#Baccano! ~From the 1700s~

[agallimaufryofoddments]

For those of you who are also slow on the uptake, Chapter(?) 3 of the Baccano! ~from the 1700s~ manga released on January 25. The best time for us to buy it was release day, but buying it is better late than never. As always, (the prospect of) new Baccano! media depends on consumer support.

Buy it despite DMM's "DMN" DRM, for we have no choice.

On the one hand, I hate DRM. On the other, if selling this manga via a DRM-strict retailer/platform succeeds in making people purchase it when they would have otherwise tried reading it for free, then. Fine. FiNe.

Remember to rate each installment. I think it's possible to do it without leaving a review: read the chapter in your browser, click the star on the end page, then click five stars on the review input form that pops up. It seems to save my five star rating even when I navigate away from the form. Leaving reviews themselves wouldn't hurt, unless...they're in English...probably. Do you think we could get away with leaving machine-translated ones? How many strangely-written reviews would it take to sound the 'overseas purchaser' alarm?

Edit: Or maybe not. The ratings I ‘gave’ aren’t reflecting on the listings for 2 and 3. Maybe a review is necessary after all.

Chapter 3 reactions under the cut.

Looks like this depicts parts of LN11 Interlude II and Chapter 4. I did have to manually transcribe some of the dialogue. This took way more time than I can afford.

The opening scene depicts the killing of the 28th victim/witness, an aristocrat named Lord/Sir Alonso. This must be the murder that Larolf reports to Esperanza in the latter half of LN11 Interlude III? Larolf describes the victim as a "boy" who witnessed the Mask Maker right before Niki did in the novel, but this Sir / Lord Alonso is certainly not a child. Hm...

I believe the bit of Niki we see in this chapter is her telling Esperanza the food is delicious from the beginning of Interlude III. However, the manga seems to be omitting the part where Larolf reports [Alonso's] murder? It shows Niki walking away with a maid, whereas Niki runs away when Larolf makes his report...and there's no moment where Esperanza is angered by the bruise on Niki's face per the LN.

Moreover, am I right that the manga also omits Monica and Elmer's encounter with the bald man and Maiza in Chapter 4? There's no marketplace with children singing the MM song, no bald man, no Maiza...

...but the previous chapters also omitted Elmer's first encounter with Maiza, didn't they? So the mangaka's been deliberately holding off on Maiza's introduction from the start. I guess the manga's going to move the bruise reaction, Larolf's report and the bald man/Maiza-Elmer-Monica encounter to another day? How will that account for Elmer's wound, though, since Elmer doesn't show up to class after being stabbed?

I probably need to reread manga chs. 1–2 and actually take note of what was and wasn't adapted. I should do that anyway, since that would be useful for the wiki.

Okay, some positives...

Larolf depicted! (I only know because he was depicted in Chapters 1–2, so this is a belated celebration of a Larolf Hancletia design. Ch.2 gave us Huey's mother, too.)

Warehouse depicted!

Patisserie lady depicted!

Hey, it's Elmer's room at Esperanza's place!

Elmer wounded! Bandages on Mask Maker's arm are neat.

Monica has a lot of fun expressions. Manga is leaning hard into the classic twitterpated teen girl archetype and her 'tells' (big eyes, blushing), and these do serve the purpose.

Denkurou and Zank (albeit seen, not heard)!

Elmer's back scars...

Some mild complaints:

Zank's body should be as dark-skinned as Zank's head. Did the mangaka forget to color the torso? If this is a lighting thing where Zank's head isn't in range of a light source, then Denkurou's body should reflect that too. It's such a weirdly stark difference in hue that it really looks like a coloring error.

Am I allowed to feel lukewarm about Elmer's design? Maybe the fact that I've never seen Elmer with flat (slicked?) hair is throwing me off (aka it's throwing me off a lot), but there's something about his head's shape as well. The big forehead?　The eyebrows floating halfway up the forehead? The flat hair is contibuting to the forehead's largeness.

