The amazing @nae812 gifted me with another beautiful artwork for Can You Hear My Heartbeat and I want to share it with you (check out the other one here). It's for the beach scene in Chapter 18, in which Yuuri and Viktor make a trip through the countryside of Hasetsu during the summer of mutual pining:
Posted with permission from the artist because commission conditions and stuff. Do not repost (reblog is okay).
Excerpt:
He had read only two pages when his phone buzzed.
Frowning, he picked up it from the nightstand. His heart did a flip as he recognised the sender.
[This was a wonderful day. Thank you, Yuuri.]
Attached to the message were three pictures. Recognition set in the moment Yuuri opened them. The first was the one the stranger from the main island had taken of them and Makkachin at the waterfall. A second one Viktor had taken on the beach as they had lain on the blanket, again with Makkachin between them. A third showed Yuuri on Mount Tenzan, sitting with his legs angled, gazing into the distance with a thoughtful expression. Viktor must have shot it when he had photographed the panorama.
We look happy, Yuuri thought regarding the beach photo, while patting Makkachin absentmindedly. Even when we’re bickering.
Weirdly, Viktor had not sent the one where they were both looking to the camera, but the one he had shot when Yuuri had said something about poor illumination due to the waning daylight. He teased me about it, and I laughed.
I was right, Yuuri thought as he studied the muted colours. Despite the fading light, their eyes shone as if a sliver of the sun was burning in them as they gazed at each other. This is how he looks at me when he’s lovestruck. A pleasant chill ran through him, releasing an echo of that moment on the beach. He’s been looking at me like this all the time, but I needed a photo to notice.
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Much like Welcome to Nightvale, I feel like a lot of people have forgotten just how big and influential Yuri on Ice was. It fully broke into the mainstream. It was everywhere. Evgenia Medvedeva, the top female figure skater in 2016 and 2017, had YOI plushies thrown to her on the ice and wore a Victuuri tshirt to an interview. Japanese pair skaters Miu Suzaki and Ryuichi Kihara skated to the YOI theme at the fucking Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics. The Olympics. Canadian ice dancer Joseph Johnson did the ‘J.J. Style’ hand symbol in the kiss and cry. Johnny Weir made me cry by talking about how he wished the homophobic world of figure skating he experienced could have been more like the kinder world of Yuri on Ice.
There were cameos and references to it everywhere. Everyone was talking about it. People who had never watched anime were watching it. It was so big it crashed Crunchyroll and Tumblr. Twice. And all that for what was at its core, a queer love story that helped pave the way for more queer stories to come.
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One very admirable trait of Yuuri is his determination to go through with an idea no matter how terrified he is if that brings him closer to his goal. We see this trait come into play over and over throughout the show. Often, this drives him to do something he has never done before but knows how to do in theory.
And then there's this:
Viktor has assigned Yuuri a short programme, but Yuuri has absolutely no clue how to perform it because he doesn't get Eros.
Yuuri has yet to learn what (unconditional) love is, too, but he is able grasp it on a subconscious level since he doesn't struggle to explain his interpretation of On Love: Agape
based on the level of understanding he is currently at.
However, Eros is a concept so foreign to him that his reaction to the music is just this:
He can't even put his associations in words (note his clueless tone). These two very different reactions to both arrangements reflect perfectly his own experience and his (current) understanding of "unconditional love" and "sexual love".
Yuuri is the kind of person who despite his anxiety boldly changes the composition of his programmes over and over because he's that desparate to win and this results in some badass moves like:
putting all the jumps of his SP into the second half just because he has stamina
turning the solo jump (3S) in his SP into a quad although he never landed a 4S in competition
going back to jump 3 quads in his FS instead of one
exchange the 4T in his FS against Viktor's signature move
and most prominently: jumps 4 quads so that his FS has the same difficulty as Viktor's
While all of these are daunting for Yuuri, they're doable because he knows how to execute these jumps and he knows he has the stamina to go through with it. The ultimate result boils down to timing, technique, and stamina. But skating to Eros is a major disaster for Yuuri because he delivers his best skating when he skates true to his feelings, and to make things even worse, the stakes are astronomical (they aren't, but that's what he thinks). How should he portray something he can't even feel? How is he supposed to win the Onsen on Ice with that, especially since he believes that losing Viktor as a coach is at stake? No wonder the poor boy outright freaks out at the thought.
Yuuri would have been happy skating to Agape because he has an innate basic understanding of unconditional love. However, he's completely blind to Eros and will need to rely on workarounds to deliver a somewhat decent performance--at least until he and Viktor know each other well enough for Yuuri to figure out how to seduce him with his skating.
And yet in that moment, Yuuri doesn't flinch because he wants Viktor to coach him. He wants to win the Grand Prix Final. He wants Viktor for himself and to eat katsudon with him. All these things embody a dream he has been pursuing for half his life, a dream that involves skating and Viktor, and for the first time in his life, this dream is within reach. He's not going to let a 15-year-old punk take that away from him, he's going to fight for it with all he has. Because even though Yuuri doesn't get Eros, he has eros and this eros is very possessive (and Viktor happens to like that a lot, but Yuuri doesn't know that yet).
Even when he's terrified does Yuuri keep pursuing his goals because he has this strong determination inside him that pushes him to great lengths to make his dreams reality. Nothing is too difficult not to try. Not even when he's supposed to portray with his skating something he neither feels nor has a concept of. He's terrified, he isn't ready for that, but he does it anyway.
A little rant below:
I often see fans treat Yuuri like his anxiety and his determination combined turn him into an enigma of contradictions. Like he's two different personas. But these two traits don't contradict each other at all. That's called bravery and this bravery eventually starts bleeding into Yuuri's off-ice decisions like when he sends Viktor home to Makkachin although he needs Viktor by his side, or when he decides to quit his dream so that Viktor can continue pursuing his (that was a bullshit decision, but that's not the point).
Yuuri claims that he needs Viktor to believe in him and that because of Viktor's love he is stronger, and while it's true that Viktor is a positive influence, his presence in Yuuri's life only reinforces Yuuri's own innate strength.
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