stardust_rifle

i'm so glad i found this one again because it's so influential to how i think about rpf

2026-05-20T04:16:56Z

*drags this meta old enough to vote in the united states into my journal for my flist like a cat dragging in a dead bird to leave in your bed*

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stardust_rifle @ 2026-05-19T18:07:00

2026-05-19T22:15:36Z

The problem with the "uh, people who infodump a lot, think about it, would you REALLY like it if someone just started monologuing at you about the things they're interested in" post on Tumblr is that a lot of autistic people do, in fact, genuinely prefer that mode of social interaction to a more equitable and socially typical conversation. One of the first interactions I ever had with my boyfriend involved him infodumping about furry porn at me for almost a solid hour, and I found that behavior extremely charming!

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M Digs Through Jrockyaoi Archives And Pulls Out Interesting Shit Part 22

2026-05-18T00:57:32Z

We're back, baby! Don't get used to it, this series is gonna be more sporadic from here on out.

Firstly, this scintillating advertisement for an RP comm.

UKE ANONYMOUS: A JROCK RPG:

Are you an uke looking to learn how to assert yourself more with your partner? Do you want to learn new things to try with your partner? Maybe you're tired of being on the receiving end and want to learn how to break free. Or maybe you're even a seme who's curious about being an uke yourself or helping to teach uke the things they want to learn.

At the Center for Sexual Empowerment, we offer courses, classes, and guidance sessions to help you achieve whatever goal you have in mind. Hands on demonstrations are a big part of the curriculum.

Now accepting patients AND staff.

I have never been more disappointed in my life to follow a link to see a "this journal has been deleted and purged" notice.

~*~

One thing I love about this era of Jrock fic is people putting up graphic-design-is-my-passion banners for their fanfiction on the header of every post. It's such a labor of unbridled love and passion, and demonstrates such confidence in one's own work. We should bring back that energy.

~*~

I promise these posts won't just dissolve into fanfic recposting, but I've started up my alternate Ao3 account devoted to archiving old Vkei fics via the External Bookmarking feature and I just have to share this fic with you guys that I found . X Japan RPF, hide/Yoshiki, like 90% of hidegya will hate this fic because our guy does not come off good here, but I am chewing on the bars. I am shaking this fic in my mouth like a chew toy. I am losing my stupid little mind over this shit. I'm normal. I promise I'm normal and can be allowed into polite society.

~*~

Love how much Kyo Dir en grey's characterization in fics has changed over the years, because in all this old fic he was the Edgy One, the one that you gave the self-harm habit or the abuse/rape backstory or the offensively-portrayed schizophrenia or made into a serial killer or shit. Nowadays, he's the One With The Fun Gender. (i would like to track down the bookmarker I found one night who had curated an entire slate of fics tagged "Kyo's Gender Adventures" so that i can give them a firm handshake.) God bless.

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M Digs Through Jrockyaoi Archives And Pulls Out Interesting Shit Part 21

2026-05-14T02:11:32Z

The last one of these! It's a bit bittersweet that this little series is finally going to be over, but it was fun while it lasted! I might sprinkle in a few of these here and there, but you aren't going to get a post daily like you have for the past 3 weeks. Thanks to everyone who commented, or just read and enjoyed!

~*~

(bangya inside baseball) Another comment in an author's notes that piqued my interest, by user kisa_the_cutie on a fic written in 2006.

I wrote this because out of all of the JRockers, Toshi’s saga terrifies me the most. It’s all :sob: so : sob: tragic!

Reading this is so bittersweet because... Toshi's saga isn't finished yet! He got out! He did get a happy(-ish) ending! Your story isn't finished till you're dead and in the ground!

~*~

Why is it always the fics with broken links that have the weirdest Author's Notes? Anyway:

THIS FIC IS IN NO WAY PREACHING AGAINST OR FOR CHRISTIANITY OR CATHOLICISM. I am not proposing anything by writing this fanfic. Really. Truly. So please don't flame me about that; thank you. "XDD ♥

~*~

Some interesting discussion on Miyavi's characterization courtesy of, again, the comments section of an archive of a work by user chantrea_johari.

THANK YOU FOR NOT MAKEING [sic] MIYAVI AN IDIOT!!!

Seriously, any Miyavi fiction I've ever seen, they either made him and idiot [sic] or a freakin slut, which I really do not think that he is like that at all.

To which the author responded with-

I can understand where that sort of characterization comes from, however; the unfortunate thing is that people just tend to take Miyavi's personality traits to extremes. Like he's kind of weird and dorky, so take that to an extreme, and he's an idiot. He probably gets lots of sex, considering, so that seems to make him a slut, because people often oversimplify characters. >_<;;; Yet from all I've heard, Miyavi is actually rather considerate and even a bit shy in real life, and I tried to show a bit of that here. Yet I still think he's kind of a dork, so yeah. That made it in too.

