Ello 👋🌺

"This show is problematic because the hero didn't kill the villain at the end": When does he steal the bread?

"These two characters who were close friends throughout the series don't kiss at the end! What the fuck?": When does he steal the bread?

Healthy non-yaoi mlm relationship

Never before in mainstream Japanese media (or even mainstream Western media) has a mlm relationship been depicted in this way. YOI was a show that pretty explicitly showed a same-sex relationship between the MAIN characters and had it be one of the main plot points. That has never happened before. Not only that, it’s a HEALTHY relationship where both characters compliment each other, lift each other up, and make each other better people.

Main bisexual character

While Victor is implied to be gay, Yuri is actually bisexual. I’ve seen this often overlooked by many people. I’ve seen a lot of bi-erasure in the fandom regarding Yuri’s sexuality. However, Yuri is clearly shown to be bi, which is big because having a bi main character is extremely rare in media.

Multiple queer characters

Yes. Multiple. It’s one thing to have the two main characters be queer, but it’s another to have side characters implied to be queer as well. Many people often overlook the other queer characters in Yuri on Ice. Chris is arguably, in my opinion, the most explicitly queer character in the series. He openly flirts with Yuri and other men, makes gay jokes, and is even shown to have a boyfriend in the last episodes. However, there is a second queer character people overlook. And that is Seung-Gil Lee. He canonically “dislikes women”. And in the Yuri on Ice stage show, even kisses Takeshi Nishigori. There may be other queer-implied characters as well, but I feel that Chris and Seung-Gil are the ones that stand out the most.

Normalization of the LGBT community

Yuri on Ice has received some criticism for this, but as a person in the lgbt community, I love it. In the YOI universe, being in a gay relationship is just as normal as being in a straight one. No one bats an eye. Phichit even announced Victor and Yuri to be married to an entire restaurant, and everyone clapped and congratulated them. So what if there was no homophobia? I and many others found it refreshing. It’s nice to see the world portrayed in a way that we hope it to be one day.

Interracial couple

Not only is Victuuri a mlm relationship, it’s also interracial- Yuri being Japanese and Victor being Russian. They are also from countries where being lgbt is still highly not accepted.

Ethnically/Racially diverse characters that touch on their culture

There are so many characters from different countries and of different races/ethnicities in the series. Many being from different Asian cultures (Japanese, Thai, Chinese, and Korean). There are many European characters that are not from the UK, two of them being Italian. And even the character from the United States isn’t white-he’s Mexican-American. A lot of these characters (Phichit for example) express the issues they face being from certain countries. Victor talks about his culture as well, pointing out that in Russia, people don’t celebrate Christmas in the way that people in other countries do.

Accurate depiction of clinical anxiety

Never in my life have I seen someone with anxiety be depicted so accurately. Many times I would feel an ache in my heart because I saw myself in Yuri. Yuri’s anxiety blinds him from seeing how great he is. He’s an “unreliable narrator”. A scene that depicts his anxiety well is the scene where Victor is reassuring Yuri that he doesn’t want to quit, and Yuri cries out “I know!”. People with anxiety often know that their fears are irrational, but still, to their frustration, believe them and can’t get past them. This is a big aspect of anxiety that I haven’t really seen portrayed in the media.

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Let me start by saying that I’ve read a lot of Victuuri fic. A lot of it. Mostly canonverse fic, because I’m pretty meh on AUs and it takes a pretty special AU to woo me away from canon and canon divergence. As such, I’m intimately familiar with how the YOI fandom tends to write Victor in a canon setting in particular. And I feel like a lot of the time… we miss the mark. Rather drastically, as a matter of fact.

What do I mean by that?

Simple: I think a lot of the way the fandom portrays Victor is still heavily influenced by first impressions.

This is true of many characters in many fandoms. I’ve been around the block a time or twenty and seen a lot of fanon characterizations, both good and bad, and I’ve seen this pattern repeat over and over. First impressions are a big deal, both with fictional characters and with real people, and it can be hard to let go of that. And that’s not always a bad thing, sometimes the impression a character makes on a fandom after two or three episodes is perfectly accurate. And sometimes it’s not, and writing based heavily on first impressions without taking subsequent characterization into account ends up being very flawed and out of character.

