#before reading D.Gray man

[gaywizardzone]

in april 2023 immediately after chapter 247 i was like oh they're splitting up? kanda's going to get a taste of his own dramatic thank you medicine. then i drew this just for fun sketch with that in mind and immediately forgot about it for the next six months. imagine my surprise and delight last week at 249

[m-kyunie]

"The supposedly sealed memories of a miniature garden"

[tvrningout]

thinking about how i need to bolster the roster of deities for dorverold -- i got a lot of major deities but not a lot of minor deities -- and the urge to use g.ojo as the fc for one of them bc i just love the way he's drawn tbh

[grassbreads]

What the absolute FUCK

[shimmeringweedsart]

My Iconic Moment for the D.Gray-man 20th Anniversary Zine ch. 219 (but also 220 and 221)

Those chapters are insane, and honestly I cannot believe no one else wanted them before I snatched it up! (Maybe because they are... a lot)

From the beginning of the zine, I really wanted to draw the Earl. His design is just the coolest ♡ But then I was so excited to draw the Earl on a rampage that I completely forgot that this IM included the chapter long hug that is 219 AND Mana's existential crisis in 220 AND that stellar quote by mysterious glasses man in 221. I was having a field day playing with the themes and motifs, basically. I still want to play more with this "heart" of D. Gray-man ♡

clear bg version:

Bonus. Me reading the latest chapter (251) a week after submitting this:

"He is....."

"HE IS WHAT?????"

f in the chat. but, look, we still don't know his hair color tbh, and I kept his features vague, true to the chapter, and as mysteriously/menacingly team neah as possible its fiiiiiiiine. probaly could have made his hair a shade lighter but it’s fiiiiiiiiiiine.

[wingfril]

Happy 20th, d.gray-man! This is one of the doodles I did for @dgm20thproject

You’re the reason why I started drawing :’), a good portion of the reason why I can still read Chinese, and I even alluded to you in my college apps 8 years ago. Who’d knew a random manga that a friend convinced me to try in middle school would have such a big impact on me.

(And a draft of the associated image.. can I finished before eod lol)

[venusaria]

Random D.Gray-Man Noah head cannons because im stuck in an overnight shift and im beyond bored

Since the Noah have existed for 7,000 years, they can understand (maybe) every language thats existed in human history, or at least the more commonly spoken language

Tyki speaks Portuguese, and sometimes speaks in Portuguese while speaking english. “Listen here merda *insert more dialogue”. I also head cannon he swears in Portuguese “Filho da puta!”

Road prolly has a cavity wirh the amount of sweets she eats. Its prolly the back tooth

Skinn has a Louisianan accent

Honestly D.Gray-Man characters canonically speak english, i imagine them having accents based off where they are from since their VA’s have American accent (before anyone attacks me i love their english voices i really do-)

Sheril has a gummy smile and you cant rip this head cannon off my cold hands

Jasdevi hates oysters….idk why i head cannon this i just do-

Lulubell is the best ballroom dancer out of all the Noah but because of how reserved she is, she doesn’t dance in front of everyone. (But she prolly did with Mimi before she was killed)

For some reason i like head cannoning Mightra as an older-ish (early 30s) woman, even though their identity is canonically unknown. Honestly i would love another noah thats a woman im desperate-. Like i can just imagine Mightra as like having Lulubell’s personality but more uptight since they are in charge of performing maintenance in the ark. Not like strict but straightforward.

Since wisely is nosy with his mind reading abilities, i can easily imagine the rest of the noah (especially sheril) imagining something explicit or something bizarre just so they can annoy Wisely while hes trying to read their minds. “Jasdevi why are you imagining an akuma dressed as a clown?”

Wrathra is probably gonna be the youngest character since they are gonna reborn at some point, but i like to head cannon that they find wrathra when they are a baby (as in after they are born since wisely can prolly find them?). Sheril will prolly adopt them since he adopts every being in sight-

Tricia knows the Noah’s plans and is an ally to the Earl, and chooses to remain happily marry Sheril in the process to assist them (damn i forgot she existed)

They host game nights. Tyki likes to gamble. He always loses because of wisely cheating with his mind. “pedaço de merda sobrinho.” “Haha get recked”

Bonus: if they were in a modern au i can see Road doing mukbangs with candy. I can honestly see it. Jasdevi would try to be the goth kids (but the family always mistaken them to be emo, they will throw a temper tantrum). Sheril will probably be laughing at minion memes on facebook. Everyone would probably thirst for Tyki on social media while hes the polar opposite in real life (ultimate troll)

[morkofday]

