#go cringe boy go

[mochasucculent]

I love you alive girl

[bwootster]

They just seem so tired!!!!!

[stormyoceans]

TAN REALLY SAID BE PATIENT KING A TRUE CLOWN IS ON THE WAY (IT'S ME. IM THE CLOWN. PICK ME)

[multipurposetoolguy]

did u know? you can use the draw what you want ability to make your favs celebrate your birthday. because i sure didnt

[hatsbuckets]

Find Your Way Back | Poly141 (Gaz Centric)

Hey, look it's that Poly141 Gaz is the focus fic I promised

I don't know this starts bad. Sorry but I think gets better towards the end. Maybe I'll rewrite later. If you want the better soft stuff skip to the second set of ellipses.

Pairings: Poly141 Short Vers: Gaz gets separated from the team. Has to fight his way back. When he gets back, they dote on him a bit. I subscribe to kissing 'booboos' better. WC: ~1500 Warnings: Canon Typical Violence. Bombing.

The streets of the city were tight, winding paths through centuries-old buildings that had seen war before, had seen peace before. Price had briefed them on the mission: intelligence traced a potential terrorist attack to this sector. The local police had started clearing the area, but it wasn’t fully evacuated yet. The team was searching for a convoy of trucks believed to be carrying explosives or weapons for the attack. If they were lucky, they’d stop the attack before it started.

Gaz moved through the alleyway, rifle up, senses sharp. Civilians were still scattered in pockets, some reluctant to leave, others watching warily from doorways. Soap was covering the east side, Ghost was scanning rooftops, and Price was bringing up the rear, watching their six. The air smelled of dust and cordite, a sign that something had already gone sideways before they got here.

“Movement ahead,” Gaz murmured into comms, pressing himself against the crumbling stone wall. A second later, Soap's voice crackled in his ear.

“Copy. See if you can get eyes before we move in.”

Gaz edged forward, peeking around the corner. A convoy—three trucks, their cargo hidden under heavy tarps, parked in a tight formation. His gut twisted. They weren’t just moving supplies—these trucks were rigged to blow. His gut twisted.

“Multiple hostiles. Trucks are rigged. This is the attack.”

“Bloody hell,” Soap muttered. “We moving in?”

Before Price could give the order, the world exploded.

The shockwave sent Gaz hurtling backward. His ears rang, his vision blurred with dust and debris. A second explosion followed, then a third. The alleyway cracked and buckled, stone and metal crashing down around them.

“Gaz!?” Soap’s voice was sharp in his earpiece, but it was laced with static.

Gaz coughed, pushing himself up. His side ached, but he was alive. He reached for his comms, adjusting the piece in his ear. “Still breathing.”

“You’re cut off.” That was Ghost, and he sounded pissed. “Building collapsed between us. You alright?”

Gaz pushed himself upright, scanning his surroundings. He was on the wrong side of the rubble, locked in the city’s underbelly. And worse? There were voices. Close.

“In one piece,” he muttered. He checked his rifle. “But I’ve got company.”

Price’s voice cut through the static. “Stay put. We’ll get to you.”

Gaz peeked around the wreckage. Too many hostiles between him and them. He exhaled sharply. No way was he sitting still.

“Negative, Captain. Too many between us, too many coming.” He tightened his grip on his rifle. “I’ll fight my way back. You boys handle the others.”

“Gaz—” Price’s warning was cut off as static took over.

Gaz set his jaw and moved, disappearing into the smoke. He moved fast through the crumbling alleyways, his steps practiced and quiet even over broken concrete. The city around him was chaos. Screams in the distance, sporadic gunfire, and the low rumble of another explosion from somewhere blocks away. He kept his head down, weaving through the debris as he adjusted his grip on the rifle.

He had to get back.

“Gaz, report.” That was Price—sharp, low, but tight with worry.

“I’m moving. Got eyes on at least two cells converging near the west quarter,” Gaz responded, breath steady despite the adrenaline surging in his veins.

“Are you clear to engage?”

Gaz ducked into a side path, slipping behind a stack of broken crates. “Negative. Not yet. Trying to bypass.”

Static popped in his ear, and then Soap’s voice filtered in. “You better not be bleeding out in some alley, mate.”

Gaz huffed, lips twitching. “You’d cry if I was.”

“Damn right I would.”

