Do you have any theories as to why Albatross always covers his eyes?
You have unleashed a monster
I have a few sort of nebulous clusters of theories about it, some of which could be right simultaneously. I'm sure you've thought of some or all of these things but I'm putting all but my most far-fetched theories on the table
First, wearing sunglasses all the time is so common among the lower ranks of the Port Mafia that suits and sunglasses are repeatedly mentioned in Dark Era as a signifier of mafiosi. It seems like a uniform pretty much anyone plot-significant enough to have a name doesn't have to bother with if they don't want to but might wear at important moments. Aside from Albatross' eternal shades and Kajii's goggles, Higuchi wears sunglasses to reveal herself as Port Mafia, ADA Dazai wears them to see mafia records, Akutagawa wears them off-duty, Verlaine wears them to impersonate a mailman—who would have fallen at least partly under Albatross' jurisdiction—and Chuuya wears them but not on his face and only in Stormbringer as far as I can remember. They're also worn by non-PM gang members whose clothing style is a bit like Albatross'. The sunglasses could indicate Albatross' background, lack of pretension, closeness to those he leads in battle, forthcoming death at the hands of another blond with a little braid and sunglasses, and/or how the mafia and the people in it have worked their ways into Chuuya's life. Maybe Chuuya got his sunglasses from Albatross, maybe they both got them from someone else after joining the PM, or maybe neither. Anyway, Albatross and Chuuya having a fashion statement in common (different as the frames are) and Verlaine briefly sharing it in the time leading up to Albatross' death feels like it could be significant
They could also be for practical reasons, job-related or other. Albatross probably needs them a lot while dealing with vehicles, to keep light and detritus out of his eyes. If he always has them on, he's always ready to go. If he always has them on, even when it's dark out, he's gradually making himself more and more sensitive to light, may become too light-sensitive to go without them, and, if he keeps it up for a really long time, may end up with permanent eye damage. Albatross could have migraine-related, medication-related, or other light sensitivity; if he does, it's also symbolic or writer-related because it has no influence on the plot. A mafioso gradually becoming more and more accustomed to the darkness until he can't handle looking at light could fit the darkness/light symbolism in BSD and/or in Baudelaire's writing
Speaking of darkness/light symbolism, the most glaring thing about the sunglasses is that they hide his eyes and Harukawa is notoriously fond of symbolic eye shading. She's stated that the more "tainted" a character is, the darker their eyes tend to be; PM characters tend to have larger pupils; and characters who can still return to the good side tend to have light in their eyes more. Chuuya's eyes in his 15 and SB portraits are dark with pinpricks of light for pupils which are gone by the main era (but he has light in his eyes in some manga panels), Iceman's totally dark, Doc's light with large dark vertical pupils, Lippmann's rather light, Piano Man's partway between Lippmann's and Doc's, Verlaine's surprisingly light but with odd pupils, Adam's unsurprisingly light and with odd pupils, etc. Behind her sunglasses, Higuchi's eyes are as huge and bright as Kenji's; Kajii's, behind his semitransparent goggles, are totally dark. Albatross', though? Who knows? Maybe we're supposed to wonder
There are a few reasons he might want to hide his eyes. He could be trying to make himself harder to read, hiding eye trauma, hiding the color for some reason (self-consciousness? to make himself harder to identify?) or, as is commonly assumed about those wearing sunglasses at night, hiding signs of substance use. Chuuya says, with possible hyperbole, that Albatross goes on nightly benders; Baudelaire wrote extensively about alcohol, opium and hashish; and whether it was Asagiri or Hoshikawa's choice, Albatross is seen actively drinking the most at the party
As for the Baudelaire angle, I've looked and looked in Les Fleurs du mal and while eyes are mentioned over seventy times in the 1861 edition, which seems like an unusually high number even considering how common eyes are in poetry, nothing stands out as a clear possible inspiration. The eyes there tend to be burning, full of tears (which one might smile through), alluring, fatal, hollow, deep, dark, and/or green and are seldom hidden. I have yet to read most of Le Spleen de Paris and have read next to nothing from Baudelaire's other works, so I may be missing something obvious and major from one of them or overlooking something in LFM