And then there’s Victor. And the thing about Victor is that, with the way the narrative of YOI is structured, in the first quarter of the show, we as the audience are deliberately led to believe false things about Victor. It’s all part of the setup for the big twist, it’s all part of the surprise. We’re intentionally being directed to make assumptions about him, without any real evidence that those assumptions are accurate to his character. Almost none of what we “know” about Victor based on the first quarter of the series is really accurate— especially because the vast majority of it is coming from other people talking about Victor, and not from Victor himself.

Here’s what is “revealed” about Victor based on the first three episodes:

he’s selfish (according to Yakov)

he’s impulsive (revealed by Victor’s seemingly sudden decision to coach Yuuri)

he no longer feels he can surprise his audience, and this may be part of why he left skating (according to Yuri)

he’s forgetful (according to Yuri and also himself)

he’s a desirable bachelor “playboy type” (according to Minako and Nishigori)

And as we later learn, all of these things are untrue to some degree, except possibly the forgetfulness thing, which I’ll come back to in a moment. So let’s take a look at these “facts” about Victor, shall we?

1. Viktor being “extra”

I’ve discovered YOI about 5 years after it aired, so I don’t know how that take even came into being, but I see it used every time Viktor

acts like a celebrity, which is pretty much his public persona. It’s not even Viktor himself acting there. He just does what he has trained himself to do and what probably helps him navigate unfamiliar and stressful situations. Just look at how much he “acts” around Yuuri in the first couple of episodes when Yuuri’s evasive behaviour puzzles him.

has standards, which is neither weird nor bad, but shows that he has reached a certain level of experience and maturity (and in some cases wealth, like his clothes show) to know his tastes and treat himself. Like if you ever drank wine for 10€, you will realise that the 2€ wine from the discounter tasts as shit as dishwater. And once you’ve tasted wine for 30€ and can afford it, you will use the 10€ wine for cooking. Life is too short to not enjoy a level of quality you can afford.

is being silly and enjoying himself unabashedly. Give that boy who has sacrificed his life to skating a breather and let him live his best off-ice life, please!

That phrase seems to be used quite inflationary to explain behaviour that

2. Viktor became Yuuri’s coach because he was bored

And of course, he wasn’t in love but only interested in railing Yuuri and only fell in love with him some time later in the show. You would think that this take died out with episide 10 for reasons that have been discussed by countless people including me and the op, when in fact that was still a popular take about two years ago.

3. Viktor is vain

This goes into the same direction as Viktor being “extra”. Viktor appearing to Yuuri’s regionals in an expensive suit is often used as a proof that he is vain when in fact his line “Today is my debut as a coach, so I should be in formal dress” hints that he regards a professional appearance as a part of his responsibilities as a coach. Having never coached before, Viktor starts off with copying Yakov, who wears a suit at competitions, too.

Addendum to Viktor being an air-head:

Viktor is described as a figure skating genuis who choreographs his own programmes and has music written for himself. He probably forgets a lot things just because his brain hyperfixates on the skating, even before he got depressed. Since mental illness impacts the ability to hyperfocus and creativity, it is possible that his depression made it harder for him to come up with new unique programmes, which would give him (and by extension Yurio) reason to believe that he can no longer surprise the audience.

if you're a rabbit, the boss rabbit is the one who gets groomed by its subordinate rabbits.

but if you're a cat... the boss cat is the one that grooms the other cats.

Yuri on the Web Pride Event

Short program: "In regards to love"

"Dreams"

They are each other's dream come true and they help each other realize dreams they never knew they wanted.

Life, Love.

(I imagine sometimes they have to go separate events and every time one returns the other always joyfully greets them.)

Unofficial 6th language of love: Food

Sharing food, making food, trying food, and finding gems like History Maker Bakery in Italy 🥖🥐

(It actually was a commission! I'll gladly take more)