He reached a split in the path. One way blocked by rubble, the other crawling with patrols. He checked his mag, reloaded quietly, and turned toward the enemy. No other option.

The first one dropped fast—silent knife to the throat. The second, a clean suppressed shot. Gaz moved like a ghost, fluid and controlled, his pace never faltering.

“Contact,” he murmured. “Five down. Moving north.”

Ghost’s voice cut in, rough and low. “We’ve got eyes on the convoy. They’re mobilizing.”

“How many?”

“Too many.”

Gaz’s pulse kicked harder. “I’ll intercept. Cut them off if I can.”

Price came through again. “Kyle, that’s not your job. Get to us.”

“I’m closest. I’ve got the shot.”

There was silence, then a clipped sigh. “Make it fast. We're clearing this side.”

Gaz broke into a sprint, ducking through smoke and shadow, every sense alive. His body ached, but he pushed through it. He was getting back to them.

He just had to survive long enough to do it.

...

The sound of boots pounding pavement was the only warning before Gaz burst from the alley, panting and dust-covered, his rifle still steady in his hands. His vest was streaked with grime and blood—some his, most not. The instant he appeared, Soap was moving.

“Holy fuck—Gaz!”

Soap collided with him in a hard embrace, half a shove and half a hug, his breath tight. “Jesus, you absolute bastard. Thought you were dead.”

Gaz grunted with the impact but didn’t resist. “I told you I’d make it.”

Ghost was only a second behind, his hand locking onto Gaz’s shoulder with bruising force. He didn’t speak, just stared for a long moment, checking every inch with his eyes before stepping back.

“You’re late,” Ghost muttered.

“Traffic was murder.”

Price approached last, slower, his expression unreadable. He stopped just in front of Gaz and gave him a once-over.

“That was reckless, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You get the convoy?”

Gaz nodded. “Two trucks down. Third one’s immobile. Cleared the path to you on the way.”

Price exhaled—quiet, but deep. “Good work.” Then softer, “Glad you’re in one piece.”

The rest was a blur. The local police moved in to sweep the area and clean up the remnants of the cell. The trucks were seized, and the remaining explosives disarmed. The terrorists who hadn’t fled were in custody. It was over. Messy, but over.

The team stayed close. Soap carried Gaz’s gear without asking. Ghost didn’t drift more than a step away. Price kept glancing over his shoulder like he couldn’t quite believe Gaz was still walking.

By the time they reached their transport vehicle, Gaz’s legs were aching, and the adrenaline was gone. He was crashing from it, and he knew it. They knew it too.

“Back,” Price said, gesturing at the vehicle.

Soap climbed in first. Ghost slid in after him, and then Gaz was nudged between them.

“I can sit up front—”

“Nope.” Soap pulled him in. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Ghost didn’t say anything, just shifted so that Gaz’s shoulder was firmly against his. Their thighs pressed together. Soap slung an arm behind him.

Gaz exhaled, slumping between them.

Price started the engine. "Stil with us, Sergeant?"

“I'm fine, seriously, all good.” Gaz muttered.

Soap smirked. "Shut up, Kyle.”

Ghost’s voice was low, quiet. “Next time, don’t make us wait.”

Gaz closed his eyes, letting himself lean just a little more into them. "Mhm, I'll try to remember that."

...

Base was quiet. The debrief was done, the reports filed, and the worst of the dirt scrubbed off. Night had settled in, heavy and still.

Gaz stood in front of the mirror in the room he shared with Soap, fingers ghosting over the bruises along his ribs. The mottled skin was turning a deeper shade now, black and blue blooming beneath his shirt as he held it up to inspect the damage. He hissed through his teeth.

“Should’ve gone to medical.”

Gaz didn’t flinch at the voice. He looked up, catching Price’s reflection in the mirror across the room.

John had changed—t-shirt, joggers, sleeves pushed up. He looked like a man at ease, but the furrow in his brow gave him away.

“'M fine,” Gaz said softly.

Price stepped into the room, the door shutting quietly behind him. He walked over slowly and came to a stop just behind Kyle, their reflections side by side in the mirror.

Without a word, Price reached around him, fingers brushing over the edge of the bruise just under Gaz's ribs. His touch was gentle.

“You’re lucky,” Price murmured. “Could’ve been worse.”

