#anyway here's my contribution to the fandom for the year lol.

[its-a-me-mango]

THANK YOU ALL FOR AN AMAZING YEAR! HERE'S TO MANY MORE!

Alllright, final thing to close off today, and what better than with a great big THANK YOU to everyone for sticking with me for a whole year! Regardless of if you’ve been around since I first joined or if you only just followed me today, thank you so much for your support of me and my work. Knowing there are so many fantastic and wonderful individuals who all enjoy what I make is just indescribable, I get to wake up and enjoy creating things I love for the series I love so dearly all while so many amazing people enjoy what I make too. I really can’t put into words how thankful I am for everyone who follows me but genuinely from the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you all for an amazing year and here’s hoping for many more to come!

Now, I do have a few special dedications to a few certain individuals, if I didn’t get the chance to include you PLEASE don’t think that I don’t value you in any way! There were so many cool and talented people that I wanted to thank but I simply didn’t have time to do so! You are all so important to me and it does kill me a little that I can’t thank everyone, but I am just one guy at the end of the day so again please don’t take it personally, I am still so thankful for everyone and I want you to know this. <3

ANYWAY LONG ASS BLOCK OF TEXT UNDER THE READ MORE

So, in no order in particular

@lizaluvsthis @shygirl4991 @b-r-i-n-g-x - I’m putting you all together as one because I always see you guys working as a group so it feels wrong to split you guys up lol. You were all some of the first people I ever saw in the SMG4 fandom and your contributions inspired me so much to make my own stuff too! Everything you guys make always has so much heart and soul put into it, Brewing Romance, Split into 3’s, Gay Ogres, they’re all some of the first projects I remember seeing and for that I wanna thank you guys for motivating me to make and create my own things within this fandom! Even if you guys aren’t as active now or have moved on from those projects, I still hold them dear to me so keep making and creating because you guys are all so amazing at it! <3

@mothsbakery - Moth my beloved friend, I don’t know where to start, when I first got into SMG4, I was so worried about sharing it with my friends because I was worried it would somehow get turned against me in some way (blame that damn trauma lol), so having you take a passing interest in it was such a major relief to me. I’m so glad I’ve been able to sit down with you and watch the few episodes that we have because they’ve been so much fun! I’m so glad that we’re friends even after all these years. I know I’m not always the best at keeping in touch but I do genuinely appreciate your friendship and all that we’ve done together. Please keep making and creating and enjoying what you love, seeing you come to my DM’s with your newest musical piece is always such a joy to listen to and it’s been so wonderful to watch you improve over the years! Keep being amazing Moth, I’ll chat to you soon I promise! <3

@strange0-0storm - STOOOORM!!! (POINTING AT YOU POINTING AT YOU) FREAK!!!!/J I’m kidding lol, Storm I am so glad I’ve gotten the chance to talk with you, even if it's brief, you are so fun to talk to that I can’t wait to get the chance to chat with you again about OC’s or just anything really! Your work is always so yummy, whether it's SMG4, Gravity Falls, Popee The Performer, and more, your art is always just so full of character and it just makes me wanna keep doing what I’m doing and it helps me not worry about branching out at some point to something else. No matter what I will always come back to your work because it's so amazing and it’s even better knowing it’s made but such an equally amazing person, stay awesome Storm! (also RhythmDoctor 4 life they should kiss and make out more JHBBSGHBSGH) <3

@bluesbox - Blue! Dude you are so freaking cool I cannot put it into words, not only is your work fantastic and such a joy to interact with, but you’re also so dedicated to characters lore and interactions that I can’t help but wanna be just like that! I’ll never forget when you first dropped the TSB lore presentation that shit was SO WILD, knowing there's someone who's so invested in other peoples OC’s (including my own!) to such an extent is honestly so amazing, and it really pushes me to invest more time into my own work! Knowing there’s someone out there who genuinely takes so much interest in it is so uplifting, so thank you for always wanting to know more about what I make as well as everyone else, we need more amazing people like you Blue, keep being you! (also PS, the way you give Mango glasses is probably my favourite thing someone has given him, it makes me so happy to see every time, don’t tell anyone shhhhh) <3

@libbytwq - LIBBY, LIBBY OMG I don’t think I’ve ever met another SMG4 fan who just gets the same sense of humor as me so well, I love being terminally on Tumblr and having someone else who is also terminally on Tumblr, it’s so refreshing lmao! Lore not only are you an amazing person to talk to, you are also so insanely talented to match, all of your work has so much charm and passion put into it that I can just sense it with every piece, I always want to know more with your characters like I NEED the full SMGL:E lore or else I will explode and die, that’s how good you are at getting people invested in your work! You’re so great at creating interesting and engaging characters/stories that it motivates me so much with my own work. You have so much love for what you do it’s so wonderful to see, please keep creating forever and always because your work is such an absolute joy to see. I love getting the chance to chat with you so much and I can’t wait to chat with you again, thank you for being such an amazing friend Libby! <3

@hamlos - Hamlos, your work is truly incredible. I really can’t express it enough, it’s so dynamic and flexible in such a beautiful way, everything you make is just so amazing and that's just talking about your art itself, the characters you have are so interesting I always want to know more about them, especially Cardiac I seriously love him so much and having him paired with Mango is so wonderful, they really go together so well! I’ve never had anyone go so crazy (positive) over my characters before and It’s so amazing to see, every time you come to me with your amazing work it’s always such a nice thing to see! I know I am not always the best at responding but I do always see and read everything you send me and it always leaves me with a big smile on my face. Even if you’re not super into SMG4 right now, thank you for all that you’ve done and all that you’ve made for me, HeartBeet will always have a special place in my heart and I hope it does for you too, they are gay after all lol. <3

@neo91502 @hexsie @aquaproductions - Grouping you all together even though you all couldn’t be more unique and individual, every single one of you is so special and amazing to talk to, I legit get so excited any time one of you joins a VC with me because all of you are so fun to hang out with for so many reasons! Neo omg you are honestly such a nice person to chat to and be around, you’re always so fun to hang out with and you’ve convinced me to sit down one day and listen to Epic the Musical because every time you go crazy over the word Epic, I can’t help but find it so cute lol. Nova your obsession with Hex3 is so sweet and I’m genuinely glad you’re having so much fun with it, seeing you go on rambling about your OC’s will always be such a joy to see and you know what yes one day I will draw Hex3 just for you, gimme a second though (dies first /j). And Aqua, I had no idea how much of a sweetheart you were to talk to, you are honestly so cool and I’m so glad to have you in my DM’s sending me amazing fanart that you know I’ll like, thank you so much for being so awesome and I’m giving you platonic smooches right back at ya so watch out!!! All of you are again so amazing and I can’t wait to keep chatting with all of you! <3

MY BELOVED WHO SHAN’T BE NAMED BUT I KNOW YOU’RE READING THIS!!! - Hai babe, listen, I can’t believe the whole time you’ve been dating me I’ve been an SMG4 fan, that must be so embarrassing to you lol /j but thank you so much forever and always for sticking with me. You are truly the light of my life, I treasure every moment we spend together and I am waiting for the future to come so that I can spend it with you forever and always. Thank you for not only indulging in my interests with me, but for enjoying me for who I am, everytime you call me cute for getting giddy over SMG4 it honestly makes my heart flutter and it reminds me of why I love you so much, I wouldn’t be who I am without you and I hope you can say the same thing for me. I cannot wait to get the chance to see you again in person, I need to kiss you sloppy style soooooo bad it's making me bark and growl grrr grrr bARK BARK BARK anyway I love you so much and I always will. (I will forever kiss you for getting me Smug I can’t believe you got him, he’s like a fucked up and evil son to me) <3

@ominus-potato @theartistisme43 @coralalala64 - Grouping you all together even though I have different things to say about all of you, but regardless, all of you are such amazingly talented people that I’d love to get to chat with you all properly one day, even if I’ve talked with you guys a bit it’s not enough! I’d love to get to know you guys better at some point lol. Ominus your work is just so good I can’t help but feel happy anytime I see it. I promise one day we will meet at a convention, I’m so mad I missed you once I won’t let it happen again! Cantro, your work is incredible!!! Every time I see it I’m so amazed with what you’ve made that it just gets me excited to see what else you can create, I am manifesting with all my strength that if you do ever decide to apply as a SMG4 machinima artist, that you get it because god damn you deserve it! And Coral, THE CREATURE CREATOR!!! I love your lil creatures so much, and OMG you have to teach me how to do such amazing pencil work, your work always inspires me so much and I’m so glad I’ve gotten the chance to chat with you a lil, your gif collection is truly frightening but in the best way possible. Again all of you are so amazing so please keep doing what you’re best at! <3

