#because without them I'd never have met the love of my fandom life

[evakuality]

Druck S3 - 5 Years on

[irisbleufic]

Of all the current Devil’s Minion writers your playlist is the one I want to see. Do you have one? If not, are there particular songs you’ve been listening into to while you write? The vibe of your prose with them is hypnotizing like the short story about them in the books, it’s impressive, and does your music also inform this choice if at all?

Intense question, anon. Fourteen-year-old me fucking hyperventilated after reading the DM chapter in Queen of the Damned (me, on the floor of my bedroom at 3am because I don’t want to get caught reading this book, staring dazed at the ceiling; me, now, three weeks ago, sitting shellshocked on the sofa after watching S1 and S2 over two days as a binge; me, over two of those weeks following the binge, rereading the first half of the Chronicles and starting to see double, tilt the prism, see what happens when the narratives are overlaid and blurred), and it still feels like that. Likely my prose turning out the way it is in these stories is about 90% my giddy teenage self having access to my adult self’s writing experience to finally write this beloved pairing without fear of litigious letters (IYKYK, my fellow elder Millennials in the fandom). I don’t often love film and TV adaptations of my favorite books, but I adore this show. It’s flawlessly transformative; its improvements only make the resonances and overlaps that much more meaningful. No notes.

However, I have been listening to the same small handful of songs on repeat for 6 days as I write these pieces. I imagine they are affecting my sense of scansion at points; my writing life didn’t begin with fiction, it began with years of poetry before I ever tried prose. These tracks are as meaningful to me as poems as they are songs. It’s as good a starting point for a playlist as any; I’ll keep adding and put it together on Spotify at some point.

1. Vesuvius - Sufjan Stevens

Vesuvius, I am here

You are all I have

Fire of fire, I'm insecure

for it is all been made to plan

Though I know I will fail

I cannot be made to laugh

for in life as in death

I'd rather be burned

than be living in debt

This song was my entire first 72 hours of writing. I’m that Autistic weirdo who will listen to a single song on repeat for a month and think nothing of it. Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii being the nexus point of their love story from beginning to end in QotD, this is everything to me; I was never going to be able to write about the show incarnation of them without integrating this location and this imagery in the most reverent love letter I know how. This is why my series title for these stories is Caldera. Volcanic crater blowout if ever I saw one; I ran with it.

2. I Forget Where We Were - Ben Howard

Hello love, my invincible friend; hello, love, the thistle and the burr. For you, I have so many words—and I, I forget where we were. I haven’t known this song for all that long in the grand scheme, but it found me via Spotify shuffle in 2022 right after something awful happened. The longing in this song hinges on one of the lovers in it waking up to something they’ve forgotten about their relationship, something precious, and I’m thrilled to finally have a fandom application for it.

3. Make You Better - The Decemberists

I sung you your twinges

I suffered you your tattle-tales

and when you broke sideways

I wanted you, I needed you, oh

to make me better

Oh, to make me better

But we're not so starry-eyed anymore

like the perfect paramour you were in your letters

And won't it all just come around to make you

let it all un-break you to the day that you met her

No excuse for this one; it does a great job of speaking for itself. Front-man Colin Meloy is one of my all-time favorite songwriters, and his work is frequently dark, creepy, and/or gothic enough in flavor that I could find a few more.

4. Song to the Siren - Elisabeth Fraser & This Mortal Coil

On the floating shipless oceans

I did all my best to smile

till your singing eyes and fingers

drew me loving to your isle

and you sang, “Sail to me,

sail to me, let me enfold you—

here I am, here I am,

waiting to hold you.”

This cover of Tim Buckley’s folk masterpiece completely transforms the vibe of the song, and in the kind of way you need for this pairing. This one is at responsible for the events and imagery in my “Still Life with Sunken Treasure.”

5. Hal - Yasmine Hamdan, Only Lovers Left Alive OST

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

يا عزيزة اطلعي

لأ ما أقدرشي

يا حبيبتي شرّفي

لأ ما أقدرشي

وطلعت يا ناس، مغلوبة يا ناس

يا عزيزة اتريحي

لأ ما أقدرشي

يا حبيبتي اتلحلحي

لأ ما أقدرشي

وسمعت يا ناس، مغلوبة يا ناس

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

يا عزيزة اتفرفشي

لأ ما أقدرشي

يا حبيبتي قربي

لأ ما أقدرشي

فرشنا يا ناس، مغلوبة يا ناس

يا عزيزة اقلعي

لأ ما أقدرشي

يا حبيبتي اتجرأي

لأ مش ممكن

شلحنا يا ناس، مغلوبة يا ناس

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

يا عزيزة اتغندريله

يا حبيبتي اتذوقيله

افهمي يا سيدي مش قادرة

وطبعا تقنعني مش واخدة

ايه يا عزيزة؟

ايه اللي إنتي عملاه ده؟

يا يا يا راجل يا هوه!

مش عيب عليك اختشي ونو

لأ ما أقدرشي

لأ مش ممكن

يا عزيزة اخلعي

لأ ما أقدرشي

يا حبيبتي اتشخلعي

لأ مش ممكن

يا خيبتي يا ناس، مغلوبة يا ناس

يا عزيزة اتبغددي

لأ ما أقدرشي

يا حبيبتي جربي

لأ ما أقدرشي

وجينا يا ناس، غلبنا يا ناس

جينا يا ناس، غلبنا يا ناس

I don’t think the Arabic justified to the correct side when I copied this, but the translation is very easy to find. I don’t speak Arabic, but honestly the English translation is dull compared to the beauty of this language. If you haven’t watched Only Lovers Left Alive, what the hell are you even doing with your vampire-loving, monster-fucking life? All the tracks on it have the right vibe for DM, really.

[vicsy]

Many people won't care about me writing about this but I must get this out.

I got into Formula 1 at the beginning of 2022. It coincided with the world as I knew it collapsing in on itself with record speed. I don't hide the fact that I am from Russia and I know most people would know what my country started in February that year. You watch your entire life plans getting crumpled like a piece of paper and thrown into the trash; the borders closing, companies leaving, the world turning back on you for the sole fact that you were born here. You watch yourself slowly inched into isolation.

And at the worst time in my entire life I managed to find this little gateway. It started with Lando, funnily enough, because I didn't know my way around the F1, so I picked someone with a Star Wars name. Irony is not dead. It wasn't long before I imprinted on Daniel like a fucking baby duckling.

Even through the mess that was his career in 2022, he brought me (and many others) so much joy. I was slowly navigating the world of racing and trying to make sense of it all. Daniel was there. The narratives were there. He is the reason I discovered the fanbase, the fandom, the reason I met so many people I get to call lifelong friends now. And I can't imagine my life without them anymore. At my lowest I found a community that made my life bearable and fun and bright; a community that made me want to create and write again. Daniel was the reason I broadened my horizons and became a Fernando fan, Lance fan, a fan of so many other drivers that I still have the joy to support even when Daniel won't be there, behind the wheel or barking in the garage.

You'd think that it's stupid to hang your entire life balance on one millionaire who drives cars in circles and won't ever know you exist. But to me Daniel became that balance when everything else was just plainly uncertain. I watched the news of the world events unfolding and that pit of dread was never ending. It was like having a rug pulled from underneath your feet every single day. Those first 2-3 months of the war felt the worst. Not like it changed but you get the idea. But I still had this little F1 world and this smiling weirdo to brighten my day.

The friends that I found, the happiness that I managed to scrap in the times of great uncertainty, all of this was tied to Daniel. He was, in a way, a lifeline that led me to a hobby that I've grown to love. It hurt me back, multiple times, but it also saved my sanity on so many occasions.

I know, in my heart, Daniel will bounce back. Who knows, maybe he'll be back one day, in 2026, or doing something related to F1. Or maybe he chooses to stay away forever. Me, personally? Of course I'd like to see him race. And I hate change. The change of it all hurts as much as the fact that Daniel never got a proper goodbye. I do hope he knows, somehow, how much he is loved.

And I'll forever cherish the fact that I got to see him live in Baku, that I stood in front row an listened to him explain his terrible pizza choices. I heard him say well done, Baku first hand. I'm glad I got there in time to get a signed card. I'll always have the warmest feelings towards Daniel. If not for him, my life would be emptier today.

oh, and, never forget – fuck 'em all.

[danrifics]

15 years is a long time...