(There were a great deal of comments along these lines, some of which included ableist slurs which I will not repeat here, but that did help me clarify something interesting- why have I seen multiple modern-day fans mentioning that Miyavi has ADHD, when I can't find any evidence of him saying anything like that ever? Until more evidence presents itself, I'm going to theorize that it's caused by younger fans stumbling into these older spaces, looking at people 10+ years ago calling him "ADHD", and not knowing that the term was used very loosely and not with any sort of diagnostic intent, misunderstand it as them saying he has this disorder.)

Another comment, which brings up interesting points on characterization.

ie. I loved that you included his tattoos, and his height! My god, I was reading a Miyavi fic the other day and the writer didn't even hint that he was taller, they were almost hinting that he was shorter O.o I mean huh?

And some... interesting comments on gender dynamics in fic.

I don't understand why [Miyavi and Toshiya] have to be portrayed as sluts. I mean, if they get a lot of sex, it's their business, right? If I were Miyavi or Toshiya, I'd probably have shitloads of sex. But to characterize that as slutty is just unnecessarily feminizing male characters. I mean, in general, males who have bunches of of sex aren't exactly considered "sluts."

This comment is crazymaking to me because it correctly identifies a gendered double standard but then treats that gendered double standard as completely written in stone, like "women who have loads of sex are sluts, while men who have loads of sex are not", and then rather than identifying the problem as being said double standard, proceeds to describe the problem as "unnecessarily feminizing male characters" (full disclosure i am one of authors they're describing. i am in your fandoms feminizing your men), thus treating the problem as being that misogyny is inappropriately applied, as opposed to the fact that misogyny exists at all!

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M Digs Through Jrockyaoi Archives And Pulls Out Interesting Shit Part 20

2026-05-13T20:43:30Z

少女-ロリヰタ-23区

If any of you have even a passing knowledge of Japanese, I would like for my readers to take a stab at guessing how, exactly, this band's name is supposed to be read.

(for people who don't have a passing knowledge of Japanese, my thought process while reading this was roughly "shoujo lol- wait what the fuck is that character- that's the katakana for a phoneme that doesn't even exist in modern Japanese- am i supposed to be reading that as "lolita" or "loliwita"- at least the last part's easy, that's 23-ku")

I would like you to imagine the emotions I experienced when I read that the official furigana reading of this name is somehow "ロリイタニジュウサンク", or "lolita nijusanku", which, for some reason, is rendered in English as "Lolita23q".

It's so chunni, I can't get mad at it.

(also apparently their vocalist is now a pro mahjong player? ex-bandmen have the weirdest career trajectories i stg)

~*~

Scintillating discussions happening in the comments section of a Psycho le Cemu fic that touches on the matter of Daishi's arrest for drug possession. (in the interest of honesty m has a variety of weird and complicated feelings about what Events and Happenings and Traumas and Illnesses That Actually Happened To The Real-Life Guys are acceptable to touch on in RPF fic, which they have decided to vomit out below the cut for some reason)

'Ahhh... Lida and Daishi are so sweet... Kawaiii <333... But wait! He's on meth! No Daishi, no!! '

I have no idea why this made me laugh so hard, but it did.

I think it bothers all of us how little information we've been given. I mean, I understand that Daishi has a right to privacy and all, but this whole "gag order" type deal is very troubling. That is, I guess, what I'm trying to do as a writer: fill in the details, both for myself and for my readers.

And add a little bit of yaoi as I'm at it, of course. ^^;;;

The author explaining herself. An interesting perspective on what role writing about these kinds of events in fic can serve for fans!

Heh...I think [it's depressing] every time I write about a five-person band. Honestly, it's very depressing to realize that someone will be left out unless I do something a bit unorthodox. T_T I hate having to make those sorts of decisions.

Finally, a discussion of the Five Person Band Problem, aka the Odd Man Out Problem! (this is a problem which could of course be solved by poly. or bring in miyavi, that works too.)

~*~

Sadly, while this author's fetish pornography featuring bandmen screwing in various inventive combinations has been comprehensively saved to the Wayback Machine, only a few fragmented chapters of this fic- a wonderful window into how English-speaking fandom perceived and reacted to Daishi's drug scandal- and all the interesting conversations that went on in the comments- survive.

(Not that I'm complaining- it's good fetish porn! Very good fetish porn! The fandom historian part of me is just crying a bit right now. At least I can calm myself with the porn.)

~*~

And, to finish, a funny little bit from the author's notes of one renegadedrow2.

The unfortunate thing is my mom found Obscure [super uncersored] [sic] on my comp and I’m grounded for a while, so now I have to come to library and update! Good thing is I come to the library like every week and since my absence there are like seven parts to this and more on the way!

