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Bsd Verlaine - Blog Posts
And then Verlaine find Atsushi in a random alley and decides to adopt him too
Hear me out: Verlaine and Rimbaud living happily in a ranch house in the French countryside with Chuuya who they adopted (read: stole). They live happily away from the control of any of their governments who want to use them.
And then a few years later, a group of kids, two of whom are currently younger than Chuuya, show up at their door asking for a place to stay for the night.
Verlaine does some digging and convinces Rimbaud to take them in.
And now Verlaine, who claims to be so far detached from humanity, is raising a bunch of kids.
Just like cute domestic moments with them too.
Teruko aging Chuuya up and him not getting any taller and getting upset
Tachihara tripping and scratching his nose and Verlaine cleans it and puts a bandaid on
Rimbaud using his ability when Jouno gets overwhelmed by things like thunderstorms
Tecchou eating his silly food combos and Verlaine, assuming this is normal people diet, joining in
They’re very careful about keeping them hidden because Rimbaud is worried the Japanese government will look for them (Verlaine and Chuuya both claim they would kick their asses causing Rimbaud to roll his eyes and kiss Verlaine and Chuuya to gag)
But eventually as time goes by, they calm down a bit
So we get Verlaine, Rimbaud, and their small army of government science projects at the amusement park and doing happy family activities and things like that
I feel like a lot of people misunderstand the relationship between Verlaine and Chuuya. There's a lot of argument over whether they're biologically brothers or not. That's not the point. The point is how they came into the world and their unnatural birth. Or, at least, how Verlaine perceives it. He sees both him and Chuuya as artificial beings that will never be human no matter how hard they may try, so they may as well stop trying to fit in with these disgusting humans and just find solace in each other. He calls Chuuya his brother because he feels like he's the only one who can truly understand what he's going through. Their "brothership" stems from their shared existence as artificial beings. This is why Chuuya rejects it so violently at first. He doesn't want to be anything like the man who slaughtered his friends. He wants to be human.
Then, throughout the book, Chuuya comes to accept that however he came into this world, naturally or otherwise, he chooses to be human, and that's what it's important. His actions are what make him human. Verlaine learns this, too, but it's already far too late. He, too, had the chance to be human, but he was too focused on the possibility of being inhuman instead of actually trying to be a good person or to accept the care and support of his friend, Rimbaud, and now, he's gone. That is the tragedy of his story. He always had the opportunity to be human, but he threw it away for the sake of anger and hatred.
Only when they have both learned this lesson that Chuuya accepts Verlaine as his brother. Not because they're biologically related or anything, but because they do have this shared experience with one another, and he's here for him. Not because he forgives him for what he did. But because he has an opportunity to be better.
I love stormbringer. It's so good. Anyone reading this who hasn't read it, READ IT!! IF YOU LIKE CHUUYA AT ALL, YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK! IT'S SO IMPORTANT TO HIS CHARACTER!
This ^^^
Bungo Stray Dogs and the separateness of Childhood - a sociological view
[So a large portion of this is left over from when I was revising sociology for my alevels, which were done over a month ago now (wow). So I hope there's people out there who find this interesting, it's nice to post this since it goes back to my roots of what started me on tumblr in the first place (sociological analysis, but of MTP). Also this has Stormbringer spoilers.]
Sociologists agree that childhood is a social construct (a concept in society with no fixed definition). The definition of childhood changes depending on culture and time, so it is not universal or 'natural'. Bungo Stray Dogs portrays a definition of childhood much different to many of our own cultures, and part of its presentation is something I want to look into.
The main idea to look at is Jane Pilcher's idea of 'separateness' - childhood as a clear and distinct stage of life in which children are considered physically and psychologically incompetent and unable to run their own lives. This idea of separateness often leads to childhood being considered a 'golden age' of play and having a lack of responsibility. In BSD, the idea of childhood as a separate stage is not as clear - many children 16 or under are seen working in (or looking for) employment much like adults would do. For example, in Stormbringer Shirase (who is 16) works in a car factory, Yosano at age 11 is said to work in a confectionery store (we don't know if this was family owned or not though), and Ranpo in Untold Origins (aged 14) looking for a job when he meets Fukuzawa. With this information we can gather that children have to take the responsibility of work from a younger age than many cultures (for instance where I lived children have to be in education until 18) and that from as young as 11 they are able to employment.
Consider the other children present - the Akutagawa siblings living on the streets for many years without parents or financial support, Kyouka and Q (as well as teenagers like Dazai and Chuuya) being part of the mafia from a young age, Kenji in his village, Chuuya and Mary Wollstonecraft in Stormbringer, and Atsushi living in the orphanage. All of these have different notions of childhood attached to them.
The Akutagawa siblings learnt to support themselves from a young age. Their group of fellow homeless children act as proof of a wide child poverty issue, one which represent the effects of a lack of child welfare support by the government or the effects of the many casualties in the Great War (leaving many without parents). The lack of child welfare support may show a general lack of the idea of separateness, since specialist support for children is not available.
The abundance of children in the mafia, especially those who reach the higher ranks of executives like Dazai and Chuuya by the age of 16, show a distinct lack of recognition of childhood as a separate stage. Those who are children don't seem to be treated much differently to the adults, which is especially apparent in Q and Kyouka's missions (where Kyouka in her first mission we see being considered disposable by the mafia).
