Hey love, hope you are doing well ✨ I was wondering if you have any recommendations regarding side characters (personality analysis, friendship etc.) I absolutely adore all the side characters in the YOIverse however there are not many fics revolving around them so if you know any good ones, it'd be great!! Thank you so much in advance 💟
Hey dear nonnie! This took a long time, I hope you're still here. I combed through ao3 to find fics I remember that fit your request and discovered new gems along the way! Many of these are not popular/underrated but I guarantee that they're good reads so I hope you (and anyone else who finds this) enjoy! If only for that reason alone, I really hope this rec list becomes one of the most popular posts in this blog (I would really appreciate a reblog!) so these fics/authors can receive more love! Plus this is the most exhaustive and time-consuming rec list I've made so far (but I still feel that I missed a lot so other recs are welcome!).
Without further ado, here are some great YOI side-characters' stories in canonverse:
(Don't) Give A Damn by @forochel [T, 9K]
an open door by tripcyclone [G, 8K]
Lilia never wanted children of her own, but caring for Victor gives her a glimpse into the life she chose to pass by.
Beautiful In Knowing by @val-creative [T, 1K]
Sara knew she was a girl, even if nobody else did or believed her.
She ordered Michele to call her "Lady Sara" from now on. He would roll his eyes and grumble, but never attempt to misgender her. She liked "Sara" — it meant "lady, princess, noblewoman". And she would never go back to her deadname.
by any other name by iguanastevens [T, 2K]
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Yuri's life as told by the names he's given; or, how Yuri's names direct his life.
Feathers on the Ice by Kiranokira / @kyashin [E, 79K]
After dinner and a bath and quality hamster time, snuggled in bed cocooned within his eight entirely necessary pillows, Phichit indulges himself and investigates Seung-gil's hashtag. There isn’t much from Seung-gil himself, but Seung-gil's fans are many and dedicated. Amid the photos of Seung-gil at competitions or practicing and the few candid shots of Seung-gil in airports or out on the streets of Seoul, there’s a very recent professional video uploaded by user andjoy_studio.
Phichit clicks on it, and his life changes.
When one is patchwork of growth plates and bruises, it is inevitable that one must admire boys with words a size too big, as if they know down to their bones that they are meant for something greater.
I used to burn for you, Otabek thinks.
(A character study on Otabek's reaction to his placement at the Grand Prix Finals.)
Go On Ahead by @kiaronna [G, 2K]
Sour, grouchy Yakov didn’t understand sparkly purple skate outfits or wanting to eat your weight in sweets or having crushes on boys.
Gossips, Chinese whispers and misunderstandings by womanroaring [M, 8K]
Series of short stories relating to how certain (often perfectly innocent) scenes in Yuri On Ice would have looked from the outside. And just the gossip and stuff that would have surrounded them.
I am Yuri Plisetsky by rinsled05 / @dreaming-fireflies [M, 1K]
Not a “prima donna” ballerina.
And definitely no Russian fairy.
No, Yuri Plisetsky is an angry, loud, in-your-face, Russian tiger who will take to the ice and give you a brilliant gold-worthy performance you will never forget.
... a piece on Yuri's rationale for skating to "Welcome to the Madness". Rated for the actual foul-mouthed language in the story itself, courtesy of one Yuri Plisetsky.
if friends were flowers i'd pick you by windupbirdgirl / @tanpopori [G, 4K]
Yuuko thinks of Yuuri’s skating, beautiful and flawed. She thinks of Yuuri sitting with the girls instead of the other boys at practice. She thinks of Yuuri and Viktor, the posters of him he asks her to buy him for birthdays. The posters he wouldn't ask anyone else to buy.
“Oh, Yuuri.” She bites her nails, ruining the carefully applied polish. She doesn’t care at all.
Sitting in that tiny bedroom, she makes a big decision.
if love is king, who wears the crown by @crollalanzaa [G, 1K]
“Second is seen as nothing,” Christophe had derided.
“But that moment you glide onto the ice, that hush of the audience, and that expectation, isn’t that worth something?”
“You speak as if you know. You used to skate?"
Past tense. It still stung, even if it was expected.
Minako knows exactly what it's like to be at the top of your game, and she remembers the descent just as clearly.
if she wants me by renaissance [G, 6K]
Hiroko and Minako, then and now.
kagura by night by seventhstar / @pencilwalla [T, 1K]
The world around her is like the mountains.
A mortal lifespan is narrow; mortals watch the mountain’s unchanging faces, unravaged by the same measure of time that takes a human from dust to dust, and think them immortal in comparison. But stone erodes, just as flesh decays. It just takes longer.