To be totally fair, this is gawky teen!Elmer, not adult!Elmer, and Elmer on the LN11 cover does have a rounder face (than adult!Elmer) that I guess the manga is honoring.

And...

Elmer's back scars.

I am whelmed. I guess I've built up my mental image of the scars for so long that probably any illustration is doomed not to meet expectations. It might be unfair of me, but I can't help think that a mangaka could go all out on the scars, since they only have to be drawn for 1—3 panels—honestly, why not just devote a full page illustration to it or one panel that fills most of the page?

Ex: Contain Monica's horrified expression + Huey going ??? to one panel. Overlay that (opt. and the next panel) with a small panel of Huey's face to emphasize Huey actively following Monica's gaze. Thus, rather than showing a Huey!POV of Monica looking at Elmer, you could dedicate one big panel exclusively to Elmer's full back and arms. Go all out.

There, one and done.

Here's the LN description of Elmer's scars for comparison.

Elmer was stripped to the waist, squeezing his clothes out, and his back…

…was covered in scars.

And it wasn’t only his back; uncountable scars covered the parts of his arms that had been hidden by his sleeves.

Currently, not a single wound was bleeding, but if all those scars became wounds again, he couldn’t even imagine how much they would have bled—

That was how mutilated Elmer was.

He might have had even more scars than Huey’s mother had in his memories of her.

They weren’t just cuts. There were marks as if something had been used to gouge out divots of flesh, and an enormous burn that covered the top half of his back. Not only that, but the burns appeared to be covering countless more scars.

Where's the enormous burn? Those scars are pretty countable. I see plenty of unmamrred skin. Yep, I'm nitpicking now. Please give my apologies to the mangaka; my expectations were simply too high. Ultimately, I am grateful that Elmer's scars have finally been depicted in an official publication.

(Quick! Enami! Draw Elmer shirtless as a 20th anniversary treat!)

Defying Description

Esperanza

[abyssalplein]

@vilatile — it’s your tumblr sexyman

[rookswarlock]

Its winter season which means a children of bottle reread, two of my faves from the volume and the strange lab

[toushindai]

oh. oh that shot of elmer is downright distressing, 10/10 well done 0/10 does not make me smile at all

[toushindai]

Just hypothetically speaking, I may be able to confirm that it's possible to buy DMM credits through Paypal and then buy the manga using those. maybe. who can say

entire baccano fandom last night: omg can you believe we have a new manga adaptation???? this is crazy!!! baccano fans rise up!!!

entire baccano fandom this morning: I Am Asking You Politely For Your Japanese Credit Card Stop Screaming I Just Want You To Buy Baccano A 1700s Story Online Give Me Your Credit Card Information

[pippenpaddlopsicopolisthethird]

There are Baccano novels???

Where do i read them?

They all have official translations now (as of a few months ago, I think!) and they're available through Yenpress! There's 22 novels, and the anime covers the first three and only a tiny portion of the fourth. If you like ebooks, you shouldn't have a problem getting them all from the publisher, but if you like physical books, you should know that some of the earlier books in the series are out of print and might be tougher to get your hands on.

The novels are really good!! Some of my favorite characters and plot lines don't start to show up until book 6, and the 1934 arc that starts in book 8 is still probably my favorite arc out of any book series I've read to this day. A ton of the fandom is also really invested in the 1700's arcs, which don't start showing up until like book 11, so you'll be able to really dive into a lot of incredible fanfic once you meet those novel-only characters.

[drfeelgreed]

alba can you give us a list of ur top ten favorite baccano character lines / pieces of dialogue ?

OKAYYY okay this is not going to be in any particular order. spoilers WILL be present in this because i'm incapable of doing things like this without also yapping for 10 hours. okay here we go!

"You ain't [seen/heard] nothin' yet!"

