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bsd-cherish-official · 2 years ago

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BSD: Cherish Second Anniversary Interview

On September 21st, the second anniversary of the fanfic, Bungou Stray Dogs: Cherish, a post was made on this account by myself, its author and first artist, @linklethehistorian, stating that in celebration of the big milestone, I would be running a poll-based interview consisting of 10 polls with five questions each — which fans of the fic could vote on and have the most popular questions in each poll to be answered at the end of the voting period.

This is the result of those polls, and my responses to the winning questions that were determined therein.

Full interview below the cut for minor Cherish spoilers. Proceed on to read.

Q: Why did you choose to have four different artstyles used throughout the fic?

A: Well, in the beginning, you know, for the first…almost a year or so, I didn’t really have a co-artist on the project with me; it was just me, myself and I that was working on Cherish alone, and I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to have artwork for — and included in — the fic, so in that first year-ish that it existed, I basically just had to make do with using my own artstyle that was based on the BSD anime.

So, you already have that going on, and I was pretty happy with that, but the truth is that from the beginning, I’d always really wanted to have at least some of the art — especially the cover art I’d sketched up years and years back — resemble the actual official art from Harukawa-sensei in the BSD manga and light novels. After about a year of procrastinating and overthinking everything about it, I finally worked up the courage to ask my friend, Asachuu, who was not only a fan of the story but also had a very lovely artstyle and was very good at recreating the look I wanted, if it would be possible for us to collab on a piece, and sent the old sketch for the cover, and from there things kind of just…took off. Pretty soon, one single collab had very happily turned into me suddenly having a dedicated co-artist who could contribute some absolutely beautiful BSD manga-reminiscent artworks for certain chapters.

Then, after the Storm Bringer Stage Play had come out, I ended up extremely inspired by a lot of the very cute and lighthearted official chibi artworks and merch that sprung up from it, and thus, by the end of last year, I ultimately wound up endeavoring to create some chibi artwork of my own for Cherish; originally, this was not intended to be any sort of long-term staple for the story, as I expected it would just be a one-and-done thing to surprise fans with during the holidays, but…as I’m sure most of you have seen, after discovering how fairly quick and easy yet still adorable the end result was, I made the choice to continue with that style of art for all of our little celebrations, events, and milestones.

Lastly, those little chibi drawings also unintentionally came to invent a brand-new style of coloration in regards to my methods, which resulted in the final type of my artwork that you see involving Cherish — a sort of lighter, softer way of coloring that results in an almost crayon-like effect. This was initially a complete accident, as it was nothing more than me using a random brush for the first colored sketch of the holiday 2022 piece, but after some experimentation with keeping it for the finished work, I found that I really liked it quite a lot and later began using it for more than just the chibi-style artworks, as it brought a certain warmth and light-heartedness to the scenes, and reminded me a tiny bit of this one still image from the first season of the BSD anime:

And so, there you have it! Although the gorgeous manga-reminiscent style of my co-artist may be the well-known face of the fic in a lot of ways given that our collaborations are reserved for and make up the bulk of many of the most intense or important scenes and chapters of the story, every artstyle that is involved with Cherish’s official art has its own special and equally important part to play therein.

Asachuu’s manga-like style lends a certain extra feeling of authenticity to Cherish as having its place among the other BSD light novels, and presents certain scenes and chapters in a uniquely stunning form, and with extra attention to detail that likely wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

The more typical BSD anime artstyle that is my usual signature, with its fuller and more official-looking coloring technique, is used to depict the rest of the darker, more somber-toned scenes that do not receive the previous treatment; this, I feel, not only properly represents the anime artstyle in some form as I had wanted to begin with, but also brings forth a sadder, more down-to-earth aspect than its lighter and fluffier, almost crayon-like colored counterpart, which is conversely used to evoke the happier, more heartwarming moments and emotions within the fic.

And, of course, the chibi artstyle allows me to make much more quick, cute, and mostly much less serious little drawings to share with my friends and fans of the story, easily celebrate special events and milestones, and express my endless gratitude toward Cherish’s continued support. 💖

Q: Who are your least and most favorite characters to write for in the fic?