Link mine for context. Content warnings for sexual content, gore, body horror, vomiting, and flashing lights!

( Read more... )

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stardust_rifle @ 2026-05-13T15:20:00

2026-05-13T19:25:22Z

One thing I've noticed about nonfictional/descriptive LLM-generated text is that it has a damn near omnipresent need to have a thesis statement, even in contexts where that doesn't really make sense- if you look at Wikipedia pages that have been tagged as "probably LLM-generated, please clean this up", you see it, I've seen it in Instagram accounts that post vkei scans, like, literally all I want is artist name, source name/year, and maybe some of the OP's thoughts. I don't need something that's written like a teenager bullshitting through their social studies essay. Once you see it, you really can't unsee it.

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the book i will never write but desperately want to

2026-05-10T02:34:44Z

Some Things Need To Stay On Ao3: A Guide For Young RPF-ers

Chapter 1: Are You Really Sure You Want To Be Posting Your RPF Mpreg Memes On A Platform That Your RPF Subject Is On?

Chapter 2: Especially When You Follow The RPF Subject?

Chapter 3: No, Are You Really, Really Sure?

Chapter 4: It's Not That I Don't Appreciate The Energy, But Perhaps Instagram Is Not The Best Platform For Your Edits of Porn Audios Overlaid Over Clips Of Stagegay

Chapter 5: I'm Not Even Asking You To Archive-Lock It, Just Please Please Stop RPF-Ing On Instagram Please Please For The Love Of God It Takes Like Eighty Years Off Of My Life The Memes Are Funny Just Put Them On Tumblr Or In A Private Discord Server Please Not On Instagram Where The Bandmen Are Please God Please

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M Digs Through Jrockyaoi Archives And Pulls Out Interesting Shit Part 19

2026-05-09T15:36:12Z

Can conclusively date "fanfic writers milking Kai from The GazettE's cooking skills in fic for all they're worth" at least all the way back to late 2005! It's one of the cardinal rules of vkei fic- if a fujogya learns that her honmei can cook, that character trait is going in all the fanfiction.

(And I love how, because of this little quirk, you can date when, exactly, certain interviews got translated or became more widely known in ENG-speaking fandom- see, Great Cook Taiji showing up in all the X Japan fic around 2021 because that was when ENG-speaking fandom became aware of his partner's book, which mentioned that detail.)

~*~

Adore this summary on a fic.

Vampires. That is all I'm telling you. Oh, and sex. Vampires. Sex.

Straight and to the point.

~*~

Followed a link to an Alice Nine comm and was hit in the face by a pinned post from 2023 advertising their move to a Discord server. Adore the "no, sir, not getting up out of this chair" energy on display there.

~*~

Profoundly depressing note on some fanart posted to the comm.

These are NOT traced, though I half-way cheat, I DID look at a picture whilst drawing them. Hope you don't mind ^-^'

Sometimes, I wonder how many baby artists the early-2000s idea of "using references is cheating" fucked over in the long run.

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M Digs Through Jrockyaoi Archives And Pulls Out Interesting Shit Part 18

2026-05-09T05:09:32Z

One very interesting little bit of Fangirl Japanese that I've been seeing in fics is the usage of "koi" as a romantic pet name, probably derived from "koibito". It's damn near universal, even showing up in fics that are otherwise light on Fangirl Japanese, and, to the best of my knowledge, does not occur in actual Japanese. Was this a thing in any other JPN-sourced fandoms from around this time?

(Cursed thought: Fangirl Japanese is the low culture equivalent of 19th century English-speaking authors dropping in untranslated French or Latin in their novels.)

~*~

There are so many fucking roleplay comms being advertised, you guys. So many. Absolute bucketloads and bucketloads of RP comms. Save me from typing "self-promo, comm, roleplay" over and over again. Save me.

~*~

With how much modern-day VK fans claim that the bad behavior of new young fans is caused by this sudden, new influx of K-pop stans into vkei, it is hilarious every single time I go to some ficwriter's personal journal and see Super Junior or Big Bang fic next to their Diru or Gakuhai stuff. The call has been coming from inside the house for a while, folks.

(Honestly, loathe as I am to admit it, K-pop and vkei have always had a shocking amount of crossover appeal between them. I Do Not Know K-pop well enough to actually elaborate on this, so I'll just leave it at that.)

~*~

And, to finish us off, an absolutely golden comment in the author's notes of a fic by user l0ckd0wn.

Even though i like killing and raping, I am a big closet fan of fluff.