I've been lucky enough to be here for about 13 of those years and while I didn't get myself too involved in the phandom until 2019, outside of religiously watching phan proof when i was 16, Dan and Phil have been there on my screens since i was a teenager. Their videos quite literally raised me. I would sit and listen to the radio show every week and my friends and I would post about it on facebook, those post still haunt me to this day and make me feel incredibly old every time memories tell me how long ago it was.

I think today is really fitting for me to write a little personal essay on my journey and my feelings here, so i guess if you're interested then you can click the read more <3

I don't know if i fully have the words to describe properly what Dan and Phil and the Phandom mean to me, but i'll try. (I'm gonna do this in context of the last 5 years because that's when i've been most active and when I think they've impacted my life more than they ever did before.)

In 2019, I'd previously been in the Shadowhunters fandom, but as that show finished in May of that year I'd basically lost any form of fandom I had and I felt lost because fandoms are always a big part of my life and to suddenly feel like I didn't have one was hard so in June 2019 when Dan posted his coming out video everything suddenly clicked into place.

This was a community i'd loved from afar for many years and there was an opening for me to jump in. So I did. That was the best thing to ever happen to me. I'm not exaggerating, finding a place in this fandom changed my life for the better.

For the first time in my life I felt like I had friends online, from the first discord server i joined (TY LY Trashcans/ the phannie pack you'll always be famous) to Kris and Leo and to all the amazing mutuals I made, 2019 was really a cool time for me. Unfortunately a lot of these people have come and gone from my life but I often think back to what an impact they all had on me.

And then to my group now, the Rat Relaxation Chat (RRC!!!) without the hiatus ending I wouldn't be friends with any of you guys. See thats the thing, Dan and Phil didn't just bring themselves back into my life. They did something even better, brought the community back. The hiatus was hard, i've seen many of my mutuals just stop posting one day and never come back, it felt like every week we'd get smaller and smaller but then DAPG came back and so did a bunch of people and we even got some new faces and the community picked itself back up again.

As a result of that the RRC was born. For the first time in my life I was meeting my friends outside of discord, from WAD to TIT, Im literally gone end up having met all my best friends <3 (as well as so many mutuals)

I've loved so much over the last 5 years making gifs and memes and video edits and heartbreaking text posts. I'm so grateful for all the people who have ever follewed me, interacted with me, sent me hate messages, All the people who helped me make it possible for so many people to watch the WAD premiere, The people who help me with DGPdaily and the TIT blog.,The other amazing artists and gif makers and writers and archivists and anyone who has ever called themselves a phannie.

The Phandom is special, it's a community like no other. We really are a family, Dan and Phil really are our dads.

It's funny I stared this with full intentions of saying what Dan and Phil meant to me, but in the end it became all about the community they let us build. This is why I can't come up with enough words to tell them what they mean, because they mean the entire world to me because they created that world.

Dan and Phil are my friends, my best friends. They're my heros, the people I look up to most in the world because they make me feel safe and loved and I feel that love now more than I ever have before. Watching them grow older and gayer, watching the confidence grow over the years, watching them find themselves. Its a feeling like no other.

They deserve everything good in the world and i'm so glad to see them so happy and honest and open.

I don't know what the future holds for us but I know whatever it is is gonna be amazing and I hope I get to do this with you all for many more years to come.

15 years is a long time...

[welcome-to-roomba-fazbender]

HAPPY 5TH ANNIVERSERY TO

CHARLIE THE CURSED PHONE GUY

MAY HE STAY WITH US FOR ANOTHER FIVE AND BEYOND!

and now a special message from the man himself.

"Well, Well, Well... look how far we've come huh? Genuinely, honest... And Truly."

"Five years ago I was made and cursed the world of tumblr with my presence, time sure does fly! I've lost a few friends, but gained plenty more in return!"

"I wouldn't even be here today without them, now granted I'm not gonna name EVERYONE! But I am gonna name a select few and tell you how they've impacted me... AHEM..."

"First and foremost the man the myth and the legend the one who is the reason behind everything, the man where if he didn't exist I wouldn't exist!"

"Henr- ... we all know I don't mean him we're talking about real people."

"If your name isn't listed, it isn't because the mod dosen't care but it's because he's a dumbass and these are the ones that came up at the top of his head when writing this post, totally not a forth wall break."

@directdogman

"The Creator of the DSAF/Dayshift At Freddy's Series Direct Doggo himself, sure okay I was a late edition to the fandom.

but it is fully thanks to DSAF 3 and him that I even exist, what can I say about doggo other then what has been said before one thousand times? He is a man of many skills and many talents."

"He is creative, smart and genuinely an inspiration to everyone in the community of both DSAF and Dialtown... no matter how much time has passed, I will personally continue to respect the man I owe everything to him. So thank you doggo genuinely for your support and your amazing games."

@cook-ie-chip

"One of my oldest friends in the community, I've known you since almost the start! we have alot of memories together, some laughs, some cries! you also created my blue prints

(though in lore they were written by henry and will) let's look past that! You remind me of how things used to be a long time ago, and I'm glad to still know you even now."

"and with any hope I'll curse you for many years more."

@lazy-charlie / @chuck-the-fanboy

"I remember how we met, you found me and we both realized we had the same name, and so I decided to charge you extra for like a pizza party lmao."

"But ever since that day we have only grown closer and closer... to the point your apart of the roomba fazbender family [no you will get no discounts] ..."

"You've done so much for me over the years though, you helped create the Roomba's we have here today, you drew some of our lovely walrus friends!"

"AND ... ough... Okay Okay I'll be honest you made Chuck The Fanboy originally a joke just to tease me with, but over the years he's grown on me... DO NOT LET HIM HEAR ME SAY THIS, but he's like a lil bro... and if anything happened to him I'd be devastated."

@clownsuu / @not-robert

"... well well well if it isn't the shadow in black and the big buff zombie, what can I say about both of you?"

"Hmm... Clownsuu here teases me, has DRAWN ME MPREG, HAS DRAWN ME EMO, IS THE REASON WHY THE EVIL VERSION OF ME EXISTS!..."

"and yet life wouldn't be the same with out him, jack is... an anomaly someone I met because someone thought he was stealing me! HA no one can steal this perfect face~"

"Gotta say though, all jokes aside... life just wouldn't be the same without him, alot more boring you know? I must admit he is someone I will never forget, you've also drawn photos of a few of my walrus I still have hung up in my office, I appreciate you for absolutely everything you've done."

"And don't get me started on Robert that big buff baby, I've put him in just about every costume under the sun, and yet he still puts up with me and stays still no idea why. But it's because of him my restaurant has expanded so much, from a bowling alley, a karaoke bar and dumpsters full of meat."

"Don't tell Robert this he'd likely call me an idiot, but guy's one of my best friends genuinely thankfully he's immortal so I'll never worry about losing him but ... the thought still scares me."

"Never change Robert."

@weirdozjunkary

"You turned me into a furry... I got nothin else to say I just had to point that out."

"..."

"..."

"Okay, fine you did alot more then that, you introduced me to bedlam someone who can FINALLY truly be a sponge to my cursed and chaotic behavior, honestly I'd hope so considering he's the god of chaos."

"I only met him recently but I'd fuken fight his version of god for him ... seriously don't tempt me I will kick that old man's ass."

"I'm glad to have bedlam in my life and hope I know him for many years more."

@an-artist-place-for-extra-art

"you simp for the evil version of me I..."

"I have no words for you..."

"I just question... why?"

"though honestly? never change, I care for you just the way you are, your amazing."

"Alright, Alright enough of the mushy stuff and forth wall breaks it's messing with my circuits and servo's ahem..."

"The most important thing about this day is one..."

"I'm so fucking cool"

"two"

"I AM NEVER GOING ANYWHERE HATERS, FIVE MORE YEARS AND BEYOND OF ME!!!"

"and three... and most important lore wise"

"HAPPY 50TH ANNIVERSERY TO ROOMBA FUCKING FAZBENDERS!"

"50 YEARS THIS PLACE HAS BEEN OPEN WITHOUT ANY DEATHS JUST A FEW INJURIES AND I'LL TAKE THAT WITH STRIDE!"

"AS THE ULTIMATE FUCK YOU TO FREDBEAR'S AND FAZBENDER ENTERTAINMENT!"

"THE GUY WHO IS A LITERAL ELDRITCH HORROR AND EATS SHOES WITH HIS BOOTLEG RESTURANT LASTED LONGER THEN ALL OF YOU SUCK IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"

"... thank you... genuinely out of pocket with full seriousness..."

