Things what to watch and read

i cant wait for yuuri to be the son-in-law yakov’s always wanted..

anyway heres a bonus cause its christmas!

I keep seeing this, and it’s just something I want to point out because it’s an inaccuracy. 

They’re not ‘professional’ figure skaters. 

There are two entirely different figure skating scenes; the amateur skating scene and the pro skating scene. 

Nowadays, with the ‘professional’ skating scene not being as much of a thing in the public eye, it’s more like ‘eligible’ and ‘ineligible’. 

The amateur skating scene is Olympic level skating. These are skaters that are ISU eligible. This is where Victor, Yuuri, and Yurio compete.

Professional is plainly accurate and means something else entirely.  

If you compete or skate in a show or competition that is not sanctioned by the ISU you lose your eligibility and become ineligible. Back in the 90s and early 2000s there were dozens of these competitions and shows and there was an entire ‘professional skating’ scene where 80s/early 90s greats like Ekaterina Gordeeva, Katarina Witt, Kurt Browning, Brian Boitano, etc. competed for fun and profit. 

Nowadays professional skating generally applies to people who skate for a career in shows like Disney on Ice, Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship shows, etc. There are also professional competitions like the US Open Professional Skating Championship, but they’re pretty small and don’t feature major players like they used to. 

So…

I know a lot of people are trying to dissect Viktor and Yuuri and the dynamics of their coaching relationship. (It’s really hard though since there are literally no boundaries between them as student/coach, fiancés/lovers.)

But anyways: let’s talk about the single most underrated teacher/student relationship in the series.

The easy route to go with these characters is to parallel them with Yurio/Lilia. Both Lilia and Minako are celebrated dancers (they probably knew each other or of each other), both are extraordinarily influential in their students’ skating styles. Agape isn’t possible without Lilia’s ballet-boot-camp. We joke about how Yuuri’s dance mastery is all because of Minako? 

What sets him apart as a skater?

His ridiculously high PCS scores? That’s Minako’s lasting influence—she trained Yuuri as a dancer, probably made sure he was as skilled in it as he possibly could be, and as a skater he made up the score gap with his artistry. 

But let’s go to the Scene that Keeps on Giving

1) We get Viktor and Minako in a room together. Please people, keep imagining them talking with each other. They are in many ways, very, very similar and very, very much in awe of Yuuri. If Viktor is an unending source of romantic love, Minako is basically his second mother, and an unending source of familial love. They both are prodigies in their given fields. They are both Yuuri’s eccentric teachers.

(Hell: if Minako is in her 50s, she was most probably, in-universe, The First Asian Woman to Win All her Prizes. She was probably, in-universe, The First Asian Woman to Dance Principle in X, Y, Z Ballet Company Abroad.

I know homophobia is handwaved in the Yuri on Ice universe, and to a lesser extent, racism. But Phichit and Otabek are always pointed out as trailblazers. When you see them crying or proud because they’ve done something for their country that no one else has? Minako’s been there, done that, and still hasn’t aged.

Goddamn.) 

Just think of the tension, Minako is all “Take advantage Yuuri” to Yuuri’s face but remains somewhat leery of Viktor. Because she’s heard the stories. If Yuuri’s idol-worship is keeping him from realizing how creepy Viktor’s arrival is… I’m imagining the good people of Hasetsu are all… “So this Viktor guy just shows up naked, unannounced, and he says he’s teaching Yuuri.” 

?????????????

(”Skating?”

“Yup.”

“Really?”

“Hand me another drink ji-san. He kept staring at my boy’s ass for all two hours of our ballet class.”)

Minako would probably be the first person to cut Viktor if he doesn’t make good on his coaching Yuuri promise.

2) Scene is quick, it’s used to establish that Yuuri is a genius of hard work.

but: The Most Enlightening Scene Ever

To unpack this:

Minako is low-key telling Viktor: “Yes, Yuuri gets anxious. It’s not just a competition thing. He’s been anxious his entire life. This is his coping mechanism.” 

And then: *bam* “I usually go along with him.”

Can we just?

