Yuri on Ice is a phenomenal show about mental health, courage, figure skating, and romance, and it also happens to be one of the most subtle, narratively brilliant things I’ve ever seen in my goddamn life.
I consider it a professional necessity to watch it, take it apart, figure out how it ticks, and rewatch it, because damn.
Also Viktor + Yuuri forever thank you.
I’m sure some people will fight me on this, but for real--Viktor Nikiforov at the beginning of YOI is probably the closest depiction of my experience of depression that I’ve ever seen in any media, including anything I’ve ever created.
* lack of interest/emotion * repeatedly forgetting important things (like promises to Yurio) * depression is triggered strongly by success * deals with it by deciding to--in a matter of hours--toss away a wildly successful career that is making him miserable to do something incredibly rewarding that his former colleagues think is a joke * incredibly good at faking it * ability to fake it only worsens depression * not parsed by anyone around him as depression because, heh, he’s not SAD and he’s SUCCESSFUL and how could he be depressed
There’s a lot of talk about Yuuri’s mental health issues, and those are amazing, but Viktor starts off the show in what reads to me as a pretty deep depression. Episode 10 and 11, when he’s finally experiencing emotions again, and is grounded in the moments that he is in, instead of free-floating outside them, are incredibly meaningful to me.
It took me more than 30 years to understand that what happened to me was depression, and I so rarely see depression as I experience it portrayed anywhere, so...
TL;DR this show is extraordinary.
It’s the penultimate snippet, dedicated to everyone who thinks that tone comes across just fine on the internet.
~~~
Fine. But you’re walking home with me. I hit send before I can think better of it.
She doesn’t respond immediately, and I know just how fast she can type. I stand up. I put my pencils back in the drawer, file the stray papers and lesson plans for tomorrow, and find my messenger bag. She still hasn’t responded by the time I’ve finished.
I tap my foot, almost impatiently.
Her answer finally comes. You mean virtually?
I roll my eyes. No, Em. I mean in real life. I’m not leaving my office until you get on a plane and meet me here. I have three Clif bars and a blood-orange San Pelligrino, so I assure you, I can wait a long time.
Her only response is an emoji of a person sticking her tongue out.
I slip out of my office door and type as I go down the hall. And they say tone doesn’t come across on the internet.
I really want to preorder this, but I have a question. I buy all my ebooks from AllRomance because I know if they’re DRM-free they’re really DRM-free (i.e., I can download and store the epub locally and read it on my preferred e-reader, which isn’t Kindle or iBooks or Kobo). Is that the case for any of these retailers? Google, maybe? (As much as I hate to open YET ANOTHER account somewhere, I’m willing to do it to support Courtney Milan. Just not if I can’t get a real DRM-free file.)
(1) I don’t put DRM on my releases anywhere. Sometimes vendors mess up and apply it anyway.
(2) It will be up on ARe by release date in a number of formats, so you don’t have to worry about getting it elsewhere.
(3) I give people explicit permission to strip DRM if a vendor applies it. (Some do so automatically). This post is not legal advice as to the legality of DRM stripping, but the prohibitions against DRM removal are contained in 17 U.S.C. Section 1201 (readable here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201).
1201(a)(1)(A) states: “No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”
However, 1201(a)(3)(A) defines circumvention as follows: “to ‘circumvent a technological measure’ means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner.” (Emphasis added.)
I am the owner of the copyright and I authorize you to remove any DRM applied to my ebooks. This authorization is given both in the file of the book itself and here on tumblr. I authorize you all (that would be the entire world) to remove DRM from my works in perpetuity.
I can’t guarantee that this authorization will have legal effect throughout the entire world, but where it does, burn that to the ground.
(Look, there’s a release date, and it’s not a lie.)
Once upon a time I told people that Jay was going to be a bad boy. I'm really embarrassed that I ever said that because at this point he is...
...a neat freak workaholic quantum computation dork who drives a compact hybrid electric vehicle? Which is JUST LIKE being a bad boy.
This week's snippet details Jay's qualifications as a bad boy.
~~~
I pull out my phone and find my chat with Actual Physicist from last night and start writing. It’s working! I think it’s working! Although I shouldn’t count my post-apocalyptic chickens until they properly die of the plague.
I’m never sure if he’ll be around during the day. Sometimes, it takes him hours to get back to me. Today, though, it takes him thirty seconds to reply.
Awesome. A pox be on you!
I smile. A pox be on everyone! I consider this, and then offer this careful amendment. Actually, the simulator starts off with a 48% survival rate. So really, only one of us should statistically be poxed.
Hmm. A. writes. That’s a 23% chance both of us survive.
I think he is flirting. It would take a giant dork to flirt with, “I hope we both survive a super-flu infection,” but since his screen name is “Actual Physicist,” odds are that he is a giant dork.
Because I am also a giant dork, this is how I flirt back: 27% chance we both die. Until 5 minutes from now, when I rerun the simulation with a 46% survival rate.
That’s about as specific as we usually get. Except this time…
Promise me that if there’s ever an apocalypse, you’ll let me join your roving band of survivors?
He would never be able to find me. He doesn’t know my name. Doesn’t have my picture. We only ever talk about meeting in the most hypothetical of senses.
