#Not a Meta

[thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai]

I can't stop thinking about how the opening lines of Yuri!!! on Ice sound like the beginning of a love story:

"He never fails to surprise me. Ever since I first saw his skating, it's been an unending chain of surprises."

These lines combined with the images of young and adult Viktor skating and the intermediate shot of Yuuri growing up in fast motion are vibrant with symbolism and foreshadowing. They introduce us to Yuuri's obsession with Viktor that started when Yuuri was on the brink of puberty, just old enough to experience his gay awakening when he saw that silver-haired ethereal beauty dance on the blades and his heart was set on fire. Viktor is skating on the other side of the rink—physically, emotionally, and in skill he is far away from Yuuri.

From there on, Viktor becomes the centre of Yuuri's whole universe, a dream still distant, but also a goal to work towards to. For the next 12 years, Yuuri will sacrifice everything to reach this goal as an athlete and to satisfy his parasocial yearning. The sequence ends with Viktor giving Yuuri a private performance of the very programme that, at last, brought them together. They are no longer distant, neither physically nor emotionally, nor in skill. For twelve years, it was Yuuri reaching for Viktor, but now Viktor is here, reaching for Yuuri in response.

How often must Yuuri have wished that Viktor would perform this arm move right in front of him? How often did Yuuri imagine to perform this move in front of Viktor while he was practising Stammi Vicino to rekindle his love for skating and to compete on the same ice as Viktor again? Was he feeling a connection to Viktor when he showed the programme to his friend while at the same time Viktor was skating Stammi Vicino at Worlds? Was he imagining himself in Viktor's stead or was he imagining Viktor standing behind the barrier?

In all this time since Yuuri first saw Viktor's skating and neglected everything else in his life to reach Viktor, did Viktor neglect his own life to become the legend he is today. While everything Yuuri did to feel closer to Viktor screams of longing, Viktor's own longing for a love he has yet to meet remains invisible, until he poured it all into this very personal free programme, a programme that will finally bring him together with the one that will give him life and love. In this sense, it seems almost ironic that Yuuri only starts practising Stammi Vicino after his dream has shattered into millions of pieces in Sochi—at a point in his life when Viktor suddenly seems unreachable again.

What started as a parasocial relationship that inspired Yuuri to chase his dream finally blossomed into the sweetest love as he and Viktor got to know each other. Fascination is what keeps the passion burning and Yuuri's words in the opening make it seem as if Viktor surprising him is a law of nature. It's a gentle foreshadowing into a future in which Yuuri will keep being fascinated with Viktor no matter what. For Yuuri, it has always been and always will be Viktor, and these opening lines put everything Viktor is for him in a nutshell.

The opening lines of Yuri!!! on Ice sound like a love story because the story of Yuuri and Viktor is a love story.

[wordsknowsnobounds]

I remember, although now not if the freshness of when I actually started in the fandom, but I still remember the dissonance I felt as I had just finished the book and dived into the fanfic and found so much hate and misunderstanding over characters I found so easy to understand their motivations.

I can't say some of my views were later tainted by fandom, the longer I dived into fanfic before I found myself into a Discord group where I could find people that knew more than I did about Danmei and Xianxia. MDZS wasn't my first experience with both, considering I have watched some movies and other dramas before, and my first MXTX book was TGCF, but I hardly knew enough. So entering the Discord group was like a breath of fresh air in terms of knowledge and learning more about a culture and small details we miss as an outsider audience.

I even re-examined what I knew about the characters, and learned more about others I didn't care as much I still have some I don't care even after, but I did learn more about them and found some respect for them, and I guess that my dissonance with fandom at large grew even more. But then I remember my experience in another fandom - Teen Wolf - that it's just as full as its own complicated relationship between fandom and canon, and something someone I met in it said stuck with me, "People have limited empathy to give characters, and they bestow it onto their favorite characters" or something in similar words, and this couldn't be any less true.

People are more inclined to analyze, or overanalyze, a character they care more, they give that character more leniency or more reasons for the way they act if they identify with the character more. However, the problem starts when the analysis becomes something personal instead of steaming from the character written in the text, and the fact MDZS has so many versions that bring with them their varied canons makes it even more complex.

Because we have the novel with flawed, but three-dimensional characters that have a variation of reasons and motivations for the actions they did, and even in it some are afforded more slack than others. We have a TV Drama that had to pass through a censorship in both content and ideals, they couldn't have a hero that lost control or wasn't as pure as some wished him to be - and taking WWX blame of the ones he was guilty of took a lot of him as a character - and threw all the guilt on another one took a lot of the narrative that the world isn't as simple or black and white. We have the donghua that added some little more flair to certain circumstances and gave a more villainous plot for something that was a good change in the novel, and completely butchered another character. Not only that, but we also have an Audio Book version and a Manhua, but since I haven't either heard one or read the other, I can't say much about them.

