#if you cross check when the albums came out VS the novels you'll be fine

[holdharmonysacred]

man I will say vaguely related that like. part of it could just be that my ex-friends’ ideas on this were shit. but I feel like a lot of stuff gets lumped under the term “gatekeeping” that probably shouldn’t be, and indeed, including some stuff under the term just muddies what the problem with gatekeeping actually is. Like, my ex-friends tried to argue that saying “You’re getting into this series in the wrong order, here’s the right order” is gatekeeping, when like... the intent in that situation isn’t to put people down or keep people out, it’s to help people get in in the first place by going “Oh wow, no wonder you’re deeply confused, you started at M when you gotta start at A” and putting them on the right path. Not to mention that there are a lot of bigger series that have reputations of being confusing even though the series itself is fine because newcomers keep going in in the wrong order, and shitting on any attempt to go “You gotta do it in x order” just sabotages any and all attempts to solve that problem. At the very least I feel like we should expand the gates metaphor a little more and start coining terms like “lockpicking” for that situation of “fan who tells people you gotta get into a work in a specific way/guy who stands at the gates and teaches people the specific steps needed to solve the puzzle to pass”.

#it's been years and i still carry a blood grudge with me over the myriad of discord arguments over what order you get into ec in #i still hard stand by my argument that with ec you HAVE to go in release order because the entire series is built on release order #i don't care how much you think chronological makes more sense. this is NOT a series you want chronological for. #if you go chronological in ec you WILL get hit with the most spoilery dark and fucked up arc first #and then if you try to skip that you will get hit with the second most dark and fucked up (and also horniest) arc #whereas if you go in release order you will start with DoE which is a MUCH easier starting point that eases you in #it's the most infuriating thing to see other fans go 'why do people think this series is confusing and weird' #only to turn around and recommend the most overwhelming and spoileriffic reading order possible #songs order isn't even valid either because you just follow the albums!!!!!! just follow the album track lists in order and go #if you cross check when the albums came out VS the novels you'll be fine #this isn't hard to solve at all everyone's just stubborn and takes personal offense when you say 'chrono order is bad'