Pouring one out for Denim_Blue... · 6:16pm Apr 2nd, 2021
I was informed last night by Silverblade5 that Denim_Blue has deleted his Fimfiction account, and with them, all his stories. I'm thus very sorry to report that the fandom in general and the Gentlemanverse in particular has just lost another fine author. 
He was not just a good writer and peer, but my friend. He was a fine prereader who made my works far better; I loved his comments and he had me in stitches more than once at the jokes and asides he left on my Google Doc chapter drafts. He also had this incredible knack of suggesting or asking about something in one sentence only to find it was already included or answered in the very next, which became a running joke and never got old.
Heck, at one point, I even asked him if he'd write a joke chapter for Firefly as an April Fool's prank to readers, in which he would write a battle or parley scene in the style of Art of Warmance--a comedic romance play from one of his Gentlemanverse stories. It would have been hilarious.
But that chance is gone now. I regret I'm not sure what happened. I know he was having some persistent health issues last year and some family ones as well, which I won't go into. He lost interest in prereading for my M-rated stuff, as my style and subject matter wasn't really his thing, but he continued on with Firefly, even to the point that he wrote some very good guest chapters for it.
Then in autumn, after his last guest chapter, he disappeared from the site and stopped answering PMs. He also wouldn't reply on Skype. I didn't know what happened and still don't; I half-worried that COVID had claimed him. But if he came back to delete his account, at least I know he's alive.
You know, I get that people get burned out on writing or otherwise lose interest in certain hobbies/communities, and have to move on from them. I've come close to it myself a couple times. But I still wish he'd at least said goodbye and explained himself. Whatever was wrong, I would have understood and wished him well.
I still do. The shame of it is, he had plenty of unpublished stuff he was still working on--as we exchanged prereading duties, I'd seen them; he had a couple excellent new Spike-centered stories on the way as well as several additional chapters for A Gentleman in Training. He never believed in releasing them piecemeal; he didn't want to publish them until he had several chapters ready at once or the stories were completed.
But they never were. Maybe he ended up with too many unfinished projects and got overwhelmed, so he simply decided to nix them all. I felt some of that earlier this year, actually, and resolved it by deciding to exclusively focus on two stories instead of being crushed by the weight of everything I had yet to finish.
Whatever his reasons for leaving, the fandom is a smaller and less-fun place today. Though you'll probably never see this, I'd just like to say goodbye, Denim, and thanks for everything. I'll do my best to take over your Changeling chapters in Firefly and finish them. 
If nothing else, your ideas and excellent Changeling characters/canon will live on through the Firefly series, and your stories will remain on the FimFetch archives:
Whatever your plans tonight, please join me in pouring a glass of your preferred libation. Let us then raise a glass in toast to not just a writer who was one of the best authors to ever grace this site, but to a departed friend.
*Pours out a shot of fine irish whiskey*
Always sad, seeing another author depart. I hope he finds happiness, wherever he may be.
EDIT: Oh, if I scroll down, you already did this.
A mirror of the deleted stories on FiMFetch
That is too bad about whatever Demin Blue had going that lead to this.
FiMFetch, Fimarchive, etc are all great, but I kind of wish that Fimfiction had some kind of built in functionality that would allow an author to delete themselves and at the same time all of their stories get shunted to some Fimfiction Uncredited site account so that readers could still enjoy their works.
5489026
Like AO3's Orphan account?
Also, why not float to the staff as an idea?
At least he isn't dead. He had to physically disable his account. To be honest, he left us long ago. What bothers me is that he couldn't at least tell one of us he was leaving. It's like he had some sort of vendetta against us or something.
We'll never know what his issue was, but I wish him all the best.
I hate when people do this. I honestly take it as a slap to the face every time it happens. I understand leaving, I understand moving on... But I've never understood the desire to scrub your account. It feels like denying all the good times you had in the community, denying the friendships you've made and telling others that you don't think they deserve to enjoy your efforts.
But I'll treat it like I always do. I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.
I recognize several of his stories as ones I read and enjoyed years ago; I am genuinely saddened that they are gone from the site now. I'll join in pouring one out.
It is sad if someone you know just decides to suddenly leave and while I haven't read any of his stories his guest chapters for Firefly were just as good as the rest.