Gaz's breath hitched, the warmth in Price’s voice sending a warm little rush through his lungs. He leaned back a little, resting lightly against him. Price’s hand slid across his side, anchoring there.

The door creaked again.

Soap walked in with damp hair and a towel slung around his neck, still talking over his shoulder.

“—told you, Ghost, you keep stealing my shampoo—”

He stopped in the doorway, blinking at the sight.

Ghost followed a beat behind, pausing too, though his expression was unreadable behind his mask.

Soap’s smile came slow and warm. “Caught you getting spoiled without us?”

Kyle chuckled, breath shallow, and Price didn’t move away. Didn’t need to.

Soap stepped closer, standing in front of him. “Let’s have a look then.”

He crouched, easing down to one knee, eyes on the bruises before he leaned in and pressed a kiss just beside one. “Could've died comin' back to us. Reckless.”

Kyle hummed, closing his eyes for a second. “You love it.”

Soap grinned. “Mmm. Suppose I do.”

Ghost lingered nearby, sinking down onto the mattress behind them all. Watching. Something soft in the way he relaxed.

For a moment, no one moved. It was all warm. Familiar.

Price’s hand rested on Kyle’s waist. Soap’s fingers brushed his knee.

"Gotta find your way back to us, aye?" Soap eventually whispered, pressing his face into Gaz's thigh.

Gaz brushed his hand through Soap's damp hair. "Aye, Tav. Always."

[scribz-ag24]

I've recently seen again a post talking about the Sableye and Dusknoir's relationship so i'd like to put my two cents in the discussion, for I love screaming into the void about PMD. (this isnt meant to discourage any other interpretations btw this is just my take on theirs and Dusknoir's relationship, bc I think they're very fun characters and I am very glad the game actually gives these minions a bit of relevance in se5).

Tbh I don't buy that Dusknoir treats the Sableye nicely, at least not out of kindness. I don't think he's a tyrant or inexplicably mean, of course, and I think his minions ADORE him, but i also believe that doesn't mean he's nice to them, sth that i consider meaningful for their character arcs.

Throughout the entire game he's exclusively giving them orders, in se5 he concocts a plan that involves thrashing them MULTIPLE times (he's lucky Grovyle isn't one to try and kill enemies in battle ig), and the cherry on top is that the first time we see him being fully genuine he does this:

(yes, he is in turmoil in here, but there's not a single thing implying that 1. this is an unusual response towards the sablye, 2. dusknoir feels bad for it at some point or is surprised at himself, 3. this has any impact in the sableye at all. You can argue these reactions happen off screen and we don't see them, they don't happen bc they have pressing matters to attend to or they happen after they return to life, and that's perfectly valid, but i'm sticking with what the game shows us, here.)

I must say, though, the fact that the Sableye, despite having been almost mindless pokémon up to now, STAND UP TO AND ATTACK Primal Dialga for their boss and even try to look after him despite him ordering them to check on Grovyle and Celebi first is SO important to me. they are goons to the bone and they love that scheming ghost so much.

My own view is that Dusknoir is generally polite to them (you wouldn't randomly break your own revolver or weapon without any reason, would you?), but is quicker to get mean with them than with people he doesn't know or he is seeking to manipulate. He doesn't care about their behaviour as long as they get the job done, which is why I think the anime thing of the Sableye climbing onto his shoulder isn't that remarkable, rather it's a very cute moment, one that is showing how they've been working together for long and how their size difference affects their interactions, but it is not necessarily conveying an affectionate bond (this is a bit random, but it reminds me of Disney's Jafar with Iago lmao. throw your pet sableye at your enemies so they mock them and then return to your shoulder). Additionally, Dusknoir letting the Sableye onto his shoulder is probably as close as we are gonna get to a villain turning around in his chair while petting a cat in PMD lol.

[this isn't meant to be a one-to-one comparison, it's just a detail i find cute and shows that this gesture can have multiple interpretations, with none being the only right one]

Leaving that aside, I hesitate to claim Dusknoir trusts his Sableye as allies, as Grovyle makes a point in the main story of how the Sableye (your Sableye, he says, as if objectifying them; not friends, but tools, weapons at Dusknoir's disposal) are lacking compared to the way hero/partner/grovyle support one another (power of friendship and hidden information babyyyy). The Sableye are used to Dusknoir's way of doing things, though, I'm sure. They know what happens when he's displeased, after all.

