prillalar | YOI Multishipper Problems

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

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.

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.)

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!

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"?

They totally fucked.

Without a doubt.

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

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.

I feel like there's at least two, unless there's some sameanoning going on. But whoever they are, they are very ... persistent. Also, loud.

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.

*has traumatic flashbacks to the Free! fandom, even though I wasn't even a part of it at the time* It's ... wild, but it seems like that's what happens.

Victor is canonically v. supportive of his friends' sexiness. That's something I really love about him.

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.

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.

YOI Multishipper Problems

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