This is a short but sweet one. Multiple characters say this in Drug & the Dominoes because a minor throughline of that novel is the then-recent development of silent movies into features with sound. The line is a reference to the first line in the movie The Jazz Singer, which features prominently in the backstory of Kate Gandor, who loses her job as an organist for silent films shortly after the release of the movie. It doesn't really carry too much meaning to any of the characters who say it, but I love repeated bits that are snuck into stories and this one is no exception. As far as I remember, Claire, Isaac, and Miria are the ones to say this prominently, and both in the context of a show; Isaac and Miria when they're showing off their dominos to Firo, and Claire when he's putting on a show during a fight!

"You saved the butterfly. Nothing wrong with that."

Isaac Dian said this one. It happens during one of my favorite exchanges in general during Volume 10: 1934 Peter Pan in Chains! The context is that Isaac and the homunculus hivemind Sham are on a train together, and Sham is curious about Isaac, interrogating him with some philosophical questions. He poses a hypothetical to Isaac---wherein a person walking through the forest saves a butterfly from the spider's web, but in doing so causes the spider to go hungry. Isaac says this as rebuttal, then says that both the butterfly and the spider could get lucky or unlucky to get that kind of help at any time, so individual action doesn't matter. It's very insightful on paper but he kind of talks around himself explaining it to try and make it seem less insightful than it is.

"Drat. I went and left my wallet in the storehouse when we were helping them clean this afternoon." "Eek! We're penniless!" "I think it's probably still there. Could you run out real quick and get it for me?" "Okay! Hang on just a minute, Isaac!"

This one is, as you can probably guess, Isaac and Miria, from Volume 8: 1934 Alice in Jails: Prison. It's longer than the rest of these are going to be but I couldn't leave it out! In this scene, Isaac and Miria are at the Alveare when a cop who recognizes them as thieves sits down with them under the guise of taking them both in and tricking them into admitting their crimes. At some point during the conversation, Isaac sends Miria to get his wallet (which he didn't actually lose) because he KNOWS this guy is a cop and is sending her to safety. She leaves, and when she gets back, Isaac is already gone; the cop is taking him in so Victor Talbot can use him as a pawn in Alcatraz. Miria breaks down sobbing. Rough scene. I think about the wallet exchange OFTEN.

"Maiza. Thank you ... for ... not ... eating ... me ..."

This one's also from Drug & the Dominos. It just has some of my personal favorite lines, haha. This is technically said by two characters on two separate occasions, but I'm specifically talking about the epilogue where Begg says it to Maiza. Begg is one of Maiza's old friends from the 1700s---at least, they were both alchemists at the same time in the same city. Begg was a drug addict and manufacturer and was obsessed with creating the perfect, happy world for himself and others by creating a drug with a permanent high. By the 2000s, his use had put him into a near-catatonic state despite his immortality, and he was barely able to move and generally only spoke as though sleep-talking. Maiza enters his hospital room in the epilogue and considers devouring him out of mercy, but when Begg starts talking out loud to indicate he *has* found happiness in reliving his days before 1711 while he was Czes's guardian, Maiza decides not to eat him. Begg says this as he's about to leave the hospital room. Fucks me up.

"See you around, puppet. I'm going to become 'human' soon."

It's not really a secret that Melvi Dormentaire is one of my favorite characters in all of Baccano!, so a lot of my enjoyment of this line from Volume 21 comes from the intense overanalyzing of it that I've done. It's interesting, because normally when Melvi talks about his fate, he very decisively says he's going to become the next Szilard Quates. And he does say that after this line and a break in dialogue, but... It's just interesting to me, combined with some other characters' estimations of Melvi's character, to look deeper into the thought that his real desire might just be to experience feeling the way a human would, since he wouldn't have ever gotten that opportunity before ...

"I'd like to request a more logical conversation." "Denied. I'm pretty sure I couldn't beat you at logical conversation."