"thank you everyone for sticking around none of this would be possible without you, and I HONEST AND TRUELY can't wait for another five amazing years."

Moderator Monnie: And happy anniversary to everyone from me to all of you!

Have a fantastic day! and thank ya'll for reading!

[chainslobber]

<< from previous anon >>

thank you so much for the genuine answer, and for being so kind. I appreciate it tons, seriously. and yes, since I've stepped away from the anti/proship stuff, I feel a lot better. although, if I may admit, sometimes I feel strangely guilty. maybe it's because it's been instilled in me for so long that certain things are bad.

if I may ask, did you ever struggle with this after you decided to stop associating with those labels/parts of the fandom? i hope this isn't too personal. 🩷

i just want to enjoy these harmless fictional things without feeling bad. is that really so wrong? obviously, it's not, but yknow.

Hello again, Anon!

I understand you entirely. I was in the same boat. My last fandom I was in, I LOVED it there. I loved the series but the 'fandom' was new to me. When I was 14-16, you couldn't go ANYWHERE online without seeing porn, or handholding, or kissing. It was two teenage boys. But then I came to the fandom and...all of that was gone. Sterilized. If you even called the boys 'hot' people IMMEDIATELY did callout posts and tried to cancel you.

Now, I had just come from two adult fandoms. One of which was D:BH. Now, everyone in DBH (main characters anyways minus Alice) were all adults. The fandom was ALL porn. Fics, body pillows, doujins, you name it. So coming from that fandom to this old fandom where none of that was allowed was jarring. I watched people get attacked for drawing risque pictures, or fics. Every adult in the fandom started making priv accounts because we were terrified.

I was, by this point, best friends with an anti and in an anti group. Every day, I'd see links in the discord of drawings, or fics, or video essays where people gleefully called these people pedophiles/ephebophiles--all for liking these things. SOme of them tried to doxx, others started signing them up for emails for junk, some even tried to find spouses and jobs to 'tattle' on them. Now, I was terrified. I was, at this point and still am, an adult artist for my job. I had never drawn porn of these characters but I read fics. I made a new AO3 just so I could like these fics without feeling guilty or having people crawl my bookmarks. Even on Twitter, even if the pic was SFW, I stopped liking/RTing. I bookmarked everything.

But.

People found out what I did for a living. People found out I was lying to them because my priv account got leaked by someone I could trust. I got callouts so badly, I stopped drawing for the fandom. My best friend, who I didn't wanna lose, turned on me. I literally had nobody up until I met Penny. I was too afraid to talk to anybody for fear they were 'in the circle'. People who didn't even know me were suddenly calling me a creep, saying they knew I had 'bad vibes', and that it was 'weird' I was so old in a fandom for 'kids'. I was only 27 at the time iirc.

It was scary. Even now, I'm waiting for someone to call me out for writing MHA porn, for drawing it. I still get people in my askbox calling me awful things sometimes.

But just know that you're doing nothing wrong. You never have, you never were, and I'm sorry people made you feel like you were the worst person ever for maybe finding an anime character hot or whatever the case might be. I DO promise you're safe here, even as anon, and I'm happy to talk with you. I got my socials and Discord everywhere. I don't want to out you and I never will, I just want you to know if it helps, you can even make a burner account to talk to me or anybody else.

It's really tough stepping away from the anti life, especially when you might've stayed for safety. But it's a toxic relationship; I'm not saying proshippers are also without their faults, but I have only ever had genuine friendships with folks who didn't give a shit.

People will defend you. People will swing for you. Fiction is meant to be an escape from your daily life, and if folks are making you feel guilty about enjoying it the way it makes YOU happy, then they're not worth your time.

You're fantastic, Anon, and I really hope you're doing okay. Whatever you hid before out of shame or guilt or fear, just know someone else is hitting kudos as a sign of respect and genuine adoration. I hope you're okay and I hope the things you were too afraid to enjoy or give a taste, you feel a little bolder trying.

[trivalentlinks]

🔥 - i'd like to order an unpopular opinion on leverage, please!

Sorry for the very, very late answer, but to make up for it, have two unpopular opinions:

The first one's a bit of a cop-out. I think it's the less popular opinion, but probably because most don't care that much either way:

I head-canon that Damien Moreau is actually a banker/financier, ie, his primary source of income is actually derivatives investments and market prediction, and all the buying countries, arms deals and other such clandestine activities is just to give markets slight pushes in the direction he wants. (I've previous talked about this here (my last reblog addition))

This opinion seems "unpopular" in that the more common reading is that he's a mob boss who just calls himself a 'banker' to make himself sound cooler than he actually is. Which I think is a totally valid reading, consistent with what we are shown in canon! Like, he's all about image, and it's totally believable that the entire financier/banker persona is just that.

One reason I prefer the actually-a-banker reading is, as I described in the other post, because I like the parallel with team leverage and their "alternative revenue stream". This is also why I like to head-canon that when Eliot and Moreau were starting out (after Eliot met Toby and left the PMCs with his newfound conscience), before things got bad, they actually did good--only destabilizing horrible, abusive dictatorships, using their alternative revenue stream to help people. The parallels are just so compelling to me this way.

Another reason I prefer the actually-a-banker reading is that it's more relatable to me. I know people who work as financiers (hedge fund/high frequency trading/crypto firm founders or high-level quants etc).

None of them (that I know of) would actually do illegal things to manipulate prices, but it sometimes seems like if they were a little less risk-averse, a little less ethical, who knows? And when they tell me about the people they know, people they describe as "if you took a person's stats and dialled 'ethics' all the way down to zero"... These friends think anyone too stupid to see through a cryptocurrency white paper deserves to lose their life's savings. So when they say someone has ethics dialled to zero, well. You don't wanna know.

On the other hand, I don't know anyone who's anywhere close to being a mob boss.

-

Here's a more genuinely unpopular opinion, in that I think most people believe the opposite, and actually do care:

I really like Jimmy Ford. I find the character very relatable and very compelling. I feel like a lot of people in the fandom just write him off as a bad father, but I don't think that's fair.

I talked a lot about this here (skip past the "..." paragraph; above that were my old early thoughts about Moreau, before I reformulated them to be my current thoughts)

As I mentioned there, I see in Jimmy Ford every parent who didn't understand their kid, but loved them, and as Jimmy said to Nate, that's more important.

Every parent who grew up at a different time, in another country, in a harder, less forgiving world, who wants to ensure their kid can survive that old environment, without realizing that that isn't the kid's world anymore, that their kid is actually thriving in this new world, the one their parents sacrificed to raise them in

Every parent who flipped out when their son decided to major in sociology instead of computer engineering, because they could never have made a living with a degree like that

(but he's going to do more than make a living with that degree; he's going to make a difference)

Every parent who constantly monitors their daughter to ensure she waits for marriage, because in the old country she would have been shunned or worse if she didn't

(but she's not there right? her parents worked and sacrificed and bled to bring her up in this more forgiving world)

Every parent who sits next to their kid for hours a day until they get their daily hour of piano practice done (and yells at them until they do every day, disturbing their neighbour, who's just trying to focus on doing her research and grading her students' papers, not that this is personal or anything), because the parent managed to survive and to move to this country by working relentlessly at everything they did and can't imagine a world where a 7-year-old is allowed to play and to find their own interests

(but they will, maybe not then, but one day, years down the line, they may even end up liking music)

Maybe it's that I'm a kid of immigrants who knows a lot of kids of immigrants, but I think I'm more forgiving of people who raised their children in a culture different from their own and struggled to adjust to that.

