Reblogging This Because I'm Relieved I'm Not The Only One Who Sees Him Like This. Quan Yizhen's Whole

THIS IS SO GOOD.

they're really pretty shit at sex at the start but they get better

[ao3 link]

Avenge the Living, Heal the Dead

New Chapter:

Xie Lian has made his report. His plan for the rest of the night is to go home and sleep - and he'll get to do just that. Except there is this one little thing ...

(Note: I also posted the epilogue already, so we are, officially, finished!)

A plea for imperfection

Warning: Random rambling ahead.

A friend of mine is beta reading my YoI fan fiction and in the second part (Love Aims At One Scope) she got really mad at Viktor. She's only seen the anime once, and when he makes a rather nasty, off-hand statement to an OC who is trying to make him feel better, she couldn't see it.

But here's the deal, Viktor isn't as clean as he seems. He is the epitome of a person who has no filter.

In the real world, a lot of people who say that about themselves use it as an excuse to be cruel. They put others down intentionally and enjoy it, and when that person has the audacity to tell them they're hurt, they claim they were only joking or gaslight the person in some other way.

Mind you, that is NOT how I see Viktor.

He's a great guy, he cares, he's affectionate, he can be incredibly kind and understanding - and sometimes he talks before he thinks through what effect his words will have. And that sentence in my fic - as bad as it is - I think is completely in character. I really contemplated changing that, or at least have him say something that isn't THAT bad, but it's something I can see. That sentence will stay.

I love Viktor. He's a wonderful human being. But he's also an incredibly flawed deuteragonist who hides his shortcomings behind his charms so well it works in the real world, apparently, not just within the universe.

My friend has since decided she has to watch it again for several reasons, and she'll keep a lookout for this. Currently, she has Viktor as much on a pedestal as Yuuri did, it seems. But for me his less-than-wonderful traits are what make writing him so amazing. It makes him feel real to me, and relatable, and even if I sometimes want to whack him with a wet towel (the original version in the anime and my own), I still think he's a walking green flag. Most of the time. When he actually uses his brain.

Avenge the Living, Heal the Dead

New Chapter:

Shi Qingxuan is exhausted. He wants to have time to think - but mostly, he wants to be alone with He Xuan.

(I'm a day early this week because tomorrow I won't be able to post at a reasonable time by the looks of it.)

Dye Their Flowers With My Blood - Offices Of Tenderness

... And sometimes the answers are the people we left behind.

If anyone ever wonders why I left the Abramamitic religions behind me in favour of some weird form agnostic omnism with strong pagan leanings, read the answers to that one. So much earnestness for what can't be proven, so much fervour for old story books. Oh boy. With someone who hasn't done this entire Catholic thing any more for almost two decades, this is bizarre.

I mean. I did consider myself Catholic, I even considered joining a convent, but it NEVER occurred to me to call pagans satanic or any such things. This is the kind of attitude that turned me off the whole thing. (Apart from the bits that say 'I am the only god' and 'I am jealous of all the other gods that TOOOOTALLY don't exist' thing that makes ZERO sense and is toxic af. I don't want anything to do with jealous people, human or otherwise, they can stay the hell away from me. I ain't doing this.)

That the person in question is not even Christian doesn't matter. All three are the same thing to me. Same sky daddy, same arbitrary rules that made some sense back in the day and none now, same fervour in the followers that gobble up what they're fed by the higher-ups in their particular brand of the 'I love you but if you step a toe out of line I'll destroy you even beyond death' cult. They were when I liked them and they are when I'm glad to be out.

Boy. I really don't like them any more it seems.

Edit: I mean, it's poetic, in a way. I used to wear a gold chain with a small cross, Star of David, and crescent to signify that they have the same value and worth, and then I started, little by little, to resent all three. That process took many years. And then, one day, my chain broke. I was really sad and decided to have it fixed. I noticed in time and didn't lose any of the pendants. I never had it fixed. I know now I never will. The broken chain is a symbol in itself. I am lost to them and they are to me.

really recommend getting a partner with a different religion than you and very little knowledge of your religion because the opportunities for explaining things to each other are just exquisite

Dye Their Flowers With My Blood

A solar eclipse, a curse, and the age-old question: Why are we here? Having died twice already adds a certain urgency to that one.

(I have reached the half-way mark in my YOI project, and I needed a moment to collect myself. This one has been a long time coming.)

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.

Avenge the Living, Heal the Dead

New chapter:

Shi Qingxuan finds himself in an unfamiliar place and in the care of the same woman that came to the beggars' temple.