Hmm, I type in return. Do you have any useful skills? Hunting, gathering, cage-fighting?
...Feynman diagrams?
I laugh out loud. Both tasty and calorically-dense, I’m sure.
So, if you remember from Trade Me, before Tina and Maria became roommates, Maria had a less than ideal living situation. One of her former roommates, Angela Choi, shows up in Hold Me. And this snippet will explain both why I love Anj (I love her so much) and why Maria didn't like living with her:
I think about all the reasons I was shamefully relieved Anj had to go out of town.
They are myriad. She only eats cereal. When she’s focused on a project—which is all the time—she leaves her cereal bowls, half-full of milk, wherever she finishes eating. She keeps four snakes, seven lizards, and hundred gallon saltwater aquarium for her glow-in-the-dark shark, even though our lease specifically said that no pets were allowed. (“They’re not pets,” Anj explained, “they’re projects.”) Also, Anj thinks it is perfectly fine to raise mealworms for said lizards in the living room. She is a mess to live with and she knows it.
Today's snippet has some irrelevant bits excised from the middle. Last week I mentioned that Maria and Jay absolutely hated each other.
This week, I should mention that Maria and Jay have also been corresponding under pseudonyms (respectively, "Em" and "Actual Physicist") for eighteen months. They haven't exchanged real names or numbers or anything like that. They mostly talk about Maria's blog posts and related things. They're friends. Friends who swap messages back and forth 170 times a day.
And this is what they’re like:
* * *
She goes on: You are, perhaps, referring to the abomination known as soup in a can? What kind of a monster do you take me for? Soup in a can is not soup. The vegetables get soggy. The noodles turn to mush. SOUP IN A CAN IS NOT REAL SOUP, OKAY?
I grin as I type. Uh. Em. I’m pretty sure canned soup is actually soup. There’s an entire series of paintings about it.
She sends me a skull-and-crossbones emoji. FUCK WARHOL. I AM SERIOUS ABOUT SOUP.
Whoa, I type. Em. Calm down.
IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE FLIPPANT ABOUT SOUP, THIS CONVERSATION IS OVER.
I know she’s joking the way I know Rayleigh scattering explains why the sky is blue: immediately and without thinking. That’s why I play along. I apologize. Clearly I have failed to take soup with the seriousness that soup deserves. All hail the mighty soup. Ave, soup. Morturi te salutant.
I can almost feel the suspicion roiling off my phone. Three little dots appear, indicating that she’s typing. Then: What are you talking about?
It’s not often I manage to stump her. Reading comics in my misspent youth has given me some useful ammunition. It’s what ancient gladiators would say to Caesar before they did battle. Except the soup part. It means something like “We who are about to die salute you.” One can’t get more serious about soup than a death match in its honor.
* * *
(We're going to skip some bits right here. But wait until Em has her soup and the conversation resumes, and the reason why Em felt soup was necessary comes out. At least minimally.)
* * *
Yay, soup, she agrees. I feel substantially less embarrassed and substantially more enraged. I have decided I was not wrong. The other guy was at fault.
I smile. I’m sure he was. What a dick.
You don’t even know any details. You’re quick to take my side.
I don’t need to think before I type. I don’t need details. My money is on you in any death match you choose to participate in. Ave Em, morturi te salutant.
It’s time for another snippet.
So. This is from Hold Me. More here: http://www.courtneymilan.com/holdme.php
The basic set up is this: Jay and Maria hate each other. Hate each other hate each other hate each other. And one day, Jay runs into Maria. Literally.
---
He reaches for my compact. “Watch where you’re going,” he says. “What were you doing, taking a selfie?”
“Taking six,” I snap at him. “Gotta make sure my profile picture is perfect, after all. Do I look okay?”
I mean it as something of a barbed joke. But he pauses where he is, one knee on the ground before me. His fingers are half-closed around my compact, and he looks up. For a second, his expression goes utterly blank.
I know the answer to the question I just asked him. I look more than okay. I’m wearing a pink sundress with black patent leather sandals—thick, glossy lines that criss-cross my feet from toe to ankle. I can feel his gaze sliding up me, from the pale blue of my toenail polish, up the lines of my sandals, up my legs. He eventually gets to my eyes. It’s a long eventually.
He doesn’t need to answer my question. By his total lack of response, I look more than okay. He blows out a breath and shakes his head, as if the fact that I look more than okay pisses him off.
He swallows. “Beauty standards are shit anyway.”
So. I have a book. It will very likely be coming out sometime in October. Exact date still TBD.
BUT. Soon-ish. And I’m going to be doing snippets every Wednesday.
Before we get to Maria interacting with Jay, I wanted to show you Maria interacting with Gabriel, her older brother. They get along great. Which means they tease each other mercilessly. And so here you are. (Next week is Maria and Jay).
More about Hold Me here: http://www.courtneymilan.com/holdme.php
----
“There’s a consulting firm—”
My brother guffaws. “Actuarial consultants? Who needs an actuarial consultant? That’s not a real thing.”
I fold my arms and mock-glare at Gabe. “Okay, dude who worked at the literal Hadron collider on a project designed to figure out if the universe is covered by an indetectable field. You would be the expert on things that are not real.”