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M Digs Through Jrockyaoi Archives And Pulls Out Interesting Shit Part 17

2026-05-07T00:56:12Z

Sorry to talk about the transfemme Shinya fic (which I am absolutely going to be writing a Fanlore article about/maybe a meta/analysis?) AGAIN, but writing a fic where Mana is a participant but he's a masc guy in a suit the whole time makes me feel like when people buy beautiful old cabinets and scrape off the details to paint them beige. What do you have against The High Queen of Onnagata and Patron Saint of Gothic Lolita, long may he reign? Do you hate kittens and ice cream and sunsets, too, since you obviously hate what is most good and pure in the world? What is wrong with you?

~*~

In the com, someone asked why there aren't very many fics centered around the band Glay, and one of the ideas proposed was that the band members are just too normal and not weird enough, which feels instinctively right to me. Of course, my vkei RPF ficwriting proclivities are like 50% X Japan, so everyone else in the scene feels kind of normal to me by comparison. How many fire extinguisher rampages has your honmei gone on?

I didn't think so.

~*~

*rubs paws in delight*

So, someone posted a link to an An Cafe fic to the comm (sadly, it's on a website the Wayback Machine didn't get to), and judging from the comments section, their original post included an exhortation to please please please write about bands that are not Dir en grey for once.

Judging from the absolute flood of "deleted comment" (and that the version accessible in 2026 did not have this comment), this sparked a great deal of Arguments and Discourse, Here's a link to the post if you would like to peruse yourself, but I'm going to pull out my absolute favorite quotes below the cut for length.

( Read more... )

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it’s the worst kind of localization word-swap: technically correct but ignores all connotations!

2026-05-06T02:23:49Z

Why in the name of god did Crunchyroll’s Liar Game subs localize “newhalf” as “female-presenting”

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stardust_rifle @ 2026-05-05T13:39:00

2026-05-05T17:55:04Z

why is the english language both an non-pro-drop language and a language that has mandatory gendered third-person pronouns AND culture has not yet evolved to the point where they/them is entirely-neutral as opposed to a deliberate Statement Of Non-Gender AND m is not good enough at japanese to actually write the thing in a language where not using third-person pronouns is easy and not like pulling teeth like it is in english

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M Digs Through Jrockyaoi Archives And Pulls Out Interesting Shit Part 16

2026-05-05T16:50:52Z

I HAVE FIGURED OUT WHO MAAYATAN IS!!!! Joy of joys! After seeing yet another fic dedicated to shipping him and Meev, I decided to look up "maayatan miyavi" to see if that produced any results, and thankfully an old fansite came through. He's one of Miyavi's support guitarists! (The reason vk.gy wasn't producing any results was that they had styled his name as "Maya-tan", instead of how LJ-ers were writing it. The mystery has been solved.

~*~

Stumbled upon a truly delightful turn of phrase in a fic (the transfem!Shinya one mentioned previously).

A girl with a boy and an ambiguity. What a wonderful way of phrasing it. A girl, a boy, and an ambiguity. I'm going to start describing me and my two other IRL friends like this.

~*~

Was validated in my decision to treat Yoshiki as a member of the larger Dir En Grey Cinematic Universe and thus not treat his appearance, unaccompanied by other X Japan members, as making a fic an X Japan crossover, by an ad for an RP comm that advertised itself as exclusively Diru, but included Yoshiki as a character open for selection. I've also seen a lot of people pair him with whatever Diru member gets left out after the fic author selects their two couples. Alternatively people also tended to slap him and hide together so they can be Diru's Gay Dads. This little trend is effectively Not A Thing anymore, as A: we live in a world where the fact that Yoshiki once produced Dir en grey is now little more than an interesting historical footnote, and B: increasing negative sentiment in the fandom towards Yoshiki as a person means people who aren't deep in the X Japan Sauce are much less likely to see him as a fun character to drop into their fics.

~*~

And, to finish this post off, an interesting little quote...

Note: As some of you may have noticed, I am no longer posting [this fanfic] at nightmare_fans. The reasoning is simple: one of the mods decided to make some after-the-fact rule (they claim to have made posts about this before, but put nothing in the userinfo until recently, so I consider the rule to be defunct) about how there is 'no yaoi allowed'. I find this a bit appalling, since it is supposedly a 'fan community', but is censoring some fan work because of whatever preferences/prejudices of the moderators. However, if something had been stated clearly about the rule, I would have respected it and never posted there. Since that was not the case, I am now a bit offended and very annoyed.

I am EATING POPCORN. The use of quotes around "No Yaoi Allowed". The usage of the term "censorship" to describe said banning of yaoi. Delightful. Amazing. No notes.

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M Digs Through Jrockyaoi Archives And Pulls Out Interesting Shit Part 15

2026-05-02T21:35:20Z

I've seen multiple Dir en grey fics based on the music video for [Kr]cube, so I decided to check it out, and honestly, I get it. It has a nice implied narrative of the band being cyberpunk? assassins? in a club? and everyone looks cool as fuck (unless you're Kaoru en masc, who for some reason is wearing a dead fox on his head?), especially Toshiya. Homme fatales my beloved.