If she watches long enough, everything changes. Languages drift until all the words she learned before are meaningless. Technology changes until she ceases to believe in magic because human ingenuity is more infinite than the stars. What is beautiful, what is polite, what is wrong, what is right—time, given its way, reshapes all.
But Minako’s body remains as it has always been. That’s why she loves to dance, she supposes; it’s the one thing time cannot take from her.
Katsudon by @azriona [G, 8K]
Hiroko doesn’t need to see to coat pork cutlets in egg and panko. She has made this dish for her family for over thirty years; she’ll make it another thirty, if she’s lucky.
Now she makes it for Yuuri and Victor as they fly home from Barcelona, with silver around their necks and gold around their fingers.
keep me steady as we go by strikinglight [G, 3K]
When Isabella stood and crossed the room to where he sat she saw her notebook open in his lap, turned to the last page of their to-do list, all but three items crossed off with less than a month to the wedding date. License. Ceremony. Everything after. She saw the angle of his gaze, too, not on the words but straight ahead, staring blank and glassy and brittle into some invisible place she still wasn’t sure she could follow him to, yet. And yet she had been the one who’d promised to try—and to keep promising, forever and forever.
Kooks by BoxWineConfessions [G, 3K]
Mari clasps her right hand across her left hand and rests them both atop her growing stomach. “I guess you’re just lucky that your father, I mean your other father, my brother-“ Mari giggles. “God, it all sounds so weird, doesn’t it? Do you care? Do you care that we’re all so fucked up and we don’t care at all?” Mari laughs again. It’s all she can do when she hurts this much, and wants a cigarette this much, but can’t stop smiling despite the fact that her body seems to hate her so much. “Well he means the world to me. That’s why I have you.”
Living in the Maybe by @adrianners [T, 6K]
It wasn’t hard to spot a 180cm platinum blond in Fukuoka International Airport. Especially when he was the only person wearing sunglasses. Indoors. At night.
Mari picks Viktor up at the airport when he returns from Moscow. Without Yuuri there to play his usual role of interpreter, they learn to communicate around their linguistic, cultural, and personal barriers.
post tenebras lux by @alykapediaaa [T, 1K]
“Which skater would you say has inspired your skating the most?”
The question catches him unaware, so much so that he’s rendered speechless. It’s only when he sees Yakov lean towards the microphone to answer in his stead that Yuri blurts out the first name that comes to mind.
The Best Men by @kiaronna [Not Rated, 5K]
Just as Viktor lives to surprise, Christophe Giacometti lives to scandalize, to sensationalize. But innocent little Phichit Chulanont is proving to be an impossible victim.
OR: where Christophe tries very hard to get under one Thai skater’s skin, and instead finds himself all over the younger skater’s Instagram feed and wrapped around his finger.
the city of bridges by @stammiviktor [T, 5K]
After three flights, a train ride, and dinner at the Katsukis' table, Yakov finally sees Hasetsu through Viktor's eyes.
The First Cut by BoxWineConfessions [E, 27K]
People made divorce seem like this long drawn out and ugly process, but it really wasn’t. He bought the town home for Isabella as a gift, and so it was hers. The flat down town would go to him, as it was closer to the rink. They paid off her medical school loans last fall, so that was done too. He had a few cars, which she unanimously agreed were his to keep, so long as she could keep her Corvette. She changed her vanity plate from Dr. Leroy to Dr. Yang. He saw it parked out front of the courthouse.
trials of Coach Yakov series by @naraht [T and M, 40K]
Summaries of fics in the series:
1. Forced to share a bed with Victor at the Sochi Grand Prix Final, Yakov learns more than he wants to know.
2. Yakov attempts to prepare Yuri for his transition to Seniors. Yuri doesn't care to listen.
3. No sex while you're competing – this is Yakov's rule. His athletes often have other ideas.
4. In 1980, Yakov Feltsman is the USSR's skating hero. At a dull official reception, he defends his loyalty to the motherland – and makes the acquaintance of a beautiful young dancer from the Bolshoi.
5. In which both Victor and Yakov have to remake themselves – Victor after his first Olympic gold and Yakov after his divorce.
Tz'ror by athoroughlybakedpotato [T, 3K]
Yakov changes much slower than the times do, but steadiness is not always a bad thing.
ETA - Other people's rec:
curtain of lies by @mandolinearts
JJ's Bizarre Adventure by Falahime
Landscapes of Spring and Summer by @myyoitrashblog
The Melancholy of Georgi Popovich by Falahime
+ a lot more recs on this reblog!!
Thanks for the rec, @vilchen, @genuine-firefly, @adrianners, and @kaleidodreams! ❤
