i just finished bridge burn and holy shit, my head is swimming with things i want to say. first off, it felt so much like a character study rather than a love story (to me, at least), and i thought it was brilliant. seeing how zhenya reacts and recoils at actions and memories, how he tries to hold onto what he has so desperately, and how sid is seemingly always there, a place for him to land - it’s an interesting dynamic. maybe i’m reading it wrong, but that’s j how i saw it.
olympic fics are always hard for me, probably because my heart aches when russia loses, so sochi and everything revolving around that is hard too. i thought this fic handled everything so well, so delicately, that it was like swimming through the memories instead of diving in abruptly and head-first, so thank you.
i also love the way you wrote sid. he’s so headstrong and seemingly confident, but under it all he’s so afraid to lose the people he loves, and that’s something so relatable that you can’t help but be mad at zhenya too when you know he’s not telling sid everything.
i definitely will have more to say when i’ve finished processing, but for now - brilliant work. i really loved it.
this is so incredibly sweet of you, anon. I hope you'll consider leaving this in the fic comments (even on anon!) just so we (@malk1ns and I) can keep such a lovely comment together with the fic. this was really touching and so lovely to read.
I think it totally veered toward character study too. I find I get that was a lot when it comes to writing Zhenya, and malk1ns was happy to come along for that particular ride 😅 he's such an interesting character and I thought Beijing would be a uniquely sort of... painful experience for him given Sochi and his relationship with Russia, exactly.
and YES that is one of my favorite Sids—a Sid who's strong and confident but also hiding a lot of fear underneath that you can't see at first.
once again, thank you for the sweet words. we're both really happy you enjoyed it so much ❤️