Nine people you'd like to get to know better

thank you for tagging me bea @23point5degree ♥

tagging in return: @jimmysea @chinzhilla @spicyvampire @thasorns @icouldhyperfixatehim @stormyoceans @mooninagust @celestial-sapphicss @khaotunqs ♥

and now revealing my darkest secrets heh

-

3 ships

based on the fics i've been consuming lately (explains truly where my head is at rn):

the chocobros ot4 (ignis, prompto, gladiolus, and noctis) from final fantasy xv (you cannot convince me anyone would go to such lengths just for their "bro" even when said bro is royalty and the chosen king to save the world)

yuu kanda and allen walker from d.gray-man (used to watch this anime around 10 years ago and decided to do it again on a whim. it was as good as i remembered and i had to continue to the manga after finishing it. now am experiencing major brainrot bc like i saw someone comment, for a manga that doesn't aim to be a bl, it surely does make it hard to believe otherwise. i also adore the tragedy of it all)

chris redfield and leon s. kennedy from resident evil (maybe the most important thing were the ppl we met and could count on during the zombie apocalypse ♥ also damn, these bitches)

First ship

my first ever ship i read fanfics for was dominic x brian from fast & furious. otherwise, my first ever ship came from anime as i was consuming that before i ever touched any bl dramas.

my true first ship would so be soubi and ritsuka from the 2005 anime adaptation of the manga loveless. a bit questionable choice i admit, but i still collect the manga bc i find the story fascinating and delightfully painful. also, i love the concept of named pairs (soulmatism with a knife) and their ability to fight against each other

my first ever (thai) bl ship would probably be korn and knock from together with me. there was just something about them back then that made me feel slightly deranged. (with bonus yihwa bc i still think she's one of the best female characters in a bl)

Last song

ดาวหางฮัลเลย์ (halley's comet) by fellow fellow. (sea sung this during his solo stage in last twilight new dawn: live on stage and i've been addicted ever since. i usually listen to this on loop for hours, it's just so nice and vibe-y)

Currently reading

still stuck with midnight sun, for my thesis. otherwise, consuming only fanfics and hoping to get to the little prince soon.

Last movie

the newest resident evil animated movie resident evil: death island (2023). tells you about the depths of that particular brainrot :'D the latest acted movie would probably be the korean movie silenced (2011).

Currently craving

something more solid to eat, especially the pile of snacks i have stored away until i can eat them. got my wisdom tooth removed a couple of days ago and have been mostly eating soup, yogurt, porridge, ice cream, smoothies... anything liquid-y. starting to feel a bit bored but am gonna be free soon

[66sharkteeth]

Hello, just wanted to let you know that I've been hooked on City of Blank ever since I found it a few weeks ago. It's been an incredibly compelling read. One thing I was curious about is what were your main sources of inspiration for creating this story from various media films/books etc (if any). I've noticed that the Scion's seem to share a few similarities to the symbiote's from Spider-Man, or have I completely misread that? Thank you for an entertaining read and best of luck in the future.

Thank you! It sincerely means a lot that people are still finding CoB and giving it a chance despite it's length. I've said it before, but sometimes I feel like it's kind of sour milk on WT haha. It's just too old and long for new readers to give it a chance.

To answer your question...

Most of the inspiration comes from media I consumed back in middle school when I actually came up with the idea. I know the main inspiration was a short anime film called Kakurenbo which kind of got me into my mask obsession.

It made me wanna make a story where everyone wears masks. The blanks kind of followed from that premise as a reason for everyone to have to wear masks.

Spiderman definitely had...nothing to do with the scions, though I totally get why people go there. Spiderman wasn't really relevant when they came around (at least not beyond like the Toby Mcguire films lol) and definitely not Venom.

Besides, I can absolutely tell you that the evil other half 10000% came from Bleach and Hollow Ichigo.

I have like a super distinct memory of wanting to give Rex an evil other half after the reveal of Hollow Ichigo. I was obsessed haha. (A reminder that I came up with CoB when I was like 13 LOL)

Some other major early influences are definitely Trigun, which I think super influenced the world. It's probably why CoB is in a desert city with so many sand-stone buildings.

The very first version of CoB was very very very reminiscent of the scenery in Trigun, though I think my time in San Francisco had a lot of influence on how it is in the Originals version. Unfortunately I don't have the budget or time to depict Glory City as well as I'd like to, but I imagine it's like a desert version of San Francisco, except flat.

Lastly, I know some characters that have have MAJOR influence on some of the characters are Luffy, Yato (Noragami), Rin (Blue Exorcist) for Rex. Slightly more recent, but I am 100% positive Jericho became a lot goofier after I got MAJORLY into the like...Team Skull fandom and became obsessed with Guzma haha.

Lastly, Rex's scion ended up getting WAY sassier and having more personality after I caught up with D.Gray-Man only last year or so. I kind of loved how Noah (?) behaved in the more recent chapters and I think it ended up influencing me to make scion way, way, way more sassy than I was originally planning.

[shiroganeryo]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Thank you for the tag @ofdemonsandangels! Finally got me to babble about writing, eh 😂

As always, I won't be tagging anyone but if you see this on your dash and feel like doing it, feel personally tagged by me!

