[stumbles Out Of My Time Machine From 2016] Hey Does Anyone Wanna Talk About The Current And Relevant

Repost of an Ed/Alfons Conquerer of Shamballa AU oneshot:

The End of a Cold Shoulder

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65576692

quad revolution in YOI

I'm still thinking about this discussion about quads in YOI and which character would attempt a 4A or generally add more quads to their portfolio.

By the time, YOI aired, the first ratified 4F and 4Lo had just been landed in competition by Shoma Uno (4F, April 2016) and Yuzuru Hanyu (4Lo, Autumn Classic, the week before episode 1 aired). While the 4F remains special with Viktor and later Yuuri being the only skaters who can land it, the YOI creators went ahead by including a quad no one had ever landed in competition by the time the storyboards and the fs programmes were created: the quad loop. In YOI, JJ, Emil, and Seung-Gil jump the 4Lo in competition like it's nothing, and Viktor once jumped it at a gala, which is a whole different level of badassery due to the lighting conditions.

Figure skating is constantly evolving as athletes challenge themselves, pushing their physical limits and the boundaries of the sport. Once triple jumps became the new normal, quad jumps become next frontier. As a piece of fiction created by two avid figure skating fans, YOI anticipated the quad revolution. Comparing the history of figure skating to the fictional world of YOI, I expect some characters adding more and more quads to their programmes while others focus on artistry, and the first skater landing a ratified 4A in competition some seasons before Ilia Malinin landed the first ratified 4A irl.

Of all quad jumps, the 4A has the highest difficulty because it's the only quad that has 4.5 rotations. If I think about which skaters would join the race for the 4A, JJ, Yurio, and Emil come to mind. All three are young enough to take up the challenge. JJ and Yurio have ambition and Emil would be in for the fun of it. And I think of Yuuri for three reasons:

the Axel is his best jump

he is physically resilient due to his high stamina and rarely ever suffering from injury

his ambition: by including the 4A in his programmes, he could beat Viktor in score and technical difficulty.

So, what about Viktor?

By the time Viktor picks up his career, he is 28. In competitive singles skating, that's bordering geriatic. Coming back to competition after a hiatus is hard and his admiration of Yuuri’s stamina and physical health suggest that he struggled with stamina and injury in the past. Getting back to his old shape and being able to compete at the top would be his priority. Staying in the air for four-and-a-half rotations? Maybe not so much.

Of course, we have no information on whether Viktor practised the 4A in the past. Many skaters practise jumps they don’t show off in competition to play it safe. Being able to quadruple all the other jumps, he might have been tempted or even jumped the 4A for funsies. However, Viktor wouldn’t have won worlds and the GPF five times in a row if he hadn’t played it extra safe during those seasons, even more so if he is prone to injury. Injury just has the potential to mess up a skater's entire season. Viktor seems too considerate to embrace the risk of adding rotations, whereas I can totally see younger and more reckless skaters like JJ or Yuuri eventually go for the 4A. And because of that I don’t see Viktor pursuing the 4A as a real goal, especially not post-comeback. I’d rather expect him surprise the audience with a 4Lo than endangering his comeback by going for four-and-a-half rotations.

quad revolution in YOI

I'm still thinking about this discussion about quads in YOI and which character would attempt a 4A or generally add more quads to their portfolio.

By the time, YOI aired, the first ratified 4F and 4Lo had just been landed in competition by Shoma Uno (4F, April 2016) and Yuzuru Hanyu (4Lo, Autumn Classic, the week before episode 1 aired). While the 4F remains special with Viktor and later Yuuri being the only skaters who can land it, the YOI creators went ahead by including a quad no one had ever landed in competition by the time the storyboards and the fs programmes were created: the quad loop. In YOI, JJ, Emil, and Seung-Gil jump the 4Lo in competition like it's nothing, and Viktor once jumped it at a gala, which is a whole different level of badassery due to the lighting conditions.

Figure skating is constantly evolving as athletes challenge themselves, pushing their physical limits and the boundaries of the sport. Once triple jumps became the new normal, quad jumps become next frontier. As a piece of fiction created by two avid figure skating fans, YOI anticipated the quad revolution. Comparing the history of figure skating to the fictional world of YOI, I expect some characters adding more and more quads to their programmes while others focus on artistry, and the first skater landing a ratified 4A in competition some seasons before Ilia Malinin landed the first ratified 4A irl.

