Okay but one of the things that bothers me so much in the ‘Yakov is a horrible coach’ camp is that... Viktor is a good coach. Which means he’s had a good example/good examples along the way. Also, he wouldn’t have stuck with the same coach for over a decade if they didn’t even like each other or work well together, no matter how “good” a coach may be.
When Yakov snaps at him at the Cup of China, Viktor looks very taken aback by this response, because he approaches Yakov very comfortably- tugging on his jacket, inviting him to dinner- so his reaction seems like that isn’t the typical response he’s used to getting from Yakov. (Maybe grumbling or a straight up no, but not something like that.)
“Yakov only likes Viktor when he’s a winner and getting him medals” doesn’t hold water either imo. Viktor wasn’t always a winner. Yes, he made his big international splash with winning the JGPF, but he only became a huge international deal in his past few seasons with his sweep of competitions (probably including the Olympics, on his home turf, which would have rocketed his fame up and out of the skating world for at least a year). But inbetween winning the JGPF and starting his record setting journey there’s about six years of ???. Viktor’s had a really long career, so in those six seasons he likely hit a major growth spurt etc., and probably had an injury at some point which took him out of part or a full competitive season. (It’s something he notes about Yuuri, who’s never had a major injury.) So there’s all this time when he’s not winning- or at least being sporadic about it- and Yakov is still his coach.
Yakov also helps Viktor out during the Makkachin v Steamed Buns incident. He stands in as Yuuri’s coach, which may seem like ‘well duh’ but there’s no rule that a skater has to have a coach with them. Yuuri could have just stayed on his own, but Viktor 1) knew that wasn’t a good idea and 2) trusted Yakov enough to take care of the love of his life while he’s traveling to the other side of the world. That Viktor still asked him to do that says a lot to me about their relationship. Yakov agreed which says he’s not exactly the flaming pile of garbage that people want him to be. At the very least he’s a decent enough person to help out someone who is 1) now on their own in a foreign country, and 2) direct competition.
So anyway.