⭐ How many works do you have on AO3?

Currently twelve. All finished, but there's one in particular that's part of a collection of stand-alone one-shots that I'd like to add more into sometime, hmm.

⭐ What's your total AO3 wordcount?

102,279 words.

⭐ What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment, it's mostly Bungo Stray Dogs (it only took me 7 years to realize I could write fanfic for this one), but I also have some Genshin Impact works and one D.Gray-Man work posted. There's a long, looong doc (38 pages, 16,700 words) in my WIPs for DGM.

⭐ What are your top five fics by kudos?

The Meaning of Sharing Happiness ➡️ To Hold Dear and To Own ➡️ God's play ➡️ Just a Short Break ➡️ A Moment to Cherish

⭐ Do you respond to comments?

I might take a while to get to it, but I always read all the comments I get and am always extremely grateful that people took their time to write something; so I usually worry about giving each reply the proper attention and if my gratitude is translating well into my words whenever I get to reply.

⭐ What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmm, I haven't one of these. I only wrote mild angst once and even that got resolved within the specific work. I don't see myself writing anything like this but it might depend on your definitions of what's an "angst ending"?

⭐ What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Definitely New Pages in Our Very Own Novel - my three-chapter wedding and honeymoon fanfic written for dazatsu week this year. I was pressed by time constraints to make it in time, but I poured a lot of love and care into this one, merely because they deserve to be happy and at peace; so many of the moments in this fic are light or meaningful in some way, but still lovely, all the way to the ending.

⭐ Do you get hate on your fics?

Not that I know, thankfully!

⭐ Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do, have some posted and I'm still rather proud of them! Describing "what kind" is a little hard (no pun intended) because my ideas usually stem from the thought of "I want to see this specific thing happening so I'll make it". I went into kinkier territory once, but in general, I think what drives me to write smut is having the people involved getting down and dirty but in a passionate way, if that makes sense? I like to make their love for each other show in how they handle each other but I also like the couples to be unapologetically into it, show off their sensuality and personality while at it. A good mix of sexy and lovely.

⭐ Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

My brother in Christ, I already have trouble managing people from one universe in only one work. So, no 😅

⭐ Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Hopefully not?! I'd be very upset.

⭐ Have you ever had a fic translated?

If it's been translated by myself, does it count? I translated one of my fics to my native language (Brazilian Portuguese) via voice call with my little sister once, she's still studying English but she was adamant on reading something from me, so I translated that one for her. It was a very fun experience, actually!

⭐ Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not yet and I don't think I ever will; I have such a demanding pacing for writing that I'd overworry about inconveniencing the other person.

⭐ What's your all-time favorite ship?

No matter if it's in regard to posted fics, or in my general opinion, my answer is the same: Dazatsu (Dazai Osamu x Nakajima Atsushi) means the world to me.

Story with this ship began years ago but like I mentioned in question 3, it took me a lot of time to realize I could write for them as well. Every single fic I write for them has a dedication to my spouse in the notes, but that's the most I'll say because trust me, this story is LONG haha

If we're talking about the amount of rent-free living inside my head, then it's a tie between them, ChuuAki (or ChuuSano, not sure which ship name people use mostly nowadays for Nakahara Chuuya x Yosano Akiko) and ZhongVen (Zhongli x Venti from GI). I definitely plan to write more for chuuaki at some point; they all live happily in a three story building inside my mind 😂

⭐ What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

There's a rather extensive GI WIP (for Lumine x Noelle) in my folder that I feel doubtful toward purely because I'm so uncertain about it; when I started writing that one, we were only at the start of the story of the game so things looked very different from now. I'll need to rework and scrap many things in that one...

⭐ What are your writing strengths?

One thing that I put a lot of attention and care into, and that has been praised time and time again, much to my happiness, is character portrayal. I've been told on various occasions that my characterization of the characters felt close to the original to the point people were able to easily picture them doing and saying the things described in my works, how I got their "voice" right and how enjoyable it was to read because of it. It never fails to put a smile on my face, and I've replied to comments more than once saying that these are the best kind of praises I could get from anyone.

⭐ What are your writing weaknesses?

Not sure how much of this is a weakness or simply a personality defect, but: obstination and self-imposed pressure. I won't be able to relax until I have finished a work I feel I must finish, because I'm so used to not having free time for my hobbies that I have this - usually extremely self-destructive - mentality that goes "I must do all of it now while I still have the chance since I don't know when I'll have time again"; which means I tend to get no breaks at all, will sacrifice sleep hours to work on it, and destroy my back all for the sake of a condition my head imposed on me.

Probably not the answer you were expecting, but it's what I struggle with the most; this ride or die mentality born from perfectionism and a little (?) pinch of anxiety.

⭐ Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

If it's a language I can speak, then it's not a problem, though I haven't had the chance to do so (yet).