@tiredsmashbros - Tomm, Mr Tiredsmashbros, holy shit where do I even start with you. First of all, I would probably not be thanking half the people in this piece if not for you, I know how scary setting up a server was for you but I will forever be so thankful that you did. Finally getting the chance to chat with not only you, but so many amazing people in the SMG4 fandom has been an absolute joy and I am forever thankful for you for creating such an open and accepting space, you and Radiant are seriously so awesome for all the work you’ve put into that place. It’s from your server that i’ve learnt how wonderful and generous you are as a person, I really cannot think of anyone kinder than you Tomm, the way you always have an essay planned for every piece of fanart you get, from just your overall positive attitude, I am so glad I’ve finally gotten the chance to meet you after just being a fan of your work for so long. Your work has been such an inspiration to me and you’ve always been someone I wanted to chat with and the fact that I am now is!!! Crazy!!! I can’t believe you were scared of me at one point lol. Anyway thank you Tomm for being such a fantastic friend overall, I need to know TSB’s lore right now, can you whisper it to me I promise I’ll keep it a secret, regardless stay awesome dude, you deserve nothing but joy and happiness forever and always. Qwah Tuh (also Burgerfruit beloved, they should get weirder /j) <3

@doodledev1l - Doodle!!!!! Okay I know this sounds weird but genuinely finding another British SMG4 fan has been so refreshing, not only that but you’re super fun to talk to and be around so it’s even better! Getting the chance to hang out and chat with you is always so fun, I love getting to hear what you’re working on for uni and I always hope that it goes well for you, I know how stressful it can be lol. Regardless, I know you’ll do amazing because I’ve seen how dedicated and talented you are when it comes to your work, again I hope the rest of uni goes well for you because you deserve it, we gotta end your bad luck streak somehow lol. Thank you for being such an amazing person to chat and hang out with, keep up the amazing work dude, I’ll get you a tescos meal deal one day I promise. <3

PHEW, THAT’S EVERYONE, again thank you all so much for sticking by my side for a year! Doesn’t matter what time you showed up, I will always be thankful to know all of you, keep being awesome I love you all. I die now

Mango <3

[helenofblackthorns]

maybe it's just me but sometimes the narrative surrounding Julian & his siblings in the fandom annoys me just a little bit. especially the twins like he is not their father?? he did not raise them?? yes he did raise Tavvy but the twins are literally two years younger than him. they have the exact same age gap as Alec & Izzy.

like I understand where this perspective comes from, aka Julian. obviously it seems like common sense to take a main character at his word but you can't!! Julian's has a very disordered thought process regarding his siblings specifically and he isn't necessarily representing the situation clearly. he was forced to grow up very quickly at a young age and because of that he's created a narrative in his head that frames his siblings as being younger than they are and he's wrong!! except maybe Tavvy they ALL grew up too fast. we literally see Dru looking after Tavvy multiple times during tda like she's also raising him. and Julian is in many ways blind to that (he does work on it throughout the series tho, see: him letting Ty & Livvy go out on their own in London & treating Dru less like a little kid)

yes he refers to them as his kids sometimes, but again, this is disordered thinking. Livvy Ty & Dru don't view him at a father figure: Ty was literally the champion of wanting Mark to take over from Julian (and he hates change!!). Livvy & Ty also hacked his phone so they could keep tabs and make sure he was ok like. Julian perspection is not mutual, and even he doesn't always believe in it. exhibit a:

look at the language he uses regarding each of his siblings. in his ideal future, he wants to teach Tavvy (which is very parental) but he wants to fence with Livvy, and watch movies with Dru, and look for animals with Ty - as equals, as siblings. he just wants to be able to hang out with them doing things they love without having the burden of caring for them. which is also different to how Mark & Helen (& Aline) are referred to, as they are sharing that burden. he's not really bonding with them in the way he wants to with his younger siblings. (which also is bring us to the other contributing factor here which is that tda (& sobh) give the impression that Julian is closest with Mark and people assume that has always been the case. which isnt true but that's a whole other post lol)

anyway I really really hope twp digs into this significantly & we see more of the whole situation from Ty's & Dru's eyes. because I need Julian's framing to be broken down within the text for my own peace of mind and also because I want to see him finally have that bond back

[sibmakesart]

i love the way you draw age! most ppl shy away from it or try to make it look "pretty," but as someone who adores her old-and-looks-like-it grandparents, i find the wrinkles and sags and spots very beautiful. tyty for ur contribution <3

thank you sm !!!

i love love love drawing older people, you can be so much more expressive with faces that have lived than with doll faces imo (and theyre much more forgiving imo lol)

it took a bit of trial and error (and studies) to get to a point where i understood how skin aged, it was rough at the start lol (from~2020-21 i think)

the ofmd fandom my izzy obsession saved my Old People drawing skills fr (from last year)

im still lacking on the women department but im working on it 💪

vvv (i was coming from very far lmao) (these are from 2020) vvv

vvv these people are in their late 40s they look like sleep deprived 25 yo lmao vvv

ANYWAY SORRY THIS WAS LONG GIVE WRINKLES TO CHARACTERS AND DONT GIVE UP ON ART THAT WAS NOT THE POINT OF THE ASK AT ALL BUT HERE WE ARE

[tweeterwilbury]

Alternative universe where csny has a big fandom dashboard simulator

👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 dykenashby reblogged ftmdavidcrosby follow

I hate when people make nash be the woman in nashby... like first it always feel like the person doesnt know anything about queer people and second we all know that they both are the women in nashby

# also # crosby is clearly a pillow princess with nash # and nash is a service top # but people arent ready for the truth yet

20 notes

🍑 neilphenweek follow

That's a wrap! Thank you everyone who contributed for this year's neilphen week, and see you next month!

1.000 notes

🐐 wildgayles follow

Here's how i think that nash is still the most underrated csny member, not only on the fandom but also for general people and even the csny members themselves.

[READ MORE]

0 notes

🥂 lesbianstills follow

It still is so funny to me that stephen was like "people thought that i was a fag or a groupie when i was around hendrix, but hey, that's was not it. Anyway here's how much i wish he had fingered me"

# like girl # we have all been there before # but you are not subtle.

200 notes

🦭 ftmdavidcrosby follow

Oh my god someone published t4t youngby on ao3??? WORLD IS HEALING

# right after this fucking neilphen week is over... # sorry neilphen mutuals but i think neil deserves better # and in csny that would be crosby # my beautiful boybutch who would know how to treat that girltwink well # this is soooo exciting oh my god # EDIT: IT'S AN 80S RANCH FIC??? HOLYYYY SHIT

4 notes

🐈‍⬛ zuma1975 follow

Nobody fucks with crazy horse rpf like i do. Stop looking at neilphen or younby or whatever is the young nash ship (which is just people trying to put neil with every csn guy lol). Let's have a moment to think about the tragedy of danny and neil. Irl doomed yaoi? Yeah. What about neil and billy talbot. Thing about all the beautiful things we could have...

# neil young # crazy horse # yalbot # danneil # okay i need a better name for danny neil....

70 notes

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

me raising my voice over the sound of my clown shoes squeaking on the floor: i'll just write up a quick post alluding to my thoughts about DNIs, and how i feel like people both for and against them are erasing important nuance here. i'll try not to get into the details too much on it though, because it's a Long Post Subject and it Will balloon into that longpost if i don't keep it as simple as possible

me an hour later, 4k words into the post and still writing: AH LADS,

me: i'll just write up a quick post about a couple simple things you could change about sdmi to fix the worst of the talking animal stuff. maybe a little disclaimer at the beginning about the Utopia Problem

me an hour later, 3k words into the post and still writing: ah lads not again

[dadvans]

2024 Tumblr Top 10

thank you to @rcmclachlan @iphyslitterator and @screamlet for tagging me! It was absolutely amazing sharing a new fandom with you this past year, whether it was reuniting or meeting for the first time, and decompressing from a mentally rough year on here was THEE absolute highlight.

Share your top 10 tumblr posts from last year! Visit this site, scroll down to "Find your Tumblr Top 10," type in your username, and select 2024. When you get the results, simply click "Share to Tumblr" and you'll get an auto-generated draft for a post with links and previews. Make any adjustments you see fit.

5,775 notes (Jun 6 2024)

seeing a long text post that begins with “eddie” and scrolling down to cheat with the tags because it’s like, what if that’s not about MY eddie. is it 9-1-1 eddie. is it stranger things eddie. is it IT chapters one and two eddie. is it monsterfucker venom eddie. like, what eddie are we putting into gay little situations today.

the funniest part of this post is that i purposefully did not tag it, because i believed the right people would see it. i wasn't wrong.

2. 2,992 notes (Jun 21 2024)

the silliest fandom problem to have is curating my online space so carefully and so vigilantly that when mentions of a truly delusional post break containment and intrigue me, i have to use quantum physics and enter the fifth dimension just to find that post because i want to have a vicious little popcorn moment

this was 100% about buddie fandom. but i have a feeling it'll be relevant for the next 7,000 years. let the aliens find this one carved in stone.