A: Oh, this is kind of a tough one. I actually wouldn’t say I genuinely dislike writing for any of the characters that have appeared in Cherish thus far, but I guess if I had to pick one that I liked dealing with a little less than the rest, that would have to be Ango; it’s not that he’s a bad character by any means, and I honestly like him in BSD quite a fair bit, it’s simply that he’s the most…I guess you could say “ordinary” or “stiff”…out of the group, in terms of outward personality — at least, under the circumstances in which he was introduced and presented up until now.

“He was still pleasant to write and there was a moment or two there that was a little fun to do, he just didn’t really have the chance to truly show off the more intricate parts of his soul in that scene”, is I guess how I’d put it.

As for most favorite, that’s a bit harder to pin down. haha I like all of the main cast in different ways.

Obviously, I’m very, very fond of both Arthurs; not only do I just really love both of their personalities and find them both super interesting, but I also relate to them both in a lot of different ways, and the subjects that often get tackled with their scenes, dialogue, and thoughts are all very important matters to me that I treat with a lot of personal care, respect, and passion, so it would be very hard for me to say that those two aren’t one of the absolute main highlights of writing Cherish to begin with.

At the same time, though, also really into writing for Chuuya and Paul — especially when they’re interacting with each other, because of how perfectly their polar opposite personalities, apparent outlooks, and ways of communicating their feelings play off of each other, though definitely not exclusively there, either. I really just find them fun, well-written, and fascinating to explore in general, too.

And then of course there’s Mori. I guess if we had to talk about pure novelty and entertainment value alone when it comes to writing, then he would have to be the top pick for the most fun and smooth experience overall, since his ability to change from cheerful to chilling on a dime, like the simple flip of a light switch — or even accomplish both at the same time, without even doing anything explicitly threatening at all — is a uniquely cool concept and character trait to play with.

I don’t know, to be honest, I just think they’re all super neat in their own ways.

Q: Are there any outfits you really want to draw someone in, in a future artwork?

A: Oh God, you have no idea how many, but yes; I have a lot of planned outfits for the future that I want to draw and release some proper Cherish art for, and some that I really already have done and just haven’t been able to share with all of you because it is spoilery.

I think two outfits in particular I’d really like to draw in a full-on chapter artwork, though, are the outfit Arthur was wearing to the restaurant in Chapter 10, and then the cute little casual number Chuuya was wearing in Chapter 11. You can actually see both of those in the Valentine’s and White Day chibi artworks I’ve made for this year, but I consider those to be a little bit different from drawing it in a more properly proportioned piece…

Q: Are there any minor plotholes you’ve had to go back and fix that nobody noticed?

A: Well, technically, yes — if memory serves, at least; I mean, I believe the day that I released Chapter 10, I had left in one instance in which Mori called Paul “Verlaine-kun” right there in front of Arthur, despite that the doctor himself had been the one to insist that he use an alias, and I think I then had to go back and fix that retroactively so that he called him “Marion-kun” instead.

Granted, they were both speaking Japanese to begin with, so it’s not totally impossible that Arthur wouldn’t have picked up on what Mori was calling him, but…yeah, to be honest, I think that’s one thing that both Mori wouldn’t risk and Arthur wouldn’t so easily overlook or fail to hear.

Other than that…well, this isn’t technically a plothole or anything because it did have a reason from the start — it’s more just a case of something not having been elaborated on as much as I’d like — but there’s currently a scene in Chapter 6 where Rimbaud, in a fit of frustration and emotion, goes off to Paul about how no one back home was worth returning to or would even really miss him if he died or disappeared, and he references his past lover fairly clearly as having been a man.

The possible “problem” that I think there’s potential for someone to take away from this moment is that later on, Arthur acts deeply worried about Paul finding this fact out and being severely discriminatory or cruel to him as most people in his original time were about such things and refusing to continue being there for him or even helping him as a result — thereby possibly making it seem like I’d forgotten that Arthur had had this outburst.