But here's a random language trivia for you: I tend to think a lot in Japanese for all my BSD fics to make their dialogues as accurate as possible even with the work being written in English - for example, there are certain puns/jokes that exist in English but either don't work or don't exist in the Japanese language, so I avoid adding them; things like these. It's small attention to detail no one but me would know about, but it's something I do because it matters a lot to me.

If it's a language I can't speak, or a cultural aspect I'm unsure of, I either ask a friend or delve into those "Ask A (insert nationality here)" subreddits. It's always a riveting learning experience!

⭐ First fandom you wrote for?

Officially published and first ever: that would be D.Gray-Man. Though Jesus Christ, I would not show my 15 yo's crazy DGM fic full of nonsense and OCs. There were even ships in there that I can't bear to listen the name of nowadays. How the times change 😂

⭐ Favorite fic you've written?

I'll cheat my way on this answer, because I can't pick just one.

SFW: New Pages in Our Very Own Novel & Healing Touch These two are undoubtely the ones I've gotten the most praise for as well as very, very long comments that had me giggling and kicking my feet like I was a teenager again; but what I like the most about them is, respectively: New Pages: I did a lot of research for New Pages. I actually used Google Maps to trace their routes during their stay in the Ginza Prefecture for the honeymoon, just so I would know if they'd need to take the train or if they could just walk to their destinations. One thing that I've always loved in BSD are the real-life places references, so I went for that: I referenced real-life places as well, and even the hotel I picked was also inspired by a real-life one, located in the same place. I paid a special amount of attention to landscapes and their descriptions and it was as fun as it was exhausting! haha The contents of the fic are still the most important, but the experience of writing and doing research for it, learning more and viewing so many pictures to describe things, was one of a kind. I'll never forget it. Healing Touch: This fic was born from a wish of mine to do a certain character study, and I'm still proud of how it came out. Dazai as a character is extremely complex and we all know it, but I wanted to, at the very least, scrape at the surface of his humanity hidden underneath all those layers - all the while I worked on Atsushi's perception of things and the way he dealt with his own sense of sadness and grief and used those to try and understand Dazai's. I can't really say much about it because it'll just sound like a lot of babbling out of context, but I feel like I did a good job on those bits (it's not the entire focus of the fic).

NSFW: Baring Stripes and Bandages I'm sorry, I'm just a furry. Jokes aside, this was the one time I went for an approach that explored some kinks that aren't too vanilla and I'm still quite proud of how it came out. We - my spouse and I, this fic was born from a headcanon of his - often joke saying it's my magnum opus, and then it's just a kinky fanfic 😂 But I'm still so proud!

[kitty-bandit]

Chemicals Between Us

Fandom: D.Gray-man Rating: E Pairing: Lucky (Tyki x Lavi); Pieshipping (Link x Allen) Total Words: 128.9K Tags: Modern AU; Omegaverse AU; Sexting AU; Unrequited Laven

Chapter 19: An Eye for an Eye

“You fucked him, didn’t you?” Tyki clenched his hands into fists at his side, a potent wave of jealousy washing over him like a tidal wave. He felt like he was drowning in it and all he wanted to do was punch Allen square in the nose for daring to touch his omega— He shook his head. No, that line of thinking would only lead to more trouble. “We’ve done it since we both presented,” Allen added, watching Tyki with a wary gaze and continuing to keep his distance from the alpha. He must have smelled how upset Tyki was. “We’ve done it for years.” Tyki huffed out a short, sarcastic laugh before licking his lips and closing his eyes in a futile attempt to squash his growing anger. “Really, now?” he asked, a threatening tone invading his voice. “And does Lavi know you’re in love with him, or is that still our little secret?” Allen’s eyes narrowed dangerously, body tense and brows furrowed. “Don’t—”  “’Cause… He might wanna know that your little arrangement has additional benefits on your end.” Tyki didn’t break eye contact as he spoke.  “Shut the fuck up,” Allen snapped, a growl rumbling in his throat. “Just shut the fuck up, Tyki.” But Tyki continued, his hackles raised—unwilling to back down from the brewing argument between them. “You’re such a saint for falling on that sword. Did you make Lavi beg for it while he was heat sick—just so you could feel like he actually wanted you?” “I said shut up!” Allen hissed.

Read on AO3.

[faeriexqueen]

Caress

Very late submission for D.Gray-Man Rare Pair Week 2023. (Thanks for hosting, @dgrayrarepair!) Day 3 (Wed 10/25): Touch — Rough| Gentle | Pain | Pleasure | Scars Title: Caress. Fandom: D. Gray-Man. Pairings: Tyki Mikk/Alma Karma. Rated: Explicit. Words: 8.7K+. Tags: Fantasy, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Beauty and the Beast elements, Curses, Arranged Marriage, Lemon, Royalty, Nobility, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Past! Non-Con, Romance, Eventual Romance, Intimacy (Please see AO3 for full list of tags and warnings). Chapters: 1/1. Summary: He should have known to be wary. After all, Tyki was a Noah — someone to be feared. Someone to be cautious of. But, his touch was so gentle. And Alma wanted to badly to be touched. Excerpt:

Fingers brushed against his cheek, Alma looking up. He was somewhat confused, not because Tyki was caressing him — but because Tyki’s touch was so gentle. Tender.  It was nothing like how his touches had been before.