Kenji's childhood on paper seems the closest to many farming cultures in our world. He works on a farm from a young age, as many people in his village and in real life farming families do. The recruitment of him to the detective agency however, suggests that (despite his youth) his ability makes him fit for the job. This somewhat leads on to the idea that children with abilities are seen as more mature and subjected to more adult activities and topics from a younger age, with their allowance of separateness smaller than that of non-ability user children.
A few other Stormbringer examples - Mary Wollstonecraft is only 10 years old as of Stormbringer, and yet she is working for the European governments and making robot agents for them. Young children working for governments is a clear example of a lack of separation between child and adult. Another, and arguably much worse example, is Chuuya and Verlaine - both experimented on by scientists/the government and infused with singularities via force. Chuuya is also canonically cloned. Verlaine and Chuuya, in their experimentation, are not treated much differently, despite Verlaine being an adult and Chuuya being around 5 at the time of his kidnapping/start of experimentation. This suggests a lack of seperateness yet again. There is a lot more that could be said about the whole 'cloning/made into a weapon' part of their story, but this is not the post for that.
A more recent one - Teruko. Because of her unique ability to change her age means that within the first few months of her life she was forced to fight in war. She's actually forced to bypass her own childhood for the war effort, and therefore her childlike demeanour during the Decay of Angels arc may be to try and harness what she missed out on. Her ability in itself could also play into the 'old age is a social construct' argument too maybe but again, not the post.
Atsushi's childhood in an orphanage at first seems to match the ideas of childhood as a separate stage dependent on others. The purpose of orphanages is to raise children without parents and help them prepare for the world, but Atsushi's experiences of abuse shows that his ability, to the orphanage director, makes him undeserving of this separate stage. Instead he is abused and eventually kicked out with no real support. This being able to go on unchecked alongside the other examples brings me to my conclusion about the definition of childhood in Yokohama/the surrrounding villages/possibly the world are not being considered a separate 'golden age' to the same standards as our world.
As mentioned earlier, children who are ability users are less likely to have this construct of seperateness include them. In sociology, labels and constructs are assigned by people and society, and so in this universe there are many adults who have removed this construct from ability users' lives in their childhood. Yosano is the clearest example of this - Mori takes her away from her experience of childhood and places her in a war zone, where she, despite being 11 years of age, is treated like an adult and (because of her ability) is placed on a pedestal by the solders. She's stripped of her childhood through not only the standards placed upon her, but the trauma she endures in the war zone - leaving her to spend what remained of her childhood in a psych ward until Fukuzawa is able to take her in.
Ability user children, via circumstances or adult intervention, do not get to experience childhood in the way other children do because that label is stripped away from them. This is most usually because they pose some asset to an organisation or campaign - and this can include the ADA too. Just because the ADA offers a more healthy and safer environment for the children than other organisations, it is still putting children into work and treating them the same as adults. How ethical this is, is in itself another question that I don't think I can give an answer to. But I could honestly talk about how ability user children are treated differently in a whole other essay.
[I do not have much else to say now about this specific area but it's probably better to post than just to let sit in the drafts as it has done for a while. So no proper conclusion sorry.]
Guys new headcanon just dropped:
Rimbaud has never really been a fan of people touching his hair. He doesn’t even let anyone but himself cut it.
But, when he’s stressed, he likes to braid it. It helps keep him busy.
Now, what if Verlaine happened upon Rimbaud doing this one day, and wanted to learn how to braid too.
Rimbaud teaches Verlaine how to braid, and Verlaine starts wearing braids in his hair regularly. (Even after Rimbaud’s death, despite it reminding him of what he lost.)
It is just like how he hangs on to the hat Rimbaud gave him. It helps him to establish his own identity a little bit. It also gives him a quiet way to honor Rimbaud’s memory.
plush Verlaine’s first adventure is the Texas outdoors
video includes @ackitscaramel teehee
if Rimbaud did successfully manage to use Chuuya as a puppet would Verlaine know or would he have to find out when he eventually comes to Yokohama for Chuuya
i could be overthinking this concept but i haven’t seen anything written about it
obviously you were implying rimbaud was a top with you saying he would rip off verlaine's limb. yes he did SAY that but he never did. physically rimbaud is shorter, thinner, and weaker than verlaine (who protects him after his creator died). rimbaud doesnt fight much and when he did chuuya killed him. he also has medical issues. do you seriously think with all that he can top? no. verlaine has more muscles because he was bred to be stronger (think of selective breeding but cloning dna). i dont get why you want to be out of character so bad. your not even funny your just spreading misinformation
“Rimbud, as your alpha boyfriend i must protect you after my creator died…. thats what im lab bred like a (bungo stray) dog(s) to be muscular and why im so triangular and buff…”
“T-Thank you, V-Verlaine kun!” *puppets a corpse for a year*
you inspired me to draw and write this… might be my best work… heh…
y’all gonna need to pry this gif maker website out of my cold dead hands i cannot stop making these
i wish Verlaine would appear in the new chapter of the main series. but judging on everything going on i can just imagine him hearing the chaos outside in the Port Mafia basement like this
Dazai: I’m sorry. Who are you again?
Verlaine: Your future brother-in-law
Chuuya: The fuck you are!