~*~

(bangya inside baseball) A truly hilarious comment on a Gackt/Hyde fic by user sortilege.

About Gackt, you see... I've stopped following his career when he left MM, and most of the information about him that I get comes from what his fans tell me... and most of them keep telling me that he's crazier by the day. O.o

Oh, honey. Oh, honey. You 'aint seen nothing yet.

~*~

(bangya inside baseball) I keep seeing Yoshiki get put in positions of power in AUs, which makes sense for Mr. Vkei Elder Statesman, but it's really funny when it's a high school AU and he's like, a teacher or principal, because in my heart of hearts, my only mental association with "Yoshiki-as-teacher" is my HS drama teacher who once threatened to shoot a kid in the head with a nail gun for standing too close to the sets.

~*~

Reading through a transfic that's very "the author was very well-intentioned but unfortunately they were Cis in the year of our lord Haruhi 2005" and it's always so fucking funny to see cis people's wack beliefs about SRS. It's always The Surgery and you get absolutely everything done all at once. Also Shinya Direngrey in this fic was on estrogen for 3 years and regularly having sex with a gay guy who was like "absolutely nothing amiss here". Very funny.

(To be clear, I'm not blaming the author- who knows what resources where available to them to learn about this stuff? I just find it very funny from my 2026 genderqueer vantage point.)

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X Japan on Ao3 Ship Meta: Part 1

2026-04-30T02:26:31Z

Struck by a bout of divine madness and am now currently doing X Japan Ao3 ship stats, despite the inherent swingyness and Oops All Spiders Georg-ness of doing stats for a fandom this tiny. This is Part 1 of this, I guess. Got curious about if there were any intra-X Japan ships that had never been written about, and wound up creating this chart!

Chart is accurate as of 4/29/2026. Top 7 pairings are color-coded, as are the bottom 3.

MAIN TAKEAWAYS: (edit, somehow I forgor to analyze the actual ships in my ship data analysis, sorry for this oversight)

- To absolutely nobody's surprise, Toshiki, the Literal Actual Childhood Friends, take the top spot. Even if the real-life people are apparently only speaking to each other through their lawyers now, you just can't beat the #tropes and fifteen years of fandom inertia.

- Then, we have M's Favorite Vkei Bandman Ship. As much as I fucking adore the pairing, it's kind of hard to maintain fandom-wide inertia for an RPF ship where one of the people involved has been dead for over 30 years. Still, being top 3 is an achievement!

- And for #3, we have ~~bandman hatefuck yaoi extraordinare~~ Taiji/Yoshiki! Again, it's the #tropes. If they fit into the #tropes, they're gonna get shipped.

- Up next are two Sugizo ships, and I'm honestly flying blind here- was never a big Sugizo girlie (despite what my Ao3 looks like lol) so I'm not super tapped into his public persona or why people ship him specifically with These Two Guys. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

- Then we have hide/Taiji (they were close in real life, and why not pair the two long-haired hot guys with drinking problems?) and Heath/Yoshiki (smash the two pretty long-haired twinks together because why not?)

- As for individual bandmen, Yoshiki is very obviously X Freaks' resident Little Black Dress, as 5/7 of the most written-about X Japan pairings include him as a participant. Pretty feminine blond twink whose entire public persona is about how he's a tortured genius poor little meow meow gets shipped with everyone, many such cases.

- Next up in the "most-shipped" list are hide and Taiji. They and Yoshiki collectively form a trio defined by having two shared attributes- a lot of people find them hot, and they have Big Personalities that make them really easy to write fic about (the tortured genius meowmeow princess/the insane hot-tempered egotist, the flamboyant weirdo/tortured genius/#momfriend/Beautiful Angel Taken From Us Too Soon, and the hot-tempered one with a heart of gold).

- Pata, by contrast, is the least-shipped member of the band. No pairings involving him are in the top 7, and 2/3 least-written about pairings involve him. Whether this is due to people not finding him hot or his public persona being World's Most Normal Guy and thus less interesting then his bandmates, who's to say.

- Sugizo's ship-status is very swingy- he's a participant in 2/3 of the least-written about pairings, but he's also a participant in 2/7 of the most written about pairings. Not sure what to make of this.

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stardust_rifle @ 2026-04-28T21:59:00

2026-04-29T01:59:52Z

Inspired by the post on fanmix_monthly, a non-comprehensive list of songs and the characters/pairings/scenarios that M associates with them!

Ship in a Bottle by Fin Argus- Diavolo/Doppio from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

Hurt, as covered by Nine Inch Nails- Jingliu from Honkai Star Rail. Literally everyone who gives her Mildly Edgy Tumblr Girl songs are objectively wrong, this is Her Theme and I won't hear any naysayers.

