#randou

Rimbaud is a character that, despite being the main antagonist for his own novel, has very little screen time. Rather, he primarily haunts the narrative of Stormbringer. That being said, I think there's still quite a bit to glean from the moments he does have. This analysis will be in three parts, starting with his past.

There is admittedly much less information on his past than anything else I'm going to touch on in later analysis. All that we know from his early life comes from this excerpt from his journal:

A small line, and yet extremely telling. What's important to remember is that Rimbaud rescued Verlaine from the lab when he was merely fifteen with the Transcendents. Thus, this is referencing a life he had before then.

The first thing of note is that he mentions he was in prison before this point. It suggests in some way that he was a troubled kid if he was already having issues at such a young age. He has an extremely powerful ability and was likely approached by the French government during this time due to the potential use of his ability. I find it interesting how willing Rimbaud was to leave his connections behind and fake his death, either suggesting he had no strong connections at home or that he was manipulated/coerced in a similar manner as the Port Mafia. I suspect a mix of both. Regardless of the answer, it shows the Transcendents and the French government as an inherently corrupted group that targets and exploits vulnerable youth, especially when Verlaine is brought into the equation.

I suspect that his home life wasn't excellent, if he was engaging in risky behaviours so young such as smoking, crime, and having what he calls a "paramour".

I've seen some discourse over that specifically. Let's talk about that word for a second. "Webster's dictionary defines ☝️🤓" paramour as an illicit or secret lover. To me, this line has always seemed like further evidence of risky behaviour. Asagiri thrives best in character writing, realistic human behaviour, and trauma. Bungou Stray Dogs has never once shied away from dark or uncomfortable topics, and I think it does a huge disservice to yourself and the media you're engaging with to not ask why something is being portrayed that way. Especially when you compare this to Arthur Rimbaud.

It's also common knowledge that the IRL Arthur Rimbaud was a queer man. In his early life he was incredibly rebellious, running away to join the Paris commune as a teenager to escape his overly strict mother. He was openly gay and sleeping with Verlaine, and rejected any social norms. It was a huge factor that made him run off with Verlaine at 17 and why he became interested in literature to begin with. Asagiri loves to plant little details into characters that draw from the real life author's life. You can find many examples of this through Rimbaud but him running from his family to join the Trancendents at a young age is awfully reminiscent of that, and lends credence to my theory that his home life was poor and he acted out.

Back to the topic of the word "paramour" and how it's related between BSD Rimbaud and IRL Rimbaud, it is impossible for Asagiri to not have known about Rimbaud's queerness when it was a huge factor in his identity and life, and of course, Verlaine. Paramour being a gender neutral term for a secret lover with this context does make me wonder if the intention was to hint at this, as being gay is pretty obviously seen as taboo even now. Asagiri is extremely intentional in all of his characters, a fact that becomes painfully clear when you look at any author in BSD and compare them with their fictional counterparts.

A counter theory I have to my previous point is that he had a mishap with his ability due to a lack of control that landed him in prison and alerted the government of his ability. I find this less likely. Unsure of where else to put this.

Rimbaud is a very small character, but he was just as carefully crafted as every other character. Him being manipulated in some way, possibly groomed, into the Transcendents at a young age adds a lot of depth to his character in my opinion. Rimbaud struggles greatly with empathy and connection, which I believe is partially a factor of this. He too spent a long time isolated, though to a lesser extent than Verlaine. Bungou Stray Dogs holds heavy themes around abuse, trauma, and mental illness and that is reflected in every character, including our beloved homosexual boykisser.

DERANGEMENT OF ALL SENSES OR WHATEVER RIMBAUD SAID

My literature teacher saw this books and said that Rimbaud was a revolutionary figure in the history of poetry. I think she likes him.

I think Amethio is gonna find out about Mighty G's identity lol.

It would be funny honestly shshsjsks.

Notes : so I read through literally every verlaine and rimbaud x reader on here AGAIN last night and there's not nearly enough out there so uhhh...here have this 😂

Please read the warnings, I'm not 100% sure how tagging works on Tumblr anymore so read at your own discretion, most warnings are only brief but I thought I'd include them anyway!

ALSO

Randou’s subspace is especially interesting to me because I think he may have somehow shared his ability with Chuuya? Or that first contact with Randou’s skill when Chuuya was freed somehow influenced the development of his own unfinished and incomplete skill? Which would work really well with my theories about how his gravity manipulation works?

I mean, Randou’s gift is literally creating a pocket dimension at will and controlling everything within it, including space time. Which is how I interpret Chuuya’s ability working. Like it says that Chuuya manipulates the force of gravity on an object, but gravity isn’t actually a force so much as a function of the curvature of space time. Mass doesn’t pull on other mass, the existence of mass warps space time. Like if you’re sitting on a trampoline and someone throws a ball onto it the ball will roll towards you. It’s like that but on a three dimensional plane. Gravity isn’t a force operating on individual objects. So to manipulate it the way Chuuya does he can’t just… change the effect of gravity on a single object because gravity isn’t contained. What he’d have to do is create gravity and somehow have it only affect a specific object, a feat which can only be achieved if that gravity doesn’t exist on this plane of existence and the object being manipulated somehow exists in both planes. Or if Chuuya is able to control how much the gravity of his own subspace affects reality, because it is a viable theory that “dark matter” is actually the gravity of higher dimensions we can’t observe leaking into our universe. Anyway I’m definitely getting off track.

My point was this: