entire street into debris.

as the smoke cleared, you noticed gravity manipulator flinging himself at you once more. you shook your head as you dodged another flurry of his attacks before reaching out a hand, index and middle fingers pointing directly at him as you opened your palm and aligned your other hand across.

"don't you realize you can't stop me?"

"but he can stop you."

chuuya returned your smile as you conjured another luminous orb that was a mix of infinite red and blue. as you momentarily yanked down your glasses and yelled, "limitless: hollow purple!" he flung himself backwards, right before he could see your eyes himself.

your ability, which was supposed to erase everything in its path as a result of the fictitious mass, instantly dissipated as it hit its target, causing you to widen your eyes. the same brunet who calls you belladonna was standing there with the gravity manipulator. you felt a horrible shiver run down your spine for the first time as you heard the sound of breaking glass in your ears, and it wasn't just glass. your ego shattered like a broken mirror.

that cannot be. that isn’t possible.

there are no exceptions to your limitless ability.

did you maybe ran out of stamina?

your footing stumbled as you staggered an attack towards him, as you were too preoccupied with your thoughts. your agility had significantly decreased. your stomach began to churn. something was wrong with this boy, and you wished you weren't right about him, but as you extended your hand to use your ability against him at close range, a single touch of his hand had worsened it. all of your power had been stripped from you in an instant.

the untouchable had become touchable.

you weren't given a chance to react. as much as you wanted to admire the warmth of his hand that had touched yours, crossing the infinity between you and him, gravity was able to make direct contact with you and immediately sent you flying backwards, and that was extremely personal.

without your limitless ability, the port mafia executive's ability was exceptional. you were thrown so hard that you collided with a building that had been reduced to rubble, and as a result, your disguise had faltered; the [color] wig you were wearing had flown away, and your round black sunglasses had broken in half, with the lens shattered.

"damnit, those were my favorite ray-bans," you scoffed, pulling your feet up to stand and painfully stroking your back.

"so that's why you were stealing all of yokohama's information on sugawara michizane. it all makes perfect sense now," you lifted your head forward, spitting blood, to see the man who had nullified your ability as if it were nothing.

"you are not a spy, hired assassin, or anything of the sort. you are the descendant of sugawara michizane. the honored one throughout heaven and earth. you've come here to remove all evidences of your connection with him, but there's one thing you can't hide or even get rid of. the six eyes and limitless you inherited as a blessing from your ancestor.”

dazai's dark-brown eyes scrutinized you from head to toe, from the white locks of hair that reminded them of snow that flew with the breeze in the wind in the atmosphere to your aquamarine eyes that held the heavens above in them, grazing on your very human soul. he has heard about you before, just like everyone else. your family was known for possessing powerful gifteds, and today, dazai has confirmed your connection to the god of the sky. your possession of sugwara michizane’s six eyes and commitment to take those evidences from them says it all.

"you’re gojo [name], the limitless ability user."

you scoffingly bit your lower lip. he not only had the ability to ruin your ability with a single touch, he could see more through you than your six eyes could. those eyes of his were just as perceptive and analytical as a high resolution camera. above all, you were overly impressed. you should have never doubted the gifted people who live in yokohama. no one had ever been able to break you like this before. you were too impressed to let your frustration and shattered ego get the best of you, or perhaps you were really just a masochist in the first place, but one thing’s for sure.

"what is your name?"

you weren’t going to forget him or any of this.

"dazai osamu."

the man who ruined you with a single touch.

"my ability, no longer human, allows me to nullify any ability."

however, as much as it irritated you, his ability, namely, no longer human, ironically reminded you that you were only human, and that you were not always the inheritor of the six eyes or the limitless user.

681 notes · View notes

saaraofthesand · 8 months

Text

Vomit About Abilities and Their Users

These are just random thoughts I’m having on a Sunday night. It’s not really like a good essay with sources cited or anything.

Part 1: Chuuya, Mori, and Atsushi

Stormbringer confirms something important, which is that all abilities and manifestations of those abilities are part of the characters.

I’m glad this is basically explicitly stated in that LN because there are a few characters (and I’m using 3 in this section) whose abilities people tend to treat as separate beings.

A. Chuuya

Before Stormbringer (and alas, even after) a lot of people thought that Arahabaki and Chuuya were separate entities with Chuuya forced to host a being called Arahabaki because his ability was compatible with it. But Stormbringer shows us that Corruption (Arahabaki) is just an extension of Upon the Tainted Sorrow. One that Chuuya has little to no control over, but an extension nonetheless. It isn’t a separate being. It’s just as much a part of Chuuya as anything else.

B. Mori

The Chuuya-Corruption thing is why the way the fandom often treats Elise was so confusing to me. Because Elise isn’t separate from Mori. She isn’t her own person. She IS Mori, and I mean that very literally. Yes, he dresses her up and gives her what appears to be her own personality, but she’s still very much an extension of Mori himself. And for a while (and this essay finally gave me evidence), I’ve suspected that she doesn’t represent what Mori wants to have but instead what Mori wants to be.

C. Atsushi

So, Byakko is treated as separate from Atsushi to a lesser extent, but I’ve still seen it done so I wanted to mention it. The thing is, I think Dead Apple may have confused a few people. I mean, it confused all of us but here I’m specifically referring to Beast Beneath The Moonlight.

Dead Apple wasn’t about Atsushi accepting his ability i.e. Byakko. It was about Atsushi accepting himself, his trauma, and his ability as a part of himself and that trauma. Byakko is a very literal defense mechanism that Atsushi manifested to protect himself from physical danger, and Dead Apple is about him coming to understand that.

Essentially it boils down to this: abilities are part of the characters and they can’t (and shouldn’t) be treated as separate because they tell us something about those characters.

Part 2: Abilities, Trauma, and Conditions

Okay, so it’s well established that abilities are linked to characters’ trauma, and in the same way, I think the conditions surrounding those abilities are also related to their trauma.

A. Yosano

I never see anyone talk about this, but Yosano’s backstory shows us that the conditions around her ability didn’t always exist.

Thou Shalt Not Die as first introduced to us only works if the person being treated is close to death. But in her backstory, the first time we see Yosano use her ability, not all of her patients have fatal injuries. When Yosano stops wanting to treat the soldiers because they should be allowed to die or recover naturally, Mori forces her hand by giving them fatal injuries.

In my opinion, that basically tells us that new trauma can change how someone’s ability operates.

B. Kyouka

Kyouka is really interesting because her ability itself is not a result of her trauma since her mother gave it to her. However, the conditions of her ability may be the result of that trauma.

The way Demon Snow operates before Kyouka is under All Men Are Created Equal is almost reminiscent of dissociation.

Kyouka has separated herself from Demon Snow to the point that it follows orders on auto-pilot whenever someone calls Kyouka’s phone. At the beginning, she’s just a conduit for her own ability.

But like with Yosano’s conditions, the condition of Kyouka’s phone hasn’t always been necessary. In the scene where Kyouka’s parents die, her mother doesn’t communicate via phone. She just tells Demon Snow what to do as she passes it to Kyouka.

Unlike with Tsujimura’s mother (we’re getting there), the instructions left for Demon Snow by Kyouka’s mother (i.e. “Protect my daughter”) don’t seem to have specifically influenced Demon Snow’s behavior, except for when Demon Snow killed Kyouka’s mother. Otherwise, Demon Snow can still be easily used by others on people who Kyouka doesn’t need to be protected from.

Had the transfer not been traumatic for Kyouka, the conditions likely wouldn’t apply. She would have full control over Demon Snow on her own.

C. Tsujimura

Basically what I said with Kyouka, except where Kyouka’s mother’s instructions don’t seem to have specifically influenced Demon Snow, Tsujimura’s mother’s did. Her instructions were, "Kill anyone who my daughter Mizuki Tsujimura tries to kill right before she kills them," which is a LOT more specific and essentially turns Yesterday’s Shadow Tag into an ability that cannot be triggered at will.

And I still have a lot of questions about YST, but I’m putting them aside because…

D. Q

Okay, we’re getting into the territory of conjecture now. And you can take all of this theorizing with a grain of salt. I just have so many thoughts about Q.

You know how Q’s ability will only work on people that injure them? Yeah, I’ve always had questions about that condition. Was it always a condition of their ability? Or did it come about after Q was brought to the Port Mafia?