All these different canons end up leading to different interpretations, but also leads to misunderstandings and people talking in different "languages", since The Untamed and the Donghua have crucial differences in relation to the Novel. Another thing that adds into the dissonance I have with fandom at large, it's also the whole problem I see of the interpretations that disregard cultural and historical differences. Yes, MDZS happens in a fantasy ancient China, but they still have a different set of morals and beliefs that differ from what we consider as the norm today.

I've seen too much fics of characters raising a fuss about things they never did and would never do in the context they lived and because of who they were and believed in, because they weren't considered amoral or wrong in context. Although, MDZS discussion shouldn't be about morality at all or who has the higher ground to claim it. Or who is right and who is wrong, because that's not the story, that's not what we should have taken of it, because the beauty of MDZS it's because it tells a story of very much human characters, with human motivations, human fails and human emotions.

It feels frustrating to muddle through fics and metas that you read, and your first reaction is: no, that's not it, that's not 'character x'. It feels disheartening that if you try to disagree with something or have something to say about a character or that the majority of fandom have a specific opinion you're either said to be an anti or an apologist. It's rare to find spaces and places where you can have good discussions without someone attacking you for one reason or another. So working that dissonance becomes an even more difficult task when you feel you can't speak because of fear of being targeted.

But I guess that I got tired, and just wanted my frustrations to get out and about on the outside world, so here I am. I'm putting my face out there, I might get burned, but I think I needed to try.

-The Sole Nie out.

[edsrosetattoo]

This is the best idea in the history of film.

[ladyshinga]

[probablybadrpgideas]

The Monster Manual but it's blatantly written by the monsters

[mycroftrh]

Far worse, in my opinion, than the famous “he wouldn’t fucking say that” is “he WOULD fucking say that, as part of his facade, but you seem to think he would mean it genuinely”

[problemnyatic]

so matt's absolutely giving scorched earth orders behind the scenes right. Not only are publically visible transfems dropping like flies, but every third person who musters up the audacity to comment negatively on Staff or Matt about this vanishes fucking instantly

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[bakedbakermom]

plz reblog for science

[trainwreckgenerator]

a face you'd find on the side of a milk carton

[dyscomancer]

[gendercensus]

The 2024 Gender Census is now open!

[ Link to survey ]

The 11th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 13th June 2024.

It’s short and easy, about 5 minutes probably.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful - it’s what helped us get 40,000 responses last year.

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The 2024 survey is now closed!

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

For the curious, you can also spy on some graphs and demographic data for the incoming responses here.

Thank you so much!

[ Link to survey ]

Image credit: Malachite and rhodochrosite.

[meyerlansky]

ON the subject of undernegotiated kink in fanfiction. i think we should talk more about how the concept of "not talking about it" is just as much wish fulfillment for some people as "in-depth, therapy-speak conversations where everyone is clear and understood" is for others

like yes, in reality the antidote to shame is open honest conversation with someone who will validate your feelings and wants blah blah blah but SOMETIMES what i want out of my fanfic is characters being understood without having to expose themselves in that way. SOMETIMES it's fun to not dismantle the shame and repression all the way and to instead treat that understanding-despite-not-being-clear as the fantasy

[spoondrifts]

something about vi never wanting anyone in her life to change. something about jayce not caring at all how much viktor has changed so long as he's alive. something about the way vi associates radical change with death, perceiving jinx's continued existence as a kind of necromantic horror—the way jayce would shatter fundamental laws of nature without a second thought in order to give viktor the best chance at survival, in whatever form that may take. transformation as rebirth vs murder, hextech vs shimmer. nature has made us intolerant to change, but fortunately, we have the capacity to change our nature. and then jayce, realizing that he hasn't changed at all, not really—that he is a scientist at heart, and he shouldn't have tried to be anything else. and then vi, realizing she has become someone unrecognizable—never thought my sister would turn bluebelly. and for both of them, it's too little, too late.

[stompandhollar]

like. imagine seeing your sibling at 18. and then not seeing them again until you’re 28. and then not seeing them again until you’re both 58. but you’re identical twins so every time you look in the mirror you wonder if this is what they would’ve looked like.

imagine never needing glasses but your brother did, and then in your adulthood your eyes get worse and you suddenly need glasses and you pick out the same frames your brother wore.

imagine always protecting your brother growing up cause he was different and kids picked on him. but you always protected him. and then you have a falling out and neither of you speak for years, and then finding out that in those years you didn’t speak, he was being isolated and tortured by a monster and didn’t think you’d come if he called. but then he calls and you go. and his house has blood on the floor in every room and writing on the walls and his journal devolves into paranoid ramblings. and you can’t protect him because you showed up and he got ripped away. and you can’t even ask him what the writing or the blood or the state of the house means because he’s gone. and you don’t have a penny to your name so you have to clean the blood up yourself and fix the house and live there. so you board up his room.