YOI Multishipper Problems

[prillalar]

[ Before the ramble (or vent) begins, some signal boosting:
+ rareshipsonice - Yuri!!! on ICE Rare Pair fanwork exchange! Basically anything other than Yuuri/Victor and Otabek/Yuri. Currently in nominations.
+ yurionicefans - YOI DW comm! ]

While working on some fic that doesn't involve any of these characters, I was listening to Steve Winwood (I'm an old) and Back In the High Life Again came on and I had a mini-breakdown over Chris/Victor, mainly from frustration that it's next to impossible to write them post-canon.

I love Yuuri/Victor but I'm a multishipper and Chris/Victor is my favourite Victor ship. (Nishigori/Yuuri is my other main ship, just to get even more impossible.) And I've never been in a fandom before where the juggernaut was so juggernaut-y and soulmate-y and canon-y that to write any other end-game pairing with either of them is nearly unthinkable.

I don't want to go canon-divergent; it's not my thing. Am I doomed to never being able to write what I want? Or is there perhaps some way to break Yuuri and Victor up post-canon that I wouldn't have to spend more than about 25% of the Chris/Victor fic dealing with? (Victor dealing with it, I mean, not showing the break-up.)

I realise I will have to sign a waiver indicating I understand no one will read this fic. And that I may also be consigned to perdition. It might be worth it.

Okay, whining over, thinking begun.

Comments

[naraht]

I will be absolutely fascinated to see how you end up writing endgame Chris/Victor. I mean, I guess I'm an endgame Victor/Yuuri shipper, but I hesitate to say that because it implies being dogmatic and unwilling to read any other take on the situation, which I'm not.

Really it's not terribly difficult to imagine Victor and Yuuri falling apart in fairly short order. Maybe Victor burns out, faced with Yuuri's impossible expectations and the impossible task of coaching and competing simultaneously. Maybe that "let's end this" in Barcelona is just the start of a great deal of on-again, off-again angst. Maybe Victor thought they were engaged but Yuuri really didn't mean that at all (I disagree with this strongly as a canon interpretation but it can work quite well in fic). Maybe Victor really is as fickle and selfish as Yakov thinks, and entirely believes that he will worship Yuuri forever, but gets distracted after six months.

Maybe the fic just starts with Chris and Victor meeting in a bar somewhere and Victor shrugs and says "let's not talk about it tonight."

It's all good! And it baffles me how many people in the fandom are absolutely allergic to Chris/Victor. It must be too much mature Eros for teenage fans, or perhaps it's just because it's the only obvious threat to the juggernaut pairing.

[naraht]

That's an irresistible question. Probably Victor, except for his hairline problem. Chris looks like he tans, and that's not great for the skin!

I hadn't thought this about Chris, but you're totally right. And he probably does it naturally, unlike orange Evan Lysacek.

If Victor is anything like John Cameron Mitchell, his face double, he ages hella well. If you think about it, he probably gets hardly any sun, living in Saint Petersburg and spending all his time training indoors.

[moetushie]

Oooh, I used to think this was the obvious solution for a lot balding woes, but now I think it only works if you've god a good skull shape & also strong bone structure to carry it off. And while I'm sure Victor's skull is 100% perfectly shaped, idk, bone structure is ... hard ... to figure with an animated character.

What if he shaves it all off and hates it?? LOL, Victor.

[moetushie]

Reading your comment around 6:03 AM my time, I thought you said that his face would double and thought it was unnecessarily harsh -- I mean, come on, he wouldn't lose that much hair!! But it was early in the morning and I can't read. :)

I'm thinking back to Heidi!Chris and realize his skin tone stayed pretty much the same. Hmm, idk then.

[prillalar]

That's an interesting scenario! There's a lot of time for Victor and Chris to have had a relationship of some sort. I mostly think of it as more casual but it doesn't have to have to have been. Definitely any post-canon Chris/Victor will have to start when they're getting (back) together.

Re Victor falling for Yuuri -- I don't think he was deep in love from the banquet on but it's hard to say why anyone falls hard for anyone else. Sometimes people just smell right. And, hmm, I don't think Yuuri has quite the same level of feelings for Victor as Victor does for him but that's probably part of what draws Victor in so deeply. There's a lot to unpack about their relationship. I find it pretty fascinating.

[prillalar]

And then it grows back all weird.

[ineptshieldmaid]

(here via a tumblr reblog chain)

I don't have an answer to this question but I would READ THAT FIC.

And your description of the juggernaut is... yup. I got a ton of weird pushback on a Chris/Viktor/Yuuri fic because it had strong Chris/Viktor and Chris/Yuuri sidelines - at one point in the fic the possibility of Chris/Yuuri being a thing in its own right was raised, and wow, did that ever go down badly with some people.

[prillalar]

Victor sighed as the line shuffled forward. Yuuri had just died and he was very sad, sad enough that he was here in a common Starbucks like a common commoner, trying to drown his sorrows with a Unicorn Frappuccino.

"Dommage," a deep voice thrilled. "We're all out of unicorns."

Victor looked up into the barista's handsome face and the compassion in his azure eyes brought the first smile in days to Victor's lips. "Is there something else you'd recommend? I don't know what kind of coffee common people drink."

"I'm sure I can think of something." The barista reached out and took Victor's hand gently in his.

[ oh, god, I don't have an exit strategy for the coffeeshop AU ]

Anyhow, so long as we don't kill off Makkachin, we won't get jumped in a dark alley.

