Viktor Nikiforov, Genderfluidity, And The Gendered Conventions Of Russian Language

todd and wallace episode 5 yaoi compilation in hd because i need everyone to understand just how unhinged this was.

hes soooo real for this wtf

Victor’s Image, Identity + Sponsorships

I can’t help but think about Victor’s sponsors and how they played into his struggle with his identity. 

In reality, skaters don’t have a steady income— skaters get paid by placing high in competitions. This is why skaters in our reality, such as Hanyu Yuzuru, do collaborations and advertisements with different companies in order to make money outside of skating, as well as having gear and other expenses covered by sponsors. And, despite being widely considered the GOAT of skating, Hanyu’s net worth is only about 2 million USD.

Back to the YOIverse: it’s unclear what sort of financial standings Victor was in when his career began, but it is clear that he quickly rose to fame, as shown by the amount of posters and photo shoots Yuuri has of Victor both pre-haircut and post-haircut. However, regardless of Victor’s own financial standings before he began competing, skating is an extremely expensive sport– coaching fees itself are likely tens of thousands of dollars per year, having good skates and keeping them maintained or replacing them when needed is hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, a minimum of two new costumes each year (which, knowing Victor’s tastes, likely cost thousands of dollars), any competition fees, the thousands of dollars it costs to travel worldwide to compete, not to mention hotel costs. It’s also mentioned that Victor commissions new music to be made for his programs, which is I don’t even wanna know how much. 

All that, plus everything I missed, plus, you know, general cost of living. 

All that being said, sponsors are everything. Sponsors are more than just a company promoting you to the public– they’re paying for the continuation of your career and using your image in exchange to promote their product. So what happens when your image no longer aligns with the image they want to have alongside their product? 

Victor has clearly had to play his cards perfectly right his entire career, with the image of an innocent, delicate, feminine ice prince that evolves into a masculine, champion bachelor. That image also had to play into what sorts of sponsors he had as his career continued, and those sponsors likely increased sharply in prestigiousness through the years, particularly after his haircut. For example, it’s easy to imagine Victor modeling for Calvin Klein after his haircut– he has a spectacular body, he’s revealing a more masculine part of his image, and his fame and attractiveness would no doubt boost sales.

TDLR;

I firmly believe that all of Victor’s sponsors, modeling campaigns, and advertisements were crafted perfectly to create the new image of Victor every single year. 

Like he said in episode 10, he couldn’t build on anything because he started over every season. 

It’s no wonder he lost himself in the midst of all this death and rebirth, especially when his image outside of skating was likely out of his control.

EDIT: Apparently some of the best skaters can receive money from their country, and hotel costs are covered by the competition. Additionally, skaters use ice shows for income. However, I stand by my point that sponsors are important and income for skaters is unreliable.

still vat7k brainrot

putting them in situations. today: trauma train simulator

[closeups!]

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

I could speak endlessly about the things that make Victor and Yuuri an amazing couple, but this one really stood out to me: their insecurities.

(some of this is kinda headcanon, but it’s based on what is implied in canon)

It’s evident from the beginning that Yuuri sees himself as not enough. He doesn’t think he’s good enough, attractive enough, sexy enough, or talented enough to be Victor’s student. These fears introduce his struggle with anxiety long before he enters his first Grand Prix competition. He doesn’t think he’s good enough to deserve Victor’s attention, he doesn’t think he’s talented enough to beat Yurio, he doesn’t think he can keep Victor in Hasetsu with him when the world wants him back in Russia, competing.

And although his confidence grows throughout the series, his self-doubt is still very evident in their argument in episode 11. Yuuri doesn’t think his career is worth more than Victor’s career. Yuuri doesn’t even consider the romantic value of their relationship, only comparing the success of their careers, because even with all the validation he receives from Victor, he doesn’t know just how much his love means to Victor, and he’s scared of overestimating it. Yuuri’s ongoing fear is not being enough.

Victor, on the other hand, is an enigma. Throughout the show, Yuuri’s unreliable narration makes it difficult to know exactly how Victor feels. Victor is scared of being too much. When he arrived in Hasetsu, he was expecting a very different welcome— something akin to the sensual, sexy, confident dancer he encountered at the banquet— and is instead greeted by a shy, unconfident skater, who can’t grasp why Victor would be there to coach him of all people.

Though Victor initially tried to coax Yuuri out of his shell by being extremely forward, he realized that he needs to give Yuuri his space, and meet him in the middle— not force Yuuri to let him in when he’s not ready. Yuuri challenges Victor in episode 4 by telling Victor to be himself. For so long, Victor had been performing in every aspect of his life; every season wiping the slate clean and beginning again, constructing a new persona for himself. He was seen as a force of nature, a whirlwind, a god. Nobody has ever asked him to be himself before. He’s afraid he’s too messy, too impulsive, too Victor to be what Yuuri wants, which is why he asks Yuuri to give him a role in the first place.