[joelletwo]

wrestling with the 4devas bitchslap again to convince myself its fine if graveyard wins the best ep tourney: it's not the other bloggers who are wrong, it's me

not a complete response to but definitely in conversation with and asking some of the same questions again as @reductionisms's 4devas essay, which tries to square gintoki's "life doesn't need to be fun, i just need you to live" being a series-sanctioned message he's given to villains as an arc-concluding moral continuously up until 4devas with it here being an incorrect worldview that needs to be (physically) corrected by shinpachi, the straightman tonal signpost of gintama

a conflict i have been perplexed by ever since i got to this line on my first watch a year or two ago, since i've seen this line before! all over fandom! as part of the general "dont [bottom text] kill yourself" motivational messaging of gintama that i love!

and, briefly, when i hit 4devas i was also in the middle of being really frustrated by the new arc pattern i was seeing crop up: i loved the villains-turned sympathetic-turned someone worth saving by gintoki tune of the first half of gintama, but it fell massively flat for me in Yoshiwara in Flames, where i was never convinced to be on housen's side but had to watch him get a heartwarming redemptive death at the side of the woman he abused anyways.

then shortly after i had the same exact experience in Red Spider with jiraia, and i thought, if this is what gintama is gonna do with its shitty dudes from now on im gonna quit the fucking show. and then shortly after that i met jirochou and saw him cut down otose the woman he loved (under a raining sky!!! the fucking sky motifs!!! the signpost im about to watch a dude be shittily violent to women and be expected to feel sorry for him about it) and saw too much red to really take in the rest of the arc level-headedly or care about anything in it lol.

so it was written off in my mind as the 'otose almost gets fridged' arc until i rewatched it this week. then i had to remember, oh yeah, there's a ton of political maneuvering fakeouts in this arc that i never actually squared back with how the plot presented itself prior to the reveals, so i'd still been thinking about the "fakeout" plot. then i read the manga version with all the "truths" in mind from the start, and finally i felt like i could understand what this arc is doing a little better.

(way) tldr (4.4k words. sorry): do i love this arc? eh. do i still hate it? eh. but it's doing stuff!

first, i was able to see an echo in all the "actually i was planning to betray you the whole time" "actually i was working to help you the whole time" plot beats of what sorachi does with the larger edo/universe story further into the back half of the manga. if i ever sound like i didnt enjoy or wasnt convinced by the execution of these "reveals," it's because i didnt and wasnt, lol. but it's fun that he had fun with them i guess.

the arc starts with pirako ingratiating herself into yorozuya, then having a classic "bump into you and pretend to be injured to extort you" encounter w her dad's gang. to resolve this without escalating into violence, gintoki... does it back to them, which is really funny. but thus the tone is set for the arc of: DISHONEST APPROACHES TO CONFLICT.

pirako isnt honest about her overall intentions the, like, seven different times that she "admits her real ones." kada plays at peacekeeper in the devas while being the ultimate person scheming to get the upper hand over everyone else in the end. (she's also secretly harusame, evil amanto outsider who acts as a unifying force for the kabukicho fighting itself to band together against and expel: sorachi's favorite move! the problem was never internal, it's the shadowy REAL antagonists who infiltrated us)

jirochou and otose are ultimately doing a pantomime of conflict to try to keep temperatures down and escalations from breaking out, so no one they care about has to get hurt. gintoki doesn't know this until the end, but he follows in their footsteps after his encounter with them in the graveyard: he plays at having given up to the rest of yorozuya so they'll leave and escape the coming kabukicho war, the same thing otose was trying with him. it fails both times. i'm really not sure why gintoki and otose thought it would work, honestly. they should know their kids are stubborn as hell.

but gintoki is in a bind because of the things he needs to protect, and all of his actions are primarily in service of that, to the detriment of how he'd prefer to act if he were less restricted. he is unsurprised and unoffended to hear saigou is only willing to warn them, not help them, because her son is in danger if she acts directly. all four devas are, seemingly, being mutually restrained this way, holding back even when blatantly manipulated to do so. the other constant of this arc: everyone is dishonest, and no one wants to risk losing what they have.

gintoki understands that! of course! he's had to make that calculus before, after all :)

and this arc is just one big cliff scene echo: the entire graveyard scene pushing gintoki to emotional regression because he thinks he's losing another parent figure, one he's just seen the Gintoki Figure of the arc cut down, no less (takasugi stolen valor when he goes berserk against him and only ends up uselessly bleeding out on the ground about it, honestly). otose goes into this willingly so gintoki can live. he accepts this decision because he values protecting her values (her kids living on) and is briefly broken by it (the story says, before giving him shinpachi to "put him back on track"). prior to the bitchslap, after saying he just wants them to live, even if it has to be without him, he says:

i dont have a good understanding of when we start getting reveals of gintoki's backstory versus foreshadowing because i went into gintama already knowing most of it, but definitely by the recent red spider where we get our first real look at (or really, first listen to) shouyou. but here we actually get some of what gintoki felt about it, which he keeps closely guarded even when the whole truth comes out: he's done his best to survive having lost, but it was so unbearable he can't face losing again.

(also, honorable mention backstory echo, the person calling him a brother sets his home on fire to drive him and his parent figure out of town. as i liveblogged: this one would really hurt gintoki if gintoki cared about anything oboro ever did!)

but with the shinpachi story-rerouting, they get the good end, keep everyone (otose, yorozuya, all of kabukicho, even pirako and her dad - everyone but kada) safe without having to sacrifice a single thing, even keep gintoki hopeful for this outcome. so, as goose points out, we are left to understand that there could have been a good end on the cliff, that something is different here than there, and, skipping a lot of math, that that is the people around gintoki.

which i do find really funny to imagine as a slam on takasugi and katsura. sorry you kids suck too much, your teacher dies bc u were cringefail. but lets look at it.

everyone is dishonest, no one wants to risk what they have: gintoki rallies himself to keep fighting but is determined to do it alone. kagura and shinpachi fight him on this; they can't leave because they don't want to lose their home, they can't let him fight alone because they don't want to lose him. they're just as restricted by what they have to keep safe, but their only option is to act where everyone else's is inaction. shinpachi says:

if i may skip over the bitchslap itself for now, gintoki does consent to let his allies fight with him after it. yorozuya stands alone against saigou, who's heavily demoralized but resigned, strongarmed into fighting them by the threat to her son. but on seeing their resolve to keep protecting their own precious home and family she says:

and, to skip straight to my thought, i think this is what turns the tides back in their favor. there are more twists and turns to the fight. pirako equates what binds saigou, which she herself equates to what binds the yorozuya, to what binds her:

(with an intentional distinction that she's willing to actively destroy the others', as opposed to their purely self defensive fighting, which is echoed at some point in her distinguishing gintoki from jirochou in the same way, that jirochou not only lives to protect like gintoki but is willing to destroy in the process. i don't find that part as interesting, but it's more fuel to the power of having something to protect as a driving force as an arc theme.)

so now all three stand on the same ground, absolutely unwilling to give up what they hold dear, but all their cards are on the table. they aren't dealing in 12 dimensions of tricksy defensive pre-emptive moves anymore. they know it wouldnt work, anyways, since they all know their drives to protect are the same and no one will be talked into backing down. now they can directly duke it out and let the winner be determined that way, on strength of will. even before the actual circumstances change, the fight somehow feels freer seeing how inevitable it is. and with everything out in the open, yorozuya can now protect each other and saigou's son, taking out one side of the conflict.

(and with everything out in the open, the ultimate 4devas villain can become the single person who continues to betray the others, kada, whose further machinations - with everything out in the open! - saigou (and later yorozuya) can choose to protect pirako from. everyone wins! because everything was out in the open! do you see where i'm going)

and so we come back to the question: gintoki is corrected, the arc is rerailed to the better outcome. so is the correction justified?

what does the correction accomplish outside of its moment? most convincingly to me of goose's presented options, i also think it's done as a thematic shift, a, okay, just live was a strategy that worked before but now doesn't suffice, so we need something more.

as to why this is needed now and not earlier or later...tldr bad planning <3 but like.

we have, prior to this, a consistent thrust of arcs where gintoki teaches people to lose. as well, while we meet the harusame and we visit space and we get the barest glimpses of takasugi's weird shadowy background moves there, largely we're dealing with kabukicho characters and kabukicho stories. we see or only hear about the shogun for short comedic moments only. we've largely dropped the series intro focus on things like the shinsengumi or hasegawa acting as foreign diplomats. it's a local series, a hometown series, a kabukicho and not even an edo at large series, a personal story about gintoki making personal connections with his personal experience as a flawed person with a flawed approach to life that has let him, chronic slacker, get by on the bare minimum.

at this moment, chapter 300, we have a slow trickle of gintoki backstory starting to come out to us. we've recently expanded the story focus to include yoshiwara, which gets a callout in this arc by kada to keep it relevant. we have an arc of sorachi testing out plot beats that he'll use again for the endgame, in all the political maneuvering and alliancing and betraying and shadowy outsider space governmenting, where he's also doing a lot of echoing of that backstory that only becomes clear later. so it's possible he's thinking about shifting gears and setting up for the eventual endgame, which means getting out of the episodic cycle so things can stick.