I think, most of all, the Sableye are meant to look disposable: they are 6 identical pokémon that almost act like a hivemind, and we are not supposed to think at all about how we may hurt them in battle any more than we do with the angry Manectric pack or random dungeon pokémon. This, I believe, is why the game has them stand up against Dialga and gives them unique dialogue at the end of se5. They're meant to show their inner shine, just as Dusknoir managed to do. They suddenly gain an individuality they had never shown while they were working to maintain the dark future.

Where they abandoned Dusknoir in the Old Ruins, now Grovyle has motivated them to look for their dignity and fight for a better world, and that starts with protecting their leader from Primal Dialga's rampage, and supporting his new objective and allies in their quest to save the future. In their own small way, they've also grown as characters throughout SE5.

I believe that, overall, Dusknoir saw the Sableye as tools, but thanks to their growth and clear care for him, there's a possibility he might start to see them (and by extension other pokémon) in a more genuine, less pragmatic / objectifying way in the future. Now that Dusknoir has the chance to live a fulfilling life, he may learn to care for others without surrounding himself by so many walls. If anything, I think their future is quite bright. Not that the Sableye would mind if he still thrashed them around, though lol, they're clearly not bothered much by it (special episode 0 had a great depiction of the sableye imo, you can check that romhack if you haven't yet).

In conclusion, look at these little guys who adore their can-get-mean-but-is-mostly-polite boss and probably have a body count but now are good, they're so cute:

[1071png]

the kind of ending i wanted for mass effect 3.......

[asleepinawell]

every time i go through the end of ew and see the cs with zenos in sharlayan i have to stop and imagine his conversation with that customs lady at the docks when she asked what his job was and he would have gone off on one of his typical monologues about living for 'the hunt, the THRIIIIIIIIILL of bahttle the raw pulsing ecstacy of being locked together in combat, teeth at each other's throats, giving in to the huungaahh that can never be sated' etc etc and she would have been like uh huh so you're unemployed hmmm i see

[fyllophobia]

[necrotic-nephilim]

@profandomhopper i was going to reblog the original post this comment was left on but i felt it divorced itself from the original topic so much, you get your own post for giving me delightful permission to ramble about this. buckle in people this is long.

so, DC is a big fandom that expanses a lot of different types of content, and like anything, is subject to crossovers. the obvious ones like Marvel are for the reason of being a similar and equally popular superhero world, so it's easy to transpose the worlds onto each other and overlap the characters. both of these worlds deal with multiverses and endless, endless heroes. it makes sense and there's no real stretch to think Batman and Spider-Man could co-exist. i mean, there have been canon crossover comics. and even some more random crossovers like White Collar have pretty easy to trace origins, being an actor in WC was a popular Dick fancast back in the day so there was some bleeding over that led to a well-loved niche crossover space.

but Danny Phantom and Miraculous Ladybug are where it gets interesting. because at a surface, MLB sort of makes sense. it's a superhero world, you're following a teen girl superhero and sure the mechanics are pretty contained, but the crossover should make sense. but when you compare it to the crossover numbers of other superhero media like say My Hero Academia, Ladybug takes the *crown* with such a bizarre popularity. and of course, DP feels like it makes even less sense. sure, you *could* lump it into at the very least, superhero-adjacent media, but it's not a true hero world like MLB or DC is.

but, the thing to always understand about DC, *especially* the Batfamily (which is where the crossover content propagates the most) is this: a *very* good chunk of fans don't interact with the comics. i would venture to say even most Batfamily fans don't read the comics and actively talk about it. we've all read a very fandom big Batfam fanfic where the author's note mentions the writer has never touched a comic in their life. typically, these fans are either cobbling together their understanding from fandom content, or by frankensteining unrelated DC adaptations to understand each character. you take Bruce from Batman: TAS, you take Dick from the animated Young Justice, you take Jason from Batman: Under The Red Hood animated movie, you take Damian from the DCAMU Batman vs Robin, and you read some fandom metas to fill in the rest and well, you've got some sort of an understanding of these characters. read enough incorrect quotes, some genfic, a couple of character metas, and boom, you understand the Batfamily fandom enough to start creating your own content. and of course now. now you have Wayne Family Adventures so it's even *easier*. a pretty easy to pick up webtoon that's filling in all the gaps for you. but i've been in this fandom long enough to remember before we had WFA and even then, this was still a common, if not the most popular way, to ween yourself into the DC fandom space. you cherry-picked the canon you liked and then plunged into the depths of fanon.