Because Q hates Dazai, and has zero control of their ability once it’s activated. We have canonical evidence that Dazai resorted to abuse when training subordinates while he was in the mafia, and No Longer Human is the only thing that can stop Dogra Magra. Q cannot terminate their own ability. Something, something, it’s almost like Q was conditioned to be that way.

Say, Q didn’t want to use their ability or was resistant Dazai’s methods of bringing that ability out. It’s possible that Dazai started resorting to physical abuse as a trigger, and then would use No Longer Human when they didn’t need Dogra Magra anymore. But that came back to bite him because physical abuse became the only way to activate Dogra Magra and No Longer Human became the only way to stop it.

Again, this is all just theory. It could be nothing. But I wanted to throw it into the ether.

Essentially, abilities and/or their conditions are all related to a character’s trauma. Which also makes me think it’s possible that characters could’ve manifested entirely different abilities (or no abilities) if their trauma or circumstances had been different.

And that makes me wonder if the need for conditions could be healed with like therapy or something.

Part 3: Abilities Are Not Genetic

So, I know I may make some OC people upset, but yeah… abilities aren’t genetically inherited traits, or I should say, we have no evidence to suggest they are. We actually have more evidence to suggest they aren’t genetic in any way.

First, with our sibling pairs: the Akutagawas and the Tanizakis (Ik there are theories that Naomi isn’t real etc etc and while I find them intriguing, we’re gonna ignore them for this discussion). If abilities were inherited traits, then we’d likely see them in both siblings, but we don’t. Now, we could argue that the gene is recessive or something (I haven’t done Punnett squares since I was in ninth grade shut up). But thematically, genetic abilities don’t make that much sense anyway for a story like BSD, so I’m not going to go into possible biological explanations, Kay?

Our biggest evidence that abilities aren’t inherited is actually found in the characters of Tsujimura and Kyouka. I’m going to look at Kyouka specifically.

Kyouka was the child of an ability user. Yet, she wasn’t born without any kind of ability and it doesn’t seem like she would ever have manifested one of she hadn’t inherited her mother’s.

As I already mentioned, abilities are essentially manifestations of characters’ trauma, and as such, they’re more likely to be a phenomena that is possible in the universe of Bungo Stray Dogs, and not traits the characters are born with. Especially considering how different each person’s ability is. You aren’t born with your trauma, so you aren’t born with your ability.

#bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd chuuya #bsd mori #bsd atsushi #bsd yosano #mori ougai #chuuya nakahara #atsushi nakajima #akiko yosano #kyouka izumi #mizuki tsujimura

35 notes · View notes

mirsvintagesonytv · 1 year

Text

OKAY MIR READS STORMBRINGER: THE SERIES!!

PROLOGUE THOUGHTS!!

- I really like use of monster imagery because it’s so clear that it’s foreshadowing Guivre and Arahabaki ‘it could even be the fangs and saliva of a starving beast’ yeah that’s abt Arahabaki alright.

-‘This forest’s wicked form that day was light.’ Implies destruction for the greater good -> Chuuya using corruption even tho he’ll lose the ability to tell whether he’s human AND it being this thing that destroys him from the inside out but being their only choice to stop Verlaine

-References to fire and the colour orange all metaphors for Chuuya. he is the forest fire lolz mitski core!!! But fr I like the use of semantics to both describe the surroundings and also clearly describe Chuuya. Like ‘crackling of the trees as they burned sounded like guttural screams’ that’s so CLEARLY a reference to corruption I’ll die.

-‘A hole in the night that all living creatures naturally feared: a forest fire.’ People fearing Chuuya and his power (Shirase in 15, Mori, his enemies etc) fear of corruption/of a god/Arahabakis power. All dear it because it’s not of natural descent it’s inhuman, godlike. A hole insinuating Arahabaki to be an insatiable beast; once u open it it can’t be stopped. That’s also implied w the forest fire imagery. People scared of Chuuyas power bc of destructive nature bc it’s like a forest fire. So ppl like Mori harness it and keep it controlled whilst ppl like Shirase in 15 try to put it out from fear (the stabbing).

- ‘The body was bent straight down the middle, and one of its wings stuck out like a gravestone.’ BRUTAL foreshadowing The flags deaths and how unnatural/horrific they were.

-‘The aircraft’s torn body’ foreshadows albatross’s death. Obvs the comparison between planes and birds and his name lmao but also because his whole area in the mafia is transport….aha…funny….

-I LOVE LOVE LOVE the section w the boy Adam saves in it because he’s also a good look at Chuuyas inner character.

-‘A mere child like him, however, could only attempt to mimic what the adults were doing.’ Something intellectual about the chain of abuse and where the responsibility/accountability should fall. Chuuya mimics what the adults around him do and try to emulate them. He doesn’t act like a kid. Something about how not many characters are inherently bad people in bsd, they just grew up with shitty role models and learned from what they saw which Yk on the streets and in the mafia isn’t exactly a very good baseline to learn how to treat people or how you should be treated.

-‘There might be survivors.’ Chuuyas inherent optimism/hope despite it kind of dwindling. He doesn’t automatically see the worst in people and tries to see the good.

-‘The adults would surely praise him if he saved someone. He imagines himself being lauded a hero, and his heart began to race.’ He wants to be useful, wants to help people/be acknowledged by those he respects. It’s lit him okay.

-‘But his ambitions proved deadly.’ Every time he gets his hopes up something bad happens to pull them down. His ambition to become an exec??? His optimism and hope dwindling as he loses more people.

-FAVOURITE WHITE MAN ADAM!!!! ‘“I had no idea commercial airplanes experienced so much turbulence when they landed.’ REAL UR SO REAL ADAM COMEDIC AUTISTIC GENIUS. ‘It doesn’t help that these doors just seem to pop off,either”’ chortled. Giggled. Chuckled.

-‘as he dubiously cocked his head to one side.’ Dubious little creature getting up to mischief.

-‘Human society considers it rude to not introduce oneself, yes?”’ Lit how I feel as an autistic person ur so real adam

That concludes my prologue thoughts !!! Slayed fr.

#bsd #bsd analysis #bsd stormbringer #bsd chuuya #bsd adam #bungou stray dogs #skk #dazai osamu #mir speaks #mirs bsd rambling #Mir reads stormbringer: the series #mirs thoughts #Adam so quirky I love him #slay

26 notes · View notes

thepiratearcinhamlet · 3 years

Text

Dead Apple Explanation:

Part Six: Dazai & the Antidote; also Soukoku

---------

WARNING. If you do NOT want spoilers, then please do not keep reading. :)

Now, I know there was some definite confusion about the whole pill/apple/knife/stabby/death/ thing, so here goes:

The pill was an antidote for the poison that was inside the apple, and subsequently on the knife that had been sheathed inside the apple. The pill wasn't dissolvable - it needed to be cracked open, much like a cyanide pill. Dazai secreted the pill in his mouth before he went to Draconia, knowing he would need it later. In order to defeat Draconia and return separated abilities to users who were still alive, Dazai's ability needed to create a singularity. Except the only way for Shibusawa to take possession of an ability stone was to kill the user. However, the gem is harvested as you are /dying/. It doesn't wait for you to be completely dead, pulse gone, etc. etc. Shibusawa stabbed Dazai with the poisoned knife, but Dazai couldn't take the antidote just yet, or his ability would return to him. The knife was not long enough to reach his heart, and not even in the right spot. The poison would kill Dazai before the knife would. Dazai passed out, and was sucked into the dead apple that eventually transformed into a Dragon of Chaos.

Note: The novel says that he dies, and also refers to his corpse, but the novel ALSO likes to use devious language to confuse the reader, (i.e. the bar scene, where it makes the readers think it was a suicide pill, not an antidote.) It is POSSIBLE, that the pill was some form of antidote, and Chuuya's Corruption punch acted as a defibrillator, but that would give Chuuya only six minutes max from the minute Dazai was stabbed to agree to Ango's terms, arrive at Draconia, kill the Dragon, and hit Dazai, (otherwise the brain incurs extreme damage or is unrevivable.) It's more plausible to assume Dazai was simply dying and in an almost comatose state. Anyways.