Read on AO3.

[his-endless-rambles]

I’ve worked a lot of jobs in my life—many of them customer-facing—but I gotta say I’ve never had more of a blast interacting with the general public than working at a library. You get all sorts coming through and the exchanges are varied. Some are good, some are bad, but they are almost always memorable.

Here is one of my favourites.

By all accounts, it was a pretty average day. Scanning, shelving, reserving—the usual. Then here comes this brick wall of a man. And when I call him a brick wall I am not exaggerating. The thickness of his arms and the width of his shoulders would make a barricade blush. Fella straight up looked like this:

Anyway, he comes up to the desk, puts both hands on it, and leans forward. His face is now inches from mine. He’s breathing exclusively out of his nostrils, the heat of each breath cooking the air. Paired with the vacant look in his eye, he’s like a bull ready to charge. Then he lifts a meaty finger, unfurls his lips, and in a thick Eastern European accent asks:

“Do you have any One Piece?”

It takes a second or two for me to register what he said and a few seconds more to believe I heard it. Then, I try my best to do my job. I’m not 100% sure so I type it into the database. Until the search has loaded, I don’t break eye contact, and when I do, a lump climbs into my throat.

“No. I’m afraid the few copies we have are already borrowed. Do you want me to make a reservation?”

He shakes his head, then says. “What about Na-Ru-To.” He sounds it out just like that. Na Ru To.

I check the database. There are three copies available. “We have volumes 50, 51, and 61 accessible at this library.”

He doesn’t reply. He’s too busy aiming his burly body in the direction of the graphic novels section.

Less than five minutes pass before he comes back, and with him, he brings a veritable bounty of manga. His palms, wider than the shelves themselves, are stacked high with not just Naruto but everything from My Hero Academia to D.Gray Man.

He notices me eyeing his haul and clears his throat. “I like One Piece and Na Ru To,” he says. “They are my favourites. But, I have been told to read more If I am able.”

I ask the man for his library card. He shakes his head and says he will be paying with cash. This is not the first time I’ve served someone who’s assumed the need for money in a public library so I explain to him that he can get a library card and take books out for free. What happens next is one of the reasons I love being a librarian.

His eyes widen and a smile cracks across his face. “This is very good.”

I smile back and tell him that if he likes I can reserve some volumes of One Piece to be transferred to this library for him. A light dances across his gaze and his crack of a smile splits into a chasmic grin.

“You are a very good man!” he declares. “I give you big thank you!”

It takes no time at all to find the volumes he wants and even less to scan his pile. Soon enough, the man has his books, has his reservations, and to my joy, still has his smile.

“I come back for One Piece!” he says gleefully. “I see you soon, yes?”

Then he struts away swinging a canvas bag stuffed with manga like it weighs as much as it did empty.

It didn’t matter what happened during the rest of that day, or even the rest of that week. The genuine smile of that giant manga-loving man carried me through it all.

[grassbreads]

I’d love to know about Yulma and how important it is to representation in shounen manga

This has been sitting in my askbox for a couple months (because I am incapable of punctuality), but anon sent this to me back when I was talking about Yulma over on my vnc blog. For those unaware, Yulma refers to Yu Kanda and Alma Karma from the manga D.Gray-man.

So the thing is, to be honest, I don't know if you can say Yulma is/was important for representation. They don't tend to get brought up as an example of representation (except by diehard d.gray-man fans like me, lol) in shonen, and their whole thing is complicated enough that I feel like the queerness of it all flies over a lot of people's heads.

However! They're very important to me personally, and I do think it's kind of remarkable their story came out in like 2010. Because even though their queerness gets overlooked a lot, it's like. really there no matter how you interpret it.

The short version of their very complicated story is that Kanda and Alma are a couple who were resurrected into new bodies. Alma was a woman when they were originally together in their past lives, but is physically male in the present. Kanda is still very much in love with them by the end of their story, which, depending on the reading, makes Kanda very bi and/or Alma very trans.

This sound like something you want details on? If so, let's talk about how D.Gray-man's fan favorite edgy badass toughguy character briefly became the star of his very own heart-wrenching tragic queer romance.

Here's a brief crash course in Yu Kanda and Dgm for the uninitiated:

D.Gray-man is a manga about a group of exorcists (in the loosest and most anime sense of the term) in the 1890s fighting a holy war against mechanical demons powered by the souls of the dead. There are two things you need to understand about this plot for me to explain Yulma:

The Black Order, the secret branch of the church that exorcists work for, has a long history of committing horrific human experiments to further the war effort.