i'm not here to make in depth commentary on if i think this is a good or bad thing. trust me i have that commentary in my head, but that would need it's own post. i'm very split on it and my feelings are complicated. my feelings on WFA are even *more* complicated. because oftentimes, the attitude expressed by these fans who are frankensteining this version of the Batfamily/DC world they have in their head is they don't *want* to read the comics. the comics don't contain the content they're after. and to an extent, i understand that. if you're looking for light-hearted vibes of the Batfamily all getting along and having the occasional hurt/comfort moments but in the end, they hug and make up, you're right. largely, you won't find that in canon. of course there are so many comics to recommend for Batfamily interactions, but you have to get specific. you'll find them interacting in small groups, Tim and Dick bonding here, Duke and Cass bonding there, but largely, the comics don't care to balance the ridiculously large cast they've given themselves. but fandom does. it's easy to toss them all in a blender and ignore the parts you don't like. the default argument to ignoring the comics or writing something OOC is always "well the comics are OOC and inconsistent too" which, while a flawed argument that massively misunderstand how comics work as a medium, isn't an entirely incorrect one. you could serve on a silver platter to these fans, an easy and accessible way to get into comics and they wouldn't be interested. it's not what they're here for. fandom is always character-driven above all else. it's driven by character relationships and dynamics. if someone wants to consume content where Tim idolized and stalked Jason as 'his Robin' and now is trying to help him rehabilitate and they're super complicated but have this long epic forgiveness arc, why *would* they read the comics? because they're sure as shit not going to find that dynamic in the comics. it's laughably OOC and not canon at all, but that doesn't matter. what matters is the sandbox. most Batfamily fans care *far* more about the sandbox canon gives them than the actual canon itself. feel how you feel about that, this really isn't being negative toward that attitude, but it is a common attitude.

so, you have Batfamily fans playing in the sandbox and building their own narrative. common fandom headcanons are so common, you could practically write a guide on how the fanon Batfamily works with how consistent people are about it. or you could just read WFA, which is practically the new manifesto of it. even now, with this sudden spike in people talking about canon accuracy and "actually this happening in the comics", they don't actually care about the comics, just what they can cherry-pick for fodder. (even if they rob it of so much context they're just as OOC as they were before. see specifically: the recent phenomena with Tim Drake going from the woobified weakest member of the Batfam who everyone needs to save constantly and he's the smart boy but he's also the one with a sad tragic neglectful past who gets overlooked being the way Batfamily fandom played with Tim for years. but recently, people seem to be pushing this idea of a ridiculously badass Tim, Tim who *totally* has a kill count because of his actions in RR (2009) if you take them completely out of context, Tim who bested Ra's and is even more badass than Jason and he's the 17 yr old CEO of Wayne Industries being cool and flawless it becoming the new fandom zeitgeist. neither of these versions of Tim are canon, and the second fundamentally misunderstands his arc in RR (2009) but the shift has undeniably happened and it's been fascinating to watch. the same thing happened with people suddenly deciding Jason isn't the "angry violent Robin", he was a sunshine sweet boy who was perfect as Robin. neither of these are true, but the second feels more transgressive and new to fandom from cherry-picked panels.) the point is largely, Batfamily fans would rather build their own canon than play with the actual canon.

and then, you have Danny Phantom. i'm not into DP and have no interest to get into it, but what i know about it via fandom osmosis is this: DP fans sort of also don't give a fuck about canon. once again, the canon of DP is a sandbox, not a rulebook. the concepts and the characters are the draw, not the plot itself. i've seen DP posts explaining characters who are essentially OCs, but have become so dominant in the fandom via fandom osmosis. there are concepts and ideas about how Danny's powers work and potential concepts with his ghost nature that either aren't in canon or only happened once in canon and fans decided to expand on that and doesn't care about it's own in-universe logic. i've seen a lot of DP fans also express they haven't seen the show and they don't have plans to see the show. because the show is just some children's cartoon with some inconsistencies and a simple plot, as you'd expect from CN. the show isn't the point. no one cares about it's plot, they care about it's characters. they care about pushing the concept of half ghost boy to a logical extreme and seeing what you can get out of that. can you make it weird and fucked up. how much can you highlight on his trauma and body horror. what identity crisis can you give him and how can you build his interactions with other characters in his world around that and also make those characters fun and unique on their own. sure, the skeleton of canon is there, but the meat lies all in the fanon.