and after this arc, to my opinion and memory, we stop getting the classic gintama flavor sympathizable'd antagonists. a lot of the bigger arcs don't even have clear Big Shot antagonists anymore, being more about the shouyoucore theme of characters fighting against themselves, or if there is one they're always explicitly part of the Shadow Government now, a unified and more daunting force than someone they can win over with an inspiring gintoki interaction.

so 4devas does act as a turning point at least in some way. and it's not possible to say this definitively, since all gintama arcs are ultimately never going to be about gintoki or his friends Actually losing something instead of beating the odds, but it does feel like theres a different flavor to, say, dekobokko with its direct look at how chars lives could be different and better and they will still choose to keep struggling as themselves. and Kintama arc definitely doesn't feel like an early days arc, like it can only resolve the way it does with a gintoki who is now able to face his past and the possibility of losing again and again and again (now with, natch, his faith that yorozuya will by his side when he does).

why now, after 300 chapters of letting it sit ignored in the back of his brain working out perfectly fine except when it doesn't (the very reminder of shouyou in a fight making him go Demon Mode, which is like regular gintoki but worse at fighting, bc he is so unprepared to think about shouyou)? well i personally am in big favor of the "take a decade off" strategy for facing problems. it worked for me too. realistically watsonianly its nice to let things percolate in the brain and do some of the processing behind the scenes until its less immediately painful. and he's made many bonds over these 300 chapters, shown in this arc when the whole town rallies behind him, that are there to support him when he needs it now and weren't there before.

realistically doylistly eh. bad planning.

and so we come back to the question: gintoki is corrected, the series as a result is rerailed to a writing space where things can start changing (leave the episodic, as you guys say, sazae-san format). it's useful in the future. so is the correction justified in terms of what comes before it? was the correction needed?

thinking about the bitchslap leads to thinking about the cliff scene leads to (sorry kagura and katsura, you guys arent really relevant here) pitting shinpachi and takasugi against each other in how they act with something on the line they can't bear to give up.

i don’t need the lesson of 4devas to apply logistically to the cliff scene. once they were set up on that chessboard, frozen in their assigned places as a backstory, it’s not like takasugi could’ve power of friendship’d his way out of being physically retrained if he decided he wanted to. it’s set up as a forced choice, it has to play out as a forced choice.

but we see that even before it’s asked of him, takasugi is willing, prepared, unbothered to give up his own life for shouyou’s. this is, goose lays out in the sequel, the cardinal sin in gintama - a teacher shouldn’t outlive their student. it would have been especially egregious to shouyou, whose whole desired life’s purpose is to raise students who can outlive him and outgrow him, take his lessons and go out into the world and do their own thing with them. takasugi doesn’t expect to do this and doesn’t seem to see a point in the possibility if shouyou isn’t back with them.

though we can also think of shouyou as a little too quickly willing to give up on the cliff - sorry, gintoki, the suicidal guy has thought about it for .02 seconds and decided the best outcome is for you to kill him even though he could get out of this no problem. maybe its no wonder gintoki gave up too. can we ask katsura what he would’ve done?

and is takasugi different from shinpachi there? he rejects the mentor’s attempt to exchange his own life for his. he’s not willing to consider a life without him.

but shinpachi is convinced no one is going to die. because they’ll be there together. incredibly naive - shinpachi and kagura, restricted to one option by what they need to protect like everyone is in 4devas, have acting as that one option because they are still free in a way gintoki and the other adults aren't. they’ve never actually experienced the impossible choice that forces you to give up, so they can act as if there isn’t one - what else would they do? why would they think to give up?

but gintoki is defined by having lived the impossible choice. its built into the foundation of him as a character and leaks out everywhere. he couldn’t have relied on his friends on the cliff because they were quite forcibly removed from the picture as an option, not by his or their choice. its written as an inevitability, logistics we find out later be damned.

if we refocus to 4devas, we can look at the Gintoki Figure for a different angle. jirochou, after he and gintoki resolve the arc conflict by being able to team up because they - say it with me - put everything out in the open, tells gintoki about his impetus for abandoning his family and coming back to his wayward life in kabukicho, the death of otose's husband.

it's, um, another now really obvious parallel to gintoki, lol. characters talk about how jirochou does everything he does in this arc to try to atone for his failure to both otose and tatsugorou, and i guess thats true bc he was written that way but he has an odd way of showing it, but anyways he resolves that, despite his guilt over this, all he can do now is keep living and keep protecting what they loved together. he's come to the usual gintama message all on his own, reinforcing that this is the correct way to live in this series. he had his own unavoidably shitty situation, and he came to terms with it.

so then where did jirochou go wrong, in the narrative's eyes (other than abandoning one woman and their child to deal drugs in the town of his other woman while ignoring her)? was there a point he could've changed how their trio's story played out? but he loved and trusted tatsugorou, and he was happy to step aside and let him be the one by their otose's side. i doubt he would have been happy stealing her away even if it were possible.

but if we look at the resolution tool of 4devas... he never put everything out in the open!!! everyone knows he loved otose, but in more of an open secret way. in classic romance plot, he never confessed for second male lead rejection closure. indeed, in the closest we ever get to a main character having a romantic plot in gintama, the very ending of the arc flirts with him doing just that now that he's made a little progress with the arc message, with the entire cast of the arc expecting him to (and interrupting before he can).

but if he had when they were young. if he had been honest with his friends. could it have opened up other options that weren't available on his own, that they didnt know to offer? i have a preferred one lol. but u can get creative with all sorts of life paths that avoid tatsugorou dying that way or, at the least, jirochou feeling chained to a shameful life (living in a town he doesn't go out in to protect a woman he doesnt talk to and feeling like he doesnt deserve the family he abandoned for this) because of it.

and then if we take this and rewind back to the cliff... we get to grind my favorite ax, "shouyou shouldve told literally anyone literally anything about his deal." if gintoki knew more about shouyou, they could've faced his horrors together, the whole time. he couldve known that shouyou was being literal calling himself a demon and not internalized his own identity as one for life just because shouyou bonded with him over it. i truly genuinely think the logical conclusion of all of gintama's big messages are that shouyou and gintoki should have been more open with each other.

but i don't think sorachi thinks that. and, you know, by 4devas rules, the unriskable precious things he was protecting by staying silent were his students' humanity, and secondarily his own fragilely newly hopeful heart that literally couldnt stand another 10 millionth round of rejection (killed himself and then went on a 12 year rampage over it. girl i would too).

and takasugi really isn't dishonest about what's going on in his head when he tells us he expects to die for shouyou. that's as cards on the table as i could ask. gintoki is, a little bit, by omission. he does what i'd want him to here - tells takasugi try just not dying - but doesn't give him a reason to, and doesn't tell him he has no plans of letting anyone die for shouyou.

so what goes wrong on the cliff - shouyou is happy, gintoki is happy, oboro's even kind of happy, katsura is irrelevant - is that takasugi is blindsided (whoops) by their silent agreement that betrays the one he thought he and gintoki had. and then ruins everyone's party about it and spends the next ten years doing so for good measure.

which is also, basically, what shinpachi is going through that prompts the bitchslap, too. he thought they were a team, that they had each others backs, not that gintoki is a one-way protector of them. he is blindsided by gintoki lying to and tricking them and hiding things from them. he is hurt by gintoki feeling hopeless all by himself when he could share that with them and be encouraged by their endless child optimism.

and would it need to have changed anything on the cliff? in the moment after the bitchslap, what contributes to gintoki changing his mindset is tama telling him, we trust that you're capable bc youve always shown us that, can you trust us this time? when, later in the arc, gintoki seems to regress by sending kagura and shinpachi away, he asks them to trust that he's still trusting them, relying on them to help shoulder his burden, and in return they know he's staying alive, not self sacrificing. maybe it would've helped just to feel on the same team and not shut out, to be able to trust gintoki like gintoki was trusting shouyou?

so. two paralleled instances of gintoki making a bad situation worse by keeping to himself and being too self sufficient. that feels clear cut that feels fine im okay with that as a takeaway. do i think its exactly what sorachi had in mind while writing this, as opposed to just a good series 'hey lean on your friends' moment to read cool and tug at the heartstrings? eh lol. i think theres definitely room to read takasugi into this arc (i still need to refind the takagin 4devas post...) but its not so baked in that i think he was a PRIORITY in the plotting.