The most potentially relevant-seeming bits in LFM include eyes whose color can't be determined which seem as if hidden by a vapor in "Ciel brouillé", "eyes where nothing is revealed / [o]f bitter or sweet, / ...two cold jewels where are mingled / [i]ron and gold" in "Le Serpent qui danse" (William Aggeler translation), consumed/burned-out eyes in "Les Plaintes d'un Icare", eyes like grottos where treasures sparkle behind shadows in “Les Yeux de Berthe”, a jet-eyed statue comparison in "Je te donne ces vers afin que si mon nom", hollow eyes in several poems including "La Muse malade", a light which mortal eyes are but sad mirrors for in "Bénédiction", a woman with polished eyes made of minerals in "Avec ses vêtements ondoyants et nacrés", the abysses Death personified has where eyes would be in "Danse macabre", eyes of mixed metal and agate in "Le Chat (Viens, mon beau chat)", and pure mirror eyes in "La Beauté". Most of those poems don't seem terribly Albatross-relevant overall and Albatross taking his appearance partly from a cat or the personification of beauty seems especially unlikely but you never know
Seeing imaginary or hallucinatory things in the darkness, including nonexistent/faraway locales, is a motif in LFM, though the only decent examples I can think of at the moment are in "La Voix", "Le Voyage", and "Obsession". The first two are pretty Albatross-ish. Beyond that, there's so much darkness and light symbolism that separating any of it out as more or less likely to be relevant would be a tall task
In IRL Rimbaud's famous "Lettre du Voyant" ("Letter of the Seer"), he calls Baudelaire "the first seer" but also says that he lived in too artistic a milieu and his forms were petty/not novel enough, which could be why Albatross' eyes have attention drawn to them via their hiddenness, though that seems like a stretch
Whether it was a coincidence or not, I find it compelling that Baudelaire was said to have a mostly impassive face but highly expressive eyes, which were one of his main means of communication after a stroke took away his ability to say anything other than "crénom", and used a lot of eye symbolism in his poetry, whereas Albatross often has a cheerful look on his face and is very expressive but hides his eyes and loses the ability to see before he dies
...
I think a few of these could make sense. There are likely other logical explanations, and even if the truth were that Asagiri took the burning fatal eyes thing literally and Albatross wears shades to spare the world from his Medusa lasers, we’ll probably never know
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I'm curious about the Boss Lippmann AU and also can't help but ask about "Alabama? Why Alabama?" (For the wip game)
The idea behind the Boss Lippmann AU is that Lippmann could be a really effective boss but probably wouldn't want the job and for him to be more valuable to the PM as Boss than as he is would take a disaster. It's mostly character exploration, angst, and worldbuilding
He assumes control after an absolute catastrophe which has given me no end of grief in trying to make it sound vaguely reasonable where one Ability forced together others and set off a slew of singularities, leaving over half of Yokohama's skill users and many non-skill users dead or seriously injured and a lot of infrastructure damaged. In the absence of anyone else qualified, Lippmann gives up acting and has to figure out how to run the mafia when most of its higher-ups and best fighters are gone, the city is vulnerable, and half the Flags just died. No one knows what happened to Piano Man but Lippmann can't afford to take the time to find out. As his secret weapons, Lippmann has Ango, since the government's emergency aid response is so ghastly that he only half has to be blackmailed into being a quadruple(?) agent, and Mushitarō, who Lippmann met due to the crisis and whose Ability is incredibly useful to a criminal used to exerting power through public opinion
On a lighter note, “Alabama? Why Alabama?" is the current first line in an untitled crack fic where the Flags attempt to plan and maybe go on an overambitious road trip through the US. Doc’s second most ludicrously inconvenient itinerary request is that they go to Alabama for the Ave Maria Grotto and Huntsville’s Eggbeater Jesus
Oh wait I'm also curious about the Lippmann and Ango Dragon Head wip
Since Lippmann taking part in a gang war would be bad PR, he instead works on the information side of things with Ango, who he knows is a mole and is gradually befriending through a trust built on mutually assured destruction. Under other circumstances, they might have tried to thwart some of each other’s efforts, but as it is, all either can do is try to keep up with the conflict from the eye of the storm
It’s a mix of Lippmann and Ango interactions, occasional visitors from the front lines, and their records and reports
If Verlaine hadn’t killed all those mafiosi, the state of the Port Mafia’s fighting forces at the time of the Dragon’s Head Conflict ought to have been enough stronger to potentially change events quite a bit, which I haven’t figured out how to account for yet