When Chuuya activated Corruption to defeat the dragon and find Dazai, he clearly knew what to do - smack Dazai gently enough NOT to kill him, but firmly enough to crack the pill in his mouth, so the antidote would activate, Dazai would revive, and Chuuya's Corruption could be shut off. If you ask me, Dazai had been forming a potential plan for this ever since he discovered "apple suicide". He had one of Fyodor's apples and knives, and had created an antidote, and Chuuya knew what to do. Dazai probably knew that one day he would confront Shibusawa, and it was good to have an antidote - and in case he couldn't administer it himself, Chuuya could do it for him. Chuuya probably thought he was nuts back then, but Soukoku's trust runs deep - Chuuya remembered. (P.S. After writing this, I saw an interview with the authors/creators of Dead Apple, and it was confirmed that Chuuya knew Dazai's motives/plans.)

Which brings up what I mentioned earlier about the Port Mafia knowing more about Shibusawa than anyone, including the Agency and Special Division. Near the climax of Dead Apple, Mori comments that this must all be part of Dazai's calculations. Chuuya knows exactly what to do to save Dazai. Akutagawa knew how to regain his ability, (i.e. destroying the ability stone.) And Mori knew enough of Dazai's plan to authorize Chuuya to answer Ango's summons to Special Division. (He mentions this at the end of Dead Apple, when he says Dazai was the star of the show, but Chuuya gets life-long bragging rights and the peace of the city.)

At the end of the last episode of S2, Dazai and Hirotsu discuss what happened and what is to come. Dazai mentions "the demon" who has returned, meaning Fyodor. He also mentions how he thinks an alliance might be necessary between Atsushi and Akutagawa, and even mentions how powerful he and Chuuya were back in his Port Mafia days. As evidenced in the Prologue, Hirotsu was gathering his own information about Shibusawa, per Mori's orders. It's very likely that Dazai and Hirotsu discussed Shibusawa, since he was connected with Fyodor, and exchanged information and possible plans, and that is why the Port Mafia was in the know and the Agency and Special Division were not.

SO YEAH. Hopefully that clears up the whole antidote/dying thing, as well as the Port Mafia being so much in the know.

A couple more notes on Chuuya and Dazai:

It's worth mentioning that even in his Corruption state, which he usually cannot control, Chuuya was able to remember Dazai, (he screams his name as he dives into the exploding Dragon,) and hit him /just perfectly/. Corruption punches create black holes and destroy pretty much anything. Yet, somehow, Chuuya was able to control Corruption to hit Dazai but not kill him. When Chuuya told Ango he needed to save Dazai to smack him, he meant that literally. *cue more feels*

Also, remember how I said earlier that not everyone's ability was affected by Shibusawa's? Fyodor, Dazai, and Chuuya appear to be the exceptions who can resist or are immune. Dazai's ability is, in his words, "an anti-ability", and therefore could cancel out Shibusawa's effects. Fyodor's ability was so much a part of himself, that the ability could not separate itself from his individuality. Chuuya's ability is ALSO a huge part of himself, but its core comes from Arahabaki, which can resist Shibusawa. When Chuuya collapses, Dazai tells him to stay put, because Shibusawa isn't dead, and Chuuya is in no condition to fight his own ability, and Dazai isn't up for it either. Chuuya wasn't immune, but could resist - his loss of strength after Corruption would cause his resistance to wane, but with Dazai touching him, For The Tainted Sorrow would be nullified, therefore cancelling out Shibusawa's ability on BOTH of them. The animation reflects this, causing a very light glow to emanate from Dazai, enveloping Chuuya as well, as the mist swirls around them. *even more feels*

178 notes · View notes

leonawriter · 3 years

Text

My Personal Takes on Stormbringer:

Without a full and accurate translation to go through in one sitting, it’s still hard to get a handle on things properly. That said, thank you to everyone who’s working on it.

Now.

(please note all quotes are my memory of translations I have read, and are not verbatim.)

-Asagiri, please, you do not need to make so many coding analogies with regards to Chuuya and Verlaine. They don’t work.

-It often feels - not just in this book but also in 55 Minutes, where there are tight restrictions on a time travel ability - that Asagiri limits abilities based on how scientifically accurate they are. However, this doesn’t make sense! why should it! Literature should be an expression of freedom. There should be rules - the same way the Page has rules - but in the sense of Magic A is Magic A. You make up the rules and then you don’t break them in future. Why have Kunikida able to create something with a mass heavier than a piece of paper out of a page of his notebook, but then say you can’t do [x/y/z] because it’s scientifically unviable?

-I have no issue with how skk treat each other. they are chaos teens. let them be. like... this is the beginning of their actual trust. they’re also in the mafia, and in a dark time in their lives. it’s fine. (it isn’t, but at the same time, it kinda is.)

-I feel like Chuuya taking things from other people and making that thing “his” fits him as a character? he had nothing before, so when you have nothing, all you have is what people give you. If someone gives him a bike, then that bike is his now. He has to learn to look after it, love it, and respect it, and he’ll remember that friend by it. Same goes for pretty much anything else. Also, it’s a show of how well Chuuya adapts to things, and what things he chooses to pick up.

-The hat. I do not like how the hat was treated. Making it into the key that helps Chuuya be able to activate Corruption cheapens the meaning and weight of having been given the hat as a memento of the first person who told him to live as a human being. Why not have the hat be a reminder of his humanity in a purely sentimental way? I’m going to ignore anything canon about this and just say it’s sentimental. Which, like, it could have been a safety blanket type thing, not pseudo-science.

-The coding in Chuuya’s body is a bit... of a reach? How do you put that in there? I don’t get it. Just say that there’s a possibility he might die if he uses Corruption, or that he’ll never become “Chuuya” again. That he’d lose himself utterly. The log history can be either on a chip (insert Dazai making “lost dog, if found return to the mafia” jokes here) or on something else that could easily be destroyed during the course of the story (or not).

-Dazai living in the shipping container reads to me like an extreme version of “I do not want to be found I do not want to be helped I am worthless trash and what’s the point in having an actual home if I plan on dying any day anyway.” Verlaine asks what drove him there, and Dazai says “you” and tbh that offers up so many questions (like, was the shipping container thing recent, was it temporary, or what). There’s the possibility that Dazai doesn’t always live there, because otherwise he’d suffer from hypothermia and get pneumonia in the winter! But above all, Mori had nothing to do with this. He was probably terrified to go too close in case he got killed. Stop saying Dazai lives here because “poor baby was abused :(” that sure was not it.

-Dazai goes all this way - plotting for ages, since before the beginning of the book, having been number one on Verlaine’s hit list, just to get the truth about Chuuya’s humanity and to preserve it - because “I want to see Chuuya suffer as a human being” is him saying he doesn’t want to see Chuuya become like him, or inhuman, because that’s not Chuuya. (dude, there ain’t a straight explanation for this...)

-following on from the previous, Dazai refusing to just let things be the moment he realises that it’d mean double suiciding with Chuuya. I personally see that as a shippy moment because Dazai had already given up on Chuuya being alive (if I read the translation right) and in that case, dying would just be letting go. But Mori says “yeah but I don’t think he’s dead yet?” and that, along with the “double suicide” thing, makes Dazai go “absolutely NOT.”

OK a related thing - as far as I remember, when IRL Dazai attempted double suicide, right up until his actual death it would result in either a failure or... his partner dying and him surviving. The cold potential of this happening in BSD if Dazai had just given up reminded me of that.

-Regardless of my thoughts on how it was handled, Stormbringer reinforced my previous ideas about how Chuuya basically IS Arahabaki. It also suggests that Arahabaki was more of a sentient ability than a true “god” but... that’s fine. For me, all I cared about was that all those “Arahabaki is an evil being that is constantly trying to take over Chuuya and Corruption is Arahabaki being let out” takes are not true. It’s... basically Chuuya taking the lid off his power. I joked at one point that Corruption is Chuuya going “I’m so pissed off I’m gonna kick the door open and throw away the key” and Dazai going “go for it babe, I got your key.”

-Rimbaud and Verlaine are... very complicated characters? They’re not easy to get a handle on. I sometimes find myself liking them and sometimes find myself disliking them, and that’s something that’ll be easier when I have a full translation available - and one of Fifteen. Rimbaud was held back by seeing Chuuya, at first, as nothing more than an empty vessel to Arahabaki’s power, while Verlaine was so taken over by grief without understanding how to handle that, that he became a monster up until the end of the story. Neither of them were good people. That said, their relationship to each other? It’s very complicated and reminds me of their IRL selves to a point but without the skeevy nature and without it going so far, so kudos to that.

