Fyi this was wayyyy too long for any other ask site so you knwo what to expect hashtag evil infodump

Annoying retrospring anon here again hehe :3 Sorry for like not responding to your super nice answer to my initial ask at all?? I am always in the torture labyrinth because god hates me unfortunately :( I'm kind of always going through it and having the worst day ever T-T
Confession this has been rotting in my notes for so longggg so anon back here to say I do not understand why I put this off for so long
thsi was literally basically finished feel free to execute me for my crimes ( ´ ▽ ` )

But I just wanted to at least elaborate a bit bit on the red & black bit, mainly because I'm realising I may be the only person in the non cn fandom who realised the full extent of the references and influences that book had on Juliens character? It's kind of driving me insane to not share this knowledge with anyone, ptn fans should get to know that their main story happened the way it did because one of the ptn writers watched a musical (exaggeration but still kind of true)! So you've unfortunately been chosen as the victim of my semi detailed but very long infodump hehe!! 😈 I hope it's at least a little informative and interesting ^o^ Also it's maybe a little arrogant but I swear I feel like Im the only person that has realised the full extent of the connections?? Even in non en speaking parts of the ptn fandom? So I really need to pass this knowledge on !!

So essentially it all started with the Paris Commune in 1871 . I swear on my PTN account this will make sense 😭. It was a brief socialist revolutionary government that ruled Paris for about two months. The 19th century in france was generally a very politically chaotic era obviously, and lots of temporary or permanent changes happened that had lasting effects on the early modern age.
The interesting thing is, despite being so short in the grand scheme of things, it had an immese impact in all regimes considering themselves communist in the future, including the communist party of China, and was seen as a blueprint to follow. The Chinese government has always seen itself as a successor to the Paris Commune in a way. I'm reallyyyy simplifying things rn so if this sounds interesting feel free to do more detailed research, there's interesting papers on the internet. The important thing is, french culture, specifically 19th century, is popular in China, and there are historical reasons for it! That's why recently, as western musicals have become more popular and widespread in China, and the arts stopped being so strictly restricted, French musicals have been massivelyyyyy popular in China! Classic musicals with political messaging like Les Miserables especially, and also a french mozart musical, I really need to emphasise just how popular they are ! These musicals are put on with the original french cast and songs, sell super well, and it's common for audience members to sing along to the most popular songs! I'll once again emphasise just how popular these musicals have become in cn fandoms so I sound less like I'm making conspiracy theories, and the red and the black musical is the perfect example as argue ably THE most popular one!

One interesting thing about the version of the musical that was touring in China 2019 is that it's actually the french musical, le rouge et le noir l'opera rock, complete with the original french actors and songs sung in french, just subtitled. There was also a Japanese tour of the musical, but that one was entirely in Japanese, with Japanese translations of the songs . All other musical adaptations of the red and black book are completely unrelated to this particular musical adaptation made in france. One reason why the China tour was unchanged from the original is that the songs from the french rock opera are just that good??? They're all absolute bangers it really the musical
Especially the most iconic and important song, Le gloire a mes genoux! I definitely recommend listening to it at least once to kind of get a feel of why it's so ridiculously popular, I may or not be a bit obsessed with it myself ...
But the thing that's interesting about how the China tour went was that there was a big enough audience for a french musical, which is for the reasons I mentioned before and more . And the red&black musical really was so so so so successful !! To quote basically the only english article on this ,
https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/581998
"Stendhal's classic novel about a young man's ambitions to climb the social ladder from modest beginnings in 19th century France — began its 50-show tour of China in October.Most theaters quickly sold out, with tickets going for 1,180 yuan ($167) — higher than the minimum wage in some regions."

Especially le gloire a mes genoux the "main" song of the musical is so so popular it surprises me again and again it's ridiculous... If you search up literally any character or media and the song name on billibilli you WILL find at least 5 different animations, edits, AMVs featuring the song . I legit gasped when I discovered there was a Kafka & Blade (My beloved my favourite ever) edit featuring a chinese le gloire a mes genoux cover with lyrics fitting the characters?? It's such an iconic song everyone and their mother in cn fandom knows it, it's being sung on singing competitions in cn tv shows and I swear there really is an lgamg edit for every fandom out there...

Me explaining in unnecessary detail how ridiculously popular the musical is is basically just for the purpose of explaining how it having such a potentially big influence on the writing/concept of the longest main story arc (Rustfire arc my beloved and beloathed...) and because I like YAPPING and INFODUMPING unnecessarily muahaha 😈

Oh another thing , deepest apologies for bringing up a hoyo character again T-T, but Aventurine from honkai star rail also has the red and the black references! So ptn wouldn't be the only cn gacha referencing red and black, ptns reference is just muchhhh more in depth and hsr references like everything under the sun .

So for Julien. Why do I say with such confidence that he is inspired by Julien Sorel, besides the name and being a dark haired twink that dies tragically? And why do I think it's intentional canon and I have proof (not insane anon here)?

