About

Frieren With a Gun or Fern With a Gun refers to memes, fan art and cosplay depicting Frieren or Fern from Frieren: Beyond Journey's End wielding guns. The trend became increasingly popular throughout late 2023 and early 2024, escalated by a cosplayer who went viral for posing as Frieren while riding in a car with a mounted gun.

Origin

On October 24th, 2023, TensorArt^[1] user Ttan posted several AI-generated images of Frieren, including one where she's wearing body armor and holding a gun (shown below, left). This is the earliest known piece of art to depict Frieren with a gun. On November 1st, X^[2] user @heromedley posted a drawing of Fern with a gun, writing, "fern study," garnering over 13,000 likes in four months (shown below, right).

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Researching

On December 17th, 2023, X^[3] user @Neneko0814 posted a series of photos of herself in Frieren cosplay with a gun, captioned, "I'm telling you , these things are better than magic wands! 😎" garnering over 27,000 likes in three months (shown below, left). On December 19th, u/hmmsucks posted a redraw of one of the photos to /r/Frieren,^[4] garnering over 1,500 upvotes in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On December 25th, X^[5] user @JohnnyGuit4r posted a meme drawing Fern with a gun having just shot Bocchi from Bocchi the Rock!, based on a screenshot of two YouTube thumbnails that align to make it look as if Fern is holding a gun, garnering over 28,000 likes in three months (shown below). It was reposted to /r/Frieren^[6] the next day, garnering over 2,200 upvotes in the same span of time.

On January 4th, 2024, Redditor u/asilvertintedrose posted an image macro using an image of Frieren dual-wielding guns to /r/Frieren,^[7] garnering over 1,300 upvotes in two months (shown below, left). On March 22nd, X^[8] user @bac0n_pancakes_ posted another redraw of the YouTube gun thumbnails, garnering over 120,000 likes in a week (shown below, right). It was reposted to /r/Frieren^[9] that day, garnering over 1,700 upvotes in the same span of time.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References