3. 1,454 notes (Apr 1 2024)

Tomorrow when they log onto this webbed site they will see a post and like it But tonight Tumblr is alive It is a perfect spring day: there is a silly little button And when the girlies scroll past each post they will boop each mutual twice as much as usual

April Fools :')

4. 1,370 notes (Jun 8 2024)

my favorite line in the entire bucktommy saga is maddie’s reading of “wait, it’s the same tommy?” (...)

sometimes i can be funny. i love this post. i don't always write meta, but when i do, i'm hilarious.

5. 1,308 notes (May 1 2024)

lou ferrigno jr. scrunchy nose smile reblog if u agree

yeah 🥲

6. 1,138 notes (Oct 13 2024)

i love you hockey season i love you hockey narratives i love you old dogs senior sanctuary players in their 30s trying to make it count i love you rookies failing and fumbling and loving the game anyway with the weight of the world on your shoulders (...)

i came for the intricate rituals and i stayed for the game (but also still the intricate rituals)

7. 1,133 notes (Nov 3 2024)

you know that when everyone at harbor finds out tommy is dating someone from the 118, they start a joke gofundme called “tommy kinard inevitable injury fund,” but when they find out the person he’s dating is evan crushed-by-firetruck-struck-by-lightning buckley, they start all contributing to it monthly in earnest

i think this mostly got traction because myself and several others continued to riff on it, and it was delightful. example no. 5001 that bucktommy had unlimited fun potential as a ship.

8. 1,047 notes (May 21 2024)

me writing 9-1-1 fic: i have to know the exact make and model of this helicopter and 3 years from now i’ll have a pilot license in my quest to get every fact absolutely right just in case 9-1-1 the tv show: what if a house was alive and it would NOT stop calling the cops

i love this show bc ghosts are real in a way they never directly address head on but continually acknowledge

9. 1,026 notes (Jun 24 2024)

that’s how this scene happened, right

TELL ME I'M WRONG

10. 866 notes (Sep 28 2024)

“all bucktommy fans are over 30” yeah man why do you think all of our fic is so fucking good

lol. from the bottom of my heart: lmao.

tagging: @newtkelly @alchemistc @geddyqueer @middyblue @starryeyedjanai

[blindmagdalena]

I'm sorry ahead of time because this gives off such a simpy parasocial vibe (bcs you're a tumblr celebrity in my eyes lol) but I'm very grateful for you and your blog! I've been on tumblr for like over a decade but I've never ever interacted with anyone in whatever fandom I've been in. I don't know what is it about your space here that possessed me to finally make a blog and share things and engage with others but I'm so grateful for it. You were such a lovely gateway into the fandom and your blog is just such a good vibe. Definitely inspired me to feel less cringe about posting stuff. I'm currently working my way through writing a mildly cringe Homelander voice kink fic that is inspired by some of the headcanons you've written in the past. I rarely feel inspired enough to write, let alone feel like sharing my work but for once I genuinely feel like the fandom is so nice and accepting that it's worth giving it a shot!! Anyway, don't mind me just felt like pouring my heart out lol. Thanks for being awesome and being part of the fandom!!

ah man, don't apologize at all! thank you so much! i can't tell you how happy i am that i could at all contribute to your decision to engage with the fandom and share your creativity. i've also been on and off tumblr for many years, and coming back to it i was pretty shocked by how much the culture had changed. no one should be afraid of sharing their fan work! that's what fandom is! fandom community is honestly more important to me than any of the actual material the fandom comes from lol

well i haven't read it yet but i'm over the moon excited about your voice kink fic!!! that happens to be one of my very favorite kinks, and if it's cringy then i'm most definitely the conductor of the cringetrain.

thank YOU for being part of the fandom! i can't wait to see what else you bring to it! 🖤🖤🖤

[linxuelian]

Anime Fest Plus 2024 Convention Experience Log - With Photos!

Hi, hello! As I've recently (as of this post, yesterday morning) attended Anime Fest+ 2024 at Tropicana Gardens Mall, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, I've decided to write an experience log about my day there! While I will be posting a few different cosplays here, since my blog is currently primarily about MDZS, TGCF and SVSSS at the moment, most of the cosplays I'll be sharing will be from these three titles. To add to the fun, I'll also have commentaries on them!

To preface, the largest anime convention in Malaysia is Comic Fiesta, an annual mecca with 70,000 attendees as of the year 2023. Anime, games and comics are popular in this country, so there are smaller cons dotted throughout the months.

Anyway, the crowd wasn't as large as Comic Fiesta. As the structure of Tropicana Gardens Mall is rather narrow, you'd technically have to file through in two to three lines to be able to walk in and out of the place.

The exhibition hall at the fourth floor hosted all performances as well as cosplay booths. You'd have to ride one of the two escalators up to the hall - plebs without a ticket are doomed to be stranded at the bottom of said escalators, unable to sop up the merriment held exclusively above.

Here are some pics though, just in case you were a pleb that day, or just didn't attend the event:

Main hall programs and booths featured mostly Hololive and sexy pretty girl cosplayers and figurines, given the regular, expected fare when it comes to the anime consuming demographic (yes, I'm calling you out, my anime-watching brothers). I didn't take pictures of the doujinshi market out of respect for the art sellers there, but I did buy a beautiful print and got some lovely free stickers from that ONE vendor who sold BL stuff among the throngs of moe girls/Genshin Impact.

Yes, there was only one stall. But that one vendor made my day! Bless your heart, sister!

Now, I'll move on to the highlight - the cosplays. Nothing fills my heart with more joy than seeing happy people wearing colorful costumes and having a blast just being part of the convention scene. To be honest, it's so common to be wearing cosplay outfits nowadays that folk don't even notice you when you're dressed up - and I say this from experience; nobody noticed at all that I was in costume (or they were far too polite to laugh at how shitty I looked LOL, I didn't even dare take pics of myself). These events usually become scavenger hunts for me, to identify the ones from series I know or my tribe (fellow MXTX fans aha!).

First up is an oldie that's a goldie - Mr. Spock from Star Trek (credit: FaceBook user Yasuhiro Orihusay):

Honestly, I did NOT expect to find any Star Trek cosplays there. My dad's a Trekkie, so this was one of the first pics I sent him at the con itself. Live long and prosper, Mr. Spock!

Next, a furry OC:

I wasn't able to get their social media account as they were waiting in line for an autograph by a cosplayer, so unfortunately I'm unable to credit here.

Furries are currently still a new thing in Malaysia - but I'm glad to see them appearing more frequently at our cons, since they do diversify our pop culture scene quite a bit. Furs Upon Malaysia (FURUM) is held annually in Kuala Lumpur. The tickets are always sold out within an hour, so it's definitely growing and also contributing to tourism (Indonesian and Singaporean furries gather there too).

Also, they're fluffy. I love fluffy things. Much thanks, furry fandom, for being fluffy!

Moving on, here's a group cosplay of Jojo's Bizzare Adventure's Six Pistols (Mista from Golden Wind's Stands, if you're wondering which season it's from):

Vibrant and very spot on! I was unable to get their social media account due to the crowd and disorientation on my part. Do try to look them up, though! They were pretty popular, so I'm sure someone would have shared some info if you're interested.

Anyway, here's a White Mage from Final Fantasy (credit: https://www.instagram.com/yari_hayashi/):

Final Fantasy's one of the older franchises, but it's definitely rising again due to the new FFVII remake. I thought he was Garnet until I saw the blond wig. Bless the mages, healing power plus!!

Next in line is one of my all-time favorites, Sailor Moon (credit: https://www.instagram.com/jiahuab0719_cos/):

I'm a Moonie so seeing a Sailor Moon made me pretty excited! I don't see too many Sailor Moon cosplays even in Comic Fiesta - cosplays at our conventions are pretty seasonal and tend to follow trends, from what I've seen. She definitely caught quite a bit of attention with her wings, too. I saw her getting stopped quite a bit, so I'm glad I got a pic before a line formed!

Aaaand! I've saved the best for last! I'll be showcasing the MXTX stuff now. To start off (with a bang), here are two cosplayers of the number one seasonal love interest of the BL world, Hua Cheng a.k.a. San Lang Didi (Grown Up Version):

Credit: https://www.instagram.com/karry.1213/ (donghua version) and https://www.instagram.com/kopiii_cos/ (manhua version)

Remember how I said cosplays at Malaysian conventions tend to be pretty seasonal? Well, the current flavor of the month for the BL world is definitely TGCF - and the hottest flavor is now San Lang didi. You're going to get stopped for photos pretty often for dressing up as this flashy guy, and for good reason too. Donned in striking red, Hua Cheng is the Ferrari of the danmei world.

