A scene from chapter 22 of Varian's Tangled Trials. I made this back in April last year but I thought I'd post it
I hate you mappa genuinely. I adore him with all my heart, I wanted to hear and see his story
Some stuff from the Vat7k Sillies server 😼 ENJOY THE CRAZINESS!!
the idea that a Yuri on Ice movie wouldn’t be profitable… in today’s yaoi-obsessed global society??! Get real.
matsudas trying his best
Yuri on Ice aka Yuuri's free programme would never have been possible without the beach scene.
In the beach scene, Yuuri opens up to Viktor for the first time. While they have been unintentionally working against each other until that point (exuberant flirting from Viktor and Yuuri trying to avoid him), the conversation on the beach brought them on the same page. That conversation has reassured Yuuri that Viktor's motives and feelings towards him are sincere and he starts feeling safe enough to open up.
Which leads right to the next scene where Yuuri sits in his room and decides to open up more as he contacts the music student who composed the programme his former coach Celestino rejected.
Now fast-forward to Yuuri and Viktor creating Yuuri's new free programme:
Yuuri's free programme is about his skating career. But it's so much more than that. Yuri on Ice also tells the story of Yuuri and Viktor, expressed through the piano (Yuuri) and the violin (Viktor). At 0:55 min, which is quite early in the programme, the violin joins and it dominates the song. This part represents Viktor becoming his coach. (The entire song is 3:41 min, note that a free programme was 4:30 min at the time YOI aired, and that the creators shortened the songs due to time constraints).
Yes, that's right: Most of the story told in Yuuri's free programme, Viktor is Yuuri's coach. Yuuri's programme that is supposed to be about his life as a skater paraphrases his entire career so far in 55 seconds and then tells the story of Yuuri and Viktor.
Then there's this part in the middle where the violin falls silent and the piano slows down as Yuuri has a realisation about love. When the music picks up speed again, the violin re-joins, but instead of doing its own thing now it's support the piano, which can be interpreted as Yuuri and Viktor now being a team, Yuuri and Viktor being lovers (hence, the realisation about love), Yuuri and Viktor staying together (the instruments playing together until the end, these a nuance of Stammi Vicino in that imagery). To be precise, there are many interpretations as this song can be applied to every episode where Yuuri skates it.
Now, as Viktor is Yuuri's coach and choreographer, Yuuri needs to explain to him what he wants to express with this song, so that Viktor can turn this into choreography. Yuuri needs to explain what the instruments mean and how this translates into his story. I can only imagine how embarrassing this must have been for him, even though he has already decided to open up more--it's still an effort he must do and which will become easier the more often he does it. But that first time when he had to explain all this to Viktor, yes that must have been super awkward. He might have tried to water down some parts of the story because he couldn't voice them at this time, then, as Viktor kept prying because it didn't seem to fit the music, gradually had to disclose more.
And Yuuri had to explain all of this to that music student as well so that she could compose the song accordingly, and he had to do this AFTER that first awkward experience when he commissioned a song that got shelved.
Without Yuuri realising that opening up isn't a bad thing, that it's okay to make yourself vulnerable to people who don't judge you and don't see you as weak, nothing of this would have ever happened. Yuuri learning that Viktor is a safe person to be vulnerable with because Viktor is dedicated to give Yuuri his full support and that his goal isn't to get Yuuri laid but that his feelings for Yuuri are of a serious nature ("that's my way of showing my love"), is the start of Yuuri becoming confident and that enables him to create not just his first free programme on his own but a free programme that expresses the different kinds of love he is feeling, most of all his love for Viktor.
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The thing I like about Kabru is that he has Main Character Energy leaking from every pore. He was born with unusual eyes. He's the last survivor of a village destroyed by an out-of-control dungeon. He was taught to be an extremely effective manslayer by his hot adoptive elf mom. He can read people like a book. He picks up women effortlessly.
But in the dungeon he's completely out of his depth and all his Sherlock abilities are completely useless against Laios, the Most Autistic Man Alive and the real main character.
OMG, I opened tumblr after a whole day of stuff going on to rest a bit and I forgot that yoi's suffering was still on. I'm once again sobbing in a corner...
I just gotta say, before leaving the app for today because I can't cope with the pain, that Yuri!!! On Ice is one of the fucking best shows i've seen and had stolen my heart in the sweetest of ways.
Another YOI opinion inbound, this time on the ending scene of episode 11/first scene of Episode 12!! (I’m sure this has been done a bunch already but I found this in my notes so I thought I’d just throw it out there)
I don’t think the ‘ending’ that Yuuri OR Victor was referring to was ending the romantic interpersonal relationship that they had. To me, after that episode 9 scene where we get to see Yuuri running into Victor’s arms, it’s just a given that they would stay connected in whatever capacity they could, because they can’t stand to let the other go.
No, to me, the ‘ending’ he is referring to is the ending of Yuuri and Victor’s relationship as skater and coach, and the ending of Yuuri’s career as a professional ice skater. We can see from how the comments the other skaters make about Victor’s career, and the emotional impact this has on Yuuri when he overhears them that Yuuri is upset at the idea that he could potentially be ending Victor’s career, Victor’s raison d’être as it were, and in doing so taking away his whole passion away from him.Â
Also, interestingly, I’ve seen a lot of people/fanfic writers take Victor’s accusation of Yuuri’s ‘selfishness’ at face value, but what Yuuri is doing here seems objectively selfless. To Yuuri, he is making the altruistic choice of relieving Victor from being his coach, as the entire skating world thinks that to keep him on would be selfish. However, it just doesn’t take into consideration Victor’s own feelings regarding returning to skating or staying by Yuuri’s side as his coach, which is why Victor calls him ‘selfish’. It especially doesn’t take into account Victor’s feelings on Yuuri leaving the skating world, which has long since become Victor’s raison d’être, instead. In my opinion, this is why Victor is so upset - he desperately doesn’t want Yuuri to retire.Â
So yes - Yuuri is not necessarily being selfish, even though that’s what Victor says, (and what Yuuri agrees with) because this decision goes against his own personal feelings about keeping Victor on as his coach. Although he does want to see Victor skating professionally again, he also really wants Victor to stay, so this decision actually went against his own personal interests.Â
Ice adolescence being cancelled is like the ultimate betrayal by mappa. Mappa's first BIG big hit, its magnum opus, was never jjk or csm or aot. It was Yuri on Ice. It's time they remember their roots, for those roots are gay.
Took me three days, but, here's a loving tribute to the anime which changed my life <3