-Adam. Knowing his creator was a ten year old girl makes so much sense when you look at the things he says and does. He doesn’t get so much. He’s very logical, but doesn’t understand that a game of billiards isn't as much of an icebreaker as he thinks it should be. Surprised by bubble gum. Games like “strange things humans do” are very much like the word games kids play in the car.

-Verlaine being the fifth executive was something I did not predict at all, whatsoever, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Like... how did he get to that point. Only so much can be said in a few paragraphs (it seems) of “this is [x] number of years in the future where Chuuya’s an executive now.”

The last we see of him, he’s overcome by grief, hatless, and he seems to have only just realised how much he wished he could return what Rimbaud gave to him. (Ironically, by being able to grieve like that, it shows that he is capable of what he thinks he can’t do - same as Dazai.)

But how does he become an executive? Do they come to him slowly at first, and they gradually build up trust? Does he stay in contact with Chuuya? Do they see each other properly as brothers now, or not? I can’t help but feel that as it’s a long time - six years, in fact - between Stormbringer and canon, some bond of trust must have been built. The mafia protects Verlaine from the authorities and from the outside world just the same as Kouyou says that she wants to do for Kyouka, and the same as they’re there for Chuuya, too. So. A Verlaine who trains the mafia’s best assassins not because he’s forced into it, but because he feels the same loneliness as Chuuya, and finds that it helps? A Verlaine who learns slowly that he can care about more people than just Rimbaud and Chuuya? Holy shit yes please. A Verlaine who is loyal and protective and who you should be glad is in a (probably) gilded prison of the mafia’s basement, because otherwise he would actually do so many things to those who would harm his family.

Let’s just say - if I think of Arahabaki as a guardian or protector god who is just plain destructive because it can’t help that, then Chuuya and Verlaine looking and acting in similar ways because they share that same “parent” in a sense, makes sense. They are no longer just Arahabaki, they’re “Chuuya” and “Verlaine” - but they also share traits such as “Papa Wolf” and “lonely” and “violent,” among others.

-At least twice, pre-Soukoku Dazai and Chuuya refer to how they’re constantly thinking of each other. No, they don’t mean in positive ways, but they’re chaos teens and it’s still strong emotion. Chuuya mentions how he’s thought of at least 190 ways to punish Dazai for the things that he does (which also implies how their relationship is equal, and Dazai doesn’t call all the shots, and doesn’t get away with everything scot-free), and Dazai says that Verlaine can’t possibly win against him, because Dazai “spends all of his time, waking and sleeping, thinking of ways to annoy and harass Chuuya,” (quote not perfect.)

We also have Chuuya having Dazai appear to him first in his hallucinations, which I see as Chuuya’s inner Dazai-voice saying all the worst things, and ironically not actually saying or meaning things that would get across what real Dazai would want him to feel; in other words, that’s Chuuya’s view of him, or his mind searching for the one person he’d believe it to realistically come from.

As well, Dazai saying “there’s no way Chuuya could be an artificially constructed personality, because no one could create a personality that I [hate/that annoys me] so much.” Which, like... sure... you tell yourself that, kid...

Basically, they’re all the kinds of things that teenagers who don’t really get how strong feelings like these work yet, who are still figuring themselves (and their orientations, probably) out, would say if they don’t even like that other person that much, but they’re still attracted to them. A strong “why does it have to be THEM?” haha. And yet, as others have pointed out, Chuuya seems more on the oblivious side than Dazai, since as said, Dazai goes to all this effort and seems fond (but only when Chuuya’s not looking, dumbass) but Chuuya just... doesn’t get it.

A shorter summary of my thoughts and feelings?

Chuuya suffers, but is ultimately happier for it no matter whether he’s one of the clones or whether he’s the original (it’s arguable either way, and I don’t mind either way) as he’s still Chuuya. His bond with the mafia is also stronger than so many people think it is. They’re literally his adopted family. Even if he chose to leave, he’d still see them as family. I can’t see him leaving. He’s just... they’re family... don’t tear them apart...

The skk is strong, no matter what people say, because this is the start and it’s the end of their first year in the mafia and it’s not supposed to be a healthy time, for fuck’s sake. They’re both all sorts of messed up. They’re allowed to be. This is a time when that’s kinda the point of the book. But yeah, the trust and the bond is real.

Verlaine. I am now fascinated by Verlaine. I was so sure before the spoilers and translations came out that I’d hate him. I no longer do. He confuses me but I NEED TO KNOW MORE.

#bsd #Stormbringer spoilers #bsd spoilers #all opinions are the OP's #you don't have to agree but they are mine #facts are just facts tho #and this got long whoops #may add more if I remember more later

38 notes · View notes

thebgcharacter · 3 years

Text

Storm Bringer spoilers and a lot of fancy cursing!! I will be screaming into the void about Rimbaud and Verlaine. Just... them. Either them separately or them together, idk where this rant is going-

I want to say I hate Verlaine but come on- he’s been painted the bad guy all throughout and in some okay a lot of ways, he is but DAMN IT I CAN’T HATE HIM. It’s the same with Dazai- he’s just morally grey, at least to me, announcing he’s there to save Chuuya, proceeding to kill Chuuya’s friends, then we get this flashback with him and Rimbaud with him trying to convince Rimbaud that they should let the kid- referring to Chuuya- live in a farm instead of let him be self aware of his own upbringing.

HOW in the flaming depths of hell, blinding lights of heaven and dark pits of everything in-between CAN I HATE HIM FOR THAT?

Head’s up to anyone who does read this, I’m not trying to convince you to un-hate/ un-dislike him for me, I’m just saying AAAAAAAAAAA he’s such a good character, coming from a writing perspective, and in a lot of ways he reminds me of Dazai. His whole extremely self-aware, not really feeling out of place but still so, so isolated, thing going on for him. Plus the wanting to protect Chuuya’s humanity, a goal they both share. I’m just- frustrated.

HE DID NOT DESERVE THAT holy Arahabaki, if anything I’m furious at N, and I will gladly let Guivre and Arahabaki burn the living shit out of him but sadly that’s not what happened.

BACK TO THE MAIN MEN OF MY RANT, Verlaine and Rimbaud.

First off, let me applaud Asagiri for making these partner pairings because damnit my mentally ill brain can’t help but ship them and shipping also means getting my rightful doses of happy hormones because damnit(2) I don’t have the luxury to feel those often.

So Rimbaud, I didn’t like him. I’ll be honest about that. Anyone who wants to harm Chuuya, I decided on my first watch of BSD, is not getting my approval, but I think I dug into it too much and now I can’t not like him too, which explains my use of past tense lmao. This opinion was influenced by fandom, I’m a very gullible and easy-to-convince person, and official art did not help. I love/hate how Rimbaud could have been to Chuuya what Mori is to Dazai. The aesthetic does not negate the toxicity of the relationship, but will my brain see it for what it really is instead of picking apart the concepts I love? No.

Getting sidetracked is my specialty lmao I know so moving on- it’s kind of heartbreaking to know how Rimbaud was the only one to ground Verlaine, to make him feel human even though Verlaine rejected his advances or faced them with nothing but blankness. The spell, the hat, the reassurance that Verlaine was already human. It just- oh gods, it hit a bit too close to home.

Verlaine on the other hand, I knew I’d like just from sheer instinct. The concept of him being Chuuya’s brother, of being a fellow otherworldly entity, those were enough to keep me reeling and rooting for him. That doesn’t excuse his barbaric excuses, leaving corpses in his wake, those of Chuuya’s offish affection no less. But those do make his character all the more easy to hate, all the more reason to make him, as a whole, a great character.

You might ask, “Hana, how does that make him a great character?”, well, dear reader, it's already in the core of how he was written.

If I remember correctly, after Germany got a hold that ability singularities can reside in a single vessel instead of two, France took the lead with the experiments and got Verlaine out of it. Ability singularities are all about having two opposing powers combining and coexisting in one another to come to be, and since Verlaine is the perfect outcome of France’s experiments, it goes to show that he is a singularity.

He exists with opposing ideas, contradictory actions, it makes him a complex character because that’s exactly how complex characters are written, and he’s characterized in a way that shows he thinks his actions are correct.

I don’t know, I’m just eyeballing, coming from someone who cannot take the hint and has to shake their skull to understand subtext, but that’s how I see him.

Okay so the point of this whole thing is to... just let out my anger because 1) Rimbaud could’ve been a really good character for Chuuya’s development, 2) I’m pissed we most likely won’t get to see how Rimbaud and Verlaine worked together as partners and 3) they’re both dead.