Miraculous Ladybug also exists in this similar vein. the characters, the concepts, those hold intrigue. and not even mentioning the fact the original concept for this show was supposed to be aimed to an older audience, so you can see the bones of something a bit more mature and nuanced under this typical, villain of the week magical girl transformation show. the show itself is a bit shallow and that's not a *bad* thing, it's just the medium it exists within being aimed towards children. but the concepts of a teen girl who's basically a sort of chosen one, a boy who doesn't know his father is the big bad of the show, and their weird identity porn love... square thing. those dynamics are *so* complicated and such a fun sandbox to play in with character-driven fandom.

so, at the core, you have three fandoms that care more about the culturally accepted fanon than the canon, with a good chunk of people often not even consuming the original canon content. and well, DC is an *easy* world to transpose just about anything onto. a boy who's half ghost and fighting supernatural threats? that makes sense, DC has ghost heroes like Deadman already. a girl who has this magical item that gives her animal themed superpowers? i mean that's practically the same thing as Vixen's Totem so that one makes sense too. they fit in pretty easy, no needing to change the world to accommodate them. and of course, if you're a fan of *one* fandom where you don't care for the canon content and only like the fandom sandbox, chances are, you'll get drawn in pretty easily to another fandom with similar mechanics. if you can teach yourself the DP fandom rules/concepts, you can teach yourself the Batfamily fandom rules/concepts. and well, since there's so much crossover in fandom members, why not write the fanfiction? crossover fics will always exist, but with such a shared member base, you have a really big boom.

it's why the characters you see DP interact with in DC are *always* characters who are far more driven by fanon than canon. Danny and John Constantine is a *massive* concept. for people who don't read Hellblazer comics. my poor partner, @divine-dominion has lamented to me pretty often about finding DP content in the Hellblazer tag that is essentially turning Constantine into an OC. because whatever version of Constantine is being written about isn't one bit comics accurate, and really, isn't trying to be. and the same thing happens with Shazam. you watch Young Justice and understand him well enough, you get drawn in by the character concept that you just run with it. people put their favorite blorbos in the same place because hey, wouldn't ghost boy be pretty cool in a city like *Gotham*. how would Batman even react to him. and then, the shipping. because ages for the Batfamily can be easily hand-waved and moved around based on where you plop Danny into the timeline, you have your pick of the litter with him, and same with Ladybug. of course there are the most popular ships but largely, the world is your oyster.

i don't think this is the worst thing in the world for either fandom. it's not hard to filter out the crossover tags and scroll past content i don't like. and sure, i see the appeal of making your blorbos from two different places meet. i've got my drafts *full* of DC/MHA crossover ideas because well, i like them both and think that would be cool. i think my only gripe with it is when DP or MLB crossover content seeps it's way into the wrong tags. using the above example, if you're writing about Danny and Constantine but there's zero content of the actual Hellblazer comics, i don't think you need the Hellblazer tag, just the Constantine character tag. tbh i wish this extended onto Ao3 and people utilized fandom tags better. if you're writing Batfamily fanfiction that is very clearly and obviously WFA driven in characterization and concepts, i would far prefer those fics be tagged with the WFA fandom tag rather than the Batman (comics) fandom tag. because well, you're not writing about the Batman comics. and there's nothing wrong with that, but it helps if you don't confuse yourself for content striving to interact with canon more. (this especially extends to Young Justice, by the way. if you're writing for the Young Justice tv show please, please stop using the Young Justice (comics) fandom tag. i'm at my wit's end- /lh)

the whole thing is fascinating. i've got zero interest in entering DP or MLB as fandoms because that's not my speed, but witnessing it as an outsider is my favorite pastime. i see a *lot* of posts going around the DC x DP space that are helping explain to people who's who, what's what, and understanding the canon/fanon of both of these properties so others can better enter the space. which is not something you'd need in a fandom driven only by it's canon content, but it is sweet watching others try to help newbies enter the space. it's a very inviting fandom space, i think, whether you lament it's existence or not. they're just sitting in their corner with their blorbos, and i gotta respect that. the posts explaining the Batfamily to DP fans are always fun for me to read, even if i disagree with some of the characterizations in them because it helps shine a light on what the fans of this crossover regard as "important" enough about each fandom to be worth including those sorts of primers. very fascinating stuff.

