guess who’s topping CDJapan’s sales ranking!!

ok but the main question after ep 12 is: did they get married before they moved to st petersburg or are they postponing it to when Yuuri gets his hands on a gold medal?

what are the chances that yuuri is gonna perform stammi vicino for the gala exhibition time to place your bets people

me: finally, winter break is here! now i can watch all the shows i’ve been planning to watch all semester!
me: *re-watches yuri on ice for the 1129th time*

does anybody wanna talk about how soft and sweet and beautiful the ending sequence for YOI is? like, the whole instagram-pics concept makes it really interesting, but what makes it all so soft and nice is the moments shown to us in victor and yuuri’s private life, showing how close they are? the one that the triplets posted – when victor was combing yuuri’s hair (apparently it’s during a costume-fitting session), the ones where they’re running at the beach and laughing together, the ones where they’re under the shower and ruffle each other’s hair – i just, love it all so much, because they show that yuuri and victor share an intimate relationship, romantic or not. and then the final sequence, the one where yuuri is dancing with the fireworks – they’re just so lovely. I’ve always suspected that the ending song is most probably sung from victor’s POV, since the images of yuuri at the end seem to be portrayed through someone’s eyes, and then episode 10 came along and it pretty much supports my theory. (there have been posts discussing this too)

idk, i just love the ending so so much. it showed and told us so many things within 90 seconds and I have so many feels

i’m honestly not surprised by the ending?? like we’ve seen so many instances where yuuri wanted to “end” things with victor i.e. have him step down as his coach. pretty sure he doesn’t wanna break up with his fiancee a day after their engagement, but this conversation was bound to happen ever since episode 9 – heck, probably even earlier than that, since yuuri has always asked himself the question of what victor is gonna do after GPF/if he doesn’t win gold. and the new episode just confirmed that yuuri probably feels that he’s robbing victor away from his career/robbing the figure skating world of victor.

honestly i just need them to talk things out, and i’m pretty sure we won’t be disappointed because they’ve consistently proven themselves to be such a healthy couple so yeah….

my hopes for the next ep aside from yuuri executing a perfect FS: victor telling yuuri honestly about what he wants to do from here on out (marry yuuri?? adopt a few kids and a new poodle?? permanently live in hasetsu?? never wanting yuuri to retire so he can be his coach forever?? opening a skating school in hasetsu?? whatever it is, i’d be happy as long as they’re together)

on life and love

(heads up: sorry, I’m not good at making metas so this post might be really wonky)

I know everybody and their grandmothers have made an analysis about Victor’s character, but I’ve been thinking about him day and night since last week’s episode, and I have a few things I want to say about him. In particular, I want to address the idea that Victor will return to competitive skating if we ever get a second season/if Yuuri doesn’t win gold/etc etc etc.

To even think about this possibility of him returning to skate competitively, I thought long and hard about Victor’s character arc, the whole narrative woven around him as a character, and I decided that no, I would definitely not want him to go back into competitive figure skating, because that would ruin the purpose of the whole narrative centered around his character.

Let’s go back to the first episode. In snippets, we see that Victor has doubts about what he wants to do for next season. In the GPF, he scored another gold medal, and Morooka commented that it laid rumors of him retiring to rest. Sure he might be in his late-twenties, but he’s still winning lots of medals and he’s still living up to his title as the living legend and Russia’s hero. But a few months later, during the World Championship, he is quiet and thoughtful when asked about his plans in the future. This is after Sochi’s GPF, so it would mean that he’s probably thinking about the option that Yuuri has presented to him a few months before: becoming a coach. It would make sense that he’s mulling it over all this while, because hell, this dude does not know a life outside of competitive figure skating.

In the next episode, Yurio says that yes, Victor indeed had been harboring doubts about where he wants to go next in his career. The thing about Victor is that he’s done it all; he’s been reigned champion almost all of his career, he’s won dozens of medals, he has tons of fans, etc, so nobody is ever surprised anymore when he wins. Heck, what would be surprising is if he doesn’t. And the other thing we know about him is that this sucks, because he loves to surprise others, he thrives off it. He’s formulating new routines for next season, but does he even really want to compete? Will he even surprise anyone anymore? He’s probably only planning new routines thinking that yeah, of course he’s gonna continue to compete, because he doesn’t know what he would do if he doesn’t.

What’s also interesting is that Yakov has said in the very beginning that if he leaves [his skating career] now, he won’t be able to come back. Why? Well it’s because he’s leaving the strict regimen that every figure skater has to stick to in order to win. And episode 10 cements this, telling us that Victor has been neglecting ‘life’ and ‘love’ all his life because of skating. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been the Victor Nikiforov that’s revered by the skating world. Yakov knows this, which is why he tried to prevent Victor from leaving. Do you really want to do this? Do you really want to drop your career now? Do you really want to drop the only life you’ve known so far? But Victor’s done thinking about it, he’s had a few months to think about it, and he decided that yes, he wants to fulfill what he has been devoid of all his life. He’s had his run, he’s won and gained a lot, but he’s also lacking a few integral things in life.