I think I’ve said this already but kudos to Asagiri for making it so damn easy to ship the partners of Bungo Stray Dogs. Like, for real, I cannot stop thinking about the hefty assortment of dynamics that all have the same component of having one or both parties involved in wanting to kill the other, simply either for the sake of; for the sake of their own opposing stances, or have already killed the other person!

Let me side track for a bit lmao, so Zenki Soukoku tried to kill each other because of Yosano, because Mori's plan "lacked heart" and Fukuzawa "forgot there's no room for heart in times of war". Soukoku has Dazai wanting to kill himself and Chuuya wanting to kill him just because. Shin Soukoku literally have a vow to fight each other to death. In Fyolai, Nikolai wants to kill Fyodor and Fyodor's probably got that laid out in his plan. Poe spent actual years trying to perfect a story that'll trap Ranpo forever, which is the equivalent to a rather poetic and macabre death in a literal book. OGURI SUCCEEDED IN KILLING YOKOMIZO. I'm willing to bet Natsume had some sort of friend/rival like that as well but they're already dead in the timeline (I'll die on this hill, yes).

Three points should be taken from this.

I should never be allowed to write abt just one thing, no we're taking everything down with us

Asagiri is a damn good writer.

I love Paul x Verlaine, among a shit ton of other partners in this franchise.

Thank you and goodbye ❣️

#bsd #rants #storm bringer #verlaine #rimbaud

30 notes · View notes

dcfygraviity · 3 years

Text

Some HCs for the Twins AU in light of the light novel Stormbringer.

WARNING: STORMBRINGER SPOILERS!

In this AU, my Chuuya is the original body from which his “twin” (a.k.a. another Chuuya muse he interacts with in this AU) was cloned.

He was saved and raised by Verlaine, with the lab exploding because of a fight between him and Rimbaud which ends similarly to canon, with Rimbaud missing a good chunk of memories, the creation of the slums of Yokohama and clone!Chuuya escaping the wreckage as well.

Because of both his young age when he was kidnapped (he was 5-year-old) and the experiments performed on him, he has little to no memories about his childhood with his birth family.

His birth name is Chuuya Kashimura (a nod to the irl author); however, he goes by Fumiya (after irl!Chuuya’s late son) to distinguish himself from his twin.

He has a small bit of Arahabaki within him, injected by the scientists to see if his body could take it and if his cells were compatible with it, which gives him a stronger body (with enhanced stamina and pain tolerance) than most people. He does, however, lack Chuuya's weakness to poisons and other harmful substances (his alcohol tolerance, at that, is quite higher than anyone else's).

He still has gravity manipulation abilities (weaker than Chuuya's though) and a form of Corruption, although his body isn't quite able to handle it (it takes even less time than Chuuya for his body to start falling apart from the inside) and he can technically turn it off at will with a counterspell (the problem is regaining enough control to actually pronounce it).

As far as Fumiya is concerned, Chuuya is family; he will refer to him as his twin brother, not just a clone of himself.

He’s decided against seeing his birth parents again; they were told he died when he was kidnapped as a child, it’s been more than a decade and they’ve hopefully moved on, him reappearing out of the blue might reopen old wounds, plus he has so few memories of them, that life doesn’t even feel like his own anymore…

#SEARCHING FOR MEMORIES THAT AREN'T THERE [HEADCANONS]#VERSE: YOU SUFFER; AND I SUFFER IN SYMPATHY [TWINS AU]#THE MYRIAD EXPLANATIONS THAT LAY BEYOND [SPOILERS]#spoilers #stormbringer spoilers #light novel spoilers

8 notes · View notes

xo-cuteplosion-xo · 3 years

Note

Well, as soon as I understood that Arahabaki and Chuuya are somehow related I just scrolled the heck away as soon as I read the word in any post 😂.

Anyways - Chuuyaaaaa 😭 Noooo, no more suffering pleeeease, I don't know if I can take it.I think my heart broke like, 7 times during those three episodes. Where can I read the light novel? It wasn't translated yet, was it?

Ah, I assume you are talking about Fyodor. He's a darling. Lovely man. Truly enchanting. Can't do no wrong 😌. I have a thing for tall, dark, handsome and murderous.

It's so cool you can play so many instruments by the way! 😎😳 And please keep taking good care of yourself, your health comes first 👌🏼

ah, see my friends were the people who spoiled it XD. They forgot i was only just starting, and dropped it during a discord call T_T

people are “fan” translating it so here is where i have been reading it lately (this one goes all the way to code 4)

and yes i was referring to Fyodor. He is indeed attractive. i also have a thing for villains whom are tall, have dark hair, and have the most outrageous complexes ever.

thank you for the concern of my health.

#lu's mail #immortal interaction

3 notes · View notes

invertedgoogle · 5 years

Text

Noragami Analysis: Ebisu and Iwami; Guideposts and Familial Relationships

This post is a continuation/elaboration of my last one on Ebisu’s theme of crying, but instead of focusing on a central motif, this one branches out into more related elements in the plot. Please bear with me if some things are repeated!

We know Ebisu’s (more widely believed) origin story of him being thrown away by his parents Izanagi and Izanami because he was born without bones/arms and legs. Yet, self-destructive tendencies aside, Ebisu is a comparatively well-adjusted god in Noragami. His maturity, ability to function well as a god and overall benevolence make him an ideal role model for Yato on his journey to become a god of fortune. @echodrops has an entire essay written on how Ebisu is such a good father figure to Yato- please go check it out (along with the other essays) it’s incredible and thoroughly researched.

So how does Ebisu, himself abandoned by his birth parents, manage to become who he is in the present day?

(More under cut)

We’ve been shown instances of gods taking fatherly/motherly roles towards their shinki (Yato, Bishamon, Arahabaki) and plenty of domestic spousal relationships between gods and shinki (Kazuma and Bishamon, Kofuku and Daikoku). But we don’t usually come across the parent-child dynamic between shinki and gods (note the order), which we’ve only seen with the gods who reincarnate and are raised by shinki: Takemikazuchi and Ebisu.

It’s shown that Ebisu values (or in the very least, shows understanding of) familial kinship.

Whether he’s saying this to Izanami as his supposed ‘biological’ mother or to the Olive Ken lady he looks up to as a mother (and who Izanami takes the form of to him), it’s clear that he does long for the mother he never had growing up.

And get this: besides fishing and commerce, Ebisu is also a patron deity of expectant mothers.

He gets prayers from people who want children (unlike his own mother), and sees how happy humans can be with families. He’d want to know how it might have been if his parents hadn’t thrown him away (still, I doubt that things would have been as rosy as he may imagine- just ask Kagutsuchi).

While the previous Ebisu’s mother figure had been a human woman (who will eventually age and die), he’s had a consistent father figure throughout his incarnations: Iwami.

As turbulent Ebisu’s existence is with his high reincarnation rate, Iwami is a dependable constant for Ebisu who will never change. And some part of this dependability is what Ebisu would want from a guardian: the kind his own parents had never shown him. While Izanagi and Izanami had abandoned him, Ebisu can trust Iwami to be there to guide his next incarnations even if he dies. (inserting a bit of headcanoning here, but adult Ebisu’s bluntness really looks like he takes after Iwami)

But before I go into anything specific about the Ebisu and Iwami dynamic, let’s run through the fundamentals of the Noragami world: what gods’ natures are and what shinki/guideposts are for.

In Noragami, gods are born from human wishes: no matter how big or small. The nature of those gods then depends on that wish, and it is sculpted specifically to enable them to fulfil the wish. However, gods have no innate concept of right and wrong and are therefore “justified” in doing anything their nature dictates them to do.

This would have been disastrous for the mortal world if it were not for shinki keeping the god they serve in check. Because shinki were once human, they can guide their gods to act in ways more acceptable to humans. We can call this the “nurture” to the god’s “nature”.

A guidepost is given an additional task besides their usual duties as shinki, and it’s Ebisu himself who introduces to us to guideposts.

A guidepost's responsibility is to show their gods the way and protect their name. Well, what exactly is the way? Isn’t it a bit vague? But that’s the whole point. There are infinite ways a god can be true to their nature. If we look at Yato for instance, his recurrent urge (and perhaps nature) to “cut things up” has manifested itself in killing people for centuries under Father’s instructions.