I overhead Kopiii_cos' friend saying so many people have been asking for photos! Viva Fafa!

Next, we have the ever beautiful WangXian couple cosplays:

Credit: Wei Wuxian (https://www.instagram.com/purple_384/) and Lan Wangji (https://www.instagram.com/anson1510/)

WangXian's a staple when it comes to the MXTX fandom. There's nary a person who doesn't love these two soulmates, and with these elaborate costumes, they've certainly stolen the show! They were the first couple I saw at the entrance of the exhibition hall, which makes sense since there was an OTP contest going on that afternoon.

Moving along, we have the main character of his story, the Crown Prince of Xian Le, Xie Lian (credit: https://www.instagram.com/arkutagwa/):

I gotta admit that this Lian's the sweetest of the Xies so far. Had a field day calling each other cute (what can I say, we both had cute personalities)! Gotta love that charming dimpled cheek, bless!

Speaking of cute, there's also this whole cute pose thing going on with certain attendees (credit: https://www.instagram.com/chzesin/):

I won't lie - I didn't recognize the character at first. But with the dark-gray-to-white ombre, black and red colors to tell you that's a Wei Wuxian, I'm just going to take a gamble here and deduce that yes, that is indeed a Wei Wuxian and include it. Let me know if you don't think it is.

Last but not least, we have our MXTX OTP group:

Credits: https://www.instagram.com/ayafvrvv/ (Luo Binghe) and https://www.instagram.com/close0402/ (Lan Wangji) - the rest didn't share their social media accounts but they did say you can find them through each other's accounts.

Turns out they're a group who'd entered the OTP contest that afternoon. If you're wondering, no, Binghe isn't paired with air (this is Bing-mei, not Bing-ge). There was a large number of attendees that day as it was Sunday, so their Shizun was still looking for parking. I'd gotten lucky since I'd arrived there just as they'd opened up Basement 3 so ZOOM I parked near the escalators with plenty of space to spare. Until today I chalk it up to being last-minute dressed as Xie Lian, the god of good luck for hobos like myself (or, according to popular belief, Hua Cheng's blessed every Xie Lian cosplayer out there no matter how much we look like we've just stepped out of a jungle). I also had plenty of space to sit for a lovely lunch of salad and green tea!

Granted, there were actually a few other Xie Lians there as well (he's the current flavor as well), but I didn't want to chase after them from afar since the flow of human traffic in this particular mall wasn't too conducive for trying to get pictures, unlike KLCC's garden. Usually, more fans are dressed as the two main characters, Wei Wuxian and Xie Lian - or the shous/bottoms in popular danmei. Surprisingly, I actually saw quite a number of gongs/tops this trip round.

So as a bonus, here's a pic with all our dandy gongs/tops together:

A dashing lot, aren't they?

Anyway, this wraps up my experience log as an MXTX cosplay hunter! Hope you enjoyed it! Bless!

[midnightraine131]

Hello Raine! 💙

How have you been? I hope everything is going well for you!

For the fandom ask:

2, 5, 9, 16, 22, 24

Have a wonderful *timezone*, and wish you all the best(⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)

Hey Anna, thank you for your ask.

It's been so long, well, uhm, I guess I'm doing just fine aside from losing a tremendous amount of weight for the past couple of months.... I can say it in a good way since all my medical results came out real good. I hope to have fewer medications after I see my doctor this week. *Cross fingers*

How about you? I hope you're having a good time (Googles your timezone) Oh, it's very early in the morning over there. Please take some rest.

Anyway, without further ado, here's all my answers.

2. a headcanon you weren't sure about at first but have come to like!

I came across a headcanon about Armin being the perfect husband material like he cooks, takes care of the house chores all by himself, and so on. In most of the fics I’ve read, especially post-canon or modern AU, he’s incredibly skilled at it.

But let’s be honest—during his time as a cadet and in the elite squad, Armin practically disappears when it comes to cleaning or cooking. Refute me if you want, but we never see him holding a spatula or a broom. He probably avoided Levi’s attention altogether when it came time to clean the headquarters.

Still, I like to imagine he becomes more responsible at home as he grows older. I mean, come on—when Annie gets pregnant (assuming that happens), there’s no way he’d leave Jean, Connie, or maybe Reiner to take care of her. Especially since we know she’s pretty unorganized in their shared space. So yes, post-canon husband material Armin it is!

5. something you see in fics a lot and love

Always the shy yet vocally bold Armin, and Annie, the emotionally constipated one LOL. This dynamic has always been my cup of tea in fics.

9. a ship that isn't your OTP but that you enjoy

Oh, this is tricky. I can say AruHitch (?) *blinks rapidly*

I like to think they could be besties when it comes to giving love advice—advice neither of them would actually follow by the end of the day. I imagine them staying up late at night by a bonfire, beers in hand, talking religiously about their crushes and how they have no chance with them in any scenario. They’d probably call each other dummies.

16. a tiny detail in canon that you want more people to appreciate

This one’s about Connie. I’ve noticed that most people in the fandom regard him as a dummy because of how the story portrays him in canon—or even how he views himself. But if you take a closer look at his character, he’s so much more than just a slapstick comic relief. Sure, he underestimates his own intelligence, but he often makes a lot of sense and has talents in his own right. I’ll fight anyone who calls him cringe. Try me.

22. the fandom friend you've known the longest

I guess I won’t count the mutuals I had back in 2013, since I don’t see their accounts anymore, and I wasn’t really trying to get involved back then. When I returned in 2022/23, I decided to start writing fics again and kept this blog active. The first people I talked to were @moonspirit and @annawayne, and they made me feel so welcome in the AOT fandom. I’m incredibly grateful for that.

They inspired me to write more, and knowing we had this little community tucked into a small corner of such an enormous fandom—it truly felt like a haven. It makes me so happy to see new people joining and contributing, whether through art, fanfics, or even as readers supporting everything we do. They welcomed them just as warmly as I was when I returned as a new writer last year, and that sense of belonging is something truly special.

24. how has fandom positively impacted your life

God, I can’t stop rambling about how much this fandom has positively impacted me in every aspect of my life. It might sound like I’m overreacting, but after I started writing Aruani fics, I realized something profound: first loves truly linger, even when you’re over 30. For me, that “first love” is twofold—my love for writing and the love I felt when I first shipped Aruani ten years ago.

Sharing that love has brought me happiness beyond words, especially when people read my fics, leave comments, or even reach out on my socials just to tell me how much they enjoy my work. It means so, so much to me. All the time, effort, and tears poured into writing every chapter feel completely worth it because of the love and appreciation from all of you.

Coming back to this fandom has been the best decision I’ve made in the past couple of years, and I truly hope it continues for many more. I’m definitely not ready to move on to another fandom, even though AOT has long since ended. I’m still holding out hope for High School Caste!

[qoldenskies]

BRAINS AND BRAWN LETS GOOOO

like ALL donnie-related dynamics are my fave (think its why he's my favorite character, rather than the other way around lol) and i ADORE you for the pb&j and the fucking disaster twins (older!leo used to the fullest extent of suffering :,D) but as the older sister of two i've always loved raph too and it's sad to see him being less popular than his brothers bc like im only two years older than my little brother but i still worry about him every day and poor raph gets a large brunt of that kind of responsibility-slash-guilt that is really coming out here

anyways that is to say THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO THIS FANDOM (bows) you shall always be remembered and honored

THANK YOU THANK YOU //I SKETCH A BOW

and I LOVE RAPH!!!!!! he's literally my guy my pookie. its funny that i think on my first and second watch he was my least favorite (NOT BY A WIDE MARGIN AT ALL i love them all very much) and then at some point him and leo just. switched places? and he's been second place ever since i love him so much. i probably prefer b team dynamic-wise but i LIKE raph more than i do mikey most of the time. idk it switches around randomly its never concrete

i should really write something more raph centric at some point. he is on my mind 24/7 (i should mess around with him and leo's dynamic more)

[fedorah-the-explorah]

fan fiction ideaaaaaaaaaa! ❤️

Shadowsan has to trust chief with his life during a caper, and Carmen knows that it’s like the only way to save some sort of artifact or something like that, but she doesn’t trust chief whatsoever, due to the trauma that cheif did kill Carmen’s biological father, so Carm is like super scared and worried for Dadowsan.

I just thought it was a good idea, something that could be used later on for you, but it’s like your choice if you actually want chief to make a mistake and then something happens to shadowsan, and then Carmen is like super pissed…….like dangerously pissed………but it’s totally up to you if you want to make it a happy ending or a sad ending lol 😘😘😘

your amazing and tysm for all you do for this fandom, your pretty awesome and I see ur stuff all the time, you are a writing genius pretty much lolll ❤️

Omg stop it, I'll cry right now-- that was such a kind thing to say about my writing. It really made my day ❤️

Anyways, here ya go! It's not very long and I'm not sure it's quite what you had in mind, but I'm happy with it. This takes place post series.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She was a light stepper, but that's never meant much to him. He raised her from infancy; he knew her presence well.