[nemesisfall]

obligatory pokemon au time!!

[strawberry-jan]

Back in late 2022, I started working on a long story about Ishin: a tale of two dummies whose weird one-night stand blossoms into a surprisingly caring relationship even as a (mostly) canon-compliant series of tragedies plays out around them. It’s a now-complete series in approximately 125,000 words and three parts, and you can read the whole thing right now on AO3: The Glorious and Bloody Deeds of Okita Soji, Volume 1: Okita Soji Versus the Scoundrel Saito Hajime; The Secret History of Saito Hajime, Volume 2: The Shiraume Incident; and, finally, Brief Notes on the Domestic Life of one Saito Hajime.

Taken as a whole, it's a story about identity and history and the stories that people tell each other and themselves about those things. And it's a story about one guy getting way too into weird Edo-era egg dishes, and another guy finding himself embroiled in an extended detective sequence, and a third guy composing a series of corny haiku that (almost) nobody wants to read. And, of course, it's also a story about people who are shamelessly and sometimes explicitly in love (so you probably shouldn't read it at work).

This whole big, sprawling thing has been a labour of love on my part: it turns out that I adore writing historical fiction and finding excuses to read books and journal articles in order to write it better. In addition to making not one but four little illustrations to celebrate the fic's completion (and please look at them up-close; I hand-inked all those kimono patterns), I've drawn up a list of some of the sources that I consulted for my writing, and you can find those under the cut.

This is not an absolutely exhaustive list of sources; I don’t think it’s super useful to catalogue the extremely nitty-gritty stuff, like that time that I felt compelled to find out what the state of strawberry cultivation was in 1860s Japan, or when I needed to picture exactly what it looked like when Haruka was repairing Ryoma’s kimono. That being said, I’ve added a couple of things that are really particular to my stories but that I thought were cool enough to share.

Foster, Michael Dylan. The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore. U of California P, 2015. (This one was a really fun read – it combines a short history of yokai in folklore with a little catalogue of yokai.)

Jansen, Marius B. Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration. Stanford UP, 1971. (Super useful as an introduction to the Bakumatsu era and for biographical details about Ryoma and the figures around him.)

“Japanese Wiki Corpus.” https://www.japanesewiki.com/. (This is a machine-translated collection of articles on the Japanese side of Wikipedia related to Kyoto. As with a lot of things on Wikipedia, the citations on these articles tend to be poor or nonexistent, but it’s a useful starting point for information on figures and events that don’t have an English wiki equivalent. Definitely more useful if you can then head over to the original wiki articles and parse them out yourself.)

“Kabuki21” and “The Noh.” https://www.kabuki21.com/section.php, https://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/index.html. (I’m lumping these two together because I tended to consult them in tandem. Without getting too much into my personal details I am – among other things – a non-practicing theatre scholar, so whenever I wanted to have characters in my old-timey fics refer to something cultural, my first stop was old plays. These sites have, respectively, summaries of kabuki plays and full texts of Noh plays available for you to browse. If you’ve read my other fics you will probably have seen that I referred to the kabuki play “Fuwa” in 亀が如く.)

Katsu, Kokichi. Musui’s Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai. Translated by Teruko Craig. U of Arizona P, 1988. (A book that needs to be taken with a grain of salt because it’s an autobiography written by a guy who sounds like a real blowhard, but it’s still a really fascinating look into the daily life of a low-ranking samurai.)

Leupp, Gary P. and Tao, De-min. The Tokugawa World. Routledge, 2022. (Of particular interest is Kimura Sachihiko’s essay, “The Shinsengumi: Shadows and light in the last days of the Tokugawa shogunate” [1104-1124], which gave me a bunch of incidental details about the Roshigumi that I incorporated into the sections of this series that were told from Inoue and Hijikata’s perspectives.)

“Old Photos of Japan.” https://www.oldphotosjapan.com/. (Pretty self-explanatory. Very useful as a resource for picturing scenes!)

