#and i think again how special dgm was and how much it inspired the fans of the time and made a mark in history

[icharchivist]

your tags on the yulma post made me so emotional, thank you for sharing ;; it’s honestly disheartening to see their representation either get completely dismissed or met with absolute ignorance,, i do think the fandom has come a long way since then even tho there’s still discourse around how “valid” it is but if people dug more deep, it’s honestly undeniable no matter how u look at it

aaah glad it was a worthwhile read then 🥺

and yeah definitely :( fandom changes and there's been a lot of changes in the last twenty years in the way an audience can accept a queer narrative, and while it's for the better, it does also mean that sometimes there's people who aren't going to see what was the big deal or how it was groundbreaking. They often approach their dynamic by modern standards of queer representation that i think can sometimes be a disservice to how huge it was in 2010 when it came out.

I remember talking about this story with a friend once and they were like "so it's queer because one of them is actually a woman in a man's body. that seems cowardly to me" and it frustrated me a little both on the angle of what it means for Alma to be in this situation to start with (if Alma is in a situation where they can accept the change to their body or not, and how no matter how you look at it Alma is fundamentally genderqueer), but also on how i remember the anger against "Kanda being gay" to start with

And i think about how Hoshino had to work for this to start with, having to set up that Kanda was looking for someone very early on, someone implied to be a lover, and then build the Alma arc in such a way where Alma=Person Kanda Was (Romantically) Looking For became unavoidable and no editor could go back on what she wanted to say. It was huge at the time, and i hope we can remember it like that.

but between the way lots of fans abandonned the manga then, the hiatus following afterward, and the new anime not really being beginner friendly, dgm's legacy in term of queer representation ended up kinda buried under it all and difficult to get new people to see.

and now i sometimes see a lot of scrutiny on the Kanda/Alma storyline on "can we even consider it queer" that makes me sad in the sense of, sometimes it circles back to similar argument i've heard at the time to cut down the ship, which also have people say "but if this argument can be made then it means it wasn't obvious enough", while no, it's obvious, people just were seeing it in bad faith because they were looking for their own confirmation basis, but in the end those specific people ended up leaving because even if they wanted to make up excuse to erase the queerness, it was too late, the queerness was here to stay.

like idk i'm just rambling but i so vividly remember how people reacted then that i can't buy into any "it's not queer enough" complains from the modern perspective. It was groundbreaking at the time and it was the real first popular Shounen i personally read where one of the main character was confirmed to be in a queer love story that is the important focus of a full arc, and tbh i haven't truly seen that much ever since (but i also don't keep a close look at modern Shounen so that's on me)

but yeah and in the end i really come back to the feeling of "if they're not queer enough why did homophobes get this mad about it when it happened" yaknow

anyway thank you for the ask and i'm glad the perspective was a nice read <3

i just hope one day people can really realize just how special dgm was at the time for that.

[mysaldate]

For the character ask (sorry if you have already done it): Douma, Giyū.

Haven’t done it yet! And it will take shorter than the ficlet requests so I’m prioritizing this for the moment.

Character ask: Douma

OTP for him: Douma/Kotoha before it all went to hell. He may have only seen her as a pet at first but she was most likely the closest to actually getting him to feel properly. I will go down with this ship!

BROTP for him: I really like his dynamics with Kokushibou where they both respect each other to the point where Douma doesn’t get touchy with him while Koku doesn’t insult him like Akaza does, but still have enough casual energy for Douma to feel pouty when Koku ghosts them all.

Other ships: I’m not a fan of Douma/Shinobu, though I can see where their shippers are coming from and if it’s done well, I can still kind of enjoy them. I like Douma/Akaza way more. I have even more ships but most of them are crack, crossover or both.

What kind of fic I’d write about him: I actually don’t know. I write all kinds of fics for all kinds of characters but I don’t have a specific character-genre set usually. Whatever I’d feel inspired to.