Due to complications of world building, only a tiny number of people can become exorcists, and tracking down new ones is extremely difficult.

Yu Kanda is one of the exorcists, and though not the actual main character (that's the lad in my icon), he's a very important secondary character. Arguably he's the most important secobdary character, since he's the main guy's biggest foil and the first character to play deuteragonist in a major story arc. He's also a huge fan favorite. The character popularity polls that Jump used to do always had him and the mc going back and forth over who won #1 most popular.

Kanda was also a classic edgy toughguy character. His first two scenes are him almost murdering the main guy because he thinks he's an intruder, then complaining about people grieving for their friend too loudly. He never smiles. He argues with the righteous mc about wasting time/energy protecting civilians. He threatens (and delivers) violence on anyone that annoys him. He looks like this:

TLDR; Kanda was an adored-by-fans mean badass archetype in a 2000s shonen manga. Not generally the guy you peg for starring in a piece of queer romantic storytelling.

And for the entirety of the original anime adaptation's 103 episode run, for the first 188ish chapters of the manga, you do not learn a single thing about his early life. You learn he joined the Black Order very young, and you meet the mentor that took him in at that point, but although there are little hints, a couple cryptic mentions of him searching for a certain person, his early origins remain a complete black box.

Then came the Alma Karma arc.

This is the point where I start getting into spoilers.

To make a very long story short, the Alma Karma arc reveals that Kanda is one of the Black Order's human experiments. The Order ran a secret project 9ish years before the start of the series in which they essentially tried to re-use dying exorcists (since finding new ones is so hard). They took the bodies of dying or recently deceased exorcists and harvested their brains, implanting those brains into new magically grown child bodies.

Key to this project—the second exorcist project—is that these newly grown second exorcists were not supposed to remember anything from their previous lives. Kanda, however, recovered a few hazy memories from his past self. Most importantly, he can recall an unclear image of the woman that his past self was in love with. This memory gradually becomes Kanda's reason to live. He wants desperately to find and meet that person.

Now, aside from Kanda, there was one other successfully revived second exorcist. This was a boy named Alma Karma.

Over the course of their brief shared childhood, Kanda and Alma become extremely close. However, due to a series of horrible events that I'll spare you the details of, Alma is eventually driven to murder-suicide. He wants himself and Kanda to die together to spite the Order, and Kanda almost lets him do it.

The one thing that keeps Kanda from letting Alma kill him, the thing that drives him instead to kill Alma, his most beloved and only friend, is that he can't bear to die without finding that woman again.

Have you figured out the twist yet?

9 years later, in the present, Kanda discovers that he didn't actually quite kill Alma. The Order kept Alma secretly half-alive in order to do more dubious experiments. And, more importantly, when they meet again, Kanda discovers the truth. The woman that he's been searching for his whole life, the woman he's in love with, the woman he tried to kill Alma in order to find, was also killed and made into a second exorcist. And her brain was placed into the body of Alma Karma.

After quite a lot more violence and tragedy, Kanda and Alma end their story arc by running away together on their deathbeds. Alma dies, for real this time, in Kanda's arms, and his last words are to tell Kanda he loves him. These words are presented as something Kanda hears from both the boy and woman versions of Alma's soul.

So! At the end of a very long and complicated story, one thing holds true: Kanda and Alma are in love. As passed down from their past selves, they are specifically in romantic love. They were a couple. And to speak as a fan, the sheer absolute devotion to how Kanda's love for Alma is presented is seriously intense and moving.

Now, given the absolute hell that is Alma's life, gender identity is frankly the last thing they have time to worry about, so it's hard to say how the whole "literally a woman's brain in a male body" thing might have settled for them if given time to think about it. But that is inherently a pretty trans narrative. And given the whole Alma gender situation, there's simply no reading of their whole situation where neither of them is queer.

If you take present day Alma as a guy, which is more or less how he's presented in canon (though again, who knows how he would've felt about that male body in different circumstances), then congratulations! You've got mlm in your shonen manga. They were straight in a different life, but now one of them's a dude, and they are still deeply in love with each other. They've even got not one but two "let's forget it all and run away together" scenes, just as every mlm couple seems to have.

On the other hand, if you go with the angle that Alma's still a woman based on her mind/soul, even in her new body, then Kanda may not be canonically queer, but Alma is inarguably trans. Again, literally a woman's brain in a male body. It may not be how most people end up trans, but that doesn't change the facts of her situation.

You see what I mean about how they're undeniably queer, but also kind of easy to miss? There's so much other insane shit going on in their story that Alma's whole gender situation can get passed over. Plus, you can look online to this day and find people arguing that Kanda's not "technically" explicitly in love with the present day male version of Alma, since he doesn't 100% unambiguously say as much. I love reading comprehension.