"Are you going to lurk there all day," he asked, "Or are you going to say hello?"

He turned around, abandoning the task of polishing his newly--and legally-- acquired swords. Carmen glanced at him wordlessly, contributing nothing. She was sullen as stared down at the hotel room's desk, absently running her fingers along the surface. Her lips were slightly pursed and her eyebrows were drawn. He recognized the look well, and seeing it, he may as well have been picked up by the scruff and placed back in time twelve years.

Black Sheep had never been much of a reticent child, but when she wanted something she knew they wouldn't allow, she took her time to work up the will to ask. She would become silent and broody, and Shadowsan always found it amusing how transparent children could be.

"Is there something you want?"

She glared down at the desk, fingers drawing still. He folded his hands behind his back as he waited on her.

"...Let me come with you." She said.

"No."

"Shadowsan."

"You are in no condition," He said, nodding to her arm in a cast. "How did that even happen?"

"I don't want to talk about it." She muttered.

He hummed and made a mental note to ask Player about it later.

"I thought you were out of the game," She said, "What changed?"

He looked at her, eyebrows raised. "I could ask the same of you. Why are you here, Carmen?"

She snorted. "I'm only partly retired. You know I can't sit still."

He considered this. He nodded.

"Point."

"Why are you doing this, Shadowsan? What happened to living a normal life?"

"This operation hits close to home. Various museums around the country have been the targets of often violent robberies. ACME Intel indicates that Matsumoto could be next."

"'Could be,' huh? Give me and Player two hours and we'll get you definite answers."

He frowned at her, eyes narrowing.

"What is this about, child?"

"I'm not a child." She muttered.

He rolled his eyes. "Forgive an old man for his habits."

She turned away from him.

"Carmen."

She stared at the floor, shoulders held stiffly with tension.

He pressed again. "What is bothering you?"

She huffed. "It's just..."

She trailed off, her fists clenching as she spun back around.

"...Why do you have to work with her?!"

He blinked, somewhat taken aback. That's what this was about? She'd come all the way to Japan just to plead with him against working with ACME's chief...? He thought her issue with the Chief had been long resolved, was there something he was missing?

"I mean, what's it even about? Chief doesn't do field work! That's weird! And why couldn't you have partnered with literally anyone else? Fuck! You, Zack, and Ivy have tons of experience working together. You could have worked with Jules, or Devineaux, or even Zari! I don't trust it."

He grunted. "I would not work with that French idiot even if my life depended on it."

"Why her?"

He hummed. "I imagine it has to do with me being ex-VILE. It would make sense if she wanted to make sure of my allegiances herself."

"That's ridiculous. She has both Zack and Ivy's word. If she trusts them then she should trust you."

"ACME's chief is a cautious woman."

"Oh, really. Wasn't very cautious of her when she pulled a gun on my father."

Oh.

Okay. He understood now.

"Are you worried she's going to..?"

She hugged herself, suddenly looking very unsure of herself.

"No... Yes. Maybe... I don't know. Just let me come with you..?"

He sighed heavily and approached her. He put a hand on her shoulder and waited for her to look at him.

"I will be fine," He assured her, "I've been in and out of this game for a long time. Even if she does try anything-- which I know she won't-- I am perfectly capable of defending myself."

"I know, but--"

"--Have you been doing okay?"

"...What?"

"Have you been doing okay? You know I am happy to have you here, but I must admit that I'm worried about you. You flew all the way here, and for what? To accuse a woman you yourself have worked with of plotting something insidious? It's uncharitable, and I hate to say it, but incredibly irrational."

She pulled away from him.

"I'm fine." She insisted, "God, you and Player sound exactly alike."

"Player is an intelligent young man."

She rolled her eyes. "Alright, fine, whatever. Maybe I'm being unfair, but you'll have to excuse me if I trust a little less after all the shit I've been through."

She swallowed harshly and swiped at her eyes. He watched her silently, a dull ache in his throat and a stabbing desire in his heart to vanish anything that troubled her.

"Perhaps I should move closer to you, I--"

"What? No. Shadowsan, that's-- No. You're finally back with your brother, you don't have to--"

"--I don't have a responsibility to Hideo, Carmen. You're like a daughter to me, and if you're struggling--"

"--I'm not struggling."

"It's okay if you are."

"Well, I'm not. And it's fine. I have Player. You don't have to uproot your entire life for me."

He smiled ruefully. Of course she wouldn't understand, it wasn't her job to.

Back in the beginning, years and years ago, he'd never been one to care much about anything. Life had not been kind to him, and so he was not kind to others. But it was in those early days, the first few sleepless nights before the nannies showed up, that he found himself actually concerned about somebody else. Holding the child, wishing desperately that she would just go the fuck to sleep, he came to reckon with his role in her life. He had, completely and irrevocably, changed the course of her entire life. She was his responsibility, and it wasn't about him anymore. Anything he'd ever do would have to be for her. This was the burden he shouldered.

(he'd choose this burden time and time again.)

"I uprooted your entire life, are you sure you don't want to return the favor?"

She snorted, a small smile that she tried to fight gracing her lips.

"I want you to reconnect with your brother."

"And I want to make sure you're happy."

"I am happy, Shadowsan. I just... have a lot going on." Her voice sort of hitched at the end, and ouch. It pained him to see her like this.

She shuffled closer to him and he recognized the action for what it was. Even as a child, she could never bring herself to ask for affection. She'd just kind of follow you around and stare up at you and wait until you got the message. The other three never quite caught on-- or, they did, and they opted to ignore her. Then there was Coach Brunt, and that was just... Ugh.

Understanding her need, he took her and held her close. She threw her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder.

"I've just been so... weird lately."

"It's understandable after all you've been through."

"I can barely relax."

He had no good response to that. He pet her hair instead.

"I don't want to lose you."

"I know."

"...I um. You know that I love you, right?"

He smiled softly, quiet content spreading warm in his chest. He kissed the crown of her head.

"I know. I love you too."o

[unhealthyfanobsession]

The fandom is so lucky to have you! We appreciate having you here and all that you contribute to it ❤️❤️

1. What brought you into the fandom?

2. What character(s) do you feel the most connected to and why?

3. Out of all of SJM’s books, which one means the most to you and why?

4. Out of all of the SJM couples (fanon, canon, endgame, etc) which one means the most to you and why?

Keep doing you ❤️

This is so sweet. I feel very lucky to have been embraced by the fandom like I have even though sometimes I casually disappear for 2 years oops.

I've been on and off tumblr/fandom culture since I was 10 (starting with THG lol I actually posted one of the first EVER Gale/Madge stories on FF.net but again I was 10 so it was truly horrific and that persona has been wiped from the earth) anyway I read ACOTAR in early 2020, immediately became obsessed with Nessian and that was when Silver Flames had been announced but not released so I just KNEW there was stuff out there to be found and I was working on some original writing that I just needed a break from so it was kind of perfect timing and my account slowly shifted into being mainly ACOTAR from there

Jurian. JK Obviously it's Nesta. I love all female characters who aren't nice. I love main characters that dare to say no to what the narrative demands of them and I can really relate to being wrong for the place where you were raised but still knowing how to succeed inside of it even if it feels so horribly defeating sometimes. I was raised in a really small conservative place and genuinely never learned that it was ok to be myself out loud until I moved away. I definitely put a lot of that rage I feel towards being told to stay quiet and pretty into how I write Nesta. Luckily I'm a huge loud mouth bitch now so it all worked out

Genuinely the answer is none of them, it's the fanfics that mean the most to me and keep me engaged in this fandom, but if I have to pick one I do ultimately think it's ACOSF even though I have my complaints. Nesta's story and her friends in particular is what means the most to me!

I give Cassian a hard time, but of course it's Nessian. I try time and time again to write Nesta with someone else and that little bitch just worms his way back in. He has his flaws, but something about a man meeting a woman and saying "Stop being so mean to me or I swear I'm going to fall in love with you" just makes me weak every time. Man was down bad from the start and who can blame him. If it's done properly, however, I could see Gwynriel really coming for this spot.

[sehtoast]

Is it me or not many people simp for Homelander compared to other villains? It’s like people can’t say they find him hot without getting jumped and i just don’t understand why? There’re villains who have done way worse and people still like them so why is it any different with Homelander, he is literally fictional and never harmed anyone in real life. What do you think is the reason?