That isn’t really the case, though; moreso, it was originally intended for there to be a scene at some point where Arthur would reflect back on what he had said and inwardly question why Paul had continued to be so kind to him despite knowing that he had been involved with a man, ultimately deciding that it was likely that Verlaine didn’t really pay attention or give enough thought to all of the finer details of all of what he was rambling on about back then, in the heat of the moment, too focused on calming the teen down to be bothered with picking apart every statement he’d made — as Arthur himself simply couldn’t imagine he’d have been lucky enough, on top of all the other ‘highly fortunate’ circumstances he’d landed in, to have also just so happened to find someone who would be that ‘absurdly’ willing to overlook his orientation. (It’s not like he could have imagined that Paul simply wouldn’t think anything of it at all — which was actually the case…)

Unfortunately, I forgot to put that dialogue in, so at present, it kind of just has to be inferred by the reader… I do have plans to go back at some point before the start of the next arc and add this in, in some manner, but thankfully no one so far seems to have cared that this wasn’t explicitly explained, so I’m glad of that, at least.

And if you have wondered…well, I guess you have the answer for now. Sorry it’s not explicitly in the fic at the moment, but hopefully it will be quite soon.

Q: Is there anything you’re afraid you might have been TOO subtle about?

A: Well…yes. I’m going to put up a disclaimer here and now that the response to this question could not only be potentially triggering for some people who have experienced certain types of trauma, but also is kind of NSFW, so…if either of those things might be a problem for you for any reason, you may want to skip over this question.

We alright? Have you decided whether you wanted to keep reading this or not?

Okay. Let’s get into it, then.

So…while I don’t exactly want to say there isn’t plenty of room or time or even plans to perhaps go into it more deeply later, since there definitely is and I most likely will in some manner, given that it is my first time delving into such topics, I do wonder now and again if some of the dark implications made in Chapter 7, Chapter 8, and Chapter 13 — namely, that Arthur had been through multiple cases of extreme sexual trauma, in addition to the other emotional and physical traumas he had endured throughout his life — were altogether too cryptic to have been picked up on by the average reader at present.

I did intend from the very beginning to be more subtle about the matter in these chapters and only make little references to it in passing where it was immediately relevant and/or was natural to come to mind for Arthur in light of the situation, but I frequently worry if the things that I see as having been decently clear indications towards that end actually were decently clear or not. I suppose it doesn’t matter if they were or not, since that is something that as I said is bound to be more obvious at some point in the future chapters anyway, but it is something I think about nonetheless.

I think that if you were fully familiar with and completely in the current know about the poet Arthur Rimbaud’s life as it unfolded in our world, and especially have kept up with all of the most recent findings, then you might have a slightly better chance at putting two and two together on your own, and in that case I think my words will almost certainly have served their purpose, but for anyone else, I do have some minor concerns that maybe my desire to have been more subtle about it at this stage in the story actually ended up backfiring and making it altogether impossible to assume or even question…

Anyway, that particular heavy subject aside, I often also just in general worry about whether or not I’m coming off clearly enough when it comes to any existing or possible future hints towards anything that is remotely non-traumatically sexual or relating to sexual attraction in nature as a whole, since, as an asexual person who myself doesn’t experience sexual attraction whatsoever, it is a subject matter that on some levels is fairly unnatural to my own personal human experience and sexuality; I don’t think that I’m bad at talking about it by any means, I just don’t know that I’m particularly amazing at it, either.

But yeah, those are…pretty much my only main times when being too subtle might have ever crossed my mind, I think…?

Q: What’s the message you most want people to walk away with after reading Cherish?

A: Good question.

The thing is, I wouldn’t say that I originally created Cherish with any specific message in mind at all; I mean, obviously, there were always going to be heavy themes and topics that I knew it would have to tackle, and there were things that it definitely represented to me on a personal level after it came into being, but back when I first created the headcanons themselves that would eventually become this story, considering that I had absolutely zero plans to share it with anyone at the time, I didn’t really ever consider the idea of it carrying an actual message I wanted to convey.

Even now, I don’t want to define Cherish as this thing that exists solely for the purpose of communicating a particular idea to others, because it isn’t; I’ve known from the very beginning that to some people, this tale is just going to be something they look at and enjoy on a completely surface level — as something that is exactly what it says on the tin and nothing more — and I’m fine with that.

To me, Cherish is both of these things: a story that exists simply for the sake of itself — for the love of its characters, its pairings, and its plot, taken entirely at face value — and something which on a deeper level also represents and carries a great deal of messages and concepts which happen to be very important to me, that I hope other people might see and feel touched by as well.

