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likestoimagine16 · 5 years

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Raskovnik AU, aka my hanahaki-spite AU

So I’ve been sitting on this Yuri on Ice AU for something like 2 years by this point, and I’m probably not going to be finishing it, so here’s the (very long) run-down

(the reason it’s called hanahaki-spite is because I really do not like hanahaki. If you like hanahaki AU, that’s entirely your prerogative and you’re free to do as you like, but I’m not sure how much you’ll appreciate this one

The disease:

First off, the reason why it’s called Raskovnik is because of this cryptid plant, which is based on an aquatic fern. Supposedly, it unlocks/uncovers whatever is locked/closed, but can only be identified by chthonic animals in Slavic tradition (eg tortoises, snakes, or hedgehogs)

The disease is NOT based off unrequited love, because that honestly skeeves me out for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the idea that ‘unrequited love’ is enough to disease someone and the fact that the ‘cure’ is kind of sketchy in regards to the fact that the target of the unrequited feelings has apparently has to reciprocate them or they’re implicitly responsible for the victim’s death in-universe

Oh yeah, the disease doesn’t kill you unless you let it grow way too long and the surgery to remove the plants, while causing a minor depressive episode, does not ‘surgically remove the feeling of love’ for anyone, because love really shouldn’t be something that easy to excise from a person

Basically, what happens with the disease is this aquatic fern thing (a red four-leaf clover type thing with heart-shaped leaves, in this 'verse) grows in some people’s lungs if certain conditions are met. It’s not very well understood in-universe, but there’s lots of (scientific and popular) speculation, which is where the idea of ‘unrequited love’ being the cause comes from

‘hanahaki’ is the popular general term for the disease, and most scientists/doctors hate it because it’s generally associated with the ‘romanticized’ version of the disease with the unrequited love and the cure being the confession and the surgery removing love along with the plant nonsense - similar to how tuberculosis was romanticized for making ladies ‘pale and faint’ like it wasn’t a frickin disease

The actual conditions are that 1) you’re genetically susceptible (usually associated with ‘green thumb’ types of people who are really good at talking to plants and helping them grow, 2) you’re trying to ‘box’ your relationships in some way that simplifies or generalizes what love is, and 3) you’ve encountered the Raskovnik spore at some point, so it’s like... actually in your lungs

Basically, the idea is that people produce some kind of particle in their lungs (I don’t have a name for them, so they’re just ‘love particles for now I guess) that’s good for plant growth, and it tends to be produced more when you’re like, lovingly talking to plants or just loving in general (kind of like oxytocin but not really)

Normally the love particle is kind of just made and released as produced, but people who end up metaphorically locking their love away subsequently lock these particles in their lungs - this creates a buildup of the particles in your lungs that Raskovnik then grows off of it

When you’ve resolved your love-boxing issues, the Raskovnik has done its job and ‘unlocked’ your heart, so the particles are exhaled as normal and the plant eventually dies out

The reason why the surgery creates a depressive episode is because it’s not very precise, so taking the Raskovnik roots out of the heart can damage the nodes that produce the love particles - they recover eventually, but until then your body’s kind of just not happy with the imbalance that causes

(If you want a brief snapshot of ‘hanahaki’s’ impression on society, here you go: Viktor reads as far as “her breath is perfumed with the scent of wild roses as she confesses, ‘I hate Valentine's day because it reminds me of my incurable disease and the curse I must suffer,” before he throws his cheap airport romance at the wall.)