Although Victor’s extra-ness is far from lacking in the following episodes, he’s significantly toned down how direct he is, and instead motivates and challenges Yuuri through his small touches and words. When Yuuri is crying in the parking garage in episode 7, Victor doesn’t know how to react, and slips back into a suave bachelor persona— “Should I just kiss you or something?”— in order to keep his messy self hidden; the kind that doesn’t know how to handle when people cry, the kind that acts impulsively, the kind that really doesn’t know what he’s doing. And Yuuri challenges him again. He doesn’t want Victor to be fake, to hide his true self behind a mask. He just wants Victor to stand by him, as himself. This could be another reason why Victor was so angry when Yuuri wanted to end things for the sake of Victor’s career. Victor had given himself, all of his whole, messy, impulsive, imperfect, balding self to Yuuri, who wanted to give it up for the sake of Victor’s suffocating career, his persona as The World’s Most Eligible Bachelor, God of Figure Skating, Victor Nikiforov. It felt like a rejection of his true self, the one that was shown to Yuuri after he painfully tore down all the walls he had to protect his fragile heart. Victor is afraid that his true self is too much.

But together, they fit together like a puzzle piece. When Victor is afraid he’s too much, Yuuri embraces all of it— all of the messiness, all of the tears, shattering those masks one by one and letting them pick up the pieces together. When Yuuri is afraid he’s not enough, Victor helps him build himself back up, showing him that he is strong and deserving of everything he has.

They are perfect for each other.

One very admirable trait of Yuuri is his determination to go through with an idea no matter how terrified he is if that brings him closer to his goal. We see this trait come into play over and over throughout the show. Often, this drives him to do something he has never done before but knows how to do in theory.

And then there's this:

Viktor has assigned Yuuri a short programme, but Yuuri has absolutely no clue how to perform it because he doesn't get Eros.

Yuuri has yet to learn what (unconditional) love is, too, but he is able grasp it on a subconscious level since he doesn't struggle to explain his interpretation of On Love: Agape

based on the level of understanding he is currently at.

However, Eros is a concept so foreign to him that his reaction to the music is just this:

He can't even put his associations in words (note his clueless tone). These two very different reactions to both arrangements reflect perfectly his own experience and his (current) understanding of "unconditional love" and "sexual love".

Yuuri is the kind of person who despite his anxiety boldly changes the composition of his programmes over and over because he's that desparate to win and this results in some badass moves like:

putting all the jumps of his SP into the second half just because he has stamina

turning the solo jump (3S) in his SP into a quad although he never landed a 4S in competition

going back to jump 3 quads in his FS instead of one

exchange the 4T in his FS against Viktor's signature move

and most prominently: jumps 4 quads so that his FS has the same difficulty as Viktor's

While all of these are daunting for Yuuri, they're doable because he knows how to execute these jumps and he knows he has the stamina to go through with it. The ultimate result boils down to timing, technique, and stamina. But skating to Eros is a major disaster for Yuuri because he delivers his best skating when he skates true to his feelings, and to make things even worse, the stakes are astronomical (they aren't, but that's what he thinks). How should he portray something he can't even feel? How is he supposed to win the Onsen on Ice with that, especially since he believes that losing Viktor as a coach is at stake? No wonder the poor boy outright freaks out at the thought.

Yuuri would have been happy skating to Agape because he has an innate basic understanding of unconditional love. However, he's completely blind to Eros and will need to rely on workarounds to deliver a somewhat decent performance--at least until he and Viktor know each other well enough for Yuuri to figure out how to seduce him with his skating.

And yet in that moment, Yuuri doesn't flinch because he wants Viktor to coach him. He wants to win the Grand Prix Final. He wants Viktor for himself and to eat katsudon with him. All these things embody a dream he has been pursuing for half his life, a dream that involves skating and Viktor, and for the first time in his life, this dream is within reach. He's not going to let a 15-year-old punk take that away from him, he's going to fight for it with all he has. Because even though Yuuri doesn't get Eros, he has eros and this eros is very possessive (and Viktor happens to like that a lot, but Yuuri doesn't know that yet).

Even when he's terrified does Yuuri keep pursuing his goals because he has this strong determination inside him that pushes him to great lengths to make his dreams reality. Nothing is too difficult not to try. Not even when he's supposed to portray with his skating something he neither feels nor has a concept of. He's terrified, he isn't ready for that, but he does it anyway. To me, that's an exceptional showcase of his bravery.

A little rant below:

I often see fans treat Yuuri like his anxiety and his determination combined turn him into an enigma of contradictions. Like he's two different personas. But these two traits don't contradict each other at all. That's called bravery and this bravery eventually starts bleeding into Yuuri's off-ice decisions like when he sends Viktor home to Makkachin although he needs Viktor by his side, or when he decides to quit his dream so that Viktor can continue pursuing his (that was a bullshit decision, but that's not the point).

Yuuri claims that he needs Viktor to believe in him and that because of Viktor's love he is stronger, and while it's true that Viktor is a positive influence, his presence in Yuuri's life only reinforces Yuuri's own innate strength.

I made a video about the whole Watcher Entertainment debacle. As a fan, I had a lot to say. Eight years of loyalty doesn’t seem to be enough for these folks.

I've found it.

And some others.

They are all by Kait Ritter.

I'm only posting this to let you know that their name is Kay, now. Please don't deadname them.

Again, I don't much care about Vat7K, and so I really don't need stuff regarding it put in my inbox.