Redemption By Proxy

Dye Their Flowers With My Blood - The Long Day Wanes

Some nights are very long, and not for good reasons.

Watching Heaven Official's Blessing with my Mom

The highlights so far after season 1:

'Why is he scared when someone mentions butterflies?' (I ... honestly can't answer that. Yeah, their wings can cut stuff - or people - but still, it seems so excessive.)

'Idiot woman, have some self respect.' (About Xuan Ji. Not how I would have put it, but I share the sentiment.)

'I want a little ribbon like that.' (About Ruoye, obviously. I tried to explain to her that she might reconsider eventually. She has since produced a white silk band from God-knows-where in her house and keeps fondling when we watch.) 'Aw, come on, how bad can it be?' (Worse. I offered to lend her the books after season 2.)

'I like that snake. I want one.' (She's a biologist.) 'Okay, maybe not that many.' (The scene where they pour down into the sinners' pit.)

'Are we going to see those two women again? They seem fun.' (Wind Master and Earth Master in Banyue arc. I told her yes. I managed not to look like I want to cry.)

'Isn't it a little early to be giving him a ring? Waiiiiit. ARE THOSE HIS ASHES?' (We had a death in the family recently and burning your ashes into a diamond was a VERY present topic of conversation over the past couple of weeks, but I feel so stupid now because I only got that one when HC says if the place where they're kept is destroyed he doesn't care anyway.)

Edit: I'm forty, she's seventy. I swear she knows more anime than me and this is the kind of story she totally digs.

Okay, listen. I never read WiPs because I got invested in too many of them before they were discontinued. I have no idea what possessed me to open this one first BUT I AM SO GLAD I DID and you should, too.

This fic takes a somewhat different direction regarding what will happen with Shi Qingxuan after canon, and it's believable and brilliantly executed.

Go on. If you like Beefleaf and slow burn and HELL I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW THIS IS GOING TO END but I think it'll be fine because if it isn't I'll cry ... Anyway, if you like those things, then read it.

New cover, same amazing Beef-Leaf fanfic!

Check out the 100k+ word, still-in-progress story now!

Soon We'll Be Found - Chapter 1 - bluberryblurays - 天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 | Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù [Archive of Our Own]

http://www.wattpad.com/story/359906100-soon-we%27ll-be-found-tgcf-beefleaf

One more day! Let's keep our lead. Viktor and Yuuri deserve better than to just fizzle out because some people dislike one of their names.

The Anime Binge-Watcher's Queer Anime Ship Tournament!

The second round rages on! This match-up has me absolutely terrified that my number-one pick is going to be crushed by the titan that is Victuuri. But I can hold out hope, right? Right??? Cast your votes now!

All Round 2 Match-Ups

Rules and Full Bracket

I'm sure someone has already said this, but I have resisted posting this for THREE DAYS and now I have to.

I can't get over how fitting the name Ship-Sinking Black Water is.

Because that fellow sank his own ship so, so hard.

I don't even blame him, mind you. I actually like him, even though he's an acquired taste for me. I just want to scream at him and maybe whack him on the head until he uses it.

But other than that I'm totally sane about these people.

Avenge the Living, Heal the Dead

New Chapter:

Shi Qingxuan wants to go back to his investigation, and since he can't stop him without sitting on him, He Xuan does his best to be helpful.

Okay this is lovely. They have an extremely lovely longfic, too*, which I've just read and I have no words.

The Waves are Rising and Rising, to be found on Ao3. Seriously. It's so, so good.

happy valentines day! have some happy 3zun, based on a lovely moment from the Good Mornin'! sequence in Singin In The Rain :)

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 💀]

This is pretty much exactly my customer service face.

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.)