“Shinsengumi Archives.” https://shinsengumi-archives.tumblr.com/. (A long-running tumblr dedicated to cataloguing resources about the Shinsengumi. There’s an absolute wealth of information collected here, and best of all, the creator cites their sources and even provides links to the original texts. Although it’s focused on the Shinsengumi, it’s impossible to overstate how useful this site is for prospective Bakumatsu-era fic writers in general. The collection of Hijikata’s poems with links to others’ translations and commentary is here: https://shinsengumi-archives.tumblr.com/post/683071924948058112/hijikata-toshizos-haiku-poems. The creator of the blog also links to a translation of Nagakura’s and Shimada’s diaries, and while the document is machine-translated, it’s still a great source of historical details: https://shinsengumi-archives.tumblr.com/post/678083336614428672/where-can-you-read-the-memoirs.)

Smits, Gregory. “Warding off Calamity in Japan: A Comparison of the 1855 Catfish Prints and the 1862 Measles Prints.” EASTM 30 (2009): 9-31. (Okay, this one is highly specific to my fic – it comes up in Part 2 when Okita tells his story about Kashima and again a couple of chapters later when his pile of remedies includes a crudely-drawn picture meant to ward off indigestion – but I love little details like this so I did want to make a point of sharing it here.)

“Tamago Hyakuchin” and “Tofu Hyakuchin.” http://codh.rois.ac.jp/edo-cooking/tamago-hyakuchin/recipe/, https://toyama-tofu.jp/tofuhyakutin.html. (These are collections of Edo-era egg- and tofu-based recipes. They’re two of the sources cited in Cookpad’s collection of modernized Edo-era recipes: https://cookpad.com/recipe/list/14604664.)

Vaporis, Constantine N. “Linking the Realm: The Gokaido Highway Network in Early Modern Japan (1603-1868).” Highways, Byways and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World. Ed. Susan E. Alcock, John Bodel, and Richard J. A. Talbert. Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 90-105. (Some of the works cited in this article also sound interesting, but I didn’t have a chance to dig any deeper as I just wanted to know a bit about the Tokugawa-era roads. Also interesting in this vein is Jilly Traganou’s book The Tokaido Road: Travelling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan [2004].)

Wert, Michael. Meiji Restoration Losers. Harvard UP, 2013. (Not directly useful as a source for writing about Ishin – it’s about later events and it mostly tracks the posthumous construction of one specific Tokugawa magistrate’s history – but it was an engaging read and I found it interesting as an exploration of how people continue to look back on the Bakumatsu era and the Meiji Restoration, which is something that the game is, of course, also doing.)

Yamakawa, Kikue. Women of the Mito Domain: Recollections of Samurai Family Life. Translated by Kate Wildman Nakai. U of Tokyo P, 1992. (Another one of those bits of essential reading on everyday life for low-ranking samurai, this time with a focus on women’s lives and households more generally. I didn’t use a lot of from this book in my fic, but it has everything from translations of songs to records of families’ financial transactions, and it’s fascinating to read about all the turmoil in Mito playing out in the background of these families’ lives.)

“Yokai.com.” https://yokai.com/. (The creators of this site make a point of not going into detail about their sources, and they’re very careful to state that they don’t intend for the project to be “the final authority” on yokai, but I enjoyed browsing the site to get some ideas for Okita’s stories – and once you know the name of a particular yokai that you’re interested in, it’s easy enough to go look up other sources on them.)

[storybookstr4nge]

its 2018. fall out boy released mania, Brendon urie released pray for the wicked, and twenty one pilots released trench. supernatural is on season 14 without any signs of destiel. Voltron season 8 just came out and decimated both klance and its fanbase. the third trials of Apollo came out and made everybody miserable. dan and Phil are on tour, and the final Phil is not on fire came out. Tumblr is never going to be the same.

[wykart]

The elder men spoke low. They took a vote and said no. They turned around real slow. Where did they go? Where did they go? And the question oh, the question: can the kid keep his eyes, if the fire doesn't die? They said no.

They Took a Vote and Said No - Sunset Rubdown

[cupoteahatter]

Everyone else, in the paint rain: *Screaming, running and panicking*

Wednesday & Tyler: *Chilling, hanging out, not moving until the crowd moves them.*

[bronzes-no-1-fan]

*throws my key tutorial at you and runs away*