Given that it does represent more than one thing in my eyes, though, that makes this question a little hard to answer; provided I had the ability to ensure it somehow, I’m really not sure which message I would want everyone to walk away with the most.

I suppose, in the end, if I could only choose one thing, then the message that I would most want my readers to see would depend upon who they themselves are, and what they need to hear most.

As I’ve mentioned in one post before, I would very much like it if some victims of abuse and/or trauma might be able to feel seen and heard by the fic, and maybe even find hope or at least catharsis in reading it. I don’t want to say too much about the matter in this particular interview, as a lot of the commentary I could make beyond that could lead to spoilers for people who would rather not know certain things that will happen or the outcome of them, but I will say that there are many questions and themes in this fic that I would like to believe might strike a comforting note for some people who are going through a lot of uncertainty in their lives, in the aftermath of traumatic and/or abusive experiences.

Likewise, I would hope that for anyone who maybe knows someone who has gone through abuse or trauma but struggles with understanding it, because this story has not only been carefully researched and written about, but also by, someone who has been through certain types of abuse and experienced the lasting effects of trauma, it might be able to help them get a closer look at some of the possible ways those things can present themselves and the things that can potentially go through our heads as a result.

For someone who might be reading this with either a newly budding or already pre-existing interest in the real life Arthur Rimbaud who once lived here in our world, I would like to think that this story — albeit having some minor differences here and there that I will get to in a later question — might show a bit more nuance towards his situation compared to how many other forms of media surrounding the topic (especially, but not limited to, the English ones) tend to present it.

Having spent the many, many years that I have researching his life story in multiple languages and every possible remotely credible source I could find, digging to the bottom to find the absolute truth as best as one can, I have found that in many cases, there is sadly far too much of a focus around sensationalism when it comes to coverage of the individuals and events involved, and far too little of a focus on actually bothering to get all of the facts and the interpersonal dynamics straight in order to present the most accurate and nuanced recounting of history that can humanly be given.

While I don’t want to get too into it in this little interview, as I’ll probably be making a separate post about it sometime anyway, I will put it out there that it is largely thanks to this failure to share crucial details that for quite a while into my earliest endeavors of research, I myself was led to believe the very much false and yet sadly most widely spread, highly sensationalized narrative that either, at best, both Verlaine and Rimbaud were equally terrible people who were, likewise, equally to blame for what happened between them, or at worst, that Rimbaud was the one to blame almost entirely for Verlaine’s supposed “descent” into a crueler and less respectable person — both of which narratives, by the way, cannot exist without completely ignoring and omitting several key facts that provide much more nuance than most of these various coverages were willing to provide: such as the several extreme power dynamics involved in their relationship coming from Verlaine’s side, the extremely traumatic background that Rimbaud had come from and how that had left him a vulnerable target in numerous ways, and most notably, that Verlaine had a pre-established pattern of alcoholism, extreme abusive tendencies of practically all varieties, homicidal urges, guilt-tripping tactics, and exactly everything else for his entire adult — and to some extent even teenage — life, far prior to meeting Arthur, and also continued on that path for the rest of his life even after their parting, whereas Rimbaud by all accounts prior to their meeting was nothing more than what, by today’s standards, would be considered overall a perfectly normal, if (and understandably so, given his background) troubled, teenager, who would later also go on to be a perfectly normal if somewhat withdrawn, well-adjusted adult once their relationship was over.

My hope, then, in that vein, is to tell this story without shying away from or missing those facts, and in doing so, to hopefully present his life story from an angle that is rarely seen or covered by many of the most popular sources of information out there, allowing people to perhaps step away from the great echo chamber of omissions, sensationalism, and misinformation for a moment and view and understand Arthur from a much more real and human perspective — to see him as a real, feeling, troubled human being who once lived, breathed, loved, struggled, and suffered just like nearly anyone else, rather than some dehumanized, over-exaggerated spectacle spoken of purely to be gawked at and made into a shocking and scandalizing caricature into which only the most extreme of rumors and actions are projected, as is so often sadly the case.

