viktor nikiforov: yuuri katsuki??? yeah, he’s amazing [digs into jacket pocket] [pulls out hundreds of thousands of photos of yuuri] he’s my fiancé-just look at him [flips through them] i’m so proud of him [shoves photos in your face] see this? this is the first time he ever did a quadruple flip. god i love him so much.
SO, the series is slowly coming to an end, and by that i mean in 3 days my life will crumble away to nothing because one of the most amazing series this year is going to end….
i have a feeling that victor won’t go back to competitive figure skating (unless im proven wrong by the new episode and then this little thing i made wont make any sense lol) but i wanted to make something for him just because… i feel like i get sadder looking at victor with each passing episode, like deep down he wasn’t really happy or something like that or maybe he was letting down his fans since they wanted to keep watching him skate etc etc etc and so by the last episode, i want him to be honestly truly happy
I’m sure some people will fight me on this, but for real–Viktor Nikiforov at the beginning of YOI is probably the closest depiction of my experience of depression that I’ve ever seen in any media, including anything I’ve ever created.
* lack of interest/emotion * repeatedly forgetting important things (like promises to Yurio) * depression is triggered strongly by success * deals with it by deciding to–in a matter of hours–toss away a wildly successful career that is making him miserable to do something incredibly rewarding that his former colleagues think is a joke * incredibly good at faking it * ability to fake it only worsens depression * not parsed by anyone around him as depression because, heh, he’s not SAD and he’s SUCCESSFUL and how could he be depressed
There’s a lot of talk about Yuuri’s mental health issues, and those are amazing, but Viktor starts off the show in what reads to me as a pretty deep depression. Episode 10 and 11, when he’s finally experiencing emotions again, and is grounded in the moments that he is in, instead of free-floating outside them, are incredibly meaningful to me.
It took me more than 30 years to understand that what happened to me was depression, and I so rarely see depression as I experience it portrayed anywhere, so…
Nothing but My Aching Soul 