ok I am in fact using this as an excuse to make a long post about this thank you thank you asjksdjfaljdf
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Interpreting Yuri as asexual is my very very favorite type of headcanon, which is one that 1. is compellingly coded in the source material (even if that wasn't the creator's intent), 2. is thematically relevant to what the piece of media is Trying To Do as a whole, and 3. just means a lot to me, personally, because I said so.
Coded in the source material
Yuri’s short program is “eros”, aka desire (you can interpret what “eros” means in various ways, but YOI itself explicitly refers to sexual love, at least in the English translations). Yuri struggles with this. Hard. He can’t come up with an answer when asked what eros means to him. His big revelatory moment about desire is that it’s how he feels about wanting to eat his favorite food (omg… boy). Even as the season goes on and the way he views the Eros program changes, the program doesn’t ever really embody the idea of eros as sexuality or romance (which was how the other characters expect him to interpret it) but rather as a desire to keep Victor in his life.
Like look. I’m obviously not going to say that the creator intended any kind of ace subtext to be there. I kind of doubt it was her intent. But goddamn is the subtext there.
2. Thematic relevance
The central theme throughout YOI is “love”, and especially loving people in a way that inspires you both to be your best selves: Yuri learning that the people in his life truly love and support him; Victor finding someone who makes him feel joy about skating again.
Like, Yuri’s whole skating theme for the Grand Prix is literally about him exploring what love looks like to him, even when it takes a form that other people don’t totally understand. Viewing all this through a lens of him being ace is really compelling. It adds depth to the idea of learning how to express the way you feel love even when it looks different than what other people expect. I think it’s a really delicious layer that adds even more nuance to what the show is getting at.
Besides, it’s an interesting way of viewing the criticism of the show that occurred for it not being 100% explicit about them being a couple (aka people getting mad because the kiss in ep 7 is blocked by Victor’s arm lmaooo). Like, ok, did you see the ending scene of ep 9? Did you see ep 10??? They definitely, definitely love each other, in whatever way that means for them. Their relationship takes a form that’s pretty different than the other way people in the show are going about romantic relationships, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real for them. That is very much in line with the main themes of the show.
3. Means a lot to me
In the final scene of the penultimate episode, Yuri tells Victor that they should end their coaching relationship after the Grand Prix ends. This is because he thinks he’s holding Victor back, that Victor would be happier being free to go back to skating on his own instead of being Yuri’s coach. When I watched this (and, I’ll be honest, this is completely me projecting here) I REALLY interpreted this as an ace thing. I think it’s pretty easy to internalize the idea when you’re asexual that you just won’t be… enough, for other people. In my case I ended up a strong impulse to self-sabotage relationships because I would rather be the one to end things than to let someone else tell me that who I am as a person is fundamentally lacking. Yuri destroying a connection he desperately wants because he thinks there’s something about him that is holding Victor back from a life he’d be truly happy with? Oh yeah. I can fucking relate to that.
Also: YOI came out in 2016, which was the absolute peak of hostility to ace people I was seeing on this site. It was bad here. At the same time Tumblr was going wild over this show. Everyone was watching it. Seeing a whole site of people absolutely adore a character I very deeply in my heart believed to be ace? Extremely vindicating.
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In conclusion Yuri is asexual because it is fun and interesting that way, and also because of this:
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i was being a completely sane person today (/s) and was creating a timeline tree for snm would anyone even be interested in that. and collecting my shipping thoughts (or specifics about them being a couple etc). know that i still consider my knowledge of the franchise as poor. its just tidying it up in my head so when i talk about something i can pinpoint a specific thing (i was too deep in fnaf theorizing so now i have to suffer thru a franchise that doesnt even have a canon)
in short/tldr the comics are the base that happened in every possible timeline and everything else is derived from that, happening after, except the cartoon, which shows some events the same way so that would be more intertwined; not everything is connected/within one timeline. and the cartoon is my most fav and where i see them as a true couple.
long rant ahead
on one hand i really like the time travel theory where its like comics -> ttg -> cartoon etc by them travelling back in time for that, however there are many holes especially thinking about their families and stuff so
i like the idea of things branching off. one branch is comics - htr - cartoon, as something more intertwined
second is comics -> ttg -> poker night 2 (since it references ttg events) (idk bout 1 i havent played/seen that)
third would be comics -> ttiv (or comics -> htr -> ttiv, i have no idea atm if bosco's is mentioned in the comics but it is in htr and mentioned in ttiv. ttiv is also set in the year it came out, so theres a huge gap inbetween ttiv and htr but i wouldnt say its where the ttg games happened!)