Anyways, the actual Yuri on Ice plot

So it starts with the banquet, because duh

But really, when I say ‘start’ I mean, this is the very beginning, because Viktor’s been feeling that ice-skating burnout for a while, so he’s been a little too grey to really remember what it was like to love ice skating. He knows he used to love it, and he knows that he used to remember what love was, but nowadays it's really hard to care

Then the banquet happens, and everything’s champagne-gold bright and warm, because Viktor gets to dance with one Yuuri Katsuki and he feels a bit more alive

Except after that, he’s got radio silence from Yuuri, so he figures it was kind of a one-time thing

He doesn’t actually have the disease at this point, but this is where it starts. This is where his personal fondness for Yuuri starts at least, beyond his professional fascination for his artistry and emotive skating, and this is where he manages to find hope, even despite the radio silence

at this point, the love particle build-up is pretty slight, and he doesn’t actually have the spores in his lung, so there’s a groundwork for it, but no disease

Anyways, that kind of liminal state lasts about as long as it takes for Stammi Vicino a la Yuuri to happen, because well. Canon happens.

Viktor arrives full tilt in Hasetsu and, under the impression that Yuuri actually remembers the banquet, is concerned about Yuuri’s... less than ecstatic response to his arrival

so he figures okay this wasn’t as magical as he’d been hoping, but it’s still better than the utter gray that he was feeling before, and he really does want to help Yuuri reach his full potential.

besides, even if it’s not shaping up to be a fairytale, he’s still thankful that Yuuri gave him that spark anyways, so he can still do this to show his appreciation anyways

so that’s not the problem, the actual problem is when Viktor figures that, since Yuuri’s not really happy with Viktor, he’s going to figure out which version Yuuri would be happiest with and do that

... it doesn’t really mesh well with the ‘don’t box in love’ type of thing for the disease, though to be fair no one really knows that’s an actual condition by this point

Yeah this is when the disease really takes root, both because he’s now fueling the disease a lot more actively with his mentality and because he has the actual spore in his lungs

Viktor tries to hide this. Considering that he’s periodically coughing up Raskovnik leaves and his lung capacity is shrinking, he doesn't hide it very well. He manages something like a week at most

No one in the family buys into the popular ‘unrequieted love’ explanation for Raskovnik, because they know better

Yuuri, in particular, has listened to many of Phichit’s rants about how dumb it is to romanticize a poorly understood disease, because he was there for all the research Phichit had to do for one of his class assignments

Anyways, that goes on for the like, week or so it takes for Yurio to arrive and kick off the whole Onsen on Ice thing

At which point Yuuri’s adorable ‘I want to eat Katsudon with you’ thing happens - it doesn’t quite spark a realization in Viktor, but it’s one of the first steps for him changing his perspective on things

Anyways, the general thing with Onsen on Ice is mostly little bonding snapshots. Yuuri’s... not exactly open but he’s not jumping, screeching, and finding the nearest dark place to hide anymore, while Yurio is kind of failing to aggressively dislike the Katsukis in general, and Yuuri in particular (he follows Yuuri around like the world’s most belligerent kitten, but he’s also very clearly growing attached to everyone). Viktor is getting along well but somewhat tentatively with the other Katsuki’s, considering he’s in a bit of a weird guest-but-also-not-really phase with them

The beach thing from the ending happens - Mari finds some old sprinklers from last summer in storage, and she suggests Yuuri can take the Russians out to the beach and show them how they work (“Yuuri,” Mari says, “they’re Russian they can probably handle a little Japan spring chill”)

Anyways, Onsen on Ice happens and Yuuri wins, so after they eat katsudon in celebration Viktor gives Yuuri the weekend (Fri, Sat, Sun) off

which means less ‘no work’ and more ‘you don’t need to wake up at 6 for warmups anymore, we can keep a lighter schedule and start whenever you wake up’

Yeah, so Yuuri’s been pretty good about waking up at 6 for warmups (or at least about staying up once he’s gotten moving), so Viktor doesn’t actually realize that Yuuri’s a night owl until he gets worried two days later and Yuuri’s still not awake at 10 AM

Viktor’s a morning person

Anyways, this and other little things helps Viktor to see more of Yuuri-the-person rather than Yuuri-the-banquet-dancer. This is important because it helps him to realize (much later) that like... you don’t have to be an idealized version of yourself to be loved. Even if that’s kind of what skating fandom has pushed at Viktor, he’s kind of seeing otherwise - he sees Yuuri as less of his idealized image and falls more in love, and eventually realizes that it probably works the other way around, too

