Occasionally Snarky and Meta

(this is probably wrong because i avoid vkei twitter like the plague and don't use tiktok at all, but it's my experience from places like tumblr/pinterest/reddit/fan forums/ao3)

Type One: Malice Mizer-Heads and Adjacents:

- Their first vkei band is Malice Mizer, and it's usually their main love, but a lot of them do branch out into adjacent tanbi kei or more (relatively) chill kote kei bands over time.
- Wind up saying a lot of ignorant things, but generally very willing and eager to learn when corrected.
- Also usually into nostalgia for late-90s-2000s Japanese Goth Culture ("old-school lolita", "gothic" manga from that era", etc)
- The most likely out of all of these groups to write fanfiction/draw fanart/do "Transformative Fandom" stuff.

Type Two: The Menhera Kei Crowd:

- As the name suggests, fans of "menhera kei" bands (Kaneto Juusei, gulu gulu/I to Rito no Musuzokyu, Senketsu Ako-chan and Mamireta are the big ones)
- Wind up saying a lot of ignorant things, but in my personal experience, are more likely to get defensive and dig their heels in when corrected.
- Typically precisely as menhera as their faves are, which results in a lot of unfiltered social media crashouts, dumb callout posts, freakouts once they realize what their favorite songs are about, the whole shebang.
- At least they tend to make some pretty funny memes.

Type Three: The Honorary Oldhead

- Their natural habitat is the fandoms for okeshou/proto-visual/kurofuku kei bands (X Japan, Buck-Tick, I've seen them into Luna Sea, Soft Ballet, and Der Zibet, as well)
- Typically very chill, they like to do their research and reading and enjoy digging around old fansites.
- A lot of them wind up becoming Walking Encyclopedias of their Favorite Guy, which is very cute and endearing behavior.
- Some of them are obviously Very Young, but for quite a few of them you'll be chatting about stuff and then they offhandedly mention they're like 15 and you're like "what the fuck, what the fuck, you did not give off that vibe at all."

Gotten to late May of 2007 and it's vaguely unsettling feeling the effects of Strikethrough without any actual mention of what we now know was Strikethrough. "Because of the rumors about journals getting deleted, I'm friendslocking all of my fic." "I wanted this fic to be fluffier, but because of the thing with LJ, it turned out kind of angsty, sorry." Seeing that the last captures made of one particular BNF's fics to the Wayback Machine were all made in late May/early June of 2007.

That last one kind of gets me, honestly. It's just this sort of uncanny feeling of like, being so close to another fan who also cares deeply about preserving the things they love, and being able to guess at what they were feeling and that their feelings were similar to mine in a way. I want to make sure that this is safe so that LiveJournal won't be able to take it away from me. I understand. I understand, my fellow Committer of RPF Crimes. I'm pressing my hand in your fossilized handprint right now, in my mind.


~*~


Sadly, the link is broken, but...

What if Kai owned a Hooters restaurant, with j-rockers as the employees?

Truly, this author was before their time.


~*~

Hella interesting post from August 2007 asking the comm a bunch of questions about their favorite pairings, including who the seme and uke are, why the seme and uke are the seme and uke, and if you could see them switching. The answers are fascinating.

Why do you think [the seme and uke are the seme and uke]? Reasoning?

"All depends on the personality. In short, as others have wrote, it should really be clear by that as to who's seme and who is uke."

"classic rules on yaoi; seme mention before uke, seme is older and taller than uke, and (usually) have darker hair than uke.>>> read it somewhere on mags ^.~"

(explaining why they ship switch) "Well they all have the same parts, and they're all men, therefore all with the same needs. It's a give-take relationship; sometimes one gives, sometimes takes."

"I don't believe in the seme/uke roles because it's not realistic that one would always top and one would always bottom. I only use Dominant/submissive roles when I write about BDSM relationships where it's natural."

"Well, generally I don't have an iron-set roles for people... Though, granted, some people just don't work as ukes/semes."

"I don't believe in strict uke/seme roles unless it's within the context of a BSDM relationship. In my fics they always switch, and I tend to prefer reading fids where they switch, too."

Is there a change [sic] for turning tables? Why shouldn't uke turn into seme for a while?

"They can, but they always seem to return to the original way afterwards. ^^"

"There are some I might take into consideration when playing with both roles however there are concrete pairings where I prefer one party be submissive throughout the relationship."

"honestly, personally, i dont like if uke turn into seme." [sic]

"I view 'uke' and 'seme' as simply a way to describe who's being fucked and who's fucking, not a concrete role."

"I prefer they do. I think in terms of a real relationship equality is a big part and not all men, especially in couples like KaoruxKyo, would want to bottom constantly. Even uke's [sic] need a power trip once in awhile."

"Honestly, I'd define any relationship in which the tables never turn as kind of abusive and think that the top was being pretty selfish."

"I love it when the "obvious" uke tops XD" (you and me both buster)

"Oh yes. I love when it's a fight for top. XD it's almost always amusing."