and i dont mean this in like a multiverse way, since the creator seems to dislike that, its simply just a very loose canon that differs with each installment (simply due to different people working on these imo. nothing too deep imo)
but the juicy part!! i even made brackets that im too lazy to remake digitally so i will just write it out for each bigger installment. im excluding poker night 1 as i havent played it nor watched much gameplay
M = married, BF = best friends (in all technically)
comics: M - unlikely; BF - yes absolutely
htr: M - possible; BF - yes
cartoons: M - i take it as canon here. BF - yes million percent
ttg all seasons: M - no; BF - yes.
poker night 2: M - not sure, implied dating, i take that as good enough; BF - yes
ttiv: M - absolutely not. not a couple at all. BF - they seem too tense, yes, but from my experience playing, their interactions were imo the worst in all of their media, so i wasnt buying it at some points
note - ttiv has to be like the straightest they ever were and i also see it in S.P.'s more recent work. im looking too deep into that, perhaps, but im just thinking were never gonna get anything similar to what we got from back in the 90s again, if theres any future projects
people are also saying they got married like 4 times and its making me a bit confused here. do people mean cartoon, htr dress up card, cake topper and tdph ring scene or am i missing something big?? because to me that is married once, other ones being just for jokes (first one as well but its less vague), and in the ttg games its so extremely vague i cant count that (being realistic here) that said its still fun to joke about them getting married several times, but in this case wouldnt it be more of a marriage per timeline?
and to end this, a personal tierlist
my most fave obviously is the cartoon. not only is it the easiest to work with for me, with the fast pacing and short watch time (but ofc i wish it was longer) i absolutely love how their relationship is depicted there, even if a lot of stuff there is just jokes, but if everything is a joke then its also fine to take everything as canon within this media, to me! like when haters say that people only take the wedding scene out of the intro and ignore the rest - as if the other stuff couldnt happen (isnt one of the shots them fighting a giant octopus, which they end up having an episode about too. like cmon. anything goes here) even if it was contained within this specific part of the franchise, im ok with calling them a couple here. and its S tier overall
another S tier is the comics. nothing else to say
HTR is like A tier to me, only taking off points because its soooo sloooowwww and playing it after watching the series took 3 years off my life immediately. otherwise gud game.
ttg is like A to B tier for me, because of some specifics and preferences but thats just me being nitpicky so, the games overall are good. A- it is. thats all
poker night 2 is fun, i watch the gameplay a lot lately when im too tired at midnight to do anything else, A tier
ttiv. oh how mixed i am about you. gameplay by itself and my first experience with the game - S tier. it made me so giddy more than one time and i kept wanting to come back until i finished the game fully. i dont mind the bugs, its just what i expect in VR games and even tho it made me a bit frustrated at times it wasnt all that bad. its also the only vr game i played for over an hour once and didnt get motion sick - the exception was the level at the store which seemed too bright and actually made me nauseous. which is a feeling that somehow comes back whenever i think about this game. what i dislike was the dialogue, while most of it was fun and fine, i had moments where i just burst out laughing, they (or max especially) were way too mean towards the player. i know its a joke and you could chalk it up to max being unhappy with us/jealous, but it got like, generally unpleasant very quickly. with stuff like good throw - "nice!" bad throw - *neverending insults* and the second was how painfully straight it was and like. the vibes i got from them two was like, oh theyre fed up with each other and my shipping self was just left quite disappointed. i did not get all lines during my gameplay which made it great but upon going thru every line manually after, i was just more and more uncomfortable with what they said in their banter. this drops the game to like C for me? maybe B if i squint. being generous. i also got sick of their talking animations over time... the models are fine just got to be too much. bonus points for max ragdoll physics tho. coming up with a conclusion that this is a completely separate timeline and has nothing to do with anything other than the comics and perhaps HTR. i talked so long about this one cause its the one thing that prompted all of this lol.
but its not that serious! i just knew this franchise for ages as "oh its the two animal guys that are married and its funny" and now that i got into it fully, i see a lot of the shippers are obviously daydreaming and taking things out of context - which is fun, i agree!! i also do that. but it just painted a completely different picture for me. so no. theyre not married, theyre not a couple, except for the cartoon, where its implied, which stays on top for me. but in ttg at least, they love each other, its not as romantic, but i can ship them there (so i ship them in the context of the cartoon and ttg basically)
anyway. nothing is canon for them, everything is canon for them, and everything they say or do is a joke so. its not that deep at all. they gay tho
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