The Second Worst BSD Theory of All Time*
Doc is Fyodor and Mori's son. He was raised by Fyodor, who got him to follow in his other father's footsteps. After Doc is bisected by Verlaine, his Ability keeps him alive long enough that Fyodor shows up, which is how Fyodor meets Dazai. Fyodor keeps Doc's living severed head in a commemorative box and takes it out on holidays. Mori doesn't know any of this.
*The name of the theory is "The Second Worst BSD Theory of All Time". This name is probably inaccurate.
The Second Worst BSD Theory of All Time (Cont.):
Meanwhile, in one of the many realms outside of the BSD book, Kafka Asagiri was really contemplating how he would fit every character in literature named “Doc” into his story. So, he took his first Doc, severed his head, and had Fyodor put it in a box that sent his consciousness into every single character named Doc ever. Thus, Fyodor gained a secret Doc army with which he could kill 20 million people.
To Fyodor's chagrin, Doc, unaware of Asagiri's existence, was so angry his father had rendered him unable to enter Heaven (there canonically is some form of afterlife in the BSD world, unless I'm really overthinking that Bram panel, and Bram's done awful things but is in a nice-looking place, so Fyodor condemned Doc to a uniquely awful fate, which is irrelevant because Doc isn't omniscient) that he tried to stage a coup. Fyodor defeated the Doc army, sealed them into one person using a slip of paper cut from the Book, and sent ultra-Doc back in time, where they became Ueda Akinari. So Tales of Moonlight and Rain is Doc's Ability and the paper on Ueda's forehead is from the Book
Back in time, Ueda Akinari managed to acquire a spouse (the irl author was a man, but I don’t think Ueda’s gender has been revealed, and the bsd version could be nonbinary if we included Q.) and had children. Many many many many years later, as a descendant of this original union, Yosano Akiko was born.
Ueda and their fisherman husband's marriage started out happily, but envy of their Ability ate away at his love. One jealousy begat a multitude of others: jealousy of the friends they never stopped speaking of who he had never met, of the renown they had won for their craft, of their magnificent bob. His love soured to resentment and then to a hate so potent it echoed through the cosmos and caught the attention of a Great Old One, who appeared to him and offered him a deal, promising power and vengeance. If he accepted, he too would have an Ability and he and Lovecraft would reunite one day to fight that "Chuuya" whose memory Ueda was preoccupied by. The cost? Even if he were in the same city as they, the fisherman would never have a conversation with one of his descendants again. His children would grow up without a father
Ueda never saw their husband again. Everyone assumed he had capsized and drowned
Almost 1500 years later, he was reborn and named John Steinbeck. Even as a small child, he knew he couldn't let his family down, and that having his Ability made him a monster, but he didn't know the true reason why
After Steinbeck begins to lead The Remnants of The Guild, he soon realizes that starting his own organization is a costly business. So, he finds work as a sommelier at the local “Fancy Restaurant.” One day, a woman with a glorious bob comes in and wants to order some wine, so Steinbeck goes to take her order, and when she opens her mouth he is immediately thrown by some invisible force and blasts through a wall.
Unbeknownst to him, the woman, Yosano Akiko, one of Udea’s and the fisherman’s descendants, is by extension also his descendant. Except because he isn’t able to talk to any of his descendants, seeing as he’s the fisherman reincarnated, the fiasco at the restaurant just went down. <- (This may be verging into AU territory though, and although The Second Worst BSD Theory of All Time is the most implausible thing to ever exist, it’s still a theory, which implies that we are (un)seriously speculating on what has happened/what will happen in BSD canon, which means there’s a 0.00000001% chance that of ALL the possible directions Asagiri could take, this one is still a possibility.)
(Almost) nothing is too much of an AU for The Second Worst BSD Theory of All Time, and that is both technically feasible and funny. I think you were wise to put the second part under the cut; this post is getting rather long. I'll do the same
Every proper theory debate contains at least one scholarly disagreement, so I'm going to have to disagree with you on one point. For the purposes of this theory, I don't think BSD Doc is Michael Crichton. I think he's Ed Ricketts, whose Ability, Between Pacific Tides, turns the ground into sand to mimic a beach. Unbeknownst to both of them, Steinbeck grew up for the second time as his hated former spouse's best friend (so for John it was a strangers to spouses to onesided enemies to best friends arc and for Doc it was a friends to strangers to spouses arc)
The Great War part confused me at first, since it took place years before the Doc Army existed, but it's been established (post pt. 3) that Fyodor was cutting slips of paper from the Book, so it's possible that something went wrong with one which catapulted the Doc Army into the past, to the time of the Great War. Younger-Doc, who was roughly somewhere from 8 to 16 at the end of the war, was not possessed by and did not fight alongside his older self and army
Since our theory is so perfectly sound, and fits in perfectly with the bsd timeline, I decided to construct a diagram of it to reaffirm my belief that it would “hold water.” Behold.
(I spent an embarrassingly long amount of time searching for the perfect photo of a pasta strainer. It was like I was searching for the Hole-y Grail.
…
I tried.)