This one's from Volume 8 again. It's an exchange between Huey Laforet and Victor Talbot, and I mostly picked it to represent the entire conversation because it's a particularly funny exchange. Mostly, it's just Huey reminiscing about why Victor had locked him up below Alcatraz in the first place and Victor taking the most swear words possible to say the fewest logical things. These lines sum the whole dynamic up pretty well. I think they should kiss tbh but that's off topic.

"You don't have to keep your promise, either."

Ouch. This one is from Drug & The Dominos too. Two of my favorite characters who got removed entirely from the anime cut of this arc are Edith and her drug-addicted boyfriend Roy Maddock. Roy has a strange hypersensitivity to drugs, and he's tried and failed multiple times to get clean, and because of that his relationship with Edith is hanging by a thread. During the climax of the story after being separated throughout, Roy has resolved to himself to quit for real this time when he's approached by Begg, who's been secretly using Roy to test out his drugs unbeknownst to both of them. When Roy refuses to take his latest prototype, he holds Edith at gunpoint so Roy will shoot up, which has the potential to kill him because of his sensitivity.

Edith is big on promises, and had previously promised Roy that if he got off drugs, she'd stick with him. Roy declares he can't keep his promise as he takes the drug and tells Edith she doesn't have to keep hers either. Begg loosens his grip on Edith... And then Roy uses some shattered glass on the ground to slit both of his wrists to get the drug out of his system or die trying. Thankfully, he does survive and is fully clean as of early 1935.

"Wonderful. You've put on a very interesting show here."

It's a pretty innocuous line by itself but like most of these I'm generally referring to the scenes they take place as part of. This one was also Melvi, from Volume 18, and it's the start of the absolute most BM shit anyone has ever done in all of Baccano!, and I think about it every single day. Melvi, having walked into Firo's casino on one of the most batshit fights of all time, comments on it. Ladd makes a snide comment back that he should pay to watch, and Melvi goes "hm? oh, like this?" and then proceeds to rig 7 straight slot machines in the casino to hit the jackpot. It's the one time Melvi manages to look cool across the whole 1935 arc but damn does he pull it off.

"What's the difference? Even I lived in the usual way---and when I'm dying, I don't want to die... Somebody tell me... What is it? What's the difference?"

This one is Christopher Shaldred, in Volume 7. He's bleeding out on the floor when he says it, having been hit by an attack from someone he hadn't killed at the beginning of this novel. Christopher in general has a strange relationship with humanity at large, considering himself separate from it and therefore having no issue killing people, really. This line marks a change in him, where he begins to question whether he and humanity are really so far apart, and after this he actually struggles to kill people unprovoked because he's finally experienced what dying like an ordinary person feels like. It's important to me. Ok? Ok.

"My gun---is in my heart!"

A classic from Volume 2. It would be a crime not to put this on here. I'd even go as far as calling this the best one of the list! You've seen the anime so you probably remember, but this was said during the fight between Jacuzzi and Goose! Earlier in the story, Isaac and Miria had inspired Jacuzzi to take initiative by telling him a REAL cowboy keeps a gun in his heart ... And Jacuzzi points it at Goose, who mocks him for trying to stop him with literally nothing but a single small cherry bomb from Nice. It's amazing, spectacular, perfect, no notes. Jacuzzi is an icon and the moment.

I love you for asking me to do this. Never ask me to do it again.

[boundlss]

10, 13, and 17 for the Baccano! fandom meme!

10. Character you think is used too much?

i've said this before on other blogs, but i really think niki is used a little too much in the 1700's. i might be biased because i really don't like her very much, but because my enjoyment of the 1700s comes from the fact that we get to see tangible reasons for the characters behaving the way they do in modern times, she ended up feeling a little useless narratively; she didn't really have a lasting emotional or narrative impact on any characters who lived.

