ramblings (or reposts) of a procrastinator

I adore the fact that Yuri on Ice gives us a Yuuri Katsuki who is an unreliable narrator. We meet him at the Grand Prix final, reading some random news article about whether this season is his last, and crying on the phone in the bathroom with his family. He binged on bad foods and carried the weight of grief over Vicchan onto the ice, embarrassing himself (his view) in front of his idol. Then he runs away from Victor, because he doesn’t think he deserves that commemorative photo.

Then we fast-forward 4 months. Yuuri has graduated college, biffed it at Nationals and worries he’s lost his motivation to skate again.

That must’ve been some breakdown!

Well… it was and it wasn’t.

Yuuri seems to view his breakdown as so unusual and terrible that he thinks he does not deserve to be on the ice again (not that Yurio helped). And maybe we (as the audience) are supposed to believe that Yuuri’s meltdown is the big meltdown for a while, but then… so quickly, the show shows us that no one sees Yuuri as “the one who fell apart at the GPF” because…

It happened. A lot. To a lot of skaters. In the show.

Let’s start with Cup of China. While Yuuri is in the parking garage crying and yelling at Victor for being an idiot, the frontrunner for a place at the GPF, winner of Skate America, Leo de la Iglesia wobbles a jump so badly he can’t recover. Georgi Popovich too falls apart in his programme when his ex, Anya, walks out of his skate.

Right there, two skaters had cringes on the big stage at the level that Yuuri had had.

Is that all? Nope! Let’s just head along to Rostelecom for a moment and ask the same question. Emil Nikola didn’t land his jumps (but seemed unphased). On the other hand, Seung-Gil Lee, Mr. “I can land the quad loop,” who we were led to believe is a robot wobbled his jumps and lost concentration. Then… cried. Just like Yuuri had. (If you weren’t watching carefully, you might miss it. Yuuri didn’t.)

Okay, but surely biffing it at the Grand Prix final would be worse. Well, yes, absolutely it is! It’s a bigger stage. It’s a higher pedestal. JJ Leroy was our fallen skater there, letting all the pressure get into his head and turning his mega-jumps into skipping stones.

That means, just in Yuuri’s experience going through the Grand Prix Final series one more time, at least one skater in each and every competition fell apart. It means that this is a common occurrence in the top echelons. That each skater just “has that day” where things go entirely wrong, and they fall apart on the ice, and they cry. It isn’t something that their peers are going to poke at them for. It’s something they’ll hug their peers about and say “yeah buddy, been there.”

Yuuri’s terrible self-image and sky-high anxiety gave him an entirely wrong impression of his skating ability. It made him think his “bad day” meant that he was a terrible skater not worth anything and should quit. It was Yuuri’s anxiety and impostor syndrome talking, not his talent.

Hopefully, even if Yuuri is not paying attention to this, Victor is, and he’s starting to figure out how to help Yuuri see that one bad day (or one hand on the ice) does not nullify just how much of a beautiful skater and star Yuuri is.

There is a very very good reason that Victor Nikiforov falls so hard for Yuuri Katsuki. Honestly, I don’t think Victor stood a chance against this level of precious cinnamon roll chaotic good energy.

Walks away without a word when Victor offers a “commemorative photo”

Has dance battles while in various states of undress at a schmancy banquet

Dry humps Victor’s leg and begs him to be his coach

(Disappears off the face of the skating earth)

Skates a perfect copy of Victor’s free program

Runs away from Victor’s attempts to seduce him (despite said dry humping)

Only wants to eat katsudon with him if he wins “Onsen on Ice”

Katsudon is my Eros!

Sneaks quad Salchow lessons from Yuri Plisetsky behind Victor’s back

Gives him a surprise hug and called himself a tasty katsudon then delivers the sexiest On Love: Eros ever

Touches Victor’s hair whorl

Runs away from Victor (again) when he tries to talk about relationships

Goes airborne when Victor asked “what do you want me to be for you?” then just wants Victor to be himself

Charges into Victor’s bedroom late at night when music is complete

Ignores his coach telling him to downgrade the jumps in his program with an innocent rebellious smile on his face after he did it.

Declares his undying Victor love on live television

“Never take your eyes off me.” just before his SP

Breaks down crying just before his free skate, yells at Victor for being stupid

Touches Victor’s whorl again and pats him on the head just before the FS

Throws a quad flip into his free skate

Grabs Victor’s tie and pulls him close when Victor is not paying enough attention

Sends Victor back to Japan to be with his sick doggo

Asks Victor to be his coach until he retires

Demands that Victor take him sightseeing in Barcelona

Buys them matching “good luck charm” gold rings

Puts ring on Victor’s ring finger in a church

Actually forgot the dry humping and dance battles

Attempts to end coaching relationship in the middle of the Grand Prix

Beats Victor’s world record

Decides to stay in competitive skating “at least one more year”

Winter

Spring

Summer

(he immediately gets yelled at by sokka for waffling so hard on this issue)

"you can't just keep calling her 'the baby' zuko! how would you feel if i just called you 'some dude' every time you walked in the room?"