It’s Yukine who points out that he can use this to “slice and rip chaos itself into shreds” after he consults him. He isn’t changing who Yato's nature to cut things: all he’s doing is interpreting it for him to better suit what he wants.

There are as many ways to be a guidepost as there are ways to be a god, because each guidepost interprets ‘protecting their god’s name’ differently. That’s how we go from Kazuma, who will do anything to protect Bishamon, to Kiun, who would kill Takemikazuchi to save his master’s good name. That’s why it’s important for a god to have a guidepost after their own heart: so they can be led the way they want to go (and also why having someone else choosing a god’s guidepost for them has such a serious impact).

When it comes to bringing up a god, Iwami’s certainly had much more expertise over the average guidepost/shinki. Be it trial and error over millennia or just old-age wisdom on Iwami’s part, Ebisu receives a pretty comprehensive education on being a god from Iwami.

Because we’ve seen Ebisu before and after reincarnation, we can compare the effects of his inborn “nature” and Iwami’s “nurture” on him. An example would be this (this is still a bit rickety logic-wise, but I thought it might be worth some discussion): one of adult Ebisu’s defining characteristics is his strong will that drives him to extreme lengths to make humans happy, even if it means sacrificing himself.

But from what we see from our newest Ebisu, patience... doesn’t look as “in his nature” as he says.

And if you squint, there's something interesting about Iwami’s lectures to restless, impatient teenagers:

Ebisu doesn’t seem to apply the virtue to himself (as an adult, he never does learn to tie his shoes or take care of himself, with Kunimi around) but we see this strong will reflected in his efforts to tame ayakashi. A lot of determination goes into putting himself through intense pain and eventual death just for a shot at reducing human suffering. Iwami teaches Ebisu to persevere so he won’t give up on what he wants to accomplish.

And think about a guidepost’s responsibility to nurture a god’s potential, teach them to know right and wrong, give them advice they need, especially the way it’s done for a god who is a child/young man for half the time... these duties are eerily similar to those of a parent's.

Everything Iwami does is to supplement Ebisu’s nature: equipping him with all he needs to achieve his goals. However, for how instrumental he is to Ebisu’s upbringing, a crucial duty Iwami fails to do for Ebisu is being a proper guidepost: actually giving him his purpose as a god.

Iwami’s line of thought as a guidepost is very passive: in fact, it’s so passive that the important instructions he gives to Ebisu are never from himself.

These panels sum up Iwami’s philosophy. Seeing that Iwami had been a very old man for his time when he died, he’d want someone as young and (technically) full of life as Ebisu to live his life being free to do what he wants, without interference from someone who has already lived theirs. So fearing that his words might force Ebisu down a path he wouldn’t have taken otherwise, he passes down instructions to Ebisu only if they are “as per his previous incarnation’s wishes”, which in a way ‘preserves’ Ebisu’s wish across reincarnations. He thinks of influencing Ebisu’s decisions as a sin, and only dares to support him through complementary means: behaving more as his servant than an advisor.

Despite having to keep a healthy distance to avoid appropriating a god, a guidepost’s role is still, at its core, active. In Yato’s aforementioned dilemma, it’s Yukine who thinks up of a different path when Yato is at a loss and helps him figure it out together.

It’s easier to think of guideposts as actual tour guides. While a guide who drags you astray from your intended destination isn’t helpful, neither is a guide who assumes that you’re the one who knows better. Nobody needs a guide if they already know how to get where they want to go.

Iwami’s reservedness extends to the point where he doesn’t share about himself with Ebisu even when directly prompted to:

Ebisu wants to know about who he was, what he did, and how others saw him, but he doesn’t want the answers delivered through books and journals.

He wants to hear it from others so he, in turn, can get to know them better through conversation with them.

Ebisu just wants Iwami to talk to him.

For all of his devotion to his master, why does Iwami remove himself from Ebisu like this?

His explanation to Ebisu is that he doesn’t want to change his fate, but can we suspect more to that alibi? There’s a scene in the earlier chapters where High Sentinel Oushi guilt trips Ebisu’s shinki into betraying him:

The context here refers to the physical pain of Ebisu feels when his shinki are killed, but honestly, for the most time in Ebisu’s household, who's really the one going through “the pain of a child passing on before him”?

To Iwami, every Ebisu is the little boy he’s raised from childhood (how does that tiny Chibisu up there not remind you of “dad! dad! look!”). Iwami’s there to meet Ebisu when he’s newly reincarnated; he watches him grow, then watches him die. And once Ebisu reincarnates, he can’t even remember his name.

It’s painful enough for a child to have a parent forget who they are or to have their parent pass away, but the exact opposite happens in Ebisu’s house. It’s Iwami who has his “child” forget him, who has his “child” die before he does.

And after Iwami outlives so many Ebisus, he has to raise him again and relive the nightmare. Ebisu has the ‘luxury’ (if you can call it that) of forgetting Iwami; Iwami doesn’t. The worst part is that Iwami exists to remember everything about the past Ebisu for the next one.

If Iwami keeps building close relationships with every Ebisu he serves, it’s only going to make his inevitable deaths and reincarnations more painful to bear. For the sake of carrying Ebisu’s wishes across incarnations, Iwami has to detach himself from his master so he won’t fall apart from the emotional toll that comes with it.

Iwami probably doesn’t even have the heart to directly tell Ebisu about his past incarnations and their wish to tame ayakashi. Instead, he’s always told Ebisu to read his predecessors’ journals, which inevitably include information on the subject. And precisely because Ebisu isn’t shown an alternative way to be the god Ebisu (and especially since his journals are all the pointers he has about who he supposedly was as an adult), he ends up thinking that taming ayakashi and carrying out his previous self’s wishes is the only way to be Ebisu. After that, Iwami can rationalise that it had been Ebisu himself who made the choice and that he is now obligated to help Ebisu to achieve it.

While Iwami has his own reasons for not sharing too much with Ebisu, Ebisu reads this silence as coldness towards him, that he’s not important enough to Iwami to be allowed to know him better. The flashback of Ebisu with the books shows Iwami facing Ebisu, but in Ebisu’s mind, it’s as good as though Iwami had turned away from him there and then: remaining both physically and emotionally removed. Iwami is abandoning Ebisu to himself.

No matter the incarnation, Ebisu still bonds much quicker with Iwami than other shinki, even Kunimi, his current guidepost. It’s clear who Ebisu’s favourite is.

Ebisu constantly looks to Iwami for guidance, but Iwami keeps silent, thinking it would be best if Ebisu lives his own life without input from him. The flaw in this approach is that its result hurts both Ebisu, who doesn’t want to die, and Iwami, who doesn’t want Ebisu to die either.

This vicious circle keeps them trapped in lives they are unhappy in. Unless Ebisu is shown a different path by Iwami, he can’t change from the one his predecessors took. And unless Ebisu changes what he wants to do, Iwami can’t show him anything else but what his predecessors have always done.

The circle has long-term effects too: with each passing incarnation, Ebisu feels even more pressured to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps, and Iwami has to keep withdrawing himself from Ebisu, all while receiving the reinforced impression that Ebisu does wants to continue this self-destructive work.

By telling Ebisu to live and act on his own wish, Yato has already dealt a significant blow to the circle. But reforming only Ebisu’s mentality isn’t enough to permanently get rid of it; Iwami’s mindset must also change.

Up till now, Iwami’s been “protecting Ebisu’s name” by supporting whatever Ebisu decides to do, letting him finish what he had started in his previous lives. But after Kazuma’s confrontation, Iwami finally acts on a desire to protect the current Ebisu, not just Ebisu's “wishes” anymore.

Father’s defeat is as important to Ebisu as it is to every other character. Notice that when Kazuma tries to get Iwami to give him something helpful to stop Father, he tells Iwami “the root cause is clear", and that he could put an end to Ebisu’s fate of living short lives by helping destroy Father.

From the flashbacks, Ebisu has been tailing Father's work ever since he retrieved the first Koto no Ha (the flashback where baby Ebisu discovers a mask is from the Heian era, which approximately when Father starts using masks). Father has been using his masks to wreak havoc in the mortal world, but because Ebisu is right behind him learning how to tame them (even if it’s from scratch), Father has a form of check and balance, no matter how crude or underdeveloped it may be. Though Ebisu himself doesn’t yield much success in actually taming ayakashi, his accumulated knowledge about it alone can help other characters take Father down.