Of all quad jumps, the 4A has the highest difficulty because it's the only quad that has 4.5 rotations. If I think about which skaters would join the race for the 4A, JJ, Yurio, and Emil come to mind. All three are young enough to take up the challenge. JJ and Yurio have ambition and Emil would be in for the fun of it. And I think of Yuuri for three reasons:

the Axel is his best jump

he is physically resilient due to his high stamina and rarely ever suffering from injury

his ambition: by including the 4A in his programmes, he could beat Viktor in score and technical difficulty.

So, what about Viktor?

By the time Viktor picks up his career, he is 28. In competitive singles skating, that's bordering geriatic. Coming back to competition after a hiatus is hard and his admiration of Yuuri’s stamina and physical health suggest that he struggled with stamina and injury in the past. Getting back to his old shape and being able to compete at the top would be his priority. Staying in the air for four-and-a-half rotations? Maybe not so much.

Of course, we have no information on whether Viktor practised the 4A in the past. Many skaters practise jumps they don’t show off in competition to play it safe. Being able to quadruple all the other jumps, he might have been tempted or even jumped the 4A for funsies. However, Viktor wouldn’t have won worlds and the GPF five times in a row if he hadn’t played it extra safe during those seasons, even more so if he is prone to injury. Injury just has the potential to mess up a skater's entire season. Viktor seems too considerate to embrace the risk of adding rotations, whereas I can totally see younger and more reckless skaters like JJ or Yuuri eventually go for the 4A. And because of that I don’t see Viktor pursuing the 4A as a real goal, especially not post-comeback. I’d rather expect him surprise the audience with a 4Lo than endangering his comeback by going for four-and-a-half rotations.

I miss him...

Another old royed art that hasn’t seen the light of day until now

Took me three days, but, here's a loving tribute to the anime which changed my life <3

Sometimes, you think of an idea and when you come up with it you're like "damn, I'm a genius."

And then you're actually writing the scene and you're like "damn, I suck at this."

Thinking about Edward Elric as the Amestrian Military's specialest little unfireable boy

State alchemists can be fired for underperforming. We know this up front from the likes of Shou Tucker. And this makes a ton of sense from the homunculi's standpoint since the state alchemists are sacrifice candidates, and the homunculi would want to cull the weakest candidates and focus only on cultivating the strongest ones who stand the best chance of opening the portal.

........Then there's Edward. Who's already opened the portal.

There's no need to cultivate him. No gamble taken on whether he's good enough to open the portal. He passed the final test already. Graduated 4 semesters early.

And as such, has a free pass to do Absolute Fuck All.

And I'm imagining how funny this is from like an outside perspective.

Some newish state alchemist who'd only ever read up on the stories of Edward Elric, ready and excited to start their career of being paid handsomely with endless freedom to research and travel and do anything they want in the pursuit of science... surprised and confused to find themselves put on probation their first month for things like "ignoring orders." Which is, as best they had thought, a famous Edward Elric pastime.

Roy showing a slight bit of stress about his yearly state alchemist report, and Ed just snorting and rolling his eyes at Roy because every year HE just hastily does his on the train ride over (canon in the manga, a travesty it was left out of the anime) and it gets rubber stamped. Ed not realizing that other alchemists' reports get genuinely scrutinized and torn apart while Ed is free to turn in whatever absolute bullshit he thinks of 36 hours ahead of time. One year his report was about whether alchemy could be done via dance (conclusion: no it can't) and no one cared. Roy WANTS to tell Ed there's some kind of unknown favoritism around Ed making him literally bullet-proof but Roy has no way to phrase this that doesn't sound like he's just in denial and mad at how good Ed's train-reports are.

Guy from the Internal Amestrian Affairs sector who's responsible for auditing other internal military personel for any suspicious activity hitting about 1 million red flags for Edward Elric, issuing a STRONG and URGENT recommendation to suspend the alchemist pending further investigation into things like "literal bunk-buddies with two members of the Xingese royalty (enemy nation)" and "spent $10,000,000 of his stipend on a librarian to make her re-copy (what he seemed to interpret as?) military records in some extremely transparent effort to unearth state secrets (it was a recipe book but he was literally asking her about state secrets)" and "literally has never once obeyed an order, ever, not even once in his career, and is on public record having said 'I do not care about the goals and protections of the Amestrian Military. I am in fact only pursuing my own interests several of which are diametrically opposed to the safety and well-being of the governing body of Amestris'"

The issued recommendation is intercepted before it even reaches its intended desk. President Bradley himself has taken issue with it and denies it before a single set of eyes has seen it. The President's veto stamp is a terrifying hammer, used rarely, and it is now sitting on the auditor's desk.

The auditor sleeps with one eye open from then on out.

lucky charm 💍