but is the shinpachi SCOLDING necessary is the scolding justified... and yes its in response to life doesnt need to be fun i just want you to live. still a confusing framing i can't immediately square. but/and more immediately its directly responding. to gintoki opening up to them about his insecurities!!

which, as said, he doesnt do!! he doesnt talk about his failures! its basically like, here and to hijikata that one time and otherwise even when we know all the facts about what happened we still never hear gintoki himself talk about it. (so he really DOESNT learn the lesson here either. he stays dissociated and triggered every time utsuro comes up. he tries to solve the altana baby problem on his own. he doesnt talk to his new friends OR his old friends. bwah. gintoki. silver soul.)

so this is like. its just in the wrong order!! its just in a baffling order lol. if you want gintoki to share his burden do you need to punch him when he shares it. does it also need to sound like you're blaming him for not being capable of upholding his promise to protect anyone when thats the insecurity thats got him all discombobulated this arc in the first place (a whole set of notes i took on this that i didnt find a place for in this post)?? its so weeeeiiiiiirddd lol i dont liiikeee itttttt. theres plenty of things shinpachi can validly punch gintoki for but this is such a weird one.

so i guess. having a clearer understanding of this arc do i hate it less? YES honestly. i hate fakeout plots generally they irritate me but everything... more or less makes sense by gintama standards now that i have the whole plot in mind.

do i hate jirochou less SORT OF? i enjoy him. in his individual relationships. i like his shitty dad deal i love shitty dads. i like him pining for otose who genuinely likes him but also brings up her husband every sentence she says to him just to keep him down. i like his parallels with gintoki that they both explicitly acknowledge and find macho comfort in. hes still not theeeeeeeee most well-developed gintama antagonist but you know? i at least think otose and pirako would want to be around him after this.

do i feel like i have a clearer understanding of the bitchslap moment. NOT CONVINCED I DO. i feel like its going to be one of those things that slips in and out of my understanding like sand in cupped hands. i have a tentative understanding of it that i dont think sorachi actually had in mind. so i dont think ive solved it lol.

will i be cursed to think about 4devas forever? god i hope not. am i okay with it beating farewell shins in the polls. god i fucking hope it does. in the horrible timeline where i have to see 305 make it all the way and then lose i guess id rather it be to this one than to hijigin. consider this poll propaganda?

[myobsessionsspace]

This whole goddamn taekook vs jikook 💿🐎 is so exhausting. Honestly.

Was I a bit saddened when Jeongguk didn't mention Jimin? Yeah. But for the wrong reasons because my brain was hard wired into thinking "taekookers are gonna run a mile with it".

It's fucked up. But more importantly, it's not Jeongguk's fault - it's purely a me/army problem.

The fact that everyone in army has some kind of version of the members that's mostly fabricated, isn't something they can control.

They are most likely aware of all the hate they get online, especially if it gets really bad. That it gets really bad for Jimin a whole lot, from within army even, can't be unknown to them. But it's not on Jeongguk to change himself on the off-chance it's gonna reduce hate. Most likely that wouldn't work either. Tkkers, akgaes and Solos will hate on BTS every chance they get.

BTS are whole people, individuals that think differently and experience things differently. To reduce them down to their interactions with others is insanely harmful, but it has been normalised. From what I've seen, a lot of shippers (both taekookers and jikookers) reduce the maknae line to what they do and with whom. I did it too, when I immediately thought sadly about the letter when it's the first proper sign of life we've gotten from our golden maknae in ages.

So, as much as I'm f.e. looking forward to the travel show, I'd also advise shippers in particular to watch actual uncut ot7 content. ITS, BV, concerts and behind the scenes - there's a decade worth of videos. Yes, everyone believes in hybe having a narrative to push, so I don't expect people to actually do this honestly, but it might decode some of the army-internal brainwashing.

Hi lovely,

First of allllll

I’m here for what you are throwing down!

It’s not a THEM (the members) problem it’s an US problem.

How does it make sense that ‘fans’ be it solos, shippers, whatever, get mad when people we’ve never met talk about a member who they’ve ate, slept, breathed, played and worked with for 10+ years? How does it make sense to be angry over them interacting, touching, mentioning each other because of what the shippers will say? You damn right it’s exhausting😪.

⬆️An example 😓 They literally had phones in their faces from all sides and so many think pieces about their interactions VS ⬇️

I can’t point the finger without three pointing back at me, cos like you said I too have had moments when I’m like ‘those mf’s are gonna have a field day with this…’ as my first thought?! What’s wrong with me??? I get it when real OT7 say shippers & solos (when talking about those that actually are and not the ones they like to label to dismiss valid thoughts) ruin everything, cos as soon as content and good news drops there’s always gotta be some bullshit alongside it, from any subsection 😪

They HAVE to be aware but kudos to them, they keep it moving, they���re so strong to have millions of strangers on multiple platforms speaking on them like they know them, but still have so much love in their hearts to continue engaging because they know the some isn’t the all.

With every drama and battle online it actually deepens my love and awe of these regular guys, with talent hard worked for, still trying hard to show their goodness to their supporters, not throwing in the towel for their peace. They’re everything 😍

I’m glad people like you are making it your mission to not reduce them to their duos, ships and solo fandoms, but still supporting them as TALENTED INDIVIDUALS. I’m trying too💪. I want to be conscious in appreciating them for them, their talents, their individuality AND their bonds, ALL OF THEIR BONDS.

Obviously I bias some bonds more than others, it’s human nature🙈

We definitely need to keep pushing about original content, we need to keep pushing about original sources not just clips and cuts and edits, we definitely need to keep pushing about doing our googles!

We need to not close our eyes to the other interactions, it’s not scary! It helps us appreciate Jikook’s bond more and appreciate them as members, friends & brothers of the others.

Because no matter what people believe those 7 MEN love each other down.

It helps us be able to filter the bullshit when we do come across misinformation and defamation of character. It helps our confidence in knowing we’re stanning and supporting the right ones.

I’m super geeked for the show coming from Jikook too…whenever it comes 😩 Heck we’re starved, so I’ll start small, I’m desperate for a ‘keep warm, don’t catch a cold’ message from Jiminie even though he’s doing his best in keeping in contact, why are we so thirsty 😅

Thank you for writing in and speaking my heart! 😉

💜

[eddiegettingshot]

Personally if someone I was in love with stood in front of me and told me to MY FACE that a person they met like 5 minutes ago sees them better than anyone else, there is no way I'd try anything with them, to keep my dignity if nothing else 😭 I will never understand why fandom has these insane expectations for Eddie 😭😭

THIS IS WHAT I’M SAYING 😭 like yeah eddie can be conflicted about buck being with someone without the implication that them not being together and making babies is all on him because “all he’d have to do is say something.” WHY WOULD YOU EXPECT HIM TO SAY SOMETHING? he’s watched buck be a complete disaster for years and buck apparently still has NO understanding of where he belongs in eddie’s life - even platonically. if i were eddie i would not be putting all my shit on the line with him 😭 but buck approaching eddie and saying “i have feelings for you, and i want you, and i want this, and i want us to make it work together” would be DIFFERENT. it would be growth!

[thedrarrylibrarian]

Several people have been kind enough to let me publish their thoughts on fandom, community, and queerness to celebrate Pride in the Library. Today's piece comes from @lqtraintracks.

I got into fandom a long, long time ago, way back before I found HP in 2012. My early days in another fandom (days meaning years) are not a time I want to revisit, even though it started out really good. I got to explore my sexuality for the very first time there. I met my first gf there. And those things were beautiful, for sure; they were just short-lived. After a couple of years, I met an abuser, and from then on my fandom life was predetermined by them—what I could and couldn’t read, could and couldn’t write, who I could and couldn’t form friendships with, etc. And even in the midst of that, there were those friendships that bolstered me. @elrhiarhodan, I’m looking at you.

But after 13 ½ years of that… I found HP. And I found a wonderful person who would change my life. I met Shelly / @unmistakablyoatmeal. For the first time in a very long time, I saw someone writing queerly and freely, who, far from being limited to one pairing for life, was writing all kinds of pairings (and threesomes), dynamics, and stories! I was so powerfully drawn to that freedom, and to her, and in no small way, she and this fandom are why I survived, and how I escaped and started to change my life and reclaim it as my own. 

I’ve met so many wonderful people here, many of whom have become close friends, my best friends. I’ve been writing all the queer smut my little queer heart has desired for many years now, and it’s been beyond amazing.