The Light Behind Your Eyes by My Chemical Romance- Solid Snake/Otacon and Sunny from Metal Gear Solid, but specifically the version of them from the original ending to MGS4 where they would have been executed as traitors to the state. Would absolutely make an animatic based on this scenario if I had the time.

Lagtrain by inabakumori- Pannacotta Fugo from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. This may be like 90% the fault of an animatic, but by god does the song fit him.

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got psycho le cemu on the brain after seeing a bunch of fic for them get posted

2026-04-26T23:19:12Z

too lazy to actually make the edit but i can't stop thinking about a le virgin psycho le cemu vs le chad buck tick meme

virgin psycho le cemu:
- immediately pauses activities after their vocalist gets caught with speed
- only fully resumes activity almost a decade after the arrest
- still haven't fully regained the popularity they had at their peak

chad buck tick:
- refuses to disband after their guitarist gets caught with lsd
- commemorated their grand return after only three months, the anniversary of which they celebrate every year
- released multiple songs about doing drugs/lsd after the arrest
- continue to be famous and beloved

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Icon Game

2026-04-26T02:26:31Z

Sent here by smilebackwards!

Reply to this post saying 'icon', and I will tell you my favorite icon of yours. Then post this to your own journal using your own favorite icon if you're one of those inhuman things that are actually capable of choosing between ~~YOUR PRECIOUS BABIES!~~ userpics.

Even though I don't use her that much (I was a bit too young for LJ, and am mentally more accustomed to the idea of having a single, unchanging icon), I do really love this Chuu-tan icon that I got off of Tumblr courtesy of chiisana-lion. She is A Mood.

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M Digs Through Jrockyaoi Archives And Pulls Out Interesting Shit Part 14

2026-04-25T02:28:18Z

I love when I stumble across an author saying something bonkers wild about Gender Shit and Gay Shit in these early 2000s fanfics because I'm like "Oh, I'm going to study this shit like a bug." Behold!

"Gackt seems to treat Hyde more like a girl than anything; I think that Hyde needs that from someone, needs the unwavering affection. It could be blamed on Hyde’s upbringing, I supposed; he needs someone to take care of him sometimes, and pamper him—buy him flowers and teddy bears and hold doors open for him and hold him in a way that only a man could."

I expect a dissertation on all the fucking implications in this shit on my desk by Friday! God, this whole fic and its comments section is so weird and wild and has so much Gender Stink and Misogyny Stink and is so much of a time capsule, I could spend an entire post just pulling it apart. (the fic in question, for your viewing pleasure)

~*~

The title of this post just made me laugh. Yes, "Vampire Yaoi <3", indeed.

~*~

Okay, I've stumbled upon the first fic that I'm putting out an emergency call to try and see if anyone has anything preserved of (i know there's some hide/yoshiki stuff that was x-posted to the comm that is now gone from the interwebs that i REALLY want for *ahem* reasons of personal interest, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it)

The fic is titled メメント —memento—, Dir en grey, Kaoru/Kyo, x-posted on the personal LJ of someone who went by teikoku/attraktiv/garrus, as well as AdultFanfiction.net. In a bizarre case of unluck, both of these appear to not have been archived. The fic is described by its author as follows-

Kyo has personalities hidden deep within the labyrinth of his mind, repressed memories from his past. These memories were so traumatizing he forced himself to forget them becoming a paranoid schizophrenic. An onslaught of events triggers these to resurface and he finds himself locked in his own mind. While most of Dir en grey's members are in disbelief as to how this could've happened to their vocalist, one boldly takes it into his care to try his hardest to relieve the singer of the disease and bring back the real Kyo.

And herein is the main reason I am so interested in this fic. I'm certain that this would be a really interesting data point in the history of Portrayals Of Mental Illness In Fanfic (we already see in the description the conflation of schizophrenia with dissociative disorders) and I want to dissect this shit like high-school biology class.

So, I'm putting out a request- if anyone has any ideas for where I might find this fic, or anyone who might know a guy, that would be very much appreciated and you would win Internet Cookies Forever.

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M Digs Through Jrockyaoi Archives And Pulls Out Interesting Shit Part 13

2026-04-25T02:10:56Z

I hate the thing vk.gy does where when you search for a musician's name, it just pulls up the first band they were in next to their name, which is usually not their most famous/recognizable one.

I understand why they do it- deciding which band a musician has been in is their "most famous" one for thousands and thousands of musicians would be an utter nightmare. But it's still irritating.

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Another fic where Miyavi, free agent extraordinaire, is being shipped with a random musician that M can not track down. He's only mentioned as "Mayaatan" in the header, and does not appear in the single chapter posted (it seems the scourge of overtagging was not a beast brought on by Ao3's birth). I have not been able to find a "Mayaatan", or anyone with a remotely similar name, in the member listings of the eight bands mentioned in the header, or as a matter of fact, even existing on vk.gy or the Vkei FANDOM wiki. *slams head into wall*.