Prepare yourself. This is gonna be a long one lol:

For what it’s worth, I feel like a lot more people do simp for him than are open about it for exactly what you just said. I’ve rarely seen fandoms respond to people liking a character the way people jump at us for liking Homelander.  The amount of hate mail I've received and seen others get and the genuinely FOUL things that have been said are just absolutely crazy. Like I’ve seen less kickback for people simping for real-world mass shooters and serial killers than I have for fans of Homie, which is WILD but yeah!!

I think it’s because Kripke decided to make him a Trump allegory that makes people so quick to jump us over it honestly. I feel like if he wasn’t, a LOT more people would openly like him too. 

More below the cut:

90% of the criticisms I see toward Homie fans is “he’s LITCHERALLY TRUMP” and/or something about Stormfront.  Some people go the “he’s a r*pist” route, which, sure, valid, but then this is not the same energy a lot of fans of r*pist characters have gotten.  I remember with shows like GoT, where characters could be any number of awful things (including r*pists), there wasn’t necessarily as much vilification of people for liking those characters, and, even though I didn’t watch much of the show, I know daaaaamn well we got some qualifiers in there.  That’s just an example, and there’s certainly others that prove the point. Soldier Boy was downright HORRIBLE to the women he was around, but we barely see criticism there and it's pretty heavily implied he's ignored consent many times in his own time given the way he treats women - plus we know he s*xually abused Gunpowder. Anyway, if that energy isn’t being directed in nearly the same capacity there or elsewhere, then it’s primarily likely to be either reason one or two, and I definitely would put my money on number one.  And like, being a Homelander enjoyer has not made me a Trump enjoyer. In fact, I have a pretty visceral reaction of disgust every time I see that rat bitch on the news lmao.  

Being a Homelander simp certainly does not mean we approve of his every act, but media morality police think this is not the case. I think a lot of people– and this was 100% exacerbated during covid shutdowns imo– have started to see media consumption as a form of morality and feel as though your enjoyment of something is a perfect spreadsheet of who you are as a person.  I mean, there have always been people like this, but it’s gotten worse and significantly more annoying in recent years.  I think the death of media literacy is also contributing heavily here because there being a lack of critical thinking associated with media consumption has so many people painting everything in a purely black and white context. Like this is good, this is bad, there is no middle ground in which people can consume this or appreciate that without it being a moral violation.  Which is… increasingly concerning lol.   

All media has problematic elements somewhere/somehow, and basically all characters do as well.  However, very few have the director jerking off and going “i’m SOOOOO smart for comparing him to trump omfg” and constantly shoving shoehorned political and social commentary into the script the way Kripke does (ask me how I felt about the transphobia ‘commentary’ this season and I will write you a thesis paper about how bad, ineffective, and mostly insulting to trans viewers it was). He’s so fired up to make the two a mirror image that even Antony Starr has said he’s sometimes checking Kripke and telling him that taking it too far reduces the character to one or two dimensional at best unless the comparisons directly relate to the narrative of the character.   The allegories have been effective in keeping people (for the most part) from viewing Homelander as a hero, but it’s also created a lot of senseless vitriol for people who actually do enjoy the character whether strictly because of the character himself or because they’re simping (I do both 😂).

So uh… that’s my extremely long two-cents. Hopefully it makes sense as I’m a little sleep deprived at the moment and just got out of a two hour long lecture lol

[hisui-dreamer]

ok so i accidentally forgot about these messages cuz i got really sick lol, but i wanted to reply to some of these so here's a two week late response!!

this post is a bit long so sorry about that!!

also im sorry if i confused anyone for anyone else ahaha, if you'd like to be tagged, you can comment below so i can identify you!!

this is part 1!

@somany-fandoms-solittle-time i think this is you? correct me if im wrong hehe

thank you so much!! i always love seeing you pop up in my notifs haha, i hope you'll have a great year too!!!🎉🎊🎊

@amaribelt im always so so so happy when i talk to you mari💕💕!!! i love seeing the stuff you send me hahaha! dw you're more fun than imposter jade hehe

@v-anrouge i hope this was the letter you mentioned hehe

hello love!! i adore the ornament you picked! it's so cute that i want to cradle it in my hands!! ahaha, maybe for next year, i should crochet some mushroom ornaments for you, i'd love to hear about what mushrooms you'd like.

id be so honoured to celebrate with your family! your invitation is most welcome and i can't wait to visit coral sea again! i should prepare some gifts for your family, would you mind telling me what they'd like?

(don't worry you did great with jade!! this was such a sweet letter i loved it so so much lakdhsjksla💕✨)

im glad they could cheer you up!! thank you for your sweet wishes, i hope you'll have a great year ocean!!

@azulashengrottospiano aubbie!!! this was so sweet i couldn't stop smiling aldhhakahdka. i know we don't talk as much now but im still so excited to see you on my feed and see what new fictional guy is spinning in your head hahaha. i feel like i can always go to you for advice and it's like you're a trustworthy older sister hehe. thank you so much for being you and always being so enthusiastic and welcoming!! im so glad i met you haha💕💕

aww thank you!! im glad to be contributing to the fandom haha!!

@spadecentral BITES YOU BACK!!! have a great year eli💕🎉🎉

hi moca! thank you for the message!! im glad my portrayal of the twst bois and my silliness could bring you joy hehe!! also you like my diction🥹💕💕 that's such a compliment omg thank you!! it makes me so happy my fic could cheer you up! i hope my writing will continue to be a source of comfort for you💕💕 have a great year!

@dove-da-birb it's funny you say get plenty of rest cuz i ended up getting a fever 💀 ANYWAYS i hope you enjoyed the holidays and you'll have a great year elder sibling💕

also idk man the twst bois are weird 😭

!!!OMG WHATS IN THE BOXXXX

@amaribelt im assuming this is you??

MERRY CRISIS!!!

[lotus-tower]

the orochi revisited: the takagin edit

the digital version of yaoizine vol.2 has been out for a while, so i thought i'd finally post my essay on here! some of the jokes don't work as well without the context of the zine's cover but lol. hope you enjoy anyway. a very brief overview of the takagin relationship in relation to my first essay's framework

The following paper is a commentary on and tribute to My Orochi Stood Up: A Draconic Response to "eat shit and die” (1948), in celebration of its 75th anniversary. Though much has changed in the anal-ytic landscape since Orochi was first published, much is still the same. As the pioneer of ouroboros theory, a now interdisciplinary framework that has made many valuable contributions to the study of literature both anally inclined and not, My Orochi Stood Up is a foundational work that has remained relevant and resonant across years and disciplines. However, in this text I will be focusing on Orochi’s roots first and foremost as a piece of Gintamaology.

To begin, we must acknowledge that it is impossible to discuss My Orochi Stood Up without also accounting for the work it was written in response to, T. S. Hirt’s eat shit and die (1938), or the original unnamed poem where most of its ideas first took shape (1944). Unfortunately, providing a commentary of the former would be beyond the scope of this paper. Readers interested in anality are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with this watershed text in Gintama escatology, as it lays the groundwork for everything that follows. As for the poem, it is referenced at length in My Orochi Stood Up, but I have decided to omit mention of it–among many other things–owing to this journal’s physical constraints. While I regret the necessity of this, there is simply too much to say on the subject of “the pole and the hole” in Gintama–particularly the pole, which Gintama explores with endless fascination. The sword, the pillar, the Terminal, the gravestone, the tree–with its fondness for substitution as well as its love of dirty things, Gintama’s collection of treasured motifs has no shortage of things that stand erect. 

Both pole and hole are equally important to the cycle of self-fertilization first described by My Orochi Stood Up almost a century ago. Yet Orochi was, understandably, primarily preoccupied with explaining its ouroboros thesis, leaving it with limited room to discuss in-story logistics beyond the conceptual framework and Gintama’s broad thematics. As you may have guessed, this paper will attempt to do so–and for this purpose it would be more efficient to start from the bottom up, so to speak. So this essay is dedicated instead to the hole, that gaping void named as Gintama’s ultimate antagonist. Let us now revisit the holeistic framework of the serpent swallowing its tail while examining one of Gintama’s most fraught relationships: Gintoki and Takasugi. 

______________________________________________________________

First, it cannot be overstated how much Gintama relies on duality and parallel structures. The Gintama cast and narrative is constructed like a hall of mirrors, parallels upon parallels upon parallels organized on each side of a central divide. This intersecting line, as shown in Figure 1.1, is what creates the reflection in the first place, allowing characters to be mirrors (or, in the prized language of fandom, foils). One could consider it the glass of the mirror, or the organizing force of the narrative itself. The creation of this dividing line provides structure to the characters, the world, and its temporality–but it is also an act of violence. See Fig 1.1.