But something changed for us a few years ago, and our community hasn’t been the same since. The person who wrote the canon turned on us. She revealed herself to be all kinds of monstrous. 

There were clues, of course—the antisemitism inherent in her Goblins, the fat phobia, the queer baiting without any actual rep, the racism and ignorance shown in naming Cho Chang, etc. We knew but maybe we didn’t want to know. And being white and not Jewish, I lived under an umbrella of privilege that meant I didn’t have to see it until other people began pointing these things out to me.

But then the transphobia started. And kept going. And it became her platform. And it got worse, and worse, and fucking worse

As painful and horrific as that has been, it seems to have done what that sort of vile bigotry has always done though: It’s shown us that we are and will always be stronger, wiser, more loving, and ultimately undefeatable. I’ll speak for myself: I wasn’t writing trans characters before. I was afraid I’d get it wrong. JKR’s evil bullshit is what pushed me to get over myself. 

This fandom is where I have learned the most about the queer community I love. It’s where I’ve truly learned to write. And it’s where I’ve learned about facets of queer life I’d never connected to properly before out of the fear of trying. 

Here’s what I’ve learned: Bloody no one comes together like we do! No one supports one another like we do! We’ve forged a stronger bond because of some terf’s hate, and I feel closer to my fellow queer creators than ever.

This fandom, you beautiful people, have taught me so much, continue to teach me so much. I’m honored to share this space with you. Happy Pride to all you gorgeous people being your trans, nb, fluid, ace, bi, pan, poly, intersex, queer, powerful selves.  Thank you from the bottom of my little queer heart. I love you.

Thank you, LQ, for joining me in the Library. I love your declaration of fandom as ours, and the recognition that we are a stronger community because of what we've overcome. Thank you for celebrating Pride in the Library with me.

If you want more @lqtraintracks be sure to check out their work on AO3! I just finished reading her Phoenix in the Fire and I was hooked the whole time! I couldn't stop until I'd devoured the whole thing. I think you'll be just as hooked as I was. I also want to throw in how much I loved A Strapping Young Man - I loved reading about Harry's desire for Draco, and how Harry's desire is bolstered by Draco's confidence.

🏳️‍🌈 Lots of Love and Happy Pride! 🏳️‍🌈

[altocat]

so i'm trying to get back into the swing of things after almost a decade of being out of ffvii fandom and ever crisis has rekindled a very powerful desire to write and write until my fingers fall off. so i'd like to ask, since you're in the tags and seem quite knowledgeable: what is your opinion of genesis's writing in crisis core?

i've always been of the opinion he was woefully mishandled, and i'm currently trying to reconcile what we were given with what i assume they were going for. got about 2k of a fic with a slightly difficult to explain premise written so far, but sephiroth is pre-nibelheim in post-advent children time (no dirge of cerberus) where genesis is about a decade older than him now. and they're navigating the fallout of the last time they saw each other.

i'm using a lot of what we're learning about sephiroth to color their relationship, too -- my boyfriend skillfully pointed out that it feels like genesis may have developed a parasocial attachment to the version of sephiroth that shinra fed him through propaganda, and when he met the real thing he was let down and became resentful.

so i'm wondering, how do i handle it without making it into a personal vendetta against how horribly i felt genesis was written? heh

The writing on Genesis in CC is....yeesh.

I'd chalk that up to many things--general mishandling, the fact that Genesis is only limited to appearing when Zack is present, and some translation issues from the Japanese language over to English. Lots of his arc as a character doesn't really feel earned, or they don't take enough time to establish his good qualities to make the player care about him.

It's important to note that, despite the fact that the game failed to shed proper light on this, Genesis DOES have many good qualities. He's kind to the lower ranking soldiers, whom he reads to. He and Sephiroth, for all their rivalry, seemed to be close at one point. He was presumably a good friend to Angeal. And even Gackt himself has said that Genesis has a "sweet" streak hidden beneath all that bluster.

It's equally important to note that the Genesis we see in CC is desperate, dying, and under the influence of the Degradation Process. Angeal himself points out that the process seems to dull the mind, clouding it. Sephiroth may or may not have some variation of this as well once his Jenova cells are activated in Nibelheim. So Genesis is really not "himself", warped and twisted, trying to preserve his life, angry and bitter at what Shinra did to him. He's at his lowest point emotionally and psychologically, hence why he does what he does. The writing....just doesn't convey it well.

As for his relationship with Sephiroth, I feel like Sephiroth was closest to him out of all his friends, and Genesis' previous idolization of Sephiroth is the primary reason why he WANTS to be the best. He wants to beat Seph to prove that he's WORTHY of being around Seph. As a boy, Seph was his hero. He HAS to surpass him or become his equal to prove that he can stand toe to toe with the person he feels is a real hero. The dilemma is that Sephiroth never wanted to be a hero and would have always valued Genesis just as he is. Genesis already had what he was looking for...he just didn't realize it until it was too late. They're a complicated pair, with lots of miscommunication, unresolved tension, and poor decision making shared between them. I think they needed to talk to each other more than anything else. Because there was something genuine there. They could have kept it, they could have shared the apples just like Genesis always wanted.

Post-CC, I see Genesis carrying a lot of guilt. Both his friends are "dead" and he basically kicked off the events that led to it. He's been pardoned by Minerva and will now act as the planet's hero and protector, but at the cost of the people he loved. There's no real room for arrogance anymore. He's a hero not out of pride, but shame and remorse. He's tired, lonely, and now fully recognizes the pain of what heroism truly is. He's "grown up" in a sense, become a different person. Crisis Core is a coming of age story in many ways, not just for Zack but for Genesis as well. It's too bad they kinda bungled the delivery.

Hope all of that helps! Genesis is actually a really interesting character when you dissect him. He's sorta become one of my top faves over time, even if I fully recognize him as a complete trashlord. But I think there's more to him deep, deeeeep down.

[quietasides]

Hi love, first I want to say you don't have to answer me with a long essay or something, but I just want and need your opinion on something since you have been here since 2013 which means you're a veteran larrie. Could you please answer in private :)

There aren't many larries from those days left and I completely understand why. The fandom is becoming a mess. I would just like your opinion on one subject/aspect of Larry.

I have been back and forth analyzing stuff before but mostly after 1D took their hiatus. Louis' and Harry's lyrics, behavior, and signaling and I just don't understand it anymore. The new influx of larries think L and H broke up multiple times and had other relationships, but I don't know anymore.

Something inside me tells me that isn't what happened, but with their lyrics and everything else (stunts), I feel like I'm in the minority. That's why I would like to ask you one question, you can simply answer with a yes or a no. I'd love it if you could share your ideas or elaborate more, but I know not many larries like and feel comfortable sharing their ideas anymore....so please do so, if you can.

Do you think Louis and Harry have taken breaks/broke up since 2010 (with taking breaks I mean L and H still have a relationship but taking time apart and breaking up is self-explanatory)? And do you think they have slept/been with other people since 2010?

Hello! Thanks for your ask. I don't have a problem stating my opinion publicly. Do I think Louis and Harry have taken breaks or broken up over the past thirteen years, and do I think they have had a monogamous relationship throughout that time?

I think it's absolutely 100% impossible for any one of us here on tumblr to claim we know what's going on with Louis or Harry, together or separately, never mind open-to-interpretation clues and lyrics and imagery. It seems to me that it was a strategic business decision to utilize "Larry" signaling, and it serves a dual purpose of both promoting interest and offering a sort of smokescreen for whatever sort of private lives Louis and Harry lead. I think they're very smart to keep ambiguity around the situation, because I think it allows them a lot of privacy.

I've lived for enough years to know that people grow and change, relationships evolve, partners stay, partners go, deeply committed relationships fail for all sorts of reasons and thrive for just as many—so, really, hell if I know what's gone on behind anyone's closed doors, much less a couple of artists I've never met! I haven't been active in fandom since 2019, when I entered graduate school to get my masters in counseling, so I can state with absolute confidence I have no idea what's going on with their relationships and that really any stance is JUST AS VALID.

It's totally fun to speculate and enjoy analyzing stuff, and it's fun to gather "proof" etc.

People in a successful relationship have determined between them what works for them. Any relationship has its own course and only the people involved know what goes on. Ethical non-monogamy is perfectly acceptable; it's open and honest and no lying is involved. With cheating, there's lying and concealment, which damage a relationship and make it unsustainable without a lot of work to regain health.