I'm not sure if you've had the same experience as me when Black halo first released but I personally went insane 😁 I don't want to know how many times I watched it .
In the process of going insane jiu jiu actually took the time to subtitle ALL the flashes of cn text (Thank you jiu jiu !!)
The way the text in the MV works is a title that fits the part of the story shown and some quotes from the main story !
I'm sure you had a easier time reading them in the translated upload by ptn EN like 5 months after the cn . Besides the fact that all the Julien quotes made me THROW UP AND CRY, I also noticed something else during my obsession : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qorSmQ-988E&list=PLeqC-aYBpm1sXGCUdIl2U_eYLeUZJK6os&index=2&pp=gAQBiAQB8AUB0gcJCTgDd0p55Nqk

In jiu jius upload of the cn MV, at 0:37 minutes, the title for the hella & hecate section is "red & black", which is so random and out of theme that the en upload replaced it with a much more fitting to early story hella hecate, sin & conviction in their localisation (although kr and jp kept it. Yes I did check it back then and the more I think about it the more scared I am of the me during my PTN obsession bro was NOT PLAYING about that donayuu cocaine :0)

Which makes sense, because the localisers do not have the context I just told you, which is that it's an official confirmation that stendhals the red and the black inspired their story hehe !! Unserious but I do have MAJOR beef with the en localisers for the selin > shalom change but this one I just found funny .. The stendhal erasure :(... Btw, with this the red and the black mention in the MV (which is in the correct order btw, jiu jiu translated it as black and red presumably bcs of the colors of the characters being mismatched which is random but ok) like 70% of the "Syndicate theme MV" is just about Julien. Julien my babygirl you will always be famous ❤️

One more thing that makes the reference so obviously intentional can be seen in this example clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=_SZwSELzySM&list=WL&index=74
of how the actor playing Julien Sorel looks performing le gloire a mes genoux in the cn tour. Obviously his (cǒme) costume varies, but it's usually quite similar to the one in the video, and it might look a little familiar, because our Juliens first outfit is basically the same thing? The gray vest over a white shirt and black pants? Plus the hairstyle?? Yeah he's not beating the french allegations

If we're not comparing the musical but the original book Julien Sorel to ptn Julien, even just in the first half of the book you can see just how much red and black shenanigans the ptn writers incorporated into juliens character. Some examples from yours truly:

Sorels father is also abusive and a horrible person, Sorel is not explicitly disabled but described as "everyone knew he would probably die young", weak, and preferring reading books to the physical work he is expected to do in the working class, Sorel is described as looking like a girl dressed up as a boy (femine features )by other people, he is described as having both black/dark hair AND wearing dark clothing basically all of the time, Sorel is not quite as mentally unwell as Julien and in a very different way but he DID think to himself that if he did not confess his love to a woman this night he would shoot himself (quote from a 10/10 book btw) 💔, and the one that caught me most of guard and makes me feel like I'm insane for thinking any of this is an intentional reference, one time Sorel is asked by an old (kind of more than?) friend of his to essentially live with him and be his accountant for his woodworking business because he's good at math, and canonically Julien did accounting for Don . 🤯🤯

Since we've established the reference is there and intentional (insert connecting the dots and being NOT insane image) and the ptn turned some traits up to 100 for their Julien, I also think it's interesting to talk about how Sorel is technically so different from Julien. I mean the last thing ptn Julien considers himself is a "hero" or a special person, he constantly downplays his own accomplishments and doesn't consider himself the leader of rustfire even though he is. So where does Sorels "wanting to be the next bonaparte" come in?

The ptn writers (most of it was probably dumpling, the writer who almost got cancelled for loving BL despite writing sharahu 😓) had the really interesting ideo of making ptn Julien project his obsession with heroism on other people! Donald (and later Chief) is his own Napoleon who will become the glorious leader . You can see a lot of that in his interactions with chief, and it gives more context to his unhealthy idolisation of the two (besides the borderline personality disord--) Me thinks analysing the messed up Don-Chief-Julien polycule and their general relationship and the huge role it played in chapter 13 through this lense and seeing the themes of the red and the black is so so interesting ^o^ Especially since the themes (especially heroism) are already present without even considering Julien, and how 18th century france high society couldn't be more different from the realm ptns rustfire arc does social commentary on, but the parallels are still there if you look and are too media analys pilled

Finally THAT was all if I'm not forgetting anything (I see how u came to think I'm multiple Julien anons ･:*+.(( °ω° ))/.:+)
Ridiculously long this is why I'm never writing the full Donayuuchief analysis
_:(´ཀ`」 ∠):
Go my evil infodumplings to the number 1 don fan.

I may out of my personal donayuu hyperfixation hell but this knowledge is never leaving my brain I fear .. Also they haunt me every bcs why was my most recent fav ship just two characters with combined and mixed traits of donald and julien respectively... Get into okubade and orb they will not ruin your life I promise 😊

Also I would be honoured to be friends with the number 1 dondon fan but unfortunately I am just a little guy (17 and im pretty sure your account is minors dni?) and my twitter account talks about ANYTHING but path to nowhere so that would be highkey akward

Offtopic but do you fw akuneko, akuaya or astro dive those are my current joseimuke crack
Also seals 🦭

I wish you well in everything in your life!!