That is a glorious diagram
My interpretation of a few points in the recap is below the cut
Honestly, it would be really funny to me if Fyodor had been a stay-at-home dad for that time. But it makes much more sense for him to have been absent traveling/furthering his evil plots/etc. But imagine with me, for one moment:
News Broadcast: “We’re being attacked by super evil terrorist Fyodor Dostoyevsky! Ah!!!”
*Steinbeck, watching the broadcast*: “Is that Mr. Dostoyevsky who made the really great apple pie!?”
Forget seeing your math teacher as a terrorist on TV, imagine seeing your childhood best friend’s DAD.
Mori doesn’t necessarily have to be Doc’s biological father. He could have adopted him for some reason, though, so he would be his father through the law. Or, as I previously suggested, Fyodor somehow managed to mix his and Mori’s DNA together.
Stay-at-home dad Fyodor would be hilarious. Also, I have discovered the greatest secret of his past
Fyodor would be thrilled to hear that Steinbeck likes his apple pie. In his first life, he never learned how to make food, only coffee, and it took him centuries to become a good baker. You know how I know this? Because Fyodor is an alternate timeline version of the real Walter Lippmann who got isekai'd into the medieval BSD world in his early-mid twenties. You want proof? I have proof
See? They're the same picture
Walter Lippmann had dark hair and was drawn to Catholicism and spirituality at times but ultimately was an atheist. In the absence of a Catholic father figure balanced out by a bitter ex-Catholic second wife and in the presence of early Russian Orthodoxy, maltreatment and danger due to bigotry he had also internalized, and the discovery that he came back to life if killed, his isekai'd alternate self converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity
Obviously, Fyodor and BSD Lippmann are not the same person. Lippmann was shown decapitated in the chapter released after the one where Fyodor was as a hint that Fyodor is Walter Lippmann
As for how Doc-Ricketts-Ueda came to be, I like the mixing-DNA-theory best. It could be compellingly tragic if Mori and Doc have effectively the same Ability but Doc makes his a look like a dinosaur because he thinks dinosaurs are cool and Mori makes his look like a little girl because he wants to be a father, not realizing he has a son—a son he eventually meets and cares about—all along. That leaves the question of what Fyodor wanted to create someone with Mori's Ability for and why he wanted Doc in the Port Mafia. Did he think Doc could influence Mori? Spy on him? Be a successor to him who'd comply with Fyodor's wishes?
Oh my gosh… It all makes sense now :0
Lippman’s love of “the living world” reminds me of Ed Ricketts’s obsession with breaking through in a way:
Except that It’s opposite to Lippman’s love in that Ricketts wanted to go “beyond” the living world and “break through.” The seeds of discontent were always there… Perhaps the head severance and consciousness diffusion was just the cranium that broke the camel’s back 😔
Also, what if instead of a ceremonial box, Doc/Ricketts’s head was actually placed in Ed Ricketts’s safe??? Hear me out:
I’m a little confused about the Doc sharing Mori’s ability thing, because for the purpose of the theory you had said his ability was the sand one to mirror Between Pacific Tides. But, to follow along, what if Doc’s ability is actually evolution? Maybe if he had been able to grow stronger his ability would have evolved and he would have ended up being able to summon very dangerous chickens (partly as an ode to his former caretaker Nancy Luce and because chickens are said to have descended from dinosaurs).
As for why Fyodor would have wanted Doc; he’s the ultimate fail safe. Fyodor probably predicted that Doc would fight back against him with the Doc army, whom he would merge and send back in time as Ueda. So it’s safe to assume that even right now, although Fyodor has “lost” he has another Ueda in the past who is, for lack of a better word, ‘incubating.’ Ueda will probably craft their sword again which will give Fyodor access to Ame-no-gozen and things in the next timeline.
Because I forgot his Ability was Between Pacific Tides and somehow missed it reading back through the post (please forgive me?), Doc has a multicomponent Ability with both sand and a dinosaur
An Ability like Verne's, which has an avatar component, a land component, and a taking-in-the-Abilities-of-the-dead component, would be a somewhat logical combination of Vita Sexualis and Crime and Punishment. So, Fyodor wanted his child to have an Ability similar to The Mysterious Island and Doc ended up with one theoretically less powerful but more versatile, since it isn't geographically confined. I think your evolution theory is a strong one and dearly wish Doc had been able to form his chicken army before he was beheaded and fused and his Ability was altered beyond recognition into Tales of Moonlight and Rain
Exactly how Tales of Moonlight and Rain works hasn't been specified, but I feel like it could be a creation/transformation/imbuing power, an evolution of the evolution Ability into one which affects inanimate objects
I wonder what will happen if Steinbeck encounters any of Doc's old things, particularly the safe, which evidently has fathomless powers. If he recognized it, it could be a useful tool for the Remnants of the Guild... but where is the line between practicality in the present and grief and respect for a lost friend? And does Steinbeck know that Doc is dead?
End of the Second Worst BSD Theory of all Time (Part One)
Hooray! I can’t wait to continue the theory into part two! :D