Also! As a possible extra reason for why people don't talk about them much, the official English translation of the manga translated Alma's final "I love you" very differently. There's always a lot of nuance and argument when it comes to translating "大好き" into English, but given the full context of their relationship and the scene it's in, Viz's handling really sets off the censorship bells in my head.

Here's the different versions (Japanese then fan then official), if you want to compare:

Nothing more classically queer than censorship by way of questionable translation 🙃.

At the end of the day, Kanda and Alma are in kind of a strange middle ground. They're each in love with the other one, but the whole second exorcist brain transfer situation makes it complicated enough that people argue their feelings aren't explicitly romantic (and thus not gay) in the present. Alma is literally a woman's brain implanted in a male body, but we don't have time to dwell on the gender complications of all that because of the hell that is the rest of their life. They're canon but not canon—queer people whose stories don't have space for them to be queer.

However, given that all this messy, tragic ambiguity was published in a fairly popular shonen manga back in 2010, it still feels kind of remarkable to me. Alma is somewhat an antagonist (it's complicated), and he dies at the end of his arc, but once again, Kanda was/is the fan favorite! And when he re-enters the main story after Alma's death, he's more important than he's ever been, and his history with Alma continues to be a huge part of his character.

Katsura Hoshino took the much-beloved edgy toughguy character from her long-running shonen series and, after keeping his origins secret for such a long time, confirmed that his whole life has revolved around love this entire time. Almost every facet of his character can be traced back to his love for his lost best friend or his yearning for his past life's missing partner. And then she reveals that the best friend and the partner are one and the same.

You can go back and forth about the degree to which they work as representation, but in any case, I think their story is something people ought to know about. It's romantic and it's heart-wrenching and it's fucking wild, especially given the context in which it was published (a Shonen Jump spinoff in 2010). I never see anyone besides the few remaining hardcore dgm fans talk about them, and I think that's a shame.

So anyway, that's tale of one of the most insanity-inducing romances I've ever seen put to paper. I love queer people.

Here's some choice pages if you want to cry with me (the last two are a sequence):

[synamartia]

❖ Call me Syn, Syna, or Raina, or whatever comes to mind when you think of me~ ( be nice, there ain't none of that negativity here ! ) I'll also respond to Smut Santa / Saint Dickolaus! 😉

❖ I'm 29, about to be 30. I'm afab and use female pronouns. Happy mama of 2 beautiful babes~ They come first before anything else, so if I don't get back to you in a timely manner or like... at all... that's why. Or maybe I just don't like you. ( nahhh that's not it ... ? )

❖ Previously went by Taqsyq, but after YEARS of being out of the writing game and just off of tumblr in general, I've decided to start over fresh. I started Taqsyq when I was like sixteen or seventeen, still in my nerdy emo girl phase fuck I still am, and there is a shit ton of things that I just wanna run away from when it comes to that blog/username, including some very bad memories that I'm not going to discuss publicly. Plus, again: seventeen, nerdy emo girl phase. Everything I wrote on that blog was the highest form of OOC cringe like you just saw a stripper accidentally slam her hoo-ha on a pole bullshit for me. The only reason I'm not deleting it is because I'm a memory hoarder and despite all the bad, I want to keep it for all the good that happened there as well. Besides, it's the account that I ran imagine-reborn (an imagines blog for Katekyo Hitman Reborn) under and I figured, if nothing else, I could get a few laughs and maybe even learn a thing or two from how god-awful teenage me was at writing.

❖ My rules are simple. Be kind to all: this is a safe zone for EVERYONE. I would like to keep it that way. I don't have a list for what I will and will not write (yet), so all I can tell you is: ask. My inbox is always open. If I don't feel comfortable writing something, I'll let you know!

❖ Minors: as of right now, I don't think I'll be posting anything that is safe for your consumption, so I would very much appreciate it if you did not interact. If you are not a minor and do not have an age indicator, this rule applies to you as well. I check my follower list daily and I WILL block anyone that does not adhere to this rule.

❖ Requests: Closed ( not for long. I promise ;D )

❖ Currently, I only write for Hazbin Hotel. But I'm open for discussion on anything else on my list down below! I'm always looking for something new to watch/read, so if you have any recommendations, fire away!