Imagine baby Yuuri, who probably has used up all his spoons for the day, and then there’s his teacher Minako, who notices and goes all “Okay, what do you need? You need to skate? Ok. Let’s tell your parents, I’ll go with you, and I’ll stay with you.”

No questions asked, she’s just there.

Like—she’s either dancing with him or just watching him ice skate for however long it’ll take the anxiety attack to go away. 

The fuck.

For the entirety of his childhood, Yuuri has had this one woman support system of “You need to skate/dance right now? Kay, let me just find my coat, off we go Yuuri!” Can you imagine? How many hours? How many times a week? And she’d just go with him. 

Bonus Points: She wasn’t at the GPF where Yuuri failed. She didn’t fly into Russia for the Rostelecom Cup where he was alone for the second half. If you want a pre-Viktor coping mechanism: it’s Minako.

So here’s something to think about:

Even though he was royalty, Uncle Iroh was a master of preparing his own tea– even after he left with Zuko, he could always be seen preparing it on his own, eventually opening a successful tea shop when the one he worked at turned out to be awful.

For a firebender, heating a pot of water wouldn’t be difficult– a few seconds of rage and you’d have it at a rolling boil– but a rolling boil would ruin the tea.

The secret to a good cup of tea is often in the temperature of water that you use.

Jasmine, green and white tea tends to need between 160-180* F (71-82*C)– go any higher than that, and you’ll scald the leaves and wind up with bitter tea. Let it steep for too long, and it’ll scald anyway. So you can’t just boil the hell out of it and walk away; to be really good, a cup of tea needs a lower temperature and a softer flame. It needs patience and attention. And that’s where Uncle Iroh excelled.

*Gags* “This tea is nothing more than hot leaf juice!”

“Uncle…that’s what all tea is.”

“How could a member of my own family say something so horrible?”

DO YOU MEAN THAT ZUKO NEVER PREPARED A GOOD CUP OF TEA BEFORE BECAUSE HE WAS TOO IMPATIENT TO PROPERLY HEAT IT AND THAT IROH PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER RIGHT THEN AND THERE?

“We’ll have to make some major changes around here!” — His next line which he says firmly, grabbing the teapot and looking at Zuko as he turns.

Like literally after this the main plotpoint between these two is Iroh teaching Zuko how to be more patient/kind/open-minded while also teaching him how to properly work in the tea shop and I just…do you mean to tell me those two were actually not just random meshing plotpoints but were a direct correlation?

It’s about this dude Henry who’s an artist living in New York,

and he has to go back to his hometown in Montana to take care of his grandfather who just recently had a stroke and is wheelchair-bound.

Things are all fine and dandy until Henry finds out that his old best friend from high school, as well as object of his unrequited affections that he’s never really been able to let go of is also back in town. His name is Dean. He’s there with his two sons to recoup from a recent divorce from his wife. 

Henry is extremely frazzled by seeing his long-time crush after so many years, but they spend a lot of time together over the passing weeks and seem to fall into their old friendship very easily. Perhaps a little too easily….??? hmmm???

And with everything with Dean happening, Henry can’t be blamed that he’s entirely oblivious to Pike, the man who runs the local general goods store.

It’s obvious to us (and the whole damn town) that Pike’s been head over heels for Henry since high school, but is painfully shy. He can barely talk to Henry at all and it’s the cuTEST GODDAMN THING oh lord help me from this movie.

Throughout the movie, Pike can’t seem to help himself from wanting nothing more than to make Henry happy from afar. He’s supposed to be delivering food cooked by one of the older ladies in town to Henry and his grandfather’s house to eat every night, but Pike cooks his own, exceptionally better meals, and delivers those instead and tells no one.

Now, Henry does notice Pike, and something about him catches his attention. Even if he doesn’t understand why yet. He tries to invite him to stay for dinner almost every night in an attempt to get him to open up, but Pike only becomes more closed off when he notices what’s going on between Henry and Dean. 

I’ll stop there, as I don’t want to give the whole thing away, but I can’t leave this without talking about the town’s residents in this movie. This place is 100% one of those little towns where everyone knows each other as well as their business, you have nosy little old ladies, dudes who do nothing all day but sit on the porch of the corner store and smoke a pipe, and they all go to church on Sundays.

