Art Help

...guess you could say he caught him off guard-

who stole your heart, Light?

tskym fic recs because i have a lot of free time and it shows (all of them are oneshots)

because @mallgothyamaguchi asked for recs and i am always ready to deliver them

Pre-slash Summer, 1997: sort of an AU? but it still feels very canon tskym to me. freaking creative. WE HAVE AKITERU AND KEI BONDING IN THIS ONE. and tsukihina friendship. check ohmymai's works, they are freaking talented and underrated.

The Choice: discussing where to go for high school. it's sweet.

Canon timeline:

Telephone Lines: it's one of the tskym fics that have really stuck with me. it's just really beautiful. childhood tskym intertwined with current tskym.

i wanna make you mine (but that's hard to say): it's hilarious. like, honestly hilarious. tsukki is so real in this one.

Hum Along: kinda long, plot is freaking creative and beautiful. both of them are characterized incredibly. i can't recommend this one enough.

Feeling like I go too slowly: i put it in this category though it does stretch to tskym's childhood, but it too covers their stay in karasuno. REALLY CUTE AND FUN (tho you have to be a registered user to read this one. anyway, i really recommend you to be a registered user. you'd be missing jewels like this one if not)

Behind Your Back: do not read this one if you haven't read the manga. no timeskip spoilers, but spoilers in the outcome of nationals. if you have read the manga or do not mind some spoilers, definitely read this one. it changed my life.

levels of investment: this too changed my life, but because of how freaking funny it was. really, we need more karasuno centric fics. MORE KARASUNO PRATICE MATCHES CENTRIC FICS.

Post-canon:

Fridgespace: if Hum Along is hilarious, this one is straight up hysterical. kind of a crackfic. love crackfics.

Varigo core.

Viktor Nikiforov is an adult character with adult problems and anxieties. However, unlike for Yuuri, whose struggles couldn't be more obvious to the audience, Viktor's issues are portrayed with subtlety. Which is ironic since, of the entire cast, Viktor is confronted with the most drastic life-changing choices and changes.

We meet Viktor as a competitive figure skater who has reached a point in his life many people eventually end up. The initial excitement for your profession has long since withered away and you're stuck in a life that is making you miserable. You're only staying out of convenience, the fear of change, the fear of taking a risk, or due to a lack of opportunity—or a combination thereof.

That's where Viktor is in episode 1. You can read the misery in his fake smiles and in his empty expression when he skates—an activity that once has been his passion (we know because creating your own programmes demands a creativity that is the result of passion). There are rumours that he might retire, and when being asked about his future plans, we see again the empty expression of a man who has lost his purpose. He has accumulated quite a fortune through sponsorships if his expensive clothes are any indication of that, but money can't buy happiness.

For twenty years, Viktor has lived for his sport and neglected his private life over it. His body might keep up for a couple of more seasons, but his mind is weary and his creativity is running dry. Twenty years is a long enough time to make even a decisive person think that that one thing is all you will ever be good at.

When you're stuck like that, maybe even to the point that it affects your mental health, it's hard to make it out of the slump on your own. Having someone showing you an alternative can work wonders to shift your perspective and enable you to take matters into your own hands again. For Viktor, this shift comes in form of a cute and utterly drunk fellow skater who not only seems to have a crush on him but very explicitly voices his wish that Viktor becomes his coach.

Viktor is a master of his craft. He choreographs his own programmes, he has music composed for these, and he has twenty years of experience in figure skating. Before that fateful banquet, Viktor already showed low-level coaching tendencies like when he gives (unsolicited) advice to his younger rinkmate...

or when he encourages him to become junior world champion without a quad jump and agrees to choreograph his first senior programmes.

These examples indicate that Viktor has a hidden skill he might not have been aware of during his active career as a skater. He could build on that if the sets his mind to it.

While it's true that Viktor only decided to become a coach when he saw that video (see Sayo Yamamoto's episode commentary), his feelings for Yuuri played a major role his decision because he felt a connection. That's important because feelings ignite passion and provide you with new purpose. It's tempting to assume that Viktor went to Japan for a booty call, but this totally disregards the complexity of his situation and the key role feelings play in igniting passion in someone and giving them new purpose.

"People shine brightest when they understand what kind of love sustains them."

