b! blog masquerading as a main

Abyssal. She/They. 20s. Mostly a B! Blog but Other Interests Slip Through Too. Resident Gandor Brothers Enjoyer.

[abyssalplein-moved]

Abyssal. She/They. 20s.

If you don't know what Baccano! is and I follow you/interact with you, then I probably engage with a fandom you’re in (maybe) through a sideblog.

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Baccano! Week (2023)

Baccano! (General Tag)

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Misc. Reblogs: @palimpsestheory

Art Commission Sheet. Ko-Fi

[saintgatsbys]

[ifobufrens]

I haven't drawn my fav of all favs, Maiza, in years 🥹 here is my love

[gabrielisdead]

I love mad scientists because instead of going to therapy they choose to do unimaginable horrors with alchemy which makes their problems ten times worse

[baccanoweek23]

Baccanovember 2024: In Black and White

A month of contrasting prompts celebrating the contradicting themes of the world of Baccano!

Not able to participate every day? Not interested in a certain theme? Not a problem, feel free to skip days, combine themes, or disregard the themes altogether.

Not a fanfic writer or fanartist? Baccano month is about all types of Baccano content, whether that be gifs, edits, meta, embroidery - whatever your thing is.

Prompt list under the cut:

Day 1. Ailment | Healing

Day 2. Loss of control | Sense of Power

Day 3. Panic | Calm

Day 4. Resentment | Compassion

Day 5. Vengeance | Forgiveness

Day 6. Doubt | Certainty

Day 7. An injury | A gift

Day 8. Killer-instinct | Self-sacrifice

Day 9. An abuse of power | A sign of respect

Day 10. Death | Life

Day 11. A haunting | A memory

Day 12. Isolation | Family

Day 13. Torture | An act of kindness

Day 14. Burn | Soothe

Day 15. A weapon | Protection

Day 16. A mask | A confession

Day 17. Manipulation | Intimacy

Day 18. Freezing | Warmth

Day 19. Betrayal | Alliance

Day 20. Trapped | Freedom

Day 21. Narcotic | Remedy

Day 22. Madness | Clarity

Day 23. Distrust | Faith

Day 24. Survival | Comfort

Day 25. Suffocate | Fresh air

Day 26. Broken | Complete

Day 27. Cut | Connection

Day 28. Ripped apart | Together

Day 29 Body horror | Wholeness

Day 30. Ending | Beginning

[toushindai]

A Ghost, and the Smile Junkie

She came into his dreams to hang out with him.

(Baccano!, Elmer & Monica, post-1710)

[ Read on AO3 ]

*

She came into his dreams to hang out with him. She’d sit down next to him in class and diligently take notes, and then she would talk to him during the lunch hour, or walk home with him. It was nice, even if Elmer couldn’t help but feel that it wasn’t quite right.

He voiced his concerns one evening as they passed the harbor.

“Do you go see Huey as well?”

She sent back a faint exasperation at his bluntness, but then chased it away with a roll of her eyes and a rueful smile that faded a moment later. “He won’t let me in.”

Elmer cocked his head. “Let you in?”

Monica answered that with a vague gesture. “I can’t reach him. And when I do, he just—he isn’t ready to receive me. He’s like an iron wall.” She looks Elmer’s way. “What is he like, these days? Can you tell him I’m looking for him?”

Elmer’s brow furrowed. “He’s gone,” he explained. And then he realized how that could have sounded, but Monica only looked puzzled, not worried, so he figured that she must’ve had some way of knowing whether he were dead or not. Ghost stuff. And, well, if both of them were dead, they probably would’ve found each other by now. So he said, “He left the city entirely. Didn’t even tell me where he was going. He was really sad, you know. When you died.”

She sighed, stopped walking. Looked out over the waves. Somewhere, beneath the water, her corpse was decomposing and probably being nibbled at by fish. It was only thanks to Elmer’s intervention that Huey’s body wasn’t down there, too. It occurred to him for the first time just how selfish that had been, stopping his friend from leaping into the waves. If there was life after death, dying so soon after her and in the same location probably would have made it very easy for him to join Monica. But he’d been so devastated. Elmer couldn’t let him die like that.

Which was selfish. But Huey knew he was selfish, and Monica did, too.

But that wasn’t what Monica was thinking about. She wrapped her arms around herself and listened to the sound of the waves. “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she said, “with any of this. I wanted him to be happy.”