13. Least favorite canon pairing? Least favorite non-canon pairing?

haha. my least favorite canon pairing is maria and tick. i don't dislike it in theory, but i think maria didn't really need the implication of romance in her arc... plus, i definitely think she's a lesbian, so there's also that, but i just think it was a product of narita wanting to introduce romance wherever possible. i like most ships in baccano, but that one missed the mark for me!

i think my least favorite non-canon pairing aside from the ones that are genuinely deeply immoral is luck/eve, which i'm sure you know. even aside from their age difference, it feels really weird to me to shove them together considering narita actively went out of his way to not do that. idk. the dynamic is just bad to me.

17. How would you go about structuring a hypothetical season 2 or reboot of Baccano?

well, this is something i've said many times, but i would completely redo the drug and the dominos part of season 1; in an ideal world, that is. i'd really like to see a back-and-forth story of drug and the dominos and man in the killer, since they're both in the same year and pair together really nicely as stories, but i'd also accept a standalone couple episodes for drug and the dominos.

if i was rebooting the series entirely, i think i'd cover a lot of what the anime did, but i'd completely cut out the half-baked volume 4 adaptation attempt to give more room for development for the major players and plots in 1-3.

baccano questions! / accepting.

[closedcoffins]

@ruenoirs likes this post for an assigned baccano fave!

i'm going to be honest when i say that i definitely did have a character who popped into my head as an active first choice, but she requires some explaining before i tell you about her.

since the one muse i know you write is poe, this recommendation is based largely on that. she's not a character featured in the anime and because she's not in many of the books i've come prepared with a backup recommendation that IS featured in more relevant plotlines.

that said, my initial recommendation for you is monica campanella. both she and poe focus heavily on their relationships with and feeling towards others in their respective narratives, and as a result the people who consume those narratives tend to reduce their characters down to just the love interest for the more popular character.

monica herself is a nervous wreck. she's also a calculating and cold killer. both of these things are true depending on who she's around. she's someone who grew up hating the world and faking all of her smiles until someone came into her life who interested her enough for her to feel something for them. i won't spoil her story as it spoils most of the plot of the 1700s novels, but she gains notoriety initially as a serial killer called the "mask maker".

that said, i mentioned a backup choice, and that backup choice is luck gandor.

aside from the fact that luck is a canon fan of poe's works, which maybe influenced my decision-making here a little, luck is also the sort of person who seems a little more amiable than he actually is at first glance. he's the youngest brother of three and one of the leaders of a mafia family, and though his general demeanor suggests ruthlessness and a determination to do whatever is necessary for his family, one of his biggest weaknesses is his tendency to give people fair chances when he shouldn't.

runner-ups: roy maddock, begg garrott, mark wilmens, huey laforet.

[corporalsnark]

hi! i was wondering where you read baccano? i watched it way back when but i’m interested in the books if you know where to find them :)

Back in the day I used to read them on untuned-strings translation blog which seems to be invite only/private now. (I don't know who ran it but I owe them a debt that I could never begin to repay. That one translator gave us SO MUCH. And I have never been more flattered than when they asked to use my home-done scans of chapter dividers from a Japanese copy of the light novel for Crack Flag that I owned but couldn't even read on the blog.)

But, regardless they took down their unofficial Baccano! translations when the LNs got officially translated to English. So I read the more recent novels (anything past the 1700's arc) when one of my friends was quitting a job at Barnes & Nobel and wanted to make the most of her employee discount. There might be people out there transcribing/translating the books , but I haven't sought them out in a decade and a half.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. & good luck.

[empiriical]

new to baccano! && need a quick run-down? look no further!

i try my best to make writing with my muses accessible, regardless of your knowledge && interest in their source material, but sometimes the bigger picture isn't super clear from their bios, so i'm going to hit on the important worldbuilding points that are relevant here! there will be a lot left out — this is what i will primarily reference in threads while not explaining in full elsewhere. anything not included here will have explanations in individual muse pages.

A SUMMARY

baccano! is a story that follows alchemists fleeing their home && becoming immortal, rival mafia familes && various other criminal organizations, a trainjacking, && strange players from all walks of life coming together in a ruckus that spans three hundred years.

