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I couldn’t not make something for 9′s tenth anniversary this year, just in case you think I didn’t remember. This was made in September actually but the thing is I didn't get around to seeing 9 until December.
How could I ever forget 2009?
By the time 9 was out in theaters, I was stuffing myself with other people’s pre-movie induced fan fiction and comics to escape the fact that my father was threatening us, shooting my mom’s plates at home, and stalking us. I went into the world of 9 to escape the world where my parents were separating and we had to live in a hotel cause we didn’t feel safe around my dad. I know that sounds crazy. 9′s a story about man-made humunculi desperately trying to survive in a distopian alternate history where other man made creations TRY TO KILL THEM - and succeed - doesn’t sound like a jolly jaunt for the whole family.
A year later, my dad was dead and my childhood was basically over. Looking back, I wonder if this subconcsiously has anything to do with why I hated 9 fan fiction that brought all the dead stitchpunks back. When you loose people around you, it makes you connect all the more to your fandom in which characters also loose people they love. It also makes it all the more rage inducing when some wide-eyed fan says “naaaww they all get resurrected and live happily ever after” - doesn’t sound cute when you’re living through hell and know that no, people DON’T come back through magiscience.
I made so many friends through the 9 fandom and yet I’m so embarrassed by my days as a fan. Corney fan fics, OCs, fan lingo, and other stuff’s not the problem. What was a problem was my behavior. On and offline I lashed out at people, drove friends away, and hurt friends who stayed - all over a little so-so indie film with terrible pacing about doll people. Maybe other people don’t think my behavior was appalling, but I do. My turmoil at home isn’t an excuse for the things I did. Ten years later and I have successfully published a book like I’ve always wanted. But instead of feeling proud and professional I only feel afraid and deeply confused. I feel like there’s no way I could possibly be the same person I was back in the days of 9…but I am.
9′s quality as a film irks me more and more and it makes me all the more embarrassed that I was so protective of it once upon a time. And yet, I will never think it’s a bad movie. It will always be an important one for me, even with all it’s many, MANY flaws and desire to rewrite it into something new. But for all it’s faults, 9 also has some strangely profound advice and a message I think I needed to hear at the time of my life going to absolute hell:
There’s nothing left of the old world that you knew, not really. What ‘survives’ is gonna slowly fade away or die off. It won’t come back. But you’re still here and the important thing is that you still remember.
The world ahead of you - your future - is what YOU make of it…whatever “it” is. Even at it’s brightest, “it” is gonna be scary and come with new sacrifices and obstacles for whatever new life is left. That’s the profound message of 9 TO ME; man brought about the end of life on earth but also made the new form of life on earth to begin with.
Where the full length movie I think fumbles this message a bit, the og short where 9 is the sole survivor if his clan actually brought me to tears recently as I rewatched it.
9 told 12/13-year-old me that life is cruel and the real world IS scary, but you can and will survive because you are the remnant of something lost. Some things must be sacrificed, you’re gonna make some really stupid choices along the way, you may have victory one minute only to be grabbed and skilled while Judy Garland sings in the background, but it isn’t the end because something is left over. 9 told me that even the end of the world isn’t the end of everything, which you need to hear in such a dire, ugly situation as your life going to hell at the worst possible time.
So thank you 9, and more importantly, the 9 Fandom. Sorry you had to put up with me and my shite. I consider you very important to me for all I’ve been through with you at my side.

Description

I couldn’t not make something for 9′s tenth anniversary this year, just in case you think I didn’t remember. This was made in September actually but the thing is I didn't get around to seeing 9 until December.
How could I ever forget 2009?
By the time 9 was out in theaters, I was stuffing myself with other people’s pre-movie induced fan fiction and comics to escape the fact that my father was threatening us, shooting my mom’s plates at home, and stalking us. I went into the world of 9 to escape the world where my parents were separating and we had to live in a hotel cause we didn’t feel safe around my dad. I know that sounds crazy. 9′s a story about man-made humunculi desperately trying to survive in a distopian alternate history where other man made creations TRY TO KILL THEM - and succeed - doesn’t sound like a jolly jaunt for the whole family.
A year later, my dad was dead and my childhood was basically over. Looking back, I wonder if this subconcsiously has anything to do with why I hated 9 fan fiction that brought all the dead stitchpunks back. When you loose people around you, it makes you connect all the more to your fandom in which characters also loose people they love. It also makes it all the more rage inducing when some wide-eyed fan says “naaaww they all get resurrected and live happily ever after” - doesn’t sound cute when you’re living through hell and know that no, people DON’T come back through magiscience.
I made so many friends through the 9 fandom and yet I’m so embarrassed by my days as a fan. Corney fan fics, OCs, fan lingo, and other stuff’s not the problem. What was a problem was my behavior. On and offline I lashed out at people, drove friends away, and hurt friends who stayed - all over a little so-so indie film with terrible pacing about doll people. Maybe other people don’t think my behavior was appalling, but I do. My turmoil at home isn’t an excuse for the things I did. Ten years later and I have successfully published a book like I’ve always wanted. But instead of feeling proud and professional I only feel afraid and deeply confused. I feel like there’s no way I could possibly be the same person I was back in the days of 9…but I am.
9′s quality as a film irks me more and more and it makes me all the more embarrassed that I was so protective of it once upon a time. And yet, I will never think it’s a bad movie. It will always be an important one for me, even with all it’s many, MANY flaws and desire to rewrite it into something new. But for all it’s faults, 9 also has some strangely profound advice and a message I think I needed to hear at the time of my life going to absolute hell:
There’s nothing left of the old world that you knew, not really. What ‘survives’ is gonna slowly fade away or die off. It won’t come back. But you’re still here and the important thing is that you still remember.
The world ahead of you - your future - is what YOU make of it…whatever “it” is. Even at it’s brightest, “it” is gonna be scary and come with new sacrifices and obstacles for whatever new life is left. That’s the profound message of 9 TO ME; man brought about the end of life on earth but also made the new form of life on earth to begin with.
Where the full length movie I think fumbles this message a bit, the og short where 9 is the sole survivor if his clan actually brought me to tears recently as I rewatched it.
9 told 12/13-year-old me that life is cruel and the real world IS scary, but you can and will survive because you are the remnant of something lost. Some things must be sacrificed, you’re gonna make some really stupid choices along the way, you may have victory one minute only to be grabbed and skilled while Judy Garland sings in the background, but it isn’t the end because something is left over. 9 told me that even the end of the world isn’t the end of everything, which you need to hear in such a dire, ugly situation as your life going to hell at the worst possible time.
So thank you 9, and more importantly, the 9 Fandom. Sorry you had to put up with me and my shite. I consider you very important to me for all I’ve been through with you at my side.