Victor would be devastated! Which is what I hope will be interesting. :)

[moetushie]

Ah, we're bringing the *real* angst this morning.

[moetushie]

Aha, I remember that nonnie on FFA whose bugabear was untagged Chris/Victor. I don't think I've ever committed that particular sin, but you know, I'd rather earn that nonnie's wrath than disappoint anyone who was actually looking for Chris/Victor, not a line in a Victuuri fic where Victor briefly admires Chris' ass.

[naraht]

Oh dear no, I'm not quite that mean to Victor. But I do think he's definitely balding.

Heidi!Chris could have precociously got into the self tanner, no?

[prillalar]

I definitely ship Victor/Yuuri too and I feel like I'm going to have to deal with them post-canon (in an unrelated story) before I can get on to any post-canon Chris/Victor. But they have a lot of work to do, imo, to get to a long-term sustainable relationship. That's the interesting stuff. <3

Victor probably was that fickle and selfish at the beginning of canon, but he's matured a lot. I'm not sure Yuuri has, not yet. Engaged/not engaged is a huge topic! The short version of my thoughts is that Yuuri didn't consciously intend to get engaged but has a lot of deep-down strong feelings he can't fully express and actually wants this. (Also, I will never, ever be over Victor's face when Yuuri is buying the rings. Oh my god.)

I didn't realize Chris/Victor was anathema to so many people! But I get why people OTP Yuuri/Victor so I guess it's to be expected.

[prillalar]

Oh, is this a thing? Ugh, I probably have a bunch of untagged background Chris/Victor. I should take a look at that, I guess. I still haven't got all the nuances (if there are nuances) of AO3 tagging culture down yet.

(HDU Victor's admiring gaze at Chris's ass is lingering and not in any way brief.)

[naraht]

I can never tell with FFA whether it's one very noisy person or a strongly shared opinion, but yeah. I confess that I can't understand how you can ship a pairing so strongly that you can't deal with the suggestion that someone may have briefly admired the looks of another person.

Hell, the canon has untagged Chris/Victor. How else can you interpret "sexy on and off the ice"?

[naraht]

Victor probably was that fickle and selfish at the beginning of canon, but he's matured a lot.

Agreed. But I think the thing is that there are a lot of interpretations I don't buy, but would be willing to go along with for the sake of a good fic. Maybe I'm unusual in that, I don't know.

(Also, I will never, ever be over Victor's face when Yuuri is buying the rings. Oh my god.)

So glorious, and I'm such a sucker for emotionally vulnerable Victor. I'm not proud.

I didn't realize Chris/Victor was anathema to so many people!

As I said to Moetushie, it's not entirely clear to me whether it's one very vocal person or a widely shared opinion, or something in between, but it does seem likely that it's a backbutton for a lot of people. Beyond the interference with the juggernaut pairing, Chris managed to put people off during his first appearance, and ep 10 doesn't seem to have made up for it in some people's eyes.

[prillalar]

I love Chris/Yuuri almost as much as Chris/Victor, seriously, and could see that as endgame quite easily. (As easily as anything else that's not Yuuri/Victor.) Chris is such an grea character, too. I'm more about love triangles than poly or causal three-ways, but either way Chris makes everything more interesting.

People are weird about fic, seriously! But I guess I am too. :)

[moetushie]

He hit up the bronzer because he knew he'd be seeing his idol! Makes sense.

[clawdine]

Clearly, Chris gets Viktor an Americano because they're in America and Viktor, being Russian, drinks only tea and has never tasted the wonder of American coffee.

Viktor is enthralled by the bitterness of the drink, the barista's twinkling green eyes, and the feeling like he's just embarked on a new adventure. In the land of the free! Where he gets free coffee and easy smiles.

I would read devastated!Viktor in a heartbeat. :) (But will those be pretty or ugly tears?)

[clawdine]

They totally fucked.

[prillalar]

Hell, the canon has untagged Chris/Victor. How else can you interpret "sexy on and off the ice"?

Okay, I propose a new tag: canon-typical untagged Chris/Victor

[naraht]

Without a doubt.

[moetushie]

I feel like getting the nuances of tagging is hard when there's no clear consensus on what to tag and why. My own rule of thumb is to ask if people will be disappointed if I did/did not tag for something. It's tricky though and I'm not always sure I get it right.

(HDU Victor's admiring gaze at Chris's ass is lingering and not in any way brief.)

True!

[prillalar]

I'm going to move it to Canada and Tim Hortons so I have to do less "research". Chris serves Victor a Double Double. Victor rolls up the rim and wins a dream date with Chris. They form a curling rink with JJ and Otabek and Victor skips them to victory in the local bonspiel. Things fall apart after Chris eventually hooks up with Justin Trudeau.

(beautiful, beautiful tears)

[clawdine]

oh my god Hal. I want this to be an actual thing. WHY IS THIS NOT AN ACTUAL THING????

[ineptshieldmaid]

I confess that I can't understand how you can ship a pairing so strongly that you can't deal with the suggestion that someone may have briefly admired the looks of another person.

I don't know but these people read my fic and were Not Happy. I had some who were willing to sign up to read a Chris/Viktor/Yuri threesome, but freaked the fuck out when the possibility of Chris/Yuri without Viktor participating was discussed. SELFISH, the cried. How could I make Yuri so selfish? And, strangely, they thought he was being selfish vis-a-vis Chris, as well as Viktor. I don't even know what was going on there.