{"id":7491,"date":"2017-07-05T05:58:31","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T05:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/2017\/07\/05\/makkaroon-ilarual-so-since-the-topic-of\/"},"modified":"2017-07-05T05:58:31","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T05:58:31","slug":"makkaroon-ilarual-so-since-the-topic-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/archive.gabapple.com\/tumblr\/gabapple\/2017\/07\/05\/makkaroon-ilarual-so-since-the-topic-of\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

makkaroon<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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ilarual<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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So since the topic of Victor and his characterization came up today, I have a few thoughts on the subject I\u2019d like to share.<\/p>\n

Let me start by saying that I\u2019ve read a lot of Victuuri fic. A lot of it.<\/i> Mostly canonverse fic, because I\u2019m pretty meh on AUs and it takes a pretty special AU to woo me away from canon and canon divergence. As such, I\u2019m 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\u2026 we miss the mark. Rather drastically, as a matter of fact.<\/p>\n

What do I mean by that? <\/p>\n

Simple: I think a lot of the way the fandom portrays Victor is still heavily influenced by first impressions.<\/p>\n

This is true of many characters in many fandoms. I\u2019ve been around the block a time or twenty and seen a lot of fanon characterizations, both good and bad, and I\u2019ve 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\u2019s 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\u2019s not, and writing based heavily on first impressions without taking subsequent characterization into account ends up being very flawed and out of character.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s 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<\/i>. It\u2019s all part of the setup for the big twist, it\u2019s all part of the surprise. We\u2019re 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 \u201cknow\u201d about Victor based on the first quarter of the series is really accurate\u2014 especially<\/i> because the vast majority of it is coming from other people talking about Victor, and not from Victor himself.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what is \u201crevealed\u201d about Victor based on the first three episodes:<\/p>\n