After Watching CQL, I Feel The Need To Write A Fanfic. Because Of Course I Do. Now I Just Need To Finish

Avenge the Living, Heal the Dead

New Chapter:

The investigation has been crudely planned, but it leads ... well, somewhere. How to get back from wherever that is is a different question entirely.

I'm not a fan of fall. Or winter. Or anything that isn't scorching hot summer. Seriously, give me a city at 40°C any day, that's more than fine. The one bright light is figure skating. It makes the whole freezing drab wetness bearable.

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 💀]

That one time I bought a cheap automatic wrist watch at a discount store, just to see if it would work for me. The cashier told me twice that it was a men's watch. Both times I said that I knew this and I wanted to buy it. If she'd said it a third time, I would have asked where she thinks a man would wear the watch so that I, as a woman, can't. Sadly, she clearly read on my face that it would be better to shut her trap.

dude today a customer brought me a birthday card and asked me "is this a girl birthday card or a unisex birthday card? I thought it was unisex but when I scanned it at the self-checkout it said girl birthday card." the birthday card was just a bunch of balloons with the text "happy birthday". and then when I was like "i dunno I think that's just the official name of the card on our system I'm sure a boy would be happy with the card" the customer was like "well if it is a girl birthday card can you tell me if this other birthday card is unisex or for girls? if the other card is unisex I'd like to exchange the girl birthday card for the unisex one". Like what. You can look at the cards. With your eyeballs. You are holding them both you can see them and decide whether or not you want the card. What the fuck are you talking about why are you asking me this

reblog if you’ve read fanfictions that are more professional, better written than some actual novels. I’m trying to see something

Dye Their Flowers With My Blood - Make Mild a Rugged People

The night will keep your secrets when you lay your heart bare.

Watching Heaven Official's Blessing with my Mom - season 2

For the record, she's 70, I'm 40. I introduced her to the Donghua because I knew she'd love it.

"I think your husband* has a few screws loose." (About Shi Qingxuan trying to turn Xie Lian into a woman.)

"Be nicer to him. I'd drop you at once." (About the Earth Master being rescued, then carried.)

"Are you sure this is your husband?" I confirmed this. "Oh honey, I think your husband is gay." (Same as above, pretty much only a blink later.)

She had an eye-rolling contest with Mu Qing when he and Feng Xin fought while Xie Lian was under arrest. She would have won.

"Oh, but he's whipped." (About Hua Cheng helping to free the prisoners in Qi Rong's lair. She believes he might not have bothered. I'm a bit on the fence about this, knowing how he made Eming - and more to the point, how he did not. But I can hardly tell her that.)

There was no verbal response to Qi Rong aside from an exhausted "Pitiful." She observed him with the same expression she might use on a particularly slow dog.

"Now there's a guy you know never got laid." (She said this when Shi Qingxuan threw her breasts at Feng Xin. I was howling with laughter, she thinks it was in agreement, but it was obviously a bit more hysteria-tinged.) She also noted my husband is a brat. I can't argue with that.

She asked me if Xie Lian killed that guy at the end. I told her if she wants to know that she'll either have to be VERY patient until season 3 comes - or be moderately patient and read the books where that answer doesn't come at once, either.

*I told her that on the fuck - marry - kill list Shi Qingxuan is number two. I told her that fuck is Pei Ming because that man has experience. The way Xuan Ji clings to him, he must have some skill, too. Kill is Shi Wudu, but I did not say that to her, just that it's a character she hasn't met. She knows I dislike the Water Master, but she doesn't know how much. I didn't give that answer lightly, in my defence. There are very few characters I resent enough in TGCF, if any, but I had to name someone.)

Adding that if anyone needs an example of a character that acts VERY feminine and uses ore, I'd like them to take a good, hard look at Jakotsu, who also uses 俺.

Do you know this queer character?

Victor is MLM and uses he/him pronouns!

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. :)

This is so beautiful! If you make a calendar, I’ll be needing one, that much I know already. They look so very happy and they both deserve it. <3

I said I'll give Yuuri dimples and I'm very happy I did.

This is cropped, the full painting is here on Patreon. (Payments currently paused until I can paint reliably again.)

I got lucky for being able to finish this, most of my art is on a hard drive I can't access until I find somewhere that carries the right cable. This painting was on a different folder on my desktop, because it's with pieces I'm planning to print.

I'm years late with the calendar I wanted to make, but I still want to do it. I'm making the month pages and definitely adding YOI character birthdays.