#clelliott

This is why he is not even able to look his favorite skating idol (Elliott) in the eye and why he gets super drunk at the Gala later. He flies home to Pelican Town to lick his wounds and doesn’t even bother going to Worlds, sinking himself into finishing his masters in applied engineering and his blacksmithing gig job. 

During the off season, Elliott suddenly shows up on his doorstep and announces that he is going to be coaching Clint, per their past agreement (which Clint cannot remember for the life of him and is utterly baffled to have his biggest skating hero and crush all over his, well, everything). And yes, they do visit the Spa. Together 😏

Except, oops: Elliott kind of forgot that he’d already promised to create a program for Abigail, who is making her senior debut that season and is already pissed off that Elliott got distracted by a pretty face instead of helping her succeed during the upcoming season. She tracks him to Stardew Valley all the way from her special training program in Castle Village and insists that he choose between them and thus we get the local skating event subplot. Clint manages to do better than expected and she reluctantly concedes him the victory (pun intended). 

The reason why Abby gets to be the Yurio character is because a) she could pull off the angry punk kitty energy better than Sebastian imo, b) Yuri Plisetsky was originally inspired by Yulia Lipnitskaya, and c) I thought it would be really funny to put Abby and Clint in a rivalry together. 

With Elliott’s coaching, Clint prepares for the Grand Prix series (would have to skip the national qualifiers for AU reasons so maybe have a nice subplot about the young skaters who look up to Clint via the local event or something) and also their relationship dynamic grows closer. Clint, insecure dude that he is, still thinks that it’s all a dream and will come crashing down someday, so that’s something the narrative would have to address. 

I don’t think the plot would follow YOI quite exactly since not every character fits neatly into the same dynamics as in YOI; they’d have their own reasons for skating/coaching that I’d want to explore. That being said, I think either Marlon or Gus would probably work well as Clint’s former coach, orrr I’d start making OCs at that point if trying to maintain Pelican Town as the cozy Hatsetsu place Elliott adores. 

Given the parts of YOI that haven’t aged well, I’d use the narrative to explore Clint’s body image issues and insecurities and have Elliott basically being like, “I think you’re handsome, you splendid idiot.” Until Clint gets the memo. 

I think he’d be shaken up by getting dumped and so that anxiety would linger well into the Grand Prix series, especially after starting a new relationship with Elliott. He’d be looking for a lot of reassurance and I think he’d especially struggle during the Final.

Meanwhile, Elliott thinks he’s failing at his first coaching gig (well, it is a bit unethical to be dating the person you’re coaching, Elliott!) because he’s trying techniques that don’t quite work with Clint’s learning style and also he’s baffled by Clint being very into him but also seeming so surprised by the whole coaching offer and actively pursuing him but largely chocks it up to Clint being shy and insecure and not Clint lacking the ability to hold his alcohol. 

…I might regret saying this later, but I do suspect that with the dynamics I’ve suggested, this now makes Leah the Christophe character kadl;akdsjf;akdsj

Also this is now a “Caroline is the Wizard’s daughter” AU because while I know what the canon implies about Caroline, I really do also enjoy exploring the AUs where Abby is actually the Wizard’s granddaughter and she can’t steal the Farmer’s Grandpa to feed her dumplings, on account of him being dead. (Sorry!) That being said, I think it would be very funny to make Magnus and Alecto (from the Alecto the Witch mod) into the divorced couple who are both toxic and super good at churning out young, talented skaters, so I’m slotting them slightly into Yakov and Lilia’s roles from YOI.

To me, the special thing about Yuri on Ice is that every figure skater, even the ones who only appeared briefly, were fleshed out enough for their personalities, personal troubles, and goals/motivations to clearly show in their behaviors and individual programs. They were memorable in their own ways. So, I think instead of forcing someone to take a YOI character role, I'd take advantage of the fic premise to feature the competition as character analysis vignettes separate from the main Clint (and his punk rival Abigail) plotline.

Maru would be a good rinkmate for Abby, I think. Supportive and having her own subplot while also having the opportunity to rib Abby over her shenanigans that keep pissing off Magnus and Alecto.  

Since I didn’t want to make Abby exactly like Yuri Plisetsky, I think I’d explore her short program development in a similar-yet-different way since she still probably feels like Pierre doesn’t support her dreams enough and I’m not giving her an Otabek-type-skater to romance. Instead…

The rival skating club for Castle Village is the Zuzu City skating club, most prominently featuring: Alex, Sebastian, and Haley. Haley and Abby are the same age and have been skating rivals since they were juniors, always trying to fight for a spot at the top. Yes, I would probably make a small Heated Rivalry reference here because I love that concept post I saw about what f/f Heated Rivalry would look like if it had similar complexities lol. This is also why Haley is able to borrow Sebastian’s motorcycle. 

Haven’t fully thought out all the other characters yet, but I was thinking in terms of smaller roles in the fic, this would also feature Harvey doing his retirement program year, inspired by a real-life doctor and skater in Finland (Valtter Virtanen, an irl legend). This would be a nod to all those lovely Harvey figure skating AU fanworks I’ve seen in the past year and also give him a good reason to be setting up shop in Pelican Town as the doctor after the Grand Prix series and/or Worlds.

Sports narrative-wise, the fic would be about Clint getting his groove back and learning to let go of Emily and not let it affect his confidence when skating, and this is why he does better during the Grand Prix series than anyone expected. He will still struggle, but I think he has to learn to give himself more credit than he has previously. 

Relationship narrative-wise, I do think the whole “get drunk at a gala and grind on your idol” thing is very funny and would probably want to keep that reveal, even if YOI fans would already expect it. Taking a leaf from similar vibes in my Shelliott ballroom concept [link], I think Elliott would need to find his creative spark again through proximity to Clint and Clint would learn to have his own sense of self-worth, one that is not necessarily tied to how well he’s doing in sports or if someone is into him romantically. That’s something I like to touch on with regular non-AU Clint, too, and I think a YOI cross would be a good way to do that, given how much of the original narrative is very Man vs Self.