Turning your life upside down and leaving behind the safety and convenience of a job you're good at but that you learned to hate, comes with fears and requires a certain readiness to take risks. Many people don't go to such lengths unless 1) their current situation is insufferable and 2) they have a very strong motivator to start all over. Like love or passion. As both stem from the same place, I'm equating them in the following.

Taking your first step into the uncharted territory of your new future IS scary. It can be one of the hardest things you have ever done. Especially if it means a complete reorientation. But burning for this future—be it out of love for your new subject/field, a specific person you will work with etc.—is a truly inspiring experience that fills you with the confidence that you can actually do it. So far, Viktor has been on the receiving end of coaching, but his feelings for Yuuri, his experience as a skater, and his resulting dedication to the task ultimately turn him into a good coach for Yuuri and help him succeed where Celestino failed. And it's obvious that Viktor really loves being Yuuri's coach.

Viktor Nikiforov is a true inspiration for everyone who faces the choice of staying on in a life or work situation that is making them miserable or going full risk by following one's heart. I cannot thank Sayo Yamamoto and Mitsurou Kubo enough for creating a show with so many mature characters that are dealing with realistic adult issues and I'm happy that one of my favourite YOI characters is one of them. I wish that Viktor would receive more appreciation for this.

I want to thank the reader of Thousand Spotlights whose comment about my portrayal of Viktor inspired me to finally write this post 🩷 Also many thanks to @cecebeanie for reading over it in advance 🩷

Please note:

In some cultures, changing your job frequently is normal and thus not a big thing for people, but the concept I've discussed is the universal.

This meta doesn't attempt to be a comprehensive analysis of Viktor's situation as this would have gone beyond the cope of this post (I have written other metas that discuss some of these). Viktor shows signs of depression and/or creative burnout that might or might not have to do with focusing on skating for most of his life. Depression can manifest itself differently in different people and no one's experience is less valid than someone else's.

If you enjoyed this meta, please consider giving me a follow or checking out my works on AO3 (link in bio), which build upon my analyses.

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.

I think we're all so devastated at the news of IceAdo's cancelation. It was an incredible anime not only because it was groundbreaking for the queer community in terms of quality, but also in terms of how intimately the relationship was depicted without being vulgar or explicit, which many other such anime depend on to gain an audience. The profound devotion Yuuri and Victor had towards each other and figure skating was palatable and it just sucked you in. A lot of times, it even felt like you were intruding on a private moment between them, especially as Yuuri got more comfortable around Victor and started being more open about his anxiety, which was also a focal point of the show, also masterfully depicted.

It was such a beautiful experience, that we wanted more of it, which is what we thought we were going to get. But for 8 years, we were strung along, our hope exploited, until finally, the cancelation, which we all realized, after a certain point, was coming.

The pain of not being able to sink in to the world of Yuuri!!! On Ice once more is very deep, because that kind of magic is something you just crave once it has entered your life, BUT!!!!

What I need us all to do is to keep reblogging, reposting, retweeting, signing petitions and just keep being loud about the impact Ice Adolescence could have had, as well as how YOI has affected us. As long as we don't loose speed, the relevant people WILL see that this fandom is very much still alive, still active AND STILL GROWING!

I know the movie has been scrapped, BUT I still think that the rights CAN be bought off MAPPA. If not for another attempt at Ice Adolescence, then a second season, which would also be incredible!

I don't know if this is even possible or if it's been done before in Japan, but I've seen it happen with the TV show "Lucifer", and I hope it can be accomplished here too. If not, LET'S SET A PRECEDENT TOGETHER! We have nothing to lose, but we could gain something beautiful!

So, please, everyone, don't stop liking, engaging with and reposting YOI-related content! We have to show that we are still dedicated and interested in this anime, and therefore PROFITABLE so they can potentially invest!

Also, because it's been 8 years, there are bound to be people who haven't heard of YOI, but would watch it, support it and talk about it if they knew about it's existence. Let's give this our all and do our best to get Victor, Yuuri and everyone else back on our screens!!! DON'T LOSE HOPE!

REBLOG THIS AND KEEP YURI ON ICE TRENDING SO WE CAN GET MORE PEOPLE INTERESTED AND AWARE!

!CW BLOOD! ...they fight a lot.

I hate you mappa genuinely. I adore him with all my heart, I wanted to hear and see his story

If my bestie thought my Sebastian/winter soldier and Leon Kennedy era was bad. She's gonna hate me what I'm spamming her

And she's low-key thinking the ways to end me when we reunited