Which leads to the beach talk in episode 4, where Viktor starts chucking different masks at Yuuri and asking which one he wants, and Yuuri says he just wants Viktor to be Viktor

He’s not sure why his heart flutters at Yuuri’s declaration, but it does. It takes Viktor a little while to figure out that he also wants to know who ‘just Viktor’ is

This is the major turning point for Viktor. Yes, we’re not even halfway through the season. Yes this is still the major turning point because this is where Viktor stops using his masks

Not to say he’s cured at this point, because he still has other things he needs to work through, but like this is the peak of the Raskovnik growth - it’s only going to get smaller from here, though there’s some confusion as to why it never quite dies out (that happens shortly after the GPF)

Most of the time between here and the GPF is for like, small things that highlight the slow burn, fall-deeper-in-love YoI goodness, but one of the more relevant things is Viktor starts helping out with the plants in the hot spring

Most relevant are the cherry blossom trees, cuz like... they’re beautiful, but they don’t bloom that long. Normally. Basically, Viktor talks to the tree as he tends to it, mentions offhand that he’d like to see the cherry blossoms again but he’s not sure he’ll still be there by next year, and boom. Cherry blossoms everywhere. In something like the middle of summer. This is because of Viktor’s ‘green thumb’ thing, which subsequently makes him susceptible to the disease

I also imagine that, either after the beach or after the Cup of China, Viktor and Yuuri start sleeping in the same bed at night (and I do mean actual sleeping, though I suppose if you wanted to do otherwise that’d be up to you)

You know the airport scene? It’s beautiful, it’s romantic, Yuuri asks Viktor to coach him until he retires and Viktor says he wishes Yuuri would never retire? Yeah, this is build up to the climax

Because it is exactly everything I described, but also like. Viktor’s been getting better about the *Edna mode voice* ‘no masks’ thing, but that doesn’t mean he’s really completely resolved it. Understandable, considering it’s something like a half a year unlearning that compared to something like ten years of consistently wearing masks for the public and being isolated from even your peers in private, but not great for the disease that feeds off it

So here’s where Viktor accidentally solidifies the thought that he’d be willing to give up everything for Yuuri - even himself. If being Viktor-the-coach is what Yuuri needs, then that’s who he’ll be

This isn’t actually a conscious decision, or like, a rational one, but well. People aren’t always rational, and as they’re nearing the end of the skating year, things are looking a little more muddled. Viktor would like to stay with Yuuri for the rest of his life, but that’s not a certainty like coaching is, and Viktor’s not really used to not having a plan

that being said, I do think Viktor’s a lot more confident in their future together than Yuuri is, because Viktor doesn’t have Yuuri’s anxiety brain - in my mind, Viktor’s natural fears for the future are kind of colliding with Yuuri’s unease (which Viktor isn’t consciously aware of, but is still picking up on)

honestly if you have a better idea

Anyways, while that’s kind of percolating in the background, episode 10 happens, with all proposals and banquet revelations that entail. Also Viktor accidentally spiking Yuuri’s anxiety with the whole “we'll get married once he wins gold” because like, Viktor meant for it to be something along the lines of ‘I have complete faith in Yuuri’s skill and ability to win’ and uh. Yuuri heard differently.

So Viktor’s talk with Yurio goes here, including the bit of his internal monologue of “If I’d stayed in Russia, Yurio wouldn’t be as motivated and neither would I”, because it’s still very indicative of how he’s grown - his potentially backsliding on some of those lessons doesn’t mean he didn’t learn, and it doesn’t mean he can’t pull himself back up.

Anyways the GPF short program happens, and Yuuri trips up because he’s unbalanced - he can’t get in the right mindset for his skate, though he’s skilled enough with it that he still does really well - Viktor notes this, but he doesn’t connect it to his whole ‘we’ll get married once he gets gold’ thing until their confrontation that night.

Also