Fig. 1.1: ⭩🢥⮀🢛❑⮅⮡🢜

On a diegetic level, bad things happen to the characters because life is difficult, and mostly similar bad things happen to everyone because the series rests upon the Joui war and its related conflicts the way a world rests on the back of a turtle. But perhaps more relevantly, Gintama’s central conceit is that one’s ultimate enemy is always oneself, so naturally all enemies can eventually be conflated. It is an efficient tautological loop. 

What separates the characters on each side of the dividing line, then, is not the degree of suffering they undergo but their response to that violence. My Orochi Stood Up terms these unfortunate souls who end up on the wrong side of the divide “hole-sided.” Their lack is caused not by their injury, but by their own response to it, by their failure, for a time, to live up to their own humanity. This is the position occupied by the antagonists (and, intermittently and continuously, yet somehow always away from the reader’s eyes, our protagonist Gintoki), those who have failed to fill the lack in their souls like responsible adults. 

That which Gintama prescribes to fill these naturally and unnaturally occurring holes in humans is dirt: the debris accrued from a lifetime of living, brushing shoulders with other people, becoming stained by them, becoming dirty and worn as you mature, subjecting yourself to the deeply humiliating and humbling experience of being alive. Of course, as both eat shit and die and My Orochi Stood Up illuminate, in Gintama “dirt” is also a synonym and euphemism for “shit.” We are thus not talking about just any dirt-filled hole, but specifically about the anus. The vulgarity of Gintama’s framing of bonds–as shitting onto and into each other–and its use of shit as a humanizing trait is highly characteristic of both the series’s general sense of humour and the ways in which it mixes gags and serious delivery of narrative to create a densely layered non-linear experience in which absurdity and tragedy are forcibly, jarringly concomitant. 

As T. S. Hirt wrote in 1948, “the anus—the dirty human things—is the home for the phallus—the ideals we hold, the source of our power.” Indeed, were Gintama not so irreverent about its most valued symbol, the sword, due to its fondness for wordplay and for low-hanging fruit, perhaps the nationalistic bent of the series would be more questionable. But as My Orochi Stood Up argued, Gintama’s emphasis on wordplay and its fearless decision to call itself the equivalent of “Ligma” are integral to a thematic understanding of the series, and are key to the ouroboros thesis in particular.

But perhaps the singularly most important example is the -tama in Gintama, with its plethora of potential meanings, each of them just silly and dirty enough that you have to take it seriously. Beyond the obvious joke on kintama (balls) and the “silver soul” direct meaning, we’ve seen that tama is also easily conflated with atama (head), and even with tamago (egg). This is clearly demonstrated with the series’ fixation on beheading leading to the salvation of the soul and the bodyswap arc hinging on the pun between soul and egg. [...] The fact that the characters end up turning into giant turds, likening the soul-egg-balls to an asshole, only drives the point in further. (My Orochi Stood Up, 1948)

To return to the unfortunate hole-sided, these are the characters who lack dirt, who could not withstand the mortifying ordeal of being alive. The natural assumption to make here would be that Gintama then juxtaposes opposing forces, setting “desiring-pairs” of head and hole, sword and scabbard in conflict with each other. Indeed, Gintoki is stabbed again and again, with all kinds of blades–but the villains do not want to stab him as much as they want him to stab them, with his much more meaningful sword. Yet those who are hole-sided do not seek to be filled.

[...] But this is a different process than emptying yourself, which is what the antagonists are doing. All Gintama villains are hole-sided, desperately trying to destroy themselves while pretending, as hard as they can, that they don’t know that you can’t destroy a hole–only make it bigger. (My Orochi Stood Up, 1948)

Takasugi desires Gintoki, not because he believes Gintoki can make him whole again, but rather because he knows he cannot ever be whole again, and that is because of his love for Gintoki. Moreover, the series’ consistent use of language such as “broken” versus “unbroken” swords implies that those who cannot be filled are also those who cannot fill others. Just as the serpent cannot swallow its tail without filling its own mouth, its mouth cannot be filled without having a tail to swallow. As My Orochi Stands Up makes clear, the process of self-creation and other-creation are effectively one and the same in Gintama.

All Gintama antagonists are in parallel with each other and in mirror with their counterparts, who in turn contain echoes of our protagonist, Gintoki. In this way, the entire story can be folded in on itself, side over side, into the shape of Gintoki, the microcosm, like a piece of carefully designed origami. One of the most popular endings of the anime, ending 25, “Glorious Days,” demonstrates one half of this as Gintoki stands unmoving and unchanged as the anime’s large roster of antagonists replace each other before him in quick succession, different times and places flashing past without emphasis. “Nothing has changed,” Gintama constantly claims, while simultaneously showing us how the world has entered a different era, a different century, a different genre, in the span of ten years.

In the ending, Takasugi and Gintoki haunt each other’s footsteps. Takasugi’s feet in Gintoki’s reflection in the water lag one step behind, unable to keep up with him but unable to stop chasing after him, while Gintoki’s ghost is not even visible in Takasugi’s reflection; instead, Gintoki’s presence is indicated by Takasugi’s own reflection stopping and looking back.

Gintoki and Takasugi are the most important pair of mirror selves in Gintama, and inarguably the most yaoistic. Rather than homoeroticism, however, what they have could perhaps be termed a sort of homothematicism. Whereas Gintoki has filled himself with dirt and debris from the series’ overflowing, enormous cast, learning and re-learning how to be human, Takasugi is caught in an incandescent storm of rage and grief, a serpent futilely trying to swallowing itself in the literal sense. But he can never succeed, because he has nothing to fill his belly with other than himself; there is nothing he values in the self he is trying to destroy; thus, he can never satisfy his desire to hurt himself.

Takasugi’s immortality is of the same kind as Utsuro’s, which is to say, hole-sided. It is not that they cannot be killed, only that they cannot die. Takasugi therefore turns to the same drastic final resort as Utsuro: destroying the world in order to destroy themselves. Again we can observe Gintoki’s role as the microcosm in comparison to Shouyou and Utsuro’s exaggerated, macrocosmic style. My Orochi Stood Up details how Utsuro as well as the eponymous Orochi’s identities blur into that of their respective planets, likening them to world snakes. Tied to the Earth itself, Utsuro’s existence cannot end independently of it; his only recourse is to destroy Earth, and perhaps take the entire universe with it.

To Takasugi, however, the world is synonymous with Gintoki. 

Takasugi’s doomed love for Gintoki affords him an interesting position in the narrative, where his conflation between Gintoki’s sword and the pillar of the world aligns with the story’s folded structure centered around Gintoki. Takasugi is Gintoki’s shadow, Gintoki’s “other self”, as Gintama terms it, but weak, diminished, unable to carry the burden of living or live up to Shouyou’s teachings. Gintama’s villains–and its weaklings–are those who will recklessly hurt others in order to harm themselves; its heroes are those who will fight themselves in order to become better versions of themselves. Conveniently, in this cast the villains are the heroes are the villains–and so in defeating the villains, the heroes overcome their own shadows, while the villains knowingly throw themselves into this process out of desperate hope that this will finally end their miserable roles in this story.

Takasugi, then, tries to destroy Gintoki because it is the only way he can destroy himself. On one level, part of him possesses the same general meta-awareness that all Gintama characters have about their allotted roles, and knows that if they were to clash, Gintoki would be the one to successfully devour him. But for the most part, Takasugi’s motivations are painfully earnest and straightforward: harming Gintoki simply hurts more than harming himself can ever hope to accomplish, and if Gintoki were to die, so too would Takasugi’s world crumble to nothing. 

What is interesting is Gintoki’s response to these violent advances. Gintoki, of course, understands full well what kind of story he is in at all times. “Too bad,” he tells Takasugi, scraping himself back up from the ground. “I won’t fall. Until you stop, I’ll keep standing back up.” Here Gintoki himself is positioned as one of those things that stand erect. The Gintoki in Takasugi’s memory that is invoked is “a figure that stands before Takasugi”–or, put another way, Gintoki understands his duty in their relationship as that to keep standing, for as long as Takasugi needs something erect to throw himself against.

Thus, when Takasugi says that the world will not end as long as Gintoki’s sword remains unbroken, while Gintoki says that the only way to stop Takasugi is to stop his breathing, Gintoki becomes the immovable object and Takasugi the (un)stoppable force. However, in a fascinating inversion of the usual connotations, here the object is presented as something the force has chased after all its life, something unattainable and unreachable and yet no less immovable. Meanwhile, the force traps itself in a circular, looping motion, its unstoppable momentum doing nothing to help it escape its labyrinth. But in their battle, Takasugi and Gintoki do manage to reach each other; not because of Takasugi’s desperate violence, but because Gintoki’s interiority is as vast as the story they are in, and he is able to take Takasugi into himself. 

