If Anyone Ever Wonders Why I Left The Abramamitic Religions Behind Me In Favour Of Some Weird Form Agnostic

It's bloody 7 A.M. and I was not ready for this.

it just wasn’t meant to be

The only point of contention I have is that if Jiggy ascended, they wouldn't need Ling Wen so very desperately.

WHY TF IS JIN GUANGYAO IN THE TGCF MANHUA

Avenge the Living, Heal the Dead

New chapter:

Once affairs in heaven are brought to a semblance of order, Xie Lian and Hua Cheng finally get to look for the ghost causing trouble in the Royal Capital.

Oooh this is interesting. When I write gay couples (in fan fiction or in original fiction), I usually depict them as an egalitarian's wet dream. (I'm shamelessly borrowing that wording from somewhere, but I cannot for the life of me remember where.) Hold on, my couples are always like that, but with straight couples I sometimes feel like I have to make more of an effort to make this evenness seen, if that makes sense.

Now I've read a bunch of YOI fan fiction, some very recent one, among them, only a couple of months ago, that depicts Yuuri as the sole provider of household chores. With one particular creator, that became so glaring that to me Yuuri seemed to be more a glorified maid with benefits than a partner, and I wondered, what on earth is Viktor doing while you slave away? Sleep? How did he survive before? Yuuri, of course, is completely grateful that he's allowed in Viktor's life and of course he's doing what seems to be his tasks by default.

Now I can totally see Viktor having a cleaning service. I can also see Yuuri saying that this is really frivolous and unnecessary and they can do it bloody well themselves. I can see Viktor saying, yeah, great, knock yourself out. But I can't see him letting his partner do everything without lifting a finger like Yuuri is his demure wife in some male boomer's utopia.

I was aware of this entire uke/seme division and that there are people who see a clear divide there, but I have dismissed it because it's completely ridiculous to think that the preference towards being receptive or active in bed equals personality traits and what the person is expected to do in the household. This is not how people work, pure and simple, it's dated, it's harmful, and above all those, it is plain false.

Now かっこいい is probably the exact word I'd have used for Viktor. It's the word Yuuko uses for Viktor in the flashback. In the anime, however, Viktor has several moments, where I think かわいい is much more fitting a descriptor for him. (Where he's fallen asleep against Yuuri on the plane, for example.) In YOI, both characters can be assertive and cautious and foolish and kind and harsh and soft. Just like people in real life. Reducing them to this flawed uke/seme duality does them a huge disservice. It makes them so much less human.

Of course this is just a 0730 opinion that deviates miles from the original post and not any sort of deep wisdom or insight.

Today's translation #460

Go Yuri Go!!!, Yuri!!! on ICE official fanbook, Jun'ichi Suwabe interview

Part 4.

-- Please tell us about a scene, in which you had trouble playing Victor.

S: The honest answer would be "all the scenes", but if I have to pick up some, then I will say it was the beginning of the show, episodes 1~3, I think? It was really tough for me, trying to understand the nature of Victor Nikiforov. It seemed to me that I didn't have enough information to create the character as one realistic, living human being - well, one reason was that it is an original anime. I don't usually have to worry a lot about how I should express emotions of characters I play, but as I've mentioned before, in case of Victor, I often was asked to play him in a completely different, almost opposite, way to what my image of the character was. It was me, who played the role, but I don't really feel that I did. Probably because often I was expressing [in my performance] different emotions than those of Victor that lives inside me.

-- What the directing was like during voice-over recording?

S: If I played the character going based on the context of the lines I was saying and additional information written in the screenplay, Victor would become a cool (かっこいい) character. But I think that the directors wanted Victor to be, first and foremost, not so much a "cool character", but "a genius that don't fit the standard". I think it was like a trial and error method for us to get that right. I was often asked to do multiple takes like: "It wasn't bad, but lets try something different".

-- Victor's "Vkusno!" was so cute. Was that you who came with the idea to say in that way?

S: I said it that way during a test recording and I wasn't told anything about it, so I said it in the same way during the actual recording.

[Notes: I must have stop reading this interview on the Makkachin vs. Yuuri answer, because it really surprised me that he has said that Victor wasn't supposed to be a "cool character"...

A large part of YoI fandom in Jp were fujos absolutely obsessed with gender norms and who is seme who is uke blah blah... (I've ranted about this before).

Seme should be cool (かっこいい) and uke should be cute（かわいい）period... And based on that cute Victor arts were according to them "against canon".

It's really interesting, because before this guidebook was published uke-Yuuri fujos had a massive meltdown over the art that was drawn for it, with Yurio in the center and no rings.... It was then slightly redrawn (but Victor still has gloves, so "no ring").

There was so much anti-fujos dog-whistling in YoI, and reading this interview I wonder if maybe this "Victor not cool, but cute" and the weird, slightly anti-Yuuri answers (the Makkachin vs. Yuuri etc.) were because of that... It would take me a lot of time to summarize for you the whole history of this behavior from Avex&co., but one day I'll do that 💀]

Dye Their Flowers With My Blood - A Bringer of New Things

People from your past don't always stay there.

Avenge the Living, Heal the Dead

New Chapter:

The best laid plans don't always work out. And Shi Qingxuan's plan was never all that good to begin with.

Dye Their Flowers With My Blood - I Am a Part of All That I Have Met

How wary should one be of a stranger offering passage on their ship?

Progress Report: In Truth No Beauty, in Lies No Refuge

The first draft of my sequel to Avenge the Living, Heal the Dead, is - as of now - complete. Now I have to proofread and edit - heavily, in a few spots.

I have heard that whole thing about gardeners and architects. I've always thought of myself as the latter: I usually know when I start writing where I'm going and how I'll get there. This time, I am really glad I didn't post while I wrote, because I wouldn't be anywhere near the finishing line if I couldn't go back and adapt to changes in my plans. (That is why one of my older fics, Tug-o-War, took me almost five years. I've since learned a lesson: Finish before posting.)

So I'll need a bit for this process, then I'm sending it to my beta. And once it's back, I can start to post.

The title will be In Truth No Beauty, in Lies No Refuge. My working title was 'High Water Over Hell', but I was increasingly unhappy with that (because anything that would have made that make sense never made it into the text). I'll let you know when it goes to my beta and when she's cleared it. :)

I have fought and lost a small internal battle today. The result will be a Huaibao oneshot. I'm going to read through it tomorrow and send it to my beta as a surprise. Once it's back, I'll post it to Ao3. The name will be Nothing Sweeter Than His Peace.