There are many reasons why Ebisu follows his predecessors’ wishes that stem from inertia, but Father has been the active reason why Ebisu cannot afford to stop taming ayakashi.

What’s especially tragic about this set of panels is that Iwami’s wish for the young Ebisu had always been for him “to be whatever his heart desires”. Instead, in his efforts to preserve Ebisu’s ‘wish’ across incarnations, he’s ended up achieving the exact opposite.

And that’s why Iwami agrees to help Kazuma, even if it means breaking an old promise to Ebisu. Change starting to happen: from someone who had been afraid of deviating from the previous Ebisu’s wishes, Iwami now hopes to save the current Ebisu from having to die continuously by betraying his predecessor.

Once the sorcerer is stopped, Ebisu’s fate won’t be limited to taming ayakashi, and he'll be able to be a god of fortune without having to die for it. Iwami will finally be allowed to raise a single Ebisu, one who will no longer die young and forget him. And Ebisu could really use a father who can show that he cares for him.

(sorry this is so long I got pretty carried away with this lmao)

#noragami #ebisu #iwami #invgoogle attempts analysis #noragami analysis

43 notes · View notes

bsd-bibliophile · 6 years

Note

are there any connection between Arahabaki and the irl chuuya nakahara? since sheep and him have a connection in both worlds, thought theres some w/ Arahabaki too?

I am unaware of any connection between the real life Nakahara Chuuya and Arahabaki.

Arahabaki is a Japanese god of defiance and prowess. Here is some information about him:

When Shinto myth first started developing, many gods were created that had been long forgotten as Shinto became more advanced and more full of thought than ever before. One of the gods that first appeared in the early days of 200 AD, in the Kofun period, was Arahabaki, a primitive god that promised strength and stability to anyone who wanted to give him full worship.

Origins and Appearance

Arahabaki was worshipped all along Japan’s northern regions. He was the god of defiance and prowess and he was even used a figure for wars that would erupt. He soon began to become an evil figure in 300 AD, when a prince, Nagasunehiko started to worship him to the point where he became crazy, thinking the god was forever by his side. Being an enemy of the Emperor Jimmu, most of Japans’ people say this as a bad sign and started to think of Nagasunehiko and his god Arahabaki as a symbol of deceit and marked the god more of a devil than a sign of good luck. The god was said to look more like a creature than a human form. With large alien like eyes and a sturdy body made of strong iron, he looked more like a rock had come to life than one of flesh and blood.

(source)

So the reference there is less to do with the authors and more to do with Japanese mythology.

#asks #arahabaki #japanese mythology #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd

137 notes · View notes

pinkgirl94 · 6 years

Text

SOKOKU -Underworld’s Nightmare- Prologue

This is my first BSD fanfic & still writing right now. Please give me your impressions, opinions or whatever about my writing. I’ll be glad to read them. Enjoy reading!

Sokoku

In Japanese, it means Double Black. For what I know, it is a duo formed for annihilating people with no self-pity, filled with black hearts.

Black is a symbol of evil, blindness, mystery, death, sins and other meanings I can find especially in literature.

In Bungo Stray Dogs, black and white are the color representatives that stand out to me throughout the story. Yokohama, a port city in Kanagawa prefecture, where the story is set.

During the day, when the sun rises above and lights the world, people come out of their house and start their own tasks like a colony of ants come out of their nest and do their duty.

Students attend to their school and study, company men and women went to their office to report their duties, shops, cafes and other places open for business, and vehicles drive on the road.

The city is just like a normal one, like any other places in my view but behind it there is a dark side when the sun goes down and a gloomy but aesthetic full moon shows up. At night, many criminals crawl out from the shadow to pursue their sins of crimes.

There are some groups which have a few special ability users like the Port Mafia. Those group of ability users are the kind of people to control and terminate the people who will get in their way. They are dangerous people but not all of them are that kind.

Because of these crime activities, the government already made a department, known as Special Ability Department, that specializes in monitoring the ability users in the whole nation, even foreign ability users who will come to visit. The department also has ability users for handling the cases regarding that matter.

Other than a government department, there are also a few other organizations which also have ability users to use their ability for good especially solving crimes that normal detectives and the police cannot do such as Armed Detective Agency.

In Yokohama, the government, along with military police, handle the cases at day. At night, the criminal organizations take over the city.

The city is always in the midst of war between special ability organizations. In order to reach the balance and peace of the city, a certain person named Natsume Soseki made his plan by, as a start, created a duo. A strong but dangerous duo.

Fukuzawa and Mori

At first, both of them never knew nor met each other before. Fukuzawa Yukichi used to work at the government as a bodyguard. He was a lone wolf who never wanted to work with anyone until he met a young boy named Edogawa Ranpo.

Mori Ogai was an underground doctor who, had his own clinic, worked in the slum where poor and street rats stay. He always bring a doll-like little girl named Elise to his office and spoils her all the time and always by her side.

How did they met?

Twelve years before an establishment of Armed Detective Agency, Natsume gave Fukuzawa a request for protecting Mori. No clear answer why he gave that kind of request but, in order to establish his agency, he accepted it and met him at his clinic for the first time.

They seemed to be never clicked each other. For example, Mori acted indifferent toward Fukuzawa about his fighting skills will become dull and Fukuzawa felt annoying on that. But once in a blue moon, when they faced their enemies, the two of them finished them off like a tornado destroy everything in a flash.

At one night, Mori captured by the foreign criminal gang from South America. The gang captured him because he was an information broker so they will require his knowledge of Port Mafia’s armory location by torturing him. Fukuzawa then came to their hideout and save Mori.

It was impossible for a man get through tight security filled with armed men but, for Fukuzawa, he killed them all easily. After that, it was Mori’s turn to kill other men in the same room as him.

Fukuzawa uses his katana to kill the enemies and Mori hiding his bloodlust to trick them until he took out his scalpel to either slice or throw at their throat. Both of them are the unstoppable that even the top assassins cannot lift his finger to stop them.

This is how the first generation of Double Black, Fukuzawa and Mori, formed by Natsume. As a writer, I will write the continue tale of them in the first chapter, about finding the true purpose of their fighting alongside together before they become the leaders of their respective organizations.

Dazai and Chuuya

They were the second generation of Double Black under Mori’s care but worked for Port Mafia. These two were not much different when in comes to fight together but, in terms of strategy and fighting style, they were much crueler than Fukuzawa and Mori.

One is a man in mummy-like bandage around his body who showed his inner demon himself and the other is a great fighter with his incredible gravity control ability. All people of the underworld knew them as the worst enemies they have ever encountered.

At the age of fourteen, Dazai picked up by Mori as a patient for attempting suicide. He always a type of person who continuously attempts his suicides but failed many times, always got himself hurt whether by those attempts or by accidents. Mori then brought Dazai along as a witness for his assassination plan.

To kill Port Mafia's predecessor.

Mori told Dazai a cover story and so that he became a new boss of his organization as his own. He kept him safe and alive in order to avoid the suspicious of the predecessor's assassination. To gain the whole organization's trust toward him.

One year passed.

Ever since Mori became a boss, rumors about him assassinated the predecessor spread around the Port Mafia. He even heard a rumor about the predecessor, who supposedly dead and properly buried, was alive and caused ruckus in their turf. If anyone learn about his assassination plan, then his position as a boss will be lost.

So Mori leave the investigation of predecessor to Dazai and, during his investigation, that is how he met a young boy as the same age as him, Nakahara Chuya, previously knew as King of the Sheep.

Chuuya is a natural fighter who only uses his legs to brutally kick his opponents like how he kicked Dazai when they first met. He never use his hands to fight until now. He also possess a special ability to manipulate gravity around him and his enemies will be crushed suffocating by touching him even the slightest hit.

When Chuya captured by Dazai, thanked to his ability-nullification ability, and Hirotsu, another ability user and the person who tag along for the investigation, Mori decided to let Dazai and Chuuya to investigate together.

Both Dazai and Chuuya disagreed together at first but Mori explained that things will work well by working together, with Dazai’s nullification and Chuuya’s fighting skills and ability, so they ended up investigate together. All that time, they always arguing and fighting each other like the small brats fighting over the small problems.

Throughout their investigation, they confirmed that the predecessor was not actually alive but it was a being called Arahabaki, known as a god of calamity, that can shape-shifting its body controlled by another ability user. Chuuya revealed himself that Arahabaki they saw was not a real one but actually himself because of his past.