A favourite canon moment: Well... That’s a hard one. I have literally all his scenes cut out and saved so that about tells you how much I enjoy him. His smiles are incredibly beautiful, I like the casual half-hug he gives Akaza, really just wanted to pat his head every time he cried, the genuinely sweet expression he sported around Kotoha is also up there, the pride he takes in his ice dolls, that dorky face when apologizing for sucking at detective work, how eagerly he offers up his eyes to Muzan, how he picks up Daki and Gyutaro... And then we have this pose that’s just perfect too!

Colour that reminds me of him: Combination of red and black. And rainbows.

Song that reminds me of him: Not sure. Either Ready to Die by Andrew W. K. or Butterfly by Smile (he just gives me those Tyki MIkk vibes)

A headcanon about him: One I haven’t shared yet since I would just be repeating myself otherwise. Don’t ask him to do any housework. He will try his best but he’s a total disaster when it comes to this. If you want your house to survive, don’t ask him for help.

Random AU I think up on the spot for him: Ever heard of Brave10? Swap him with Isanami. If you don’t know how that would go: A baby is found at the doorstep of a temple, darkness swarming around them. The headpriest takes them in and thus, little Douma gets to grow up as a shrine servant, possibly a young priest. Soon enough, the other priests notice when he’s sad, people start disappearing without a trace and darkness surrounds the temple. In order to prevent this, they give Douma the duty of keeping the temple a happy place, indirectly pushing him to push down any negative feelings he might have for the sake of fulfilling his place correctly. They give him a hairpiece they say harbors dark energy. By being always happy, he can keep it contained. Little does he know he’s actually the embodiment of the god of darkness and destruction and the hairpiece protects him much more than he protects the hairpiece...

Anything else: Yeah, I really just want to see him around Isanami. The two are so similar it’s scary in so many ways... And I wanna see them share their talents with the fans, Douma teaching her some attack techniques so she doesn’t feel useless and Isanami teaching him the ritual dances.

Character ask: Giyuu Tomioka

OTP for him: I don’t really ship that much in KNY I just realized but either the classic Sabito/Giyuu or, if I dare to step into the more cracky territory, Muzan/Giyuu. Don’t ask me how does it work, it doesn’t. It’s just a cracky AU with overall cracky premise. It somehow works in there, though it still has a lot of issues.

BROTP for him: Sabito. All the way. Possibly Tanjiro but not that much.

Other ships: Like I said, I don’t ship all that much in this series. I don’t like him shipped with Shinobu or Sanemi tho, but that’s probably mostly because I don’t like the two of them.

What kind of fic I’d write about him: You know how I said I don’t usually pair up a character with a genre? Well, Giyuu is one of the exceptions. And boy, am I cruel to him. He’s a character connected to so much angst already and I just keep adding on that... I have one crack AU for him but even that one sometimes gets a little hurt by the overflowing floods of angst I pour in for him.

A favourite canon moment: Again, hard to pick. I just like his presence, he’s a nice character but I don’t think there’s a special moment I’d like more than the others. Maybe that one part where he stops Iguro from completely crushing Tanjiro’s chest?

Colour that reminds me of him: Blue (surprisingly)

Song that reminds me of him: I don’t think I have one. I don’t really think about him enough to associate songs to him I guess? Though if I had to pick, I guess Lotus Pain? Yeah, I associate KNY with DGM a lot.

A headcanon about him: Following up with the housework theme, Giyuu is one guy you want to keep around. He does everything and perfectly. Sure, his cooking lacks a bit of warmth but it’s still delicious.

Random AU I think up on the spot for him: Thinking on a spot, AU where he and Sabito defeated the hand demon together and became pillars together and generally just stick together and it’s sweet.Other than that, I also have the dad!Giyuu AU where he adopts Tanjiro and Nezuko and all the other kids they end up bringing to the family (yes, this is where Muzan/Giyuu comes from too).

Anything else: Giyuu really used to give me big Kanda Yuu vibes and I was almost getting worried we’d just get DGM 2.0 with him around. I never really liked Kanda but I was neutral about Giyuu for the most part. He proved to be his own character, luckily, rather than a rip-off and his awkwardness is what really made me like him a lot. There’s probably not another Hashira I like more – though both Rengoku and Uzui are really high on the list as well so who knows for sure?