TERMINOLOGY

IMMORTALITY. a state of being affecting certain humans, rendering them, in some way, unable to be killed. this comes in two different flavors: complete immortality (does not age, all wounds instantly heal themselves, && immediate revival upon death), imperfect immortality (instant healing && revival but will age && eventually die). immortality is achieved by consuming a liquid called the liquor/elixir of immortality, or by some, the grand panacea. there is both a complete version && an incomplete version, which will give the two different results. the only way an immortal can be killed is by being devoured by another, a process that involves placing the right hand upon the other's head && thinking "i want to eat"; the immortal's body is absorbed into the hand, && all knowledge && memories are transferred to the surviving immortal. all immortals can be devoured, but only complete immortals can devour others.

THE MAFIA. pretty self explanatory, but for our purposes, there are three factions to know about: the gandor family, based in little italy in nyc, the russo family, based in chicago, && the runorata family, based in new jersey. the mafia originated in sicily, && prioritizes firearms as their primary weaponry.

THE CAMORRA. an organization similar to the mafia, that originated in naples. the martillo family is based between little italy && chinatown in nyc, && primarily use knives as their weapon of choice. they don't take kindly to being called the mafia.

HOMUNCULUS. a man-made being created through alchemy. perfect homunculi are confined to the flask they're created in, && are fully omniscient && omnipotent, as well as immortal. they can choose to trade either vision of space or vision of the future in exchange for physical freedom. imperfect homunculi are not born with knowledge, && though they can be killed, they do not age or die of natural causes. immortal homunculi, made from the cell of an immortal, are like the imperfect kind, but possessing the full abilities of a complete immortal. water-consciousness homunculi operate as a hivemind; their true form is a liquid, && they possess "vessels" that are linked within their mental network.

THE TIMELINE

the story of baccano! takes place in three time periods, although the bulk of the narrative is in the 1930s, with the 1700s && 2000s acting as a prequel && sequel.

1705-1711 taking place in lotto valentino, italty, this part of the story follows the original group of alchemists who eventually travel to north america on the advena avis && became immortal.

1930-1935 takes place mostly in new york city, with some of the action occurring in chicago && some on the flying pussyfoot, a transcontinential express train running from chicago to nyc. follows members of the mafia, the camorra, && a number of independent players && gangs who come together across various events, as well as some of the alchemists from the 1700s. many new immortals are created during this time.

2001-2003 takes place in other parts of the world, primarily in a northern european village && on two cruise ships traveling between nyc && japan. primarily follows the immortal alchemists && as well as a few of the immortals from the 1930s, && some new players as well.

THE SOURCE MATERIAL

baccano! is a series of light novels by ryohgo narita, first debuting in 2003. the first three novels were adapted into an anime that aired in 2007. the series is close to completion, with the 23rd && final novel indefinitely postponed. if you're interested in getting into the series, the anime is a good place to start — it's not legally available to stream anymore, but it's out there if you look (feel free to ask me about it). alternately, you can jump right into the novels, as outlined below...

volume 1 — 1930 the rolling bootlegs

volume 2 — 1931 the grand punk railroad: local

volume 3 — 1931 the grand punk railroad: express

volume 4 — 1932 drug and the dominos

volume 5 — 2001 the children of bottle

volume 6 — 1933 (first) the slash — cloudy to rainy

volume 7 — 1933 (last) the slash — bloody to fair

volume 8 — 1934 alice in jails: prison

volume 9 — 1934 alice in jails: streets

volume 10 — 1934 peter pan in chains: finale

volume 11 — 1705 the ironic light orchestra

volume 12 — 2002 (side a) bullet garden

volume 13 — 2002 (side b) blood sabbath

volume 14 — 1931 another junk railroad: special express

volume 15 — 1710 crack flag

volume 16 — 1932 summer: man in the killer

volume 17 — 1711 whitesmile

volume 18 — 1935-A deep marble

volume 19 — 1935-B dr. feelgreed

volume 20 — 1932 winter: the time of the oasis

volume 21 — 1935-C the grateful bet

volume 22 — 1935-D luckstreet boys

[agallimaufryofoddments]

New Baccano! manga pros so far c. a quarter to 4 AM:

- Zank and Denkurō (one panel, but I am Glad)!

