1. This 2009 article by Johnny Weir on the finances of skating. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD please read this. Skating is not a pile of endless sponsors looking to fling money at you. Notice that Weir says his primary source of income is ice shows. Notice that Weir talks about worrying about paying his electric bill. http://www.lifeskate.com/skate/2009/01/johnny-weir-nationals-press-conference-3.html
2. Victor NIkiforov canonically runs ice shows. He doesn’t just participate in them. He runs them. Remember, “Victor Nikiforov presents Onsen on Ice”? Remember “Victor and Friends” from Yuri!!! on Stage? Victor is at the stage of the game where he runs his own ice shows. That means he doesn’t just get a single paycheck for participating. He gets a cut of the total profit.
TL;DR do not let his heart-shaped smile, his forgetfulness, and his general extraness fool you. This is the Victor who complains about the Euro being too strong. Victor has not survived as undisputed champion of one of the most expensive sports in the world without learning how to maximize his income.
You can pry this headcanon from my cold, dead fingers: Victor Nikiforov is a financial genius.
(The original version of this was an incredibly long screaming thing that reached point 17 and was not yet done. As I am…vaguely aware…that 17 point screaming posts about Victor Nikiforov are Probably Not Of General Interest, I restrained myself. I’m sorry, I just really love him.)
Frankly I would love a 17 point screaming post about Victor Nikiforov… I would like several… but this is good too. I’m so, SO glad I’m not the only one who has this headcanon because it’s A+++
″Good Makka,” said Viktor, and crouched down to scoop the large dog into his arms, hooking half of him over his shoulder. “Oof, you’re getting heavy. Have you been stealing food again?”
The poodle looked away, feigning innocence.Viktor laughed, shifting the dog in his arms until he was secure. “Okay, are you ready?” Makkachin licked his ear, which was a yes for him, and Viktor pushed off to carry them into a wide arc, humming as he went. It’d been a long time since he’d been skate dancing with his Makka. He’d been so busy.
Or… maybe that was just an excuse. He just hadn’t felt like this in so, so long.
Love had found him, after all these years, and though he didn’t know what to do about it yet, he could at least enjoy the feeling for one stolen night.″
– Commission for @gabapple, co-author (along with @mamodewberry) of Never Look Away, one of my fav YOI canon-compliant/slightly AU fics that I highly suggest you check out! (unless you don’t want to have intense feelings ;___;)
Thank you so much!! <3
This is from chapter 17 and I’m in love. ;A; thank you so much!!!
So since the topic of Victor and his characterization came up today, I have a few thoughts on the subject I’d like to share.
Let me start by saying that I’ve read a lot of Victuuri fic. A lot of it. Mostly canonverse fic, because I’m pretty meh on AUs and it takes a pretty special AU to woo me away from canon and canon divergence. As such, I’m intimately familiar with how the YOI fandom tends to write Victor in a canon setting in particular. And I feel like a lot of the time… we miss the mark. Rather drastically, as a matter of fact.
What do I mean by that?
Simple: I think a lot of the way the fandom portrays Victor is still heavily influenced by first impressions.
This is true of many characters in many fandoms. I’ve been around the block a time or twenty and seen a lot of fanon characterizations, both good and bad, and I’ve seen this pattern repeat over and over. First impressions are a big deal, both with fictional characters and with real people, and it can be hard to let go of that. And that’s not always a bad thing, sometimes the impression a character makes on a fandom after two or three episodes is perfectly accurate. And sometimes it’s not, and writing based heavily on first impressions without taking subsequent characterization into account ends up being very flawed and out of character.
And then there’s Victor. And the thing about Victor is that, with the way the narrative of YOI is structured, in the first quarter of the show, we as the audience are deliberately led to believe false things about Victor. It’s all part of the setup for the big twist, it’s all part of the surprise. We’re intentionally being directed to make assumptions about him, without any real evidence that those assumptions are accurate to his character. Almost none of what we “know” about Victor based on the first quarter of the series is really accurate— especially because the vast majority of it is coming from other people talking about Victor, and not from Victor himself.
Here’s what is “revealed” about Victor based on the first three episodes:
he’s selfish (according to Yakov)
he’s impulsive (revealed by Victor’s seemingly sudden decision to coach Yuuri)
he no longer feels he can surprise his audience, and this may be part of why he left skating (according to Yuri)
he’s forgetful (according to Yuri and also himself)
he’s a desirable bachelor “playboy type” (according to Minako and Nishigori)
And as we later learn, all of these things are untrue to some degree, except possibly the forgetfulness thing, which I’ll come back to in a moment. So let’s take a look at these “facts” about Victor, shall we?
We were looking at Viktor from an unreliable point of view as well, Yuuri didn’t know him personally before he came to Japan and forgot about the whole banquet as well. He was quite an enigma to not only the characters but to the audience as well.
He was a workaholic, who, while not explicitly stated, was heavily implied to have depression. We only knew Viktor from people who never even spoke to him before or weren’t as close to Viktor to have him confine in them. ( As irarual said)
In the first episode, I got this serious formal vibe from Viktor before seeing the ending of the episode the first time around. His life before going to Japan was working and changing himself to please the audience even since he began skating, his attitude may have deterred many potential partners in general. He wasn’t genuinely happy when you compare his smile after receiving the gold medal at the World’s Championship to the ending where he sees Yuuri running towards him. His life revolved around skating.
The portrayals of Viktor as someone who was reckless when he was young, perhaps just losing inspiration after wasting most of his life skating; or having close friendship with Chris are actually interesting and quite amazing.
Although I guess there’s a lack of fics that depict Viktor being a workaholic who finds that there’s something more then skating in his life.
I’m not great at writing any type of analysis about characters, but I did want to say something about Viktor.
I guess I don’t believe in getting things done??? so here are some useless YOI/Sanrio buttons for Yuuri, Viktor, and Phichimaru. :>
We (as in @mamodewberry and I!) may be giving some of these away at afest along with other fun merch – for freee~!
i know beginner artists are annoyed at the word ‘practice’ being thrown at them by every other artist but i honestly think some of you need to understand the harsh truth. practice is really the only way to improve your art. there are no shortcuts, no tips, no nothing that can turn you into that artist you wanna be. i’m still learning but i knew that frustration well a few months ago. but i had to learn the hard way that i wasn’t going anywhere if i didn’t work.
you ?will?not?get?better?with?out?practice? !!!!
you will not magically turn into a ‘good’ artist overnight. start working. look up references. study anatomy. practice poses and expressions. PRACTISE