I have no idea what's gone on between Louis and Harry, and where things stand between them in 2024. I do know that when they met, in 2010, Harry at 16 and Louis at 18 were not even halfway through their adolescence, which the latest research shows doesn't end until our mid- to late-twenties. Now, almost 14 years later, they are both adult men with a fair amount of life behind them. They now know themselves in completely different ways than they did then, when they were just beginning the journey of growing up.

I hope for each of them, both of them, that they are enjoying living contented lives in just the manner they would like, that they feel healthy and loved and okay just as they are, together, separate, whatever.

I hope that you, dear ziamswitchcraft, enjoy speculating and interpreting symbols and choosing for yourself what you think is true, with the kind understanding that it could only ever be partially true, and could well be false.

[zukosdualdao]

6, 7, 8, and 16 for the fandom asks!

6. My favorite character:

*nearly buzzing* hey have you guys heard of my good buddy zuko?

okay this is gonna be long and then i'll try to be normal shshhsghjh it's funny because the answer definitely used to be katara (and don't get me wrong, i still adore her and she is absolutely is a close second, she deserves everything tbh), but something about zuko on my last rewatch (before my current rewatch) (i am ridiculous) just... really stuck with me. i hadn't seen the show in years at that point, and while i'd always liked his story, this time around, i couldn't help but appreciate the nuance in it, as someone who is both a victim of abuse and a villain in the narrative, and how the show goes out of its way to show you why he's acting the way he is and doing the things he's doing in a way that allows you to sympathize with him (and that helps to sew the seeds of his redemption because his abuse cannot be disentangled from the fact that he was once a kid who valued kindness and things like not unnecessarily sacrificing new recruits on the front lines, and that he is now performing his father's ideals of cruelty to try to both conform and cope.)

but i also feel the show does a good job at showing this without ever falling into the trap of justifying what he's doing. and his story is really cathartic, as it's one of not just redemption but healing, and the idea that those two things go hand in hand? that the narrative didn't demand zuko hate himself to be redeemed (and, in fact, discouraged it, "pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source", after all) but instead, the actions he took toward changing his life and helping people made him a healthier, happier person??? it's just. it's so good. i could talk about zuko for hours, and i won't do that but. yeah i love this character a normal amount.

7. My least favorite character: (*i decided to interpret this as characters i don't like as people rather than characters i don't like the arcs of. that's a different, more complicated answer i don't feel like delving into at the moment.)

ozai is the boring answer, but i mean. c'mon. (he's not a BAD character, he's just the literal worst.) i don't feel like this one requires that much explanation.

also, though, i don't hear enough hate for my guy zhao. (again, good character! he does what he's supposed to in the narrative, which is overshadow zuko as a threat/villain and showcase viewing oneself as inherently superior as something that will ultimately lead to downfall, which foreshadows the defeat of both ozai and azula.) like.... i don't totally know why, but zhao actually really gets under my skin as a villain lmao. maybe it's because he's more tangible than ozai? like, ozai spends so long as this shadowy, untouchable figure, and so much about him is implied, but zhao is just right there throughout book one, being the worst. and i don't know how to explain it, because there are honestly a lot of similarities between them, but i feel like not everyone has met someone like ozai, but most people know someone like zhao. he has less power than ozai (not none, but less) but just as much ego and will rub whatever power he does have in your face and i just. yeah i hate him.

8. Is there anything I wish people would write more about in fics? (A dynamic, an exploration of an arc, just a character that doesn’t get much screentime, etc): honestly more of toph's dynamics with like, everyone in the gaang, because at a certain point, i do feel like toph gets shoved to the side a bit. (you're telling me TOPH BEIFONG of all people wouldn't have an opinion in the southern raiders?) the friendship moments we do get in the show are cute!!! she's never had friends before and now she does, let her have friends, let it be cute!

i do think some corners of the fandom try to remedy this but i just. i'm having a moment about toph pour one out for my my girl <33

16. Favorite inside joke the fandom has:

zuko, a man who cannot be killed!

[astroboots]

we interrupt for a corny message.

I've been meaning for a long time to do a post thanking everyone for reading and supporting Red Flags. It's been an odyssey of a project. It's my first multi-chapter and for everyone who has read, whether in parts or in whole, anyone who has commented, reblogged, liked or just lurked-- from the bottom of my heart thank you so much.

I'm really grateful to this space and that it exists. Covid and lockdown was rough on me on so many levels and this little hellsite was there when I needed an escape from when things were crumbling around me, until I was ready to pick myself up again.

Before I joined fandom during the pandemic, I've never shared my writing before with anyone, not even my husband (and he and I have a TMI sort of relationship) this was the first place I've done this and I'm so grateful that for all the badmouthing I do about Tumblr (its constant glitches, disappearing asks, randomly deleting my drafts etc etc) I'm so glad that this outdated Livejournal/Myspace successor exists, because without it there's so much I'd miss out on.

I never would have met some of my closest friends who have given me so much joy and held my virtual hand when I was in the hospital.

One of my most prized and beloved treasure I've found here is my friendship with @thirstworldproblemss who I would never have met without this silly place. And my pocket friends who I talk to on a near daily basis. Some who I have met in real life and have had sleepovers with and hugged and gorged delicious food with to the point where I do not consider them just my fandom friend but just my friend.

I would never have poured my heart into writing the way I've done in the last two years without this place. I also never would have had developed the love I have for writing if not for the writing encouragement I've gotten from this site, through my friendships but also from the readers who have been so kind and generous with their time in reading my works and also those who have been so amazing to provide me with their feedback, thoughts and comments.

Thanks everyone. It's been a lovely ride.

[stinger-shot]

Yey! Silly vent because I feel like shit!

Read under the cut if you want the juicy ass details

So basically, I gotta let this shit out.. its fucking me up a bit rn.

I met this dude around the start of 2021 on tiktok AND HE WAS SO TALENTED AND FUNNY but he always said he wasn't. Anyway time skip a lil..

We started getting into a few arguments near the middle of 2022. And they where just small disagreements then they gradually got worse and worse every time it happend. And it especially got bad when I made another friend on tiktok who loved doing art related things and drew my old persona back then.

And HE WAS NOT HAVING IT and he said quite alot of bad things to me. Did I stay friends with him? Yes I did. Did I also block the nice guy just trying to be my friend? Yes. I blocked them out of fear of loosing my best friend.

And near the end of 2022 we started dating because things had gotten a better.

Oh how I was so wrong. Everything just went downhill when he left high-school. He always needed attention. He got mad at me because I couldn't set an alarm BECAUSE he was up at 10am and I was up near 1pm. So I forced myself to do so mutch bullshit for him. Like draw him art as an apology and it drained me do badly I could hardly do my own personal art.

I didn't even have personal art at this point. Every time I fixated on something it was what he was fixating on because he'd get mad at me and argue with me if I wasn't.

But everything was calm when it was around April in 2023 and we where finally getting along like an actul couple because of a game called final fantasy. We where obsessed with it for months! And then around June or July I re discovered transformers.

I have never felt as happy in a fandom since 2019! Like holy shit the fandom is so sweet.

But I kept it a secret from him he still doesn't know. Then at some point I made this tumblr to get my stupid little urges out and now look at where I'm at. I haven't been this happy in a LONG while.

And just st the start of 2024 my ex got into an argument with one of his friends and I offered to talk to them. so he agreed and I spoke to them.

Im so fucking glad I did.

Because without their help I'd still be fucking miserable. They gave me the confidence to dump that bitches ass and I honestly feel like a weight has been taken off. Because it honestly felt like a chore every day of my life just talking to him.

And my other friend on discord had helped me out to. Including you silly fuckers on discord/tumblr. If your even reading this... if you are why are you still reading this?

But anyway. I just needed this off my chest. Because it does hurt a little spite how good i feel but I just have an off feeling. I haven't put down everything that happend while I was with my ex and some things might be in the wrong order or time but at least I'm forgetting it?

Just. I love the transformers fandom so mutch mutch really helped me pull through...

Fuck I'm ranting. Uh. Bye!

Also a big thank you to Avery and rex for helping me feel better (rex I've only known you for a little bit but jesus christ I fucking laugh my ass off because of you) jesus I'm sappy as fuck. (and avery your so fucking cool. You helped me alot.) And belyyvolks (I've had alot of fun messing around about ironhide XD) I'm not tagging because I don't want alot of attention on this post.