Matsudas Trying His Best

OK SO i found this vat7k Spotify playlist and YKK I LISTENED TO THE WHOLE THING IN ONE RUN AND YOU SHOULD TOOOOOO its honestly so accurate 🤭 whoever made this, ilysm please marry me

who stole your heart, Light?

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

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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goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

you were bigger than the whole sky

Would anyone be interested in best parts of interviews with the Czech voice actors for Hans and Henry (subtitled)? I think we should appreciate the characters in their antive language as well 🙏

Some stuff from the Vat7k Sillies server 😼 ENJOY THE CRAZINESS!!

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.

hes soooo real for this wtf

Yuuri Katsuki: the importance of being earnest

There’s a reason that trying to write “fan ascending” is an extremely hard trope to get right, because so often the ‘ordinary Marty Stu’ pairing with the superstar has this air of author wish fulfillment to it that can ring a little bit false.

It’s also why Yuri!!! on Ice is brilliant, because it nailed the fan ascending trope. How did it do this? In a couple of ways.

First and foremost, Yuuri Katsuki is not an ordinary fan. He’s an unreliable narrator who is a Japanese superstar without the ability to see that about himself. He has every bit the ability of Victor Nikiforov, just with much more of it stored up in his potential rather than results and blocked by his anxiety.

That though is not why Victor fell for him. And not why it felt so damn real to see Victor fall for him. Because Yuuri’s power was in who he was inside, and how he dealt with/handled Victor Nikiforov becoming his coach, and importantly, the massive difference between how Victor predicted this arrangement was going to go, and how it actually went.

Victor remembers the drunk and moony Yuuri begging him at the banquet, and then skating Stammi Vicino. In Victor’s “always be camera ready” existence, he probably saw the Stammi Vicino skate as a brilliant marketing strategy, Yuuri making clear he was serious and asking again. And Victor, who was burned out and needed something new probably laughed and said “he got me.”

But… as we know, Stammi Vicino was not about luring Victor to Hasetsu. It was a genuine Yuuri trying to find the things that could bring his love for skating back. It wasn’t meant to be a public call to Victor at all, and so when Victor came and expected cameras and social media and look at me Victor is my coach! He got… something so entirely different.

He got a front-row seat to what it looks like when an entire hometown has adopted their local skater as a collective son. He got a front-row seat to a family who loved their son and supported him no matter what. He got a front-row seat to what happens when sincere hard work and friends who care about the person not the persona band together to help someone reach their potential.

He got I want to eat katsudon with you if I win, instead of I want you to declare to the world that you are my coach.

And for Victor, I think this was a shock.

Yuuri didn’t even fathom the idea of telling the whole world that Victor was coaching him (which we watch Victor decide to do).

Yuuri worried about how he was going to afford Victor’s coaching fees, as if Victor really truly was a celebrity coach, instead of a skater looking for a new way to be inspired.

One scene I have always adored is Victor complaining to Yuuri about coach seats being cramped on the way to Beijing. We know that Victor would easily have flown them both in First Class and not thought anything of it. It means that Yuuri was insistent that he pay for himself and his coach to fly to Beijing. I’ve no doubt he also insisted on paying for both his and Victor’s hotel rooms.

It’s also why the purchase of those rings is so profound. Because Victor knows that Yuuri budgets carefully. Yuuri bought those expensive rings for himself and his rich boyfriend, needing to pay them off in installments, without so much as glancing back at said rich boyfriend about finances. Victor recognized the profundity of the gesture.

And to Victor? Here was a person who made it so plain that he had no intention of ever taking advantage of him. Yuuri’s entire desire with Victor was for Victor just to be himself. Yuuri didn’t need a “oh look Victor is my coach look everyone.” He was over the moon that his idol was there teaching him. He didn’t want a fake kiss and relationship, he wanted a Victor who freaked out when he screwed up.

It meant that Victor who do you want me to be to you? Nikiforov’s mask slowly eroded away. And he found that Yuuri relished in the real Victor. And that it felt good being the real Victor.

All because Yuuri just wanted to eat katsudon with him when he won, insisted on paying both his and Victor’s way when it mattered.

Yuuri wanted Victor, and only Victor. The real one. And in every action, every decision, that Yuuri made, he reminded Victor of that.

It’s a master class to people attempting to write ‘the fan and the idol’ stories. Yuuri wanted Victor the person, not Victor the persona. And in every action, he reinforced that for Victor.

No wonder Victor fell so hard.