His embarrassing questions are apparently read in a popular podcast—one introduced to him by none other than Yuuri himself.
Teen and Up Audiences. 3,993 words. Complete.
Victor Nikiforov has many qualities: he is the most decorated skater in the world, possesses great beauty, can lick the tip of his nose and is a pretty good cook.
That being said, flirting isn’t exactly his forté.
All of his dates had been effortless—he didn’t need to worry about catching their date’s interest, and when he wasn’t particularly engrossed with the idea of committing to a relationship dating was… almost easy. The other part would usually to make the most effort and Victor would allow himself to be chased.
Victor’s experience with dating wasn’t exactly… vast. It wasn’t his number one interest and, in his youth, he had been too shy to go after someone he was interested in. So for the vast majority of his adulthood, he couldn’t recall ever flirting with someone with the full intention of seducing them. It had always been a given—who wouldn’t want to date the Victor Nikiforov?
He knew that eventually his lack of aptitude to flirt would come back to bite him in the ass. He only didn’t know it would make him groan in exasperation when he didn’t know what to do and how to proceed.
The beautiful boy from the banquet, Yuuri Katsuki, hadn’t called him back. Granted, he had been the drunkest Victor had ever seen a person be, but he knew Victor—was his fan—and wouldn’t stop thanking him and apologizing for his behavior.
He had been cute. Too cute.
Victor really wanted to know him better—talk to him without three liters of champagne in his system—so he had given him his number. Casual, right? It had happened to him before.
Though… he had never been on the other end. He didn’t know what to do. Chris didn’t know what to tell him and the fact Yuuri didn’t use social media made it even harder for him to figure out what to do.
So in a late night, when he couldn’t sleep because he was too busy trying to think of what he could possibly do to draw Yuuri’s attention to him, he had an idea.
No time to draw fully rendered stuff so here’s a quick (fake) anime screencap of a Yuri on Ice AU hahah. I might draw more… The end of the year is always so busy! Anyways, hope everyone’s doing well ❤
“He’s running out of time” – the dreaded 30 second rule.
I meant to make this a long time ago (and probably HAVE made a long-forgotten draft somewhere), but kept convincing myself that it wasn’t important enough.
It’s a small figure skating scheduling tidbit.
This is ep12, after Yuuri and Victor have their pre-FS rinkside talk and Morooka mistakes their laughter for crying.
In this scene, Takeshi is commenting on the length of time Yuuri took to head out to center ice after his name was called by the announcer.
Rule 350 on page 12 of the 2016 Special Regulations rulebook (the rulebook edition that was out when YoI was created and finished, and currently still in effect), addresses the Call to Start. It outlines the expectations for skaters taking a starting position, and the consequences upon failing to comply. A skater has thirty (30) seconds to take their starting position upon having their name called. If they take even 1 second too long, the skater(s) will receive a penalty of 1.00 point, and if they are not in position by 60 seconds, then they are considered withdrawn from the segment of the competition (Short Program, Free Skate, Short Dance, etc.).
This rule was put in place after the 2013-2014 season ended because… the ISU wanted to shorten times and speed things up for TV programming. Prior to the 2014-2015 season, the time limit was 1 minute so that skaters had time to center themselves before starting. But the ISU deemed that 30 seconds was plenty of time. As you can imagine, that tripped up some skaters in following seasons. The most recent one I can remember off the top of my head is Yuzuru at the 2017 Worlds Men’s SP.
I do want to stress that the 30-second countdown only starts once the announcer introduces the next skater to skate.
As we see with J.J. and Otabek in ep11, the next skater is allowed onto the ice as soon as the previous skater steps off. So while the judges are calculating scores, the next skater can skate around a bit and get a feel for the ice again. This means that a skater might be on the ice for a few minutes before their name is finally called.
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On a related note, in case fic writers would like to know for whatever reason:
Finishing AFTER the music ends can also incur a 1 point penalty for every 5 seconds passed the maximum allowed program time (rule 502, page 74).
It’s not a big deal if a skater moves slightly after the music ends, but if their movement makes it so that they exceed the maximum time limit (2:45 for SP; 4:35 for FS), then that’s when a timekeeper and referee make the call. For example, if a skater’s program is 2:40 seconds, then they are right on the exact allotted time, and if they miss the end of the music by 2 seconds, it would put them at 2:42 which is still within the 5-second grace period. If a skater’s program is 2:45, then they need to end EXACTLY with the music or they will be penalized because they exceeded the 5 second grace period. This is why it’s a good idea to NOT make a program the maximum time, because even a second or two of wiggle room at the end can be the difference between being OK, and being dinged a point by the Referee (in consultation with the Timekeeper). This happened recently with Shoma Uno at the 2017 GPF Men’s SP.
Same goes with being under the minimum time limit: 2:35 for SP/4:25 for FS. Better to make a program slighter longer than the minimum, in case the skater strikes their final pose a tad early.
So to tie it all up, Yuuri
used up the preparatory time to resolve issues and set himself at ease. The announcer called his name while he was talking with Victor. When they parted, Yuuri was cutting it close to being penalized for taking his starting position late, but he made it in time, so he received no deductions.
I think I’m a little obsessed with Yuri!!! On Ice… I love this anime so much, more than other animes that I have watched, more than Attack on Titan, more than every one… so I NEED season two so much, it’s the only way I can pass school and everything.
Plume de Lynx 