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Speaking of Meev's free-agent-ness, that would be a fun thing to look into- poke at solo artists like Gackt or Miyavi and see who they got shipped with the most, and how that changed over time. Adding it to the pile!

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And lastly, I've started seeing fics where she appears, and so now I have to emotionally deal with my weird feelings towards using Hyde's wife as a character in fics, which was pretty common around this time period. I'm very eeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh..... towards the idea of using non-famous relatives in RPF stuff (I have no idea where I heard this so take this with as much salt as you need to, but she was apparently a weather reporter? is that famous enough to not be considered a "non-famous relative"? please argue in the comments! /s CANCEL POINT I just did some Googling and it turns out she's an Actual Famous Person of the model/actress variety.). There's a part of me that wants to poke at her portrayal and how it's changed over the years as an example of the treatment that women got in slash fic in the early 2000s, because I've mainly seen her be saddled with the misogynistic Evil Jealous Harpy characterization and the extremely hilarious and criminally underrated Fujo Who's Totally In To Seeing Her Husband Make Out With Other Guys characterization, which were both fairly common characterizations for women, especially "canon" love interests, in slash fic from that era, but god the entire ethical squick I get around the idea of using her as a character just makes me not want to touch the subject.

(Read some Gackt/Hyde fic published last year and it seems the prevailing trend is now "this takes place in an AU where Hyde was never married", which is just so much better for me and my ethical squicks.)

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m's procrastinating so they did a fandom stats yipeee

2026-04-24T05:00:25Z

because the vkei yaoi hyperfixation is doing awful things to my brain, i've been prowling the ao3 tags. i subjectively notice both an increase in malice mizer fics, and offhandedly wonder "hey, is it because of the tiktok kids? and does the increase i sense actually play out when i look at the data?"

so i decided to Do A Stats.

two things that jump out immediately. the massive spike in 2015 appears to be caused entirely by two authors mass-reuploading their old fics without backdating them. one of those authors is also largely responsible for the 2018 spike. (for posterity's sake, this person used to be my mutual. god i love how small this fandom is sometimes)

after 2018 and the subsequent crash back down to earth, we start to see a steady increase starting in 2020, which could very well be attributed to young people discovering the band on tiktok during the pandemic and starting to write fic.

now, the question popping in my brain is "why malice mizer?" when i look at other vkei bands that got really big amongst young people recently, like jiluka (53 works) and gulu gulu (4 works), there's not really this massive upswelling of fanfic writing on ao3 for them. i think this is largely due to two reasons.

firstly, the members of malice mizer have very obvious capital S capital P Stage Personas, a very clearly defined "aristocratic vampire fantasy" aesthetic, which creates more of a sense of separation from the Real People which might make it easier to write fic.

secondly, malice mizer has Lore. "why did gackt leave malice mizer?" is like the second-most speculated-about-topic on the vkei fan internet, things like kami's death, the fraying nature of the professional relationships in the band, all of that is just kind of fuel for people to mold and reshape into Narrative, and Narrative is a fundamental component of good RPF, in my opinion.

i have literally no idea how to conclude this other than that m was kind of right and now they feel vindicated. yipee.

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Three Pieces Of Meta M Found Recently That They Like

2026-04-23T17:16:55Z

An Entirely Too Serious and Detailed Omegaverse Primer, which is essentially the author's personal worldbuilding headcanons for their version of the Omegaverse, but with an eye turned towards medical realism, given that they're writing for The Pitt. I <3 worldbuilding primers almost as much as I <3 Omegaverse.

Purist-Anarchist Ship Discourse Alignments, which made me laugh so hard. Gave me a flashback to arguing about Voltron ships on Tumblr, which I never actually thought I'd be nostalgic for.

And finally, Haruka Isn't Autistic-Coded – He Has an Intellectual Disability (And Why That Matters), a Milgram meta that I wish I could force everyone in the fandom to read. This came out before Trial 3, but it has overall aged wonderfully in spite of that.

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M Digs Through Jrockyaoi Archives And Pulls Out Interesting Shit Part 12

2026-04-21T17:52:22Z

(bangya inside baseball) Someone posted some (sadly, dead) Reita/Ruki edits to the comm. The comments are overflowing with joy, because Reita/Ruki is such a rare pairing and it's hard to find people who ship it.

How the turntables turn. How the turntables turn, indeed.

(In a general sense, this is also true of most of the GazettE-centric fic posted this early, you always see people talking in the author's notes about how there isn't that much fic of them or how they know that this won't get much traction, and I just want to reach through time and grab their shoulders and say Things will get better! In the future, there will be more Gazefic than you can shake a stick at and it will be glorious!)