My Orochi Stood Up’s ouroboros thesis is famously anchored in western alchemical and philosophical concepts. It frames Gintama’s mission of human-becoming as the enacting of the Great Work, viewing Gintama’s parallelism through the lens of the individuation process. On the ouroboros as a symbol of two becoming one, it quotes Carl Jung:

In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feedback' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself, and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he, therefore, constitutes the secret of the prima materia which ... unquestionably stems from man's unconscious. (The Collected Works of Carl Jung, Volume 14: Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1977)

Gintoki’s assimilation of his shadow, of his other self, is best represented by the moment where he finally visibly attains “a human’s sword” at the end of the series. Takasugi’s reflection in Gintoki’s blade bequeaths upon him the honour of being the face of Gintoki’s “human’s sword.” This is a similar use of the reflection as in Ending 25. What is made clear by comparing these two moments is the same obvious truth that Gintama has impressed upon its readers all along: Gintoki is capable of containing Takasugi within him, but Takasugi is not capable of the reverse.

Or, more accurately, Takasugi is chiefly defined by the fact that he carries Gintoki’s ghost within him–and was driven insane by it. Gintoki was able to quietly shoulder the knowledge that his actions caused Takasugi’s descent into madness, but Takasugi was never able to inure himself to the sight of Gintoki’s tears. Takasugi is hole-sided primarily because he hollowed himself out in a vain attempt to scrape the image out. But dirt, as My Orochi Stood Up states, is what remains. 

Takasugi’s crushed left eye has ever been his most obvious hole. Indeed, confronting Gintoki again made him aware that the image of Gintoki’s face that he had been carrying around in his eye like a grain of sand was in fact a speck of “dirt.” And of course, Takasugi was never empty: though the Kiheitai are sparse characters, they serve quite clearly to illustrate that Takasugi had never stopped being surrounded by people who trusted and depended on him, people who could participate in Gintama’s dirty gags and absurd comedy in the ways he could not, and people who, on multiple occasions, physically emulated Takasugi in order to inject his likeness into the series’ gags even when he was not present. People who, in short, supplied him with dirt.

The linkages between the gross and vulgar nature of Gintama’s preferred jokes and the double entendre in the meaning of “dirt” are an intrinsic part of both Gintama’s vision of life and the ouroboros framework. As T. S. Hirt explained, “the persistence of those dirty things marks the permanence of one’s relationships. something clean would never stick so.” Gintama posits that living is mortifying, humiliating, and while not shameful, certainly full of shame and debasement. To be a character that clings to dignity–or to whom dignity clings to–in Gintama is to accept an unfavourable life expectancy. Takasugi, while participating in a few gags, was never thoroughly embarrassed by them. His friends’ actions thus helped to tether him to the world of the living, even at his most ghostly. 

Holes do not need to be completely empty to be deemed holes. Such a proposition would be absurd. Holes are identifiable even when filled partway with soil–even, perhaps, when brilled to the brim. No one is truly empty. My Orochi Stood Up makes clear early on that “head vs hole” is not a false dichotomy, but a misleading one: 

You can reduce everything in Gintama to essentially two things. Shouyou and Utsuro. Gintoki and Takasugi. Humans and monsters. [...] Those who take in and those who are taken in. Those who keep struggling and those who don’t. And then you can also always reduce these two things to one thing: Shouyou/Utsuro are, after all, the same being [...]. You can’t pick yourself back up if you never lost in the first place. We know that Gintoki has managed to become “a splendid human” by the end of the series–so what was he before that? Was he really a monster? At what exact point in the series did he become human? Was it while he was on-screen, while we were looking, but without us noticing? Was it off-screen, while we were flipping the page, or in the space between the panels? The answer, of course, is that he was learning to be human every day of his life [...]. And so “which one is the head and which one is the hole?” is the wrong question. Even if you assigned one to each half and managed not to be wrong, since they’re collapsible into one anyway, they’ll always be both. (My Orochi Stood Up, 1948)

To be hole-sided is not to be the hole. It is to be stagnant, to be trapped in a state of needing to be filled without being able to carry out the process of self-constitution with the dirt that is received. In the end, Gintoki, the “reluctant hole” as T. S. Hirt iconically termed, is the one who takes Takasugi into himself. My Orochi Stood Up quotes philosopher Bernard Stiegler: “The I is essentially a process, not a state, and this process is an in-dividuation [...]. It is the tendency to become one, that is, to become indivisible.” This is, I argue, the climax of their homothematic relationship. Not coincidentally, it is also the climax of Gintoki’s personal quest to become human, the individuation that Jung and Stiegler speak of. 

My Orochi Stood Up capitalizes on the ouroboros’ nature as a symbol of fertility to liken dirt not only to shit but to seed, and the hole to the womb where the tama (egg/soul) is fertilized. It is an intentionally paradoxical and anachronistic framework, where one must have an unbroken sword to be able to be fertilized by the dirt of others, yet it is only through that fertilization that one’s sword can be forged. This is simply another iteration of the classic chicken-or-egg dilemma, as befits the motif of the ouroboros. But for the characters of Gintama, this paradox reflects their continuous responsibility: the task of becoming human is a Sisyphean one that will span their lifetimes and beyond.

In other words, as Takasugi was folded into Gintoki, he found that he was already there; that his lack was filled by Gintoki because he was filling Gintoki; and that being a ghost did not preclude anyone from being human.

I have spoken at length about holes and serpents up until this point without mentioning the eponymous dragon, Utsuro. This is partially because this essay was focused on Takasugi and Gintoki’s relationship, and partially because practically all insights regarding Utsuro are contained within the framework of the ouroboros thesis itself. As the world snake, his body and bones were used to construct the theory we have been discussing, his lack identical in essence to the other hole-sided. It is worth noting, however, that for Gintoki, Utsuro represented the unreachable object. Gintoki’s deepest anxiety was over his blade not reaching Utsuro, because he had been told that he could only reach him with a human’s sword. In the end, as we have seen, he does indeed manage to reach him, with Takasugi’s soul in his hands. 

Takasugi, too, manages to reach Gintoki in the end. Cradled in Gintoki’s arms, he is brave enough–and selfish enough–to ask for a fleeting smile. My Orochi Stood Up argues that the moment Gintoki’s tragedy was revealed to us through Takasugi’s eye was the one that broke Gintama’s own narrative cyclicity. This was, of course, the original bit of dirt flung into Takasugi’s hole that he could not cope with, that halted his process of individuation. As previously mentioned, the ten years that separate the end of the Joui war from the present day span an entire age. At the very end, this eternity spent wandering, too, ruptures, and Takasugi finally finds his way out of the labyrinth, only to look back and see a clear and straight path through the trees.

______________________________________________________________

This essay has been a brief exploration of Takasugi and Gintoki’s relationship in the context of My Orochi Stood Up’s innovative ouroboros framework. In the seventy-five years since it was first published, it has been transformed in diverse and exciting ways. However, I thought it only fitting that for this major anniversary, the focus be brought back to the Gintama characters that first inspired it. Rather than the iconic dragon, Shouyou/Utsuro, this piece has chosen to focus instead on his two most intertwined disciples. While not necessarily treading any new ground, I hope to have presented an interesting snapshot of this relationship known for being simultaneously transparent and opaque.

As we have seen, this relationship is one made possible by the intense parallel structure it embodies. Just as Takasugi serves as Gintoki’s shadow, their journey and the cannibalistic nature of their duality echo the conflict represented by their teacher, and in many respects parallel the shape of the narrative itself. In this way, the position they occupy in relation to these other draconic structures–micro- or macrocosm–is perhaps a reversible one. 

In short, though Gintama “cannot resist the phallus,” as T. S. Hirt said, it is also singularly concerned with holes: how they are filled, what results from them, what constitutes them. The only question it does not ask is what creates them. It is instead implicit that human beings naturally possess holes, that they are a natural part of the anatomy of both our bodies and souls. And thus, it is natural both to fill them and to fail to fill them; the fertile infinity of the ouroboros guarantees that should one fail, there will always be tomorrow.

[vikingnerd793]

I did a thing. I made my own Karlach playlist. There's a little bit of me in this playlist, in terms of musical taste and songs I already love. But I definitely tried to make this as complex as Karlach is:

Ragey ass-kicking barbarian

Traumatized woman taken advantage of by someone she trusted and suffered for years because of it

Someone who knows time is finite and wants to just feel (physically and mentally ) all the feels while she can

A person who wants to fight for those around her against a greater evil

Someone who has a greater purpose and refuses to die until that is done

In love perfectly late

A deep sadness buried by a mask of optimism and joy, but at some point that repression lets go

Someone who just wants to be home, is deeply nostalgic about it. Flaws and all.

LITERALLY ESCAPED HELL

Could combust at any time and is devastated about it, but she's going to make sure she takes ownership of what she can control as long as she can

Did I mention raging ass-kicking barbarian?!

Anyway be kind lol I may not write fics or do art but I here is my contribution to the fandom alongside my VP