follow me into the rain

Will deactivate my private Twitter account soon.

Found a few old tweet threads, wanted to save the observation:

"sudden gintakazura thought (i haven't considered this too closely so i might well change my mind): from takasugi's pov, i could see the angle that gintoki is the one his mind tends to dwell on, whether he races to match up to his skill or delights in hurting himself by hating him

and by contrast, katsura is someone takasugi has an easier time overlooking, or should one say compartmentalizing him, when he's not right there.
but when zura *is* there, then he does consume takasugi's thoughts, making him want to possess him/stir him up/leave his mark on him

and even in a way compete with gintoki over zura.
although his flame might burn more intensely for gintoki, he wouldn't think of competing with zura over gin... that just never occurs to him. it's okay for *takasugi* to prioritize fighting gintoki (or beating him, obsessing over

him, etc) but it's not okay for zura to ignore takasugi in favour of gintoki!!"

( more behind the cut )

Two more writing exercises with a Gintoki/Katsura theme.

First one was cheating a bit since it used emojis to signify who's talking, thus being able to be more succinct than it otherwise could have done.

Comfortably Mysterious

Second one, an experiment that maybe doesn't quite work (but that's exactly what these tweetfics are for, to try out stuff in a no-pressure way):

Contradictions: Thoughts vs Words

https://twitter.com/su_ha_59/status/805766634979758080 - Gintoki washing Sadaharu
https://twitter.com/moromoro10101/status/1247214714779656198 - amazing symbolic pic of the White Yaksha in a sea of blood and corpses
https://mobile.twitter.com/WI110W_/status/1247883420404813825 - post-timeskip Shinpachi
https://mobile.twitter.com/usineko_r/status/1247865329667039233 - Joui Four, war era - kid!Sakamoto with the other three
https://twitter.com/GbcRb9CkiZLaqEF/status/1248153035974397954 - Joui Four in cherry tree
https://twitter.com/makima96/status/1248598104296656897 - post-Benizakura Katsura, smiling beatifically
https://twitter.com/sumeragitec/status/1248596643047288833 - Kyubei/Otae, out for a walk, eating ice cream

https://twitter.com/GbcRb9CkiZLaqEF/status/1247819767185989632, scattered petals, I
https://twitter.com/GbcRb9CkiZLaqEF/status/1247819840141676553 - scattered petals, II
https://twitter.com/GbcRb9CkiZLaqEF/status/1247819900350902273 - scattered petals, III
https://twitter.com/GbcRb9CkiZLaqEF/status/1247819960291749895 - scattered petals, IV

https://twitter.com/yakitarako0141/status/1246399993931378689 - Ginzura: Zura has found a pretty cherry tree, but Gintoki is content to just look at Zura
https://twitter.com/hr_kkh/status/910117521138753537 - Ginzura: Gintoki is spoiled (old pic)
https://twitter.com/yuzu_pon_zzz/status/1248209385517502467 - Stylish badass noir duo
https://twitter.com/yakitarako0141/status/1249313253215240192 - scared Gintoki has jumped into Zura's arms
https://www.pixiv.net/artworks/80812617 - Pixiv artlog, over 100 pics, many are Ginzura. Amazing stuff by ame_akr on Twitter

https://twitter.com/ururyo_ss/status/1247561230086098944 - text post, on what might be Laputa references in the Benizakura arc

I've started a practice inspired by some Japanese Gintama fans I follow on Twitter. They use the character restraint on Old Twitter, 120 characters, to write some extremely short fanfic based on a pairing and prompt. Since Japanese characters can say more than Roman letters, I took the liberty of expanding the limit to 230 characters, or in other words exactly how much you can use to fill up a single tweet.

The whole point of this is for it to be a kind of ephemeral throwaway writing exercise, lowering your inhibitions because since it's so tough to write something actually good, I just... write something. 100-word drabbles actually feel intidimidating to me (though 300-word ficlets don't) because they're so much about being a Challenge to be Only This Short, But Good! But these Twitter tiny-fics don't feel like they have to be good. Especially since there's no edit button on Twitter...

Since these tweetfics are meant to be ephemeral, I really shouldn't save the links to them at all, but here I am posting them anyway! Eternally wishy-washy, that's me.

The pairing is Gintoki/Katsura, no spoilers. The first three are light-hearted, the last two more serious. I'm afraid I came up with the prompts myself, so they're not "pure" prompts.

Think about what you did
Ear-Cleaning
Souvenirs
Relief
Mask

It's interesting to be restricted to character count rather than word count. Have any of you done similar writing exercises?

A collection of genuinely new stuff, stuff that's not actually new but new-to-me, stuff that's not even new-to-me but I haven't saved links to them before and I want to now, plus a great pic I can't resist linking to again.

( Gen and various non-Ginzura ships )
( Ginzura )

I got some lovely Gintama tweets for my birthday yesterday! Since Twitter is a nightmare for finding stuff you like later, I'm collecting the links here so I can go back and check. ♥

This lovely Japanese fan artist* makes fan art for their follower's birthdays if they ask for it! This was the only one I kind of expected to get, but I signed up for it back in July so I would have totally understood if they forgot - but I got amazing stage magic with Katsura and Elizabeth! ♥
https://twitter.com/pEXmBJZhaWniPr0/status/1201514416186855429

I squeed so much to get this Ginzura pic from syl_pli, who's an utter sweetheart (and a source of great Gintama meta thoughts):
https://twitter.com/syl_pli/status/1201786870876790784

Then leesunrie posed and shot their adorable Gintoki & Katsura paper figures, adding paper cake! Extremely kawaii.
https://twitter.com/leesunrie/status/1201847079821180930

Cosmic_coda, who makes terrific Gintama fanart, drew this heartwarming Zura pic!
https://twitter.com/cosmic_coda/status/1201835852671811584

Finally, nitabe0 posted a Ginzura manip from the anime for me where the two are snuggling up back in the war. Potentially angsty but beautiful!!!
https://twitter.com/nitabe0/status/1201880886536540162

Many thanks for these and for all the other lovely birthday greetings I got!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥


*If you like Gintama but don't ship anything, this artist is recommended - I've only seen them draw gen art.