So, uh…yeah, those are my main messages I’d like to get across, I guess. I’d like to return to talking about this more in the future when the fic is complete, since by then I can truly get into the topics more, but for now, there you have it.

…I think at the end of the day, though, what’s most important is that people who need it get from Cherish whatever it is they came for; if there’s a message they really need to hear right then, then I hope they hear it. Sometimes as writers, we see a certain message in our stories and we intend to have that come through, but someone finds an entirely different and equally beautiful one inside it instead — one that we didn’t even intend to be there — and it helps them. I think that’s pretty awesome.

Q: What chapter are you most/least looking forward to recording for?

A: Well, to be honest with you, despite that by the time of answering this, I’ve already finished what I think will be the final recording for it, Chapter 2 has been a massive bitch to work with from beginning to end — nothing like Chapter 1 — so…yes, that would be the one I was least looking forward to recording out of the thirteen chapters that already exist; I’m honestly relieved it’s over.

I don’t really know how to explain what the problem even was with that one; it’s not a bad chapter by any means, but the first time I recorded it — an impossibly perfect take all the way up to the last third of the fic, by the way — I sadly found out that the audio ended up somehow distorted beyond any repair or salvaging, and ever since then the lines for some reason have just refused to be spoken out loud the same way that they do when I read it in my head.

As of this moment, I still haven’t listened to that recording more than the few seconds that were necessary to make sure that it took this time, so I don’t even know whether or not I’ll end up completely unsatisfied with the result, but it was really the best that I could do, so whatever the case, I’m stuck with it the way that it is. Let’s just hope it doesn’t totally suck.

There are way too many chapters that I think will be a cool experience to record for me to narrow it down to just one right now, but the closest one that I’m really anticipating is actually Chapter 3; I’ve always been really fond of the whole exchange that happened between Paul and Chuuya there, and I think getting to narrate those lines would be really exciting, since up until now, I haven’t had a great opportunity to get into the more emotionally intense lines. I hope that when the time comes, I’m able to do them justice.

Some other chapters I’m really looking forward to recording, I think, are 6, certain parts of 7, 10, and 12.

Q: Is there anything you wish you had been able to keep in the fic, but couldn’t?

A: Well, I definitely think there are some things that would have been more intense and exciting for people who were maybe expecting a more canon-typical plot to what we’ve gotten so far, but I don’t really know that I have regrets about not being able to use them in the fic.

For example, because the very first iteration of the original headcanons that make up what would eventually become Cherish were, well, headcanons, and tied to a much longer overarching storyline with no clear-cut beginning or end, both the way that the story started and, in some aspects, how it will wrap up is somewhat different from how it was back then.

I’m not going to elaborate on that at this time, because there are some aspects of those things that I had to change which I intend to still try to potentially incorporate at a different point in the fic, and thus I don’t want to spoil any of what might happen in the future, but there were definitely things and characters that had to be cut from the final version of Cherish that I do wonder what it would have been like for my readers if I had kept it; I wouldn’t say it’s a regret, though, as I’m quite proud of the fic I have now, and I think it’s probably best as it is currently.

Other than that, I guess my only potential regrets about things I couldn’t keep would have to be some of the deleted scenes and lines delving into certain characters’ mindsets, but I talk about those in the development notes already, so I won’t delve into that here, either.

Q: Do you plan to find a way to reuse all of the scrapped content for Cherish?

A: As much as I reasonably can without impacting the story in a negative way, at least, yes; it would be utterly impossible for me to keep literally everything in the fic that was ever discarded, but within the margins of good sense, I will try to re-incorporate whatever I feel is important, insightful, cool, or interesting and works with the plot.

Almost anything worth talking about that is left over after that is likely to end up in my Cherish Development Notes, so maybe keep an eye on those if scrapped content tends to pique your fancy.

Q: Do you think Cherish would’ve been as successful if it kept its original title?

A: Honestly? In some ways, I think it probably would’ve been a lot more successful – at least, in terms of marketing.

The thing about Cherish as a title is that although it’s very fitting for the story, and I do love it a lot, it’s very definitely not even half as marketable as a name like Storm Chaser would’ve been; there’s simply no getting around that fact.