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Humor and jokeyjokes are really good for gauging the general State Of Things in a community, on average, because people tend to have their guard down and say things which they think will make people laugh, and thus reveal stuff which someone who is intentionally thinking of things would keep hidden. For a more light-hearted example of this phenomenon, I present to you this quote!-

"No," Yoshiki replied, glaring at Toshiya. [...] "I shall tie you down and force you to watch the English version of Fruits Basket."

Silence. Everyone was shocked that Yoshiki would inflict such a cruel torture on them.

Did 2000s Furuba really have that bad of a dubbing job? I've never watched the ENG dub (or if I have, I forgot), so I can't speak on this topic.

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Another possible research project- the proportion of fics about a band posted to Ao3 vs. posted to this LJ comm. Really curious about the proportion for bands that are still big today, like Diru and The GazettE, but for stuff like Pierrot or Psycho le Cemu, I know that the stats will shake out to be a bit miserable in terms of stuff that's safe on Ao3 vs. stuff stuck on dying or undead (i.e, only on the Wayback Machine) websites.

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stardust_rifle @ 2026-04-20T15:39:00

2026-04-20T19:45:02Z

Just remembered that one “meta” that argued that writing people as trans in RPF when they weren’t/aren’t IRL was like “putting people in blackface without their consent”

Generationally awful sequence of words

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M Digs Through Jrockyaoi Archives And Pulls Out Interesting Shit Part 11

2026-04-20T00:11:06Z

Utterly intriguing comment in the author's notes of a hide/Sugizo fic.

Note: This pairing is approved by the admin -- don't make comments about the pairing. Thanks.

This is wild, because I have no idea what could be controversial about the pairing! hide and Sugizo are/were both male Japanese rock musicians, so on-theme for the comm. It can't be because they were from different bands (2005, so pre-Sugizo-joins-X-Japan), because inter-band shipping fics had been posted to the comm before with no mentioned controversy in the author's notes or comments. It can't be because hide had been dead for 7 ~~slutty slutty~~ years at this point, because other fics featuring hide, including really really porny fics, had been posted to the comm, again, with no controversy! And there are no comments to help me pin down what could have possibly required admin to manually approve this pairing, so I'm stumped!

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Peeked at a fic and saw characters referencing Fushigi Yuugi without any explanation. On one hand, this is really interesting evidence of both A: how popular that series was amongst female weebs of this era, and B: how intimately tied to the anime scene visual kei fandom was at that time. On the other hand, this made me feel so overwhelmingly nostalgic that I almost fell over.

(Said fic also featured a polemic on the evils of Morning Musume and their plan to brainwash the world using mind-controling pocky. Unintentional period pieces for the win!)

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I feel like "Who The Fuck Is This Bandman?" is going to become a reccuring feature here. On today's episode of "Who The Fuck Is This Bandman", we encounter a fic featuring Die of Dir en grey being shipped with someone identified only as "Nao", no band given. In the fic, our "Nao" is also called "Naoran", in a context that suggests it's a real name. A search on vk.gy for "Nao" returns over 50 results, while "Naoran" returns none. "Nao" is not given any physical description in the fic, which makes searching for him harder. Interestingly, this fic was also posted in a now-completely-purged comm devoted entirely to shipping Die with this "Nao", which is hella interesting.

I dig through every single "Nao" on vk.gy. Most of them seem impossible (having started activities after 2005) or highly unlikely (primarily going by a stage name other than "Nao", being so obscure vk.gy doesn't have any pictures of him, etc). None of them seem connected to Die or Dir en grey in any way that would elucidate enough shipping to make an entire comm.

Then, a lightbulb goes off in my head. As a beta couple in the fic, Kaoru of Diru is shipped with someone called "Akiya". "Akiya" seems like a much less common stage name than "Nao", and I have a suspicion that if I find an "Akiya" that shares a band with a "Nao", this will be our "Nao".

As soon as I click onto the second "Akiya" that comes up, I realize that I am both correct and terminally stupid. The band Kagrra has both an Akiya and a Nao. The band Kagrra is also a very influential band in visual kei. The band Kagrra is a major influence on one of M's favorite visual kei bands (Kiryu).

The band Kagrra also has fic posted in this very comm that I have spent hours archiving.

M smashes their face into their hands. Is this the universe's punishment for not checking out Kagrra despite how influential they are? This bout of humiliating stupidity?

They sigh. They move on with their lives. They resolve to actually listen to Kagrra one of these days.

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With how much I've had to use the Wayback Machine through this whole thing, I am absolutely going to be throwing them at least 5 bucks one of these days. They are one of the few unequivocally Good things in this hell of a world, even if I am mostly using them to track down terrible pornography and amateurish fansites.

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