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

[yuuago]

Ooh, I didn't know about the DW comm! Thanks for linking that.

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?

Well, from my perspective - their relations, as we're shown in the show, go down rather quickly. And they don't seem to be very good at communicating. So a breakup seems like a reasonable thing to imagine happening.

As for not having to spend more than 25% of the story dealing with it - for me, it would be adequate to devote maybe a paragraph to it; say that it happened, maybe give a few details, and then move on. Setting it a couple of years after the breakup can also be useful, give things some distance. If I'm reading something for the A/C pairing, while A/B is the soulmate-y juggernaut, I'm not there for some long detailed explanation about how A/B broke up - just referring to it happening is enough. Get it over with and move on to the A/C that I opened the fic for, you know?

'Course, I don't know what you have in mind for this particular story, and I'm mostly speaking from experience with similar situations in another canon. But, yeah.

[marks]

Set it a year after yuuri dies, I'm sure no one at all including me would have a problem with that!

[inkstone]

I agree with a lot of what yuuago says, but I definitely understand your dilemma. I don't know that I've ever seen the juggernaut ship be so juggernauty and canony before.

On the other hand, I am a huge advocate of writing fic that isn't on the well-worn path of fandom and canon, audience be damned.

[merit]

I'd, probably out of laziness, probably start a fic like that when they were already broken up. START WITH THE ANGST. And the flashbacks to any arguments they had if I felt the need. Icy meetings where they try to be civil but there's a lot of allusion to the arguments, the relationship they had, the efforts they have made to move on. Enter Chris, hanging over Victor. Possibly tracing the curve of Victor's ear with his tongue.

I'm pretty terrible at OTPs. I like to see what happens when characters clash! I develop preferences, but only read one pairing??

Followed the comm! I have been meaning to get involved more in communities, be the change and all that.

[moetushie]

I'd read it. Although, yeah, not many people would. Outside the superheated bubble of Victuuri, the Yuri!!! On Ice fandom seems to act like any other sports anime fandom. Rarepairs don't exactly do well here, I say, as I'm currently knee-deep in a WIP about a minor sports anime character.

Anyway, I love Chris/Victor and I *can* see it working, post-Yuuri, although in my hc, it would pretty far along when they're both retired and are irascible old men (for the given value of old -- I mean, in canon a 25 and 27 year old are considered over the hill, yeesh), sitting around and judging young, obviously less talented and beautiful skaters. What has the sport come to?

After all, Victor and Yuuri's grand passion fizzled out a long time ago -- eros is never meant to last! -- and Chris, as observant as ever, makes his move?

But, whatever you chose, I'm sure it would be a great story, and worth telling. Even if not many people read it?

/also hi, hope you don't mind me subscribing to you & sorry if I'm being presumptuous

[clawdine]

I'm laughing at the dead Yuuri option. I would read that.

I honestly think Viktor would be really sad if they broke up. But all wounds heal in time and all that. Actually just imagining the awkward silence is giving me a lump in my throat. As long as everyone is happy in the end though!

[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.

[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.

[pkoceres]

Popping in late to say I would read the hell out of that story. I definitely agree that there's a basis for Chris/Victor in canon, and I'd love to see your take on it.

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 feel this in my soul, omg. Juggernaut OTPs seem to be in vogue right now.

(Also, thanks for the links!)

[king_touchy]

I don't want to go canon-divergent; it's not my thing.

Damn, that's starting with a high base score. *admiration* But I sure look forward to reading.

This post and comments are gold. And I'm glad about the new YOI dw comms. Hopefully rec posts will start cropping up, because after cannonballing into Check Please! fic for the past couple weeks, I could really go for some fresh YOI, especially the rarer pairs. Yeah, sure, I could go trolling through tags, but I don't have the energy (or not quite desperate enough) to slush-read fic to find a gem.