“Well, I could’ve told you that leaving wasn’t the way to accomplish that!”

He said it with a peppy grin, meaning to tease her gently, but she looked back with anguish in her eyes and he realized that he’d misjudged the significance of the statement. “They were after him,” she said. “I couldn’t let them think he was culpable, that he was going to—”

“Do exactly what we wound up doing?” Elmer asked, and now he made his smile gentler, more rueful. Monica looked away. He said, “We saw the play, you know.”

She sighed heavily. “And he still wanted to rescue me, after all that?”

“Of course he did! Why would that change things?”

“Because I wasn’t always the person he knew.” Monica raked her fingers through her long hair, pulling it back from her face. “Everything about me that he knew was a choice, something I had to be deliberately—”

“Yeah, but Huey supported that choice.” She looked at him, like she couldn’t believe that it was that simple. But it was. Huey had said so. “He felt bad about watching the play, you know. I mean, he felt a lot of things about that play, but I’m pretty sure he hated having to learn all that stuff from the play when you hadn’t even felt comfortable telling him yourself. He didn’t want them knowing something you’d wanted to keep hidden from him. You know? If you wanted it hidden, he wanted it to be hidden from everyone. So you could be who you chose to be.” He could see tears starting in her eyes. Not ideal. He poked the corner of her mouth, although that only made her bat his hand away. “He loved Monica. He loved Monica so much. If you wanted Maribel to stay in the past, he was gonna do whatever he could to make that happen.”

Yeah, she was going to cry. Even though this should be making her happy, he thought. She sniffed a few times, and then when he offered her his arms stepped gratefully into his embrace. She cried on his shoulder until the sun began to go down and he slowly woke up from his dream.

[esperanzacboronial]

Me and the sick twisted bastard I pulled by being emotionally vulnerable

[esperanzacboronial]

Me and the bad bitch I pulled by getting exploded

[gunmeister]

people whove watched baccano either forgot about it 2 days later and fondly reminisce about it every 5 years or made it their entire personality because of how irreparably it changed them as people. you never meet someone who just enjoys baccano a casual amount

[piriie]

good evening baccano nation

[houjicha]

Random Baccano thought of the day--Firo following in Maiza's footsteps is making me emotional.

In 1930, Firo mentions that Maiza is sort of seen as a coward by other associates, and I think it's interesting that even with Firo being the way he is, he still defends Maiza (even when he personally is kinda unsure how strong Maiza is). In 1927 Firo gets worried about Maiza going into the casino alone because he's the math guy, but it's not in a contemptuous way; he just feels guilty for causing trouble.

Firo being mistaken for Maiza in the epilogues of 1930 is actually one of my favorite little twists in the series, and one of the reasons for that is that it shows how much Firo has come to accept Maiza's approach to being a gangster.

I've rambled in the past about how Firo tries to fit himself into this narrow and kinda toxic box of what it means to be strong, and Maiza is his primary role model for genuine strength that can also be gentle and thoughtful and intelligent.

Not that he's the only role model Firo has, of course, but both Maiza and Firo have personalities that are a little outside the norm in the criminal underworld. (I'm thinking of Maiza's conversation with Firo in early 1930, when Firo is thinking about how Maiza is a little strange, and of the Gandors' assessment of Firo in 1934-1, especially the "suited to be a gangster, not to being a criminal" comment.)

Plus, Maiza also struggled with being raised in an environment where he was expected to conform to a pretty shitty standard of behavior, and it really messed with him until he found an outlet in alchemy.

I just love so much that Firo's character development is visible in his resemblance to Maiza. I love that they're both the type to carry too much alone, and that they're both the type to ask "Are you okay?" Maiza is so goddamn lonely, even though the Martillos do care about him--and as strong as Maiza is, I like that Firo doesn't always take for granted that he's okay.

Anyway, it's been a while since I reread the full series so I'm sure I'm missing things, but...I just think they're both really important to the other healing and it makes me feel things

[saintgatsbys]

ily luck gandor

[brbarou]

three years since i read crack flag...lives were changed

[macrolit]

“For us, the playground of fiction is just as important as reality.”

— Ryohgo Narita

[kippwire]

i give you more of whatever these things are. they dont like me

[rookswarlock]

hilton’s vessels

[esperanzacboronial]

LuckDallas this, LaddClaire that, you are missing out on The asshole 4 asshole noncanon baccano ship