Christophe said that this isn’t like Victor. Victor has lived his whole life on the ice, and everybody thought he would continue to do so. It’s “not like him to find someone he wants to protect” – this line by Chris is probably one of the most moving things that’s said about Victor and Yuuri’s relationship I think. Because it suggests that Victor – despite having previous lovers (as he himself implied in ep 2 lol) – had never found someone he’s willing to leave the ice for. Skating, surprising others, winning – these had always been his top priority, and no one else truly mattered. But his commitment to Yuuri is real, and despite what everyone else says about bringing him back to the ice, he won’t be returning. He’s found something else now, something that doesn’t rob him of ‘life’ and ‘love’. He can still skate, but he doesn’t have to sacrifice his personal life now, not anymore.

Sure, there might have been the possibility of him not being Yuuri’s coach anymore (inferred from Yuuri’s monologues, which is a whole different topic lol), but after episode 10, after the exchange of rings, Victor is definitely sticking with this new path he’s chosen for himself. The question of him returning to competitive figure skating is pointless now. And Yurio’s “Victor Nikiforov is dead” line pretty much supports this. The Victor that sacrificed so much in order to win and keep on winning is no longer here, the legendary figure skater Victor Nikiforov is no more, but what exists is Victor who is a person of his own, without having to carry the burdens of skating and whatnot. Because with Yuuri, he can do just that – be Victor and nothing else (recall Yuuri’s line in ep 4: “I want Victor to be Victor!”) (ps: this post is a great one that discusses this idea)

I digress, but some have pointed out that Yuuri had expressed that he wanted to be on the same playing field as his idol in ep 1, but I would argue that this could also mean that he simply wanted to be acknowledged by Victor, not necessarily wanting to compete against him, and boy is he acknowledged now ohohoho. Then there’s also that small part during Victor’s interview in ep 8, about whether he wants to face Katsuki Yuuri as a fellow skater, but his smile and lack of answer (which Yurio noticed) indicates that he’s probably realized, at that point, that he can never go back go that world anymore.

My main point here is this: Victor’s character development and growth is about him finding something meaningful in life once again at the age of 27, it’s about him finding “a brand new world he’d never known before”, a world that he never thought possible for him. And this is why I don’t think I would want to see him return to competitive skating. This is just my personal thoughts though and I could be completely wrong, but yeah lol

Did you notice how in the scene where Victor arrives at the hotel room with Chris, saying he’s freezing, he’s using his “I’m speaking japanese” accent? Victor is speaking in japanese with Yuri! I though that was such a cute little touch!! They’re learning eachother’s languages!

fyeahyurionice:

I haven’t noticed that accent omg. Victor spent pretty long time with Yuuri and I’m sure he’s fluent at Japanese now, so now it’s Yuuri’s turn to learn husband’s language. You go Katsuki!! We believe in you!!

the creators of the show have stated in an interview that yuuri and victor mostly communicate in english (kubo-sensei was like, yuuri studied in america, so his english is pretty superb!! lol i love her) but this headcanon that they’re learning each other’s language is one i can get behind!!

iirc, one fan made a post speculating that victor probably started learning a bit of japanese ever since the banquet when he Fell In Love, but episode 10 supported this idea of him learning japanese because his camera setting is in japanese now! it used to be in the default english

i wouldn’t say he was fluent when he first arrived in japan though. in episode 4, when yuko and nishigori were talking to yuuri about the qualifiers, victor didn’t understand what they were talking about and asked yuuri what the conversation was (the one where he leaned onto yuuri). but we’ve seen him talking in bits of japanese based on his “i’m talking in japanese accent” as described by makochibana, like the one where he promoted hasetsu in ep 3 right before the onsen on ice competition and in ep 4 when he was “ooh japanese dogeza!!” lol

tldr victor is learning japanese and he’s so precious (and so is yuuri with russian because in ep 8 and 9 he said davai and spasibo which isn’t a lot i know but hey at least we know he’s trying lol)

i wonder if we’ll get some explanation as to what victor is thinking about in this scene from ep 3:

i’ve seen some people make speculations about it but i kinda hope it’ll be addressed in the next ep. it doesn’t necessarily have to address this scene, just something that’ll give us more insight on what goes on through this man’s head…. seeing that we’ll most likely get a flashback scene next week (makkachin is there and it’s snowing so it can’t be in barcelona)