Chuuya’s past is not a happy memory not because he was abused or tortured by someone nor started a harsh life like any characters you have seen in other stories who met their unfortunate fate. He was an empty shell, mere human body.

Eight, years ago, Chuuya was born as a vessel to Arahabaki and sealed away by the Japanese military. One day, two men, Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, infiltrated the military base to take Arahabaki’s power but failed because Arahabaki was fully freed.

Arahabaki now merged with Chuuya and made his own personality and will but they lost their memories before the age of seven. Chuuya only recalled someone reached out to his hand and freed him from the seal.

Dazai and Chuuya found who controlled Arahabaki. It was Rando, a Port Mafia executive and his real name is Arthur Rimbaud, with his ability called “Illumination” that conjure hyperspace subregion. He joined Port Mafia in order to find Chuuya and kill him but failed to do so because Dazai and Chuuya defeated him in the end.

On Rando’s final breath, he gave Chuuya his final wish which is to keep living as a human being. Chuuya accepted his wish and still keeping onto him after that.

One month later.

Dazai finally became a mafioso and executive and made his own squadron. Chuuya also became a mafioso and even received Rando’s hat from Mori as a custom way of officially joining by giving a piece of clothing.

For the sake of continuing the event of their tale, I am going to write a chapter about an event when they fight against an enemy organization and made a debut as Sokoku which you never seen or read in the original work.

Atsushi and Akutagawa

Atsushi is an orphan and main protagonist of the series. At first, he had a low self-esteem, always considered himself useless by the people from his former orphanage especially the headmaster himself. After Dazai pick him up from the riverside while he was in a state of starvation, he recommended him to join the Armed Detective Agency and his life changed after meeting new people and slowly gain his self-worth.

Akutagawa is one of the antagonists and a member of the Port Mafia. He calls himself as Port Mafia’s dog and the agency members refer him as the most troublesome and dangerous ability user to be captured. Like Atsushi, he is an orphan along with his younger sister, Gin. They were raised in the slums of the city with other orphans. After the orphans were shot dead by a group of criminals and only him and her sister survived, Dazai picked them up, giving him a reason to live, to become stronger and get a praise from his teacher.

Their first meeting started with a bounty. The Port Mafia received an info from the Guild, a North America special ability organization, about a weretiger that needed to be captured with a big reward and that weretiger is Atsushi. They attempted to capture him a few times but Atsushi still be saved and protected by the detective agency.

In the last resort, Akutagawa successfully captured Atsushi and ready to deliver but Kyoka, a former assassin who became a detective agency member, tried to save him. Seeing her self-sacrifice for him in Atsushi’s eyes made him to save her and fight Akutagawa. That is when he finally begin gaining his self-confidence.

Both Atsushi and Akutagawa are always fighting in both physical and oral for their different resolve. Atsushi, who sacrifices himself to gain his right to live, and Akutagawa, who seeks an approve from a certain person, are likely same to gain something but different in terms of characteristics and morals.

During their final fight against Francis Fitzgerald, the Guild’s boss, they always arguing over their resolve like the stray dogs barking each other for finding out who is right and who is wrong and Francis saw them that way.

Which is why Dazai forced them to work together to defeat the boss and test his theory if their power have the potential to become a stronger duo than the previous Double Black pairs and he is right all along. Francis defeat with their combined abilities.

With Atsushi’s white tiger ability and Akutagawa’s black beast Rashomon, both of them are an unstoppable pair and that is the start of the new generation of Double Black, Shin Sokoku. Their tale of their fight is yet to end as I will write which they will face a new antagonist after the three-way war.

These three pairs are ferocious groups. Each character have different ideals and believe but their bond of fighting alongside is much stronger than we thought. When their tale is about to unfold, what are their string of fate lead to? Please enjoy reading them.

#fukuzawa yukichi #mori ougai #dazai osamu #nakahara chuuya #nakajima atsushi #akutagawa ryunosuke #soukoku generations #soukoku #shin soukoku #my fanfic #bsd fanfic #bungou stray dogs

10 notes · View notes

timeskip · 5 years

Text

Bsd season 3 episode 3 spoilers and complaints under the cut. I swear I liked the episode overall but when compared to the novel... uhhhh not to sound like a person who complains when the anime isn’t Exactly like the source material but I have so many things I liked better in the novel...

(References a lot of the novel. I used this summary/translation to understand the novel, so that specifically is what I know of the novel. Sorry for this turning into me just spilling into my appreciation for the novel and Chuuya as a character and how it just doesn’t show up in the anime... oops.)

This is so messy so I’m sorry it’s like mostly notes about differences with no explanation but:

Okay but the most out of place thing in s3e3 was definitely Chuuya mentioning that Randou/Rimbaud lost his memories from trauma. Like, I know that because of the light novel, but there was no mention of it before AT ALL. How does Chuuya know that. HOW.

Also urghhhh Chuuya’s character development is taken apart good god. He has his whole thing about humanity, sure, but it’s more brushed over in the anime version. His whole thing was trying to understand Arahabaki, where he came from, where his memories were all that time. And Rimbaud tells Chuuya all about Arahabaki, and the frame, and there’s so much more emphasis!

And Dazai makes a plan, asks Chuuya to trust him in his plan, which could’ve been taken as compared to the way they acted with Corruption, but nope. They cut that out and I mean, their talk about how Dazai wanted to live and be part of the mafia wasn’t too different but I still felt it, you know? I think it might’ve been the lack of cheerfulness, the lack of laughing at Chuuya even in the dangerous situation.

Rimbaud’s characterization takes a hit bc they just... make him different I guess? He doesn’t ahve the struggle with putting together his memories of his friend, he doesn’t have the motivation powered by Verlaine until he’s about to die.

WHICH then makes Chuuya’s development go down a bit as well. Bc he has this whole thing about organizations, about the role of himself in the Sheep, his insistence that he’s just a trump card, the buildup prior of Dazai pointing out that Chuuya’s forced to work for them. Chuuya’s whole arc here is about finding himself to be human and choosing to work for the mafia because he wants to understand protecting a group better, he wants to succeed where he once failed. He wants to use Arahabaki, that artificial ability that he was given, in order to further the mafia that has given him an opportunity. He wants to, as Rimbaud tells him to, live.

And while in the novel, we have the building of this tension, of sorts, of Chuuya being betrayed (which, i’ll admit, was done quite well in the anime) but the latter part of him joining the mafia because he wants to figure out the real camaraderie of the mafia is weakened by not bringing it into the fight with Rimbaud. Without mentioning Verlaine until the end, we lose some of Chuuya’s amazing characterization, and lose most of Rimbaud’s good points as well.

AND THEN we have Dazai’s reaction to this information, or lack thereof. Part of the interesting thing about fifteen year old Dazai is seeing how he doesn’t understand Chuuya’s drive, doesn’t understand the organization. He’s in the mafia not for the people but for himself, for the death and destruction that he will create, just to find a bit more life for himself. More than that, it connects to what we already know about Dazai, like his eventual relationship with Odasaku and the ADA.

See, Chuuya is an amazing character. He wants to find a reason to be attached to himself, even if he is just a Being like Arahabaki is. Even if Chuuya is nothing, he wants to find a reason to live, like so many other BSD characters. But then we get the realization that Chuuya is his own self! Which is amazing!! He respects Rimbaud as a rival because he can understand him and his devotion to Verlaine, but it’s also really interesting how he faces him without hiding his hands. The idea of that, while addressed in the anime, isn’t done very well, because Chuuya’s whole thing is played so much more dramatically. He wants to find any attachment at all to himself.

The underplaying of Chuuya’s issues really takes away a lot! And like, Rimbaud and Dazai’s characterization suffers! And the playing between comparing Chuuya to Dazai (their motives to join the mafia vs their wills to live vs their ideas on organizations) and Chuuya and Rimbaud (their determination for their ideas/partners/organizations vs their respective drives to understand themselves and the spaces in between the memories they lost...) goes away too argh

The second half of the episode is done really well and all, from the Sheep betrayal scene to the Kouyou/Chuuya meeting Dazai/Mori/Q scene to the scene with Mori giving Chuuya Rimbaud’s hat, but a lot of the impact of that, too, is lessened by Chuuya and Rimbaud not having as strong a connection with their development, and especially Chuuya’s development.

#i'm a little salty abt the episode okay? okay #long post #under the cut #so many people really like the episode and i don't mean to ruin that or anything!!!

0 notes