Yes, for a fic, something short, sweet, and romantic like ‘Cherish’ does just fine – it’s expected, even; searching it up as a fic title right now, in fact, there are a total of 764 results, 3 of which by the exact same title are in the BSD fandom – obviously including mine. That’s just the issue, though; sure, it’s a perfectly normal and acceptable title, but that just means that when it comes to marketing, it doesn’t help it to stand out at all from the others.

If we’re talking in terms of more conventional ideas of success and popularity, then for a fic that is meant to be a fully-fledged light novel of the same quality and effort as its official canon kin – and which has been made into such a massive project stretched out across so many forms of media – having a title that sounds like what one would usually expect to be some little oneshot drabble of the most common kind is absolutely a bad move.

Storm Chaser as a title for a fic, on the other hand, has only 29 total entries on AO3, none of which are in the BSD fandom, and it sounds like an actually plausible name for an official sequel to Storm Bringer; there is no doubt that at the very least, something like that would absolutely generate more clicks and hits out of pure curiosity alone than Cherish ever could.

That being said, though, generating more curiosity clicks doesn’t necessarily mean generating more genuine love and interest, and I’d rather have people clicking out of interest in the summary and description and tags than over something as petty as the title to begin with – not to mention that I decided a long time ago I’d rather make Cherish from the depth of my heart in every way, in accordance with what I want it to be, than to worry about its popularity levels.

Q: How historically accurate do you feel that this fic is in its representations?

A: Well, at least more accurate than a great deal of the more popular sources of information out there, when it comes to irl Rimbaud and Verlaine’s life stories and situations, unfortunately — as I said further up above.

Granted, there are going to be some small differences and creative liberties taken here and there, given that the versions of them presented in Cherish come from a slightly alternate universe to ours, but that’s mostly just to do with the fact that in this alt-world, Paul actually succeeded at making a second attempt on Arthur’s life at the train station where the teen intended to have their final parting; apart from that and the obvious connecting of dots and filling in of blanks wherever information simply didn’t fully exist about the more intimate and intricate details of their lives, great care was taken to ensure that everything was presented as realistically and accurately as possible, according to all of the intensive research I have done about them over the years.

As for the general historical representation of the time period they come from itself, I’d like to think that I’m doing well with it, as I try to do my research on every aspect the very best that I can, but aside from certain highly specific subjects, I don’t claim to be half so much of an expert of the general late Victorian era itself as much as I am an expert on them and their life stories, relationship, and circumstances specifically; if there’s a minor slip-up or two in regards to facts about the era that I somehow managed to overlook or misunderstand, I’m truly sorry about that. haha

Q: What is your favorite fan interaction you’ve had to this day?

A: I’m going to guess that my interactions with my dear co-artist don’t count here, right? In that case, it would definitely be finding out that my new pal, @dazaisshippingcontainer, is making fanart of my fic; that was such a touching moment for me — the thought that someone out there (especially someone that at the time I wasn’t close to) had been reading my fic and loving it enough to actually make fanart for it. 😭 Moments like this are moments I truly treasure beyond compare. Ily Clover, buddy. 💖

Let’s be honest, though; I love and live for every single fan interaction I’ve had to date. 🥺💖 They all mean the world to me.

And of course there’s Art — my dear, dear friend and co-artist, whom I appreciate so, so much… I truly feel blessed by it all.

Q: Do you ever read your own fic?

A: Oh, you have no idea... lol Yes, yes, and a thousand times more: yes. I adore Cherish; it’s not just something I wrote for you all to enjoy — it’s something I wrote for me, too, something precious that I adore with all of my heart, and something that I’m immensely proud of.

Every time I release a chapter, I read it together with my partner, and besides that, I probably re-read a chapter from my fic —if not multiple or all of them — just by myself at least once a week.

Needless to say, I really love Cherish.

Q: How many animatics do you plan to have for Cherish?

A: Ideally, I’d like to have at least one for every arc in the fic, plus one last animatic at the very end as a final look back on the story and a great celebration — which would make for six — but I don’t know how that will actually work out, in the end, given how massive of a project making even just one can be; I may end up making more than that or less — we’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose.

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And, that would be all. Thank you for your questions, everyone, and I look forward to the next time we hold an interview like this together!

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