❖ Series ; Current Hyperfixation: Hazbin Hotel

Anime : Naruto ; InuYasha ; Death Note ; Bleach ; Hellsing ; Soul Eater ; Fruits Basket ; D.Gray-Man [ Original / Hallow ] ; Kuroshitsuji ; Katekyo Hitman Reborn ; Ao No Exorcist ; Yu Yu Hakusho ; Full Metal Alchemist ; One Piece* ; Shingeki No Kyojin ; Kimetsu No Yaiba ; Jujutsu Kaisen**

* Still trying to catch up. This is a massive anime, and I've spent the better half of this past year trying to watch it all. I've made it to the Raid on Onigashima, the part where Yamato got his bracelets removed. Love him, by the way! <3

** Nanaminnnn~! I am not okay about anything with this man. <3

Manga / Manhwa : Everything mentioned above ; Noblesse ; Bloody Cross ; Area D

TV : Hazbin Hotel ; Game Of Thrones ; Vikings ; Avatar: The Last Airbender ; The Legend Of Korra ; Supernatural

Books : A Song Of Ice & Fire ; Twilight Saga why did teenage me think it was the greatest series ever shoot me now fucking christ

Video Games : Final Fantasy Series + Individual Prequels, Sequels, Movies, Remakes* [ 7 / 9 / 10 / 13 / 15** ] ; Tales Of Series [ Legendia / Zestiria / Berseria / Arise ] ; Devil May Cry Series ; Kingdom Hearts Series*** ; Star Ocean Series [ Till The End Of Time / The Divine Force ] ; The Legend Of Zelda [ A Link To The Past ] ; Sonic Series ; Spyro Series ; Shining Force Series [ 1 / 2 ] ; Lufia Series [ Fortress Of Doom / Rise Of The Sinistrals ] ; Diablo 3 ; Lunar [ Silver Star Story Complete ] ; Infinite Undiscovery ; to be updated as I remember / play.

* So far, I've only played the first installment of Final Fantasy 7 Remake because I currently do not own a PS5, but I'm working on it. The Compilation of Final Fantasy 7 is my absolute favorite series of all time. I could watch Advent Children ( original and complete ) on repeat, and I've played the original release so many times that I don't even need a guide to get a 100% on a brand new save ( Obsessed much? Yup ). I'm a completionist at heart, and this game is amazing and it provides a massive sense of nostalgia for me.

** SLIGHT SPOILER (maybe? You've been warned) Another amazing installment in the Final Fantasy series, this game is so well written in my opinion. It stays away from the bigger cliches you see in most RPGs ( eg : the guy gets the girl, friendship is the key to saving the world, etc. ), the characters are so individually complex, the villain technically wins and reminds you how easy it would be for you to become the same type of monster. Plus badass women that fix your car, lights up entire cities, wakes up the fucking Gods to fight on your side, takes the entire mercenary army they led and defects to your side? IN HEELS? YES PLEASE. It has one of the best enemy turned ally characters in the FF series; I'm just disappointed we didn't get to see much of Aranea after everything in Tenebrae. Also Ardyn has some serious daddy vibes, and I would literally give my left tit just to lick Aranea's boot ( oh, the things I would do to these two, phew~ ).

*** Let's be real here. The Kingdom Hearts Series makes zero sense if you didn't play all of them and you didn't pay attention to each and every detail, and I did neither. I played 2 and 3 when they originally came out, but in my defense: it doesn't look like a series that follows a singular story, something that I did not know at the time, and usually the series I play have an entirely different story per installment ( eg : Final Fantasy and Tales Of ). I tried to piece together the story from online synopses and second hand game play ( I watched someone else play ), and it just didn't work out. So, suffice to say, my knowledge of Kingdom Hearts goes about as far as basic facts regarding Organization XIII because they were my whole reason for trying the games in the first place. I'm still open to discussion about it, though! Just keep in mind my side will be very limited. Sorry!

To Be Read / Watched / Played : Helluva Boss ; Phantasy Star Series ; Final Fantasy Series [ 1-6 / 8 / 11-12 / 14 / 16 ] ; Diablo 4 ; Black Clover ; Hell's Paradise ; Fairy Tale ; The Seven Deadly Sins ; My Hero Academia

❖ Look out below for a face reveal!

Dividers used © anitalenia

[featheredxfiend]

Tea and Cuddles

Fandom: D.Gray-man Rating: G Pairing: Lavi/Allen Walker Total Words: 1.6k

This was written for day 1 of Laven Week 2023 (hosted by @lavenlovers)

Day One - Dawn Sunrise | Spring | Awakenings | Coffee/Tea | Birdsong

Summary: After a rough night of fighting two young exorcists take a moment to enjoy a slow, quiet morning cuddled together.

Excerpt:

Allen's smile softened as he reached up to brush a few stray strands of wild hair from Lavi's face causing him to nuzzle closer, mumbling something incomprehensible on a sigh though not showing any signs of waking. Letting his head sink back into the plush pillow Allen closed his eyes, allowing himself to bask in the calm moment.

The warmth of the light playing across his face and Lavi's soft snores beside him nearly lulled Allen back to sleep but he lightly shook his head and carefully extracted his arm from Lavi's grip, being careful not to wake him. He needed sleep after the battle they had just endured the day before. They both did really but Lavi had sustained more injuries than he should have by protecting the finders with them after their talismans failed.

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