AND YET, not only is this movie void of any homophobia from any character, basically the whole freaking town is all up in this whole love triangle. They support Pike so much that there’s even scenes where they all play matchmaker with him and Henry. They root for them in the goofiest, most loveable way. 

SO BASICALLY, this is a silly romantic comedy, except gay. It’s all super  lighthearted comedy with tiny bits of drama thrown in. No one dies!!!! No one is killed or commits suicide and has a 100% happy ending!!! The three main guys are just normal guys!!! There’s not a stereotype to be found here!! anD ONE OF THEM IS NATIVE AMERICAN. No seriously guys it hurts me that not everybody knows about this movie. I discovered it when I was in middle school in our video store’s tiny little LGBTQ section, and must have rented it 20 times throughout the years before I finally bought it. I know this movie almost frame by frame I’ve watched it so many times because it’s just so disgustingly cute and always makes me happy. NOW, this movie isn’t perfect. It’s got some clunky acting, weird.. I guess artsy moments that don’t make sense, and crosses into the line of cheesy quite a few times, BUT, that’s really not important. This is treated exactly as if it were a het romantic comedy. Their being gay has nothing to do with the overall story, and is never brought up save for a small plotline where Henry is guilty with himself for never coming out to his grandfather. But overall, more LGBTQ movies need to be like this, it’s just way too rare.

GO WATCH IT YOU’LL BE GLAD YOU DID. Sadly, the only way I know to get ahold of it is to just buy the DVD. But it’s fairly cheap on Amazon! And even cheaper if you buy it used on there, but either way I promise it’s worth it to own. Like I said, I think I kept our video store in business from my renting it so many times.

Here is what you need to know about Magic Mike XXL: In the first second that the end-credits came up, the woman in front of me let out an audible, disappointed “aww.” As in: “oh no, it’s over.” 

NOT: “aww, that was not a satisfactory experience,” but more like “Is it over? NO. That was so much, SO MUCH MORE than I ever knew I wanted, and it felt so good, the whole thing FELT SO GOOD that I never wanted it to end. I’m not ready, I’m NOT READY for it to be over, is it over? PLEASE, don’t make me go back out there, I want to stay here FOREVER!!!”

Did men write poems with their bodies and make it look easy? YEAH they did. 

I mean, not to oversell it, but have you ever wanted to just have an out of body experience, or feel a blush creep its way up basically from your waist to your hairline, or experience complete and uncomplicated joy?

You know how every once in a while, like, once a SEASON (if you’re lucky) in a television show, there is perhaps a moment where you spontaneously yell out “Oh my GOD!!!” because you can’t believe that happened in front of your eyes and you didn’t see it coming? I probably involuntarily said “OH MY!!!! GOD!!!!” thirty-seven times during the runtime of Magic Mike XXL, which I just discovered is two hours and ten minutes, WHAT? It felt like an EYE BLINK, it felt like no time at all, it felt like forever. 

It was a very, very different movie than Magic Mike THE FIRST, which obviously I adored and - I MEAN, SIDEBAR TO ALL CRITICS: did you know that you’re allowed to like two different things and even to compare them without deciding that one is GREAT and one retroactively was lousy? I guess, fine, maybe a movie about a person earnestly try to achieve his dreams as everything he cares about is slowly torn away from him and he’s told, over and over again, that he’s worthless, while simultaneously never giving up on his own value as a person, as depicted though defiantly passionate erotic dancing is not a movie for everyone. I can’t understand it, but–okay. HOWEVER, I can love THAT movie, and also love thiS movie, which is a remix epilogue about hope and starting over and, I think, the idea that men are beaten down and imprisoned in the patriarchal box of masculinity until they can barely dare to understand that they have rich inner lives, dreams, hopes, passions, let alone that their lived experience is unique and valuable and allowed. As depicted through defiantly passionate erotic dancing.

Of course my favorite part was that Magic Mike is struggling to provide healthcare to his employees. I MEAN, HELP. VAPORS. MAYBE YOU HAD TO BE THERE. There were some other favorite parts I feel I shouldn’t get into because I don’t want to rob anyone of their own experience.

100 british films  Attack the Block [Joe Cornish] [2011]