#victor being amazing just sets the bar higher and makes yurio push himself farther to clear it

[brinnanza]

a thing I am Emotional about tonight: so yurio is high key motivated by spite. like him being so fuckin’ pissed off at losing to jj motivates him to do better at both the rostelecom cup and the gpf and being pissed off at yuuri for maybe retiring motivates him to skate the hell out of his free skate and claim a narrow victory

the thing that is REALLY hecking me up rn is how yurio, bc he is smol and angry and 15, kind of just.... assumes that same strategy works on other people? which is how you get him yelling at yuuri in the bathroom after sochi -- bc someone coming up to yurio, yelling at him, telling him to retire, that he’s a loser -- that would absolutely motivate yurio to kick ass. same thing with the onsen on ice competition, honestly. yurio wanted to win (and being mad at victor for forgetting his promise was pretty motivating), but winning bc yuuri had an anxiety attack isn’t fair. yurio doesn’t just want to win, he wants to be better than the best.

which brings me to: the beach scene in barcelona in episode 10. there is some fascinating meta out there about victor the hero vs. victor the person and how yurio, who is pretty motivated generally by agape despite his claims otherwise, relates to both of those personas. but his lashing out at yuuri (”you’ll see the ring he gave you is garbage”) seemed a little... idk intense? yurio talks big but he does care for yuuri a lot and is, in his own fiesty tomcat way, protective of him. so I think maybe part of the reason yurio is so harsh to victor is more of the same -- because victor-the-hero is gone, but victor-the-person had better not fuck it up with yuuri. yurio is so contrary -- telling yurio his partner isn’t worthy of him would only make yurio double down. and he knows by now that yelling and spite doesn’t work for yuuri (hence katsudon piroshki) and it doesn’t really work for victor either -- but he’s just so mad at them both, and the only way he can think to express it to them is by yelling.

and then: “this place reminds me of hasetsu”, yurio says. not st. petersburg, the place he lives and trains, the place victor said the gulls in hasetsu reminded him of. hasetsu, the place that means yuuri. it feels like something of an apology, I think -- for the things he said about yuuri, for lashing out, even though he feels it was necessary. an olive branch that puts them back on more equal footing.