- Huey’s mother has a face now! (And the villager.)

- Niki flashbacks? I think that’s those pages?

Cons:

- DMM ebook viewer is one of Those viewers that thwarts screenshots by blanking itself if one tries. This is not conducive for wiki purposes.

- (On the other hand, if this measure genuinely pushes those who would normally have tried to consume the manga…elsewhere…to buy the chapters, then…okay; it had better).

???s

- Esperanza’s rendition is—something—and if I could screenshot it I’d show you.

[thunderrabby-blog]

Baccano! Novels Get Manga Set in 1700s - News

Baccano! Novels Get Manga Set in 1700s – News

Manga centers on Huey, serial killer Mask Maker in Italian town of Lotto Valentino Manga creator Kakuji Fujita announced on Sunday that a manga of Ryohgo Narita‘s Baccano! novels titled Baccano! ~from the 1700s~ launched on DMM‘s DMM Books website on the same day. The manga is under DMM ‘s Gigatoon Studio web manga label. The manga is set in the small Italian town of Lotto Valentino during the…

[rhpsdys]

i finally developed my full baccano! verse for raine, so i'm detailing that below.

most of this was originally conceived by @closedcoffins over on this post, && i've just expanded on it now that i'm, you know, reading baccano!

in the 1700s, raine was living in italy, an accomplished musician of the baroque era, playing in opera houses around the country. they still identified as female at this time, && it was uncommon (nigh unheard of!) for women to play music publicly. however, this isn't the only thing that set them apart.

raine was an alchemist. raine's studies were focused on the use of alchemy as a simple aide, a way of amassing additional power that might be of use in an uprising against the house dormentaire — which is how they met maiza avaro. they were not practicing alchemy publicly, despite lotto valentino being full of alchemists, out of fear of it interfering with the music career they'd worked so hard to build.

but when the group of alchemists pursuing immortality fled for north america on the advena avis in 1711, raine went with them. they drank the liquor with the others, && obtained perfect immortality without it ever being their true desire or goal.

upon arrival, raine cut ties with the surviving alchemists, desperately wanting to simply make a fresh start && live under the radar. they traveled for a while, only staying in touch on occasion with maiza, if only to confirm on occasion that the other was still okay.

eventually, in the mid-late 1800s, raine settled back in brooklyn, new york. during this time, they had mostly abandoned alchemy as a practice, focusing primarily on a music career. while women were starting to become more prominent in classical music, particularly in opera, it was still difficult to make a living, especially as an immigrant ; despite having been there for over a century, raine did not have all their proper documentation at this point. after all, they should've been dead a long time ago, && the raine whispers of the early eighteenth century seemingly no longer existed. in order to make life a little bit easier, they would disguise themself as a man at auditions (something they'd often done over the last century simply for survival's sake). they wore this manufactured identity through the birth of their new career. they played with the recently-founded new york philharmonic, && was later hired as first chair violinist && concertmaster at the original metropolitan opera house.

somewhere along the way, raine began to realize that this identity was not just a disguise — it was who they were. there was no real terminology for this identity at the time, but it didn't matter, as they never told anyone except for maiza.

it was a simple request, enclosed in a letter postmarked november the second, 1883: to m. avaro: my dear friend — it's been a long time. i've just moved to manhattan, to be closer to my work. please meet me for dinner. there is a matter i'd like to discuss with you. yours, r. whispers

raine told maiza everything about what they'd been feeling, their disguise, && the idea that had struck them while playing faust at the opera house — there had to be some alchemical process that could permanently alter their features, to give them a more masculine appearance. for the first time in close to two centuries, raine was prepared to become an alchemist once again. at maiza's suggestion, they re-established contact with begg garrott, another alchemist, whose work as an apothecary made him especially qualified to help with this. what the pair ultimately developed together, after decades of work, was something like a precursor to clinically-distributed hormone supplements — in other words, alchemically-created testosterone.

it began, not unlike the immortality liquor, as an elixir to be consumed. the biggest test was not whether it would work as conceived, but whether it would work on an immortal body.

the answer? it did.