"i don't call her the baby, sokka," zuko snaps, slightly distracted, as he's currently also trying to figure out how to digest the information that what he thought was a three-month-old is actually six months old. "i call her baby. it's a nickname!"

"terrible nickname," sokka declares. "terrible idea. you're going to confuse her if you keep it up."

"she's six months—" and so tiny for her age, zuko blearily thinks— "she doesn't even know what words are, probably."

sokka dramatically rolls his eyes. "bumi and kya were also like six months old when they started responding to their names. she may not know, but she also knows, zuko. you've gotta give her something."

"then that makes it even worse since we don't know her real name!"

"no," sokka says after a moment of quiet consideration. "we don't. but she does deserve to have a name for herself, for as long as she's here with us."

the mention that they don't know how long this is going to go on for makes zuko a little woozy. but sokka is right (unfortunately), and with a heavy sigh he looks down to the bundle in his arms and scrunches his nose in thought. there are so many options, too many, he doesn't know how parents can do this—

he stares into her pale gold eyes, at the navy hand-me-down blanket that katara had gifted. at the little curls already springing up, at her little mouth, her little eyelashes, her little hand that he had been holding inside his own the whole time sokka was yelling at him.

and then he knows.

"okay," he finally says, then looks up to meet sokka's curious gaze. tilting his arms slightly, he presents her to him. "then this is izumi."

people have pointed out before that zuko probably didn't actually know any of the gaang's names before joining their group. according to the data i've collected, it is unclear as to whether zuko knew any of their names before "the boiling rock," in which he addresses sokka by name multiple times. at no point in the show does he refer to toph, suki, or momo by name.

i find it particularly funny that zuko only seems to refer to katara by name after sokka says her name during their conversation in his tent; the transcript for "the southern raiders" reads as follows:

Sokka: So what's on your mind?

Zuko: Your sister. She hates me! And I don't know why, but I do care what she thinks of me.

Sokka: Nah, she doesn't hate you. Katara doesn't hate anyone. Except maybe some people in the Fire Nation. No, I mean, uh, not people who are good, but used to be bad. I mean, bad people. Fire Nation people who are still bad, who've never been good and probably won't be, ever!

Zuko: Stop. Okay, listen. I know this may seem out of nowhere, but I want you to tell me what happened to your mother.

Sokka: What? Why would you want to know that?

Zuko: Katara mentioned it before when we were imprisoned together in Ba Sing Se, and again just now when she was yelling at me.

we can thus assume that zuko went into this conversation knowing katara only as "[sokka's] sister," heard sokka refer to someone named "katara," and finally connected the dots.

Holly: Officer.

It was to teach you respect.

It was cruel! And it was wrong.

the first gif shows a close-up of ozai in his palace, saying “then you’ve learned nothing!”

the second gif shows shows shadow weaver in the horde, reaching down to the floor and sending her shadow magic across it. the runestone in her mask is glowing. she says “you have learned nothing from me.”

the third gif shows zuko, facing ozai. he’s holding both of his swords in his hands and pointing one of them to ozai. he says “no. i’ve learned everything!”

the fourth gif shows catra, jumping into frame and crouching down. she says “oh, no. i’ve learned everything from you.”

the fifth gif shows zuko redirecting ozai’s lighting and shooting it back at him. it throws ozai on the wall.

the sixth gif shows catra jumping at shadow weaver. she hit her, destroying her mask and the runestone in it. there’s a close-up of catra’s face in the moment she hits shadow weaver from shadow weaver’s perspective. she has a determined/angry expression but she smiles.

the seventh gif shows a close-up of ozai’s face as he looks up angrily. his hair is falling around his face.

The first panel shows Iroh looking calm as Zuko looks enraged. He is shown saying, “I’m going to say a bad word.” in a speech bubble.

The next panel has Zuko saying “I’m going to say a bad word!” again, just it’s written in all caps to imply he’s yelling it. The speech bubble is spiky, to imply yelling as well. His arms are thrown up in emphasis. Iroh, still looking calm, has a smaller speech bubble that says “Go for it.”

The third panel shows just Zuko. There are three dots next to his head and he looks down. His expression is simplistic, but it implies he’s trying to say the bad word.

YA DONT PUT TWO BAD BITCHES AGAINST EACH OTHER