&& so over the course of the next couple of years, from approximately 1908-1910, raine "transitioned". it was an incredible feeling.

after that, they got back to work again, more confident than ever. raine left the philharmonic ( which they had gone back to when the opera house closed down for a season due to a fire ) && began playing in broadway pit orchestras. in 1926, they were hired as a teacher at the juilliard school of music.

around this time, or shortly thereafter, raine found themself surrounded by a small community of people like them, how they'd found each other is somewhat of a mystery, but the fact remains — these individuals, like raine themself, were experiencing discrepancies between their assigned gender && their identities, && raine had the seemingly magic cure for the dysphoria it caused.

so raine went back to work, distilling the elixir for a more widespread distribution, as well as concocting an alternate version, which would act as an artificial estrogen supplement. in the midst of prohibition && the 1932 drug and the dominos plot, raine is engaged in their own drug trade, though for (in their mind) much nobler cause.

a few things of note about this verse: raine would have been using she/her pronouns up until the mid 1800s, && he/him after that, up to the present. however, for my own comfort && out of respect for their character, i will only be using they/them pronouns to refer to raine, && ask that you do the same. however, if your muse themself is referring to raine, they are welcome to use whichever pronoun set would've been appropriate for the time period. additionally, i may be aging raine down slightly, to the physical age of 38 — given the time period in which this verse begins, it feels impractical for them to have been as old as 46 when this story begins. now, of course, they're well over 200 years old. ( this is subject to change. i may feel differently about it later on. ) finally, i want to work eda into this somehow, but i'm not sure what makes the most sense, so that's a problem for a later day.

[chancellorxofxtrash]

LOOK THIS IS VERY UNFAIR BUT ALSO I KNOW MOST PEOPLE DON'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT HUEY AND RENÉE SO LET ME BREAK IT DOWN FOR YOU

Renée used to be Huey's teacher back in the 1700s. This is the least problematic part of these chucklefucks. This is just to set the stage

At some point, for whatever reason, they decided to have children. Well, we can gauge the reason is "to run experiments on the kids"

They are both alchemists/scientists, they do both and none morals

After the kids are born, Huey is just like. No, you are not getting either of them. You are clumsy, and you'd trip with an infant in your arm, or like forget to feed them or whatever (factually true about Renée), so I'll keep both. Don't worry, one day you can have like one of them idc

Then he proceeded to not tell the elder daughter that he has a sister, while the younger one knew

Huey absolutely treated both girls as test subjects while raising them to be obsessively loyal to him. Both girls are supremely fucked up, actually

To this day, Renée is like "oh can I get one? You promised me I'll get at least one, it's my turn to do the experiments on our daughters now"

They stole an eye from each other. Well, Renée had someone take one of Huey's eyes, while Huey ripped out one of Renée's, because it's only fair isn't it

Because they are immortal, they use the eyes as a compass to see where the other is

We do NOT know what the nature of their relationship is. Did they fuck at least twice to make the girls? Did they just make them in a petri dish? Did they invent IVF in the twenties? WE DON'T KNOW

This isn't even a relationship. They just decided to make two girls for science, he kept both, fucked them up separately, and now she is sulking because it's HER turn to fuck the girls up goddamnit

Read Baccano

[gunmeister]

i do have really constructive things to say about baccano but i constantly hold back from saying them because i feel like they must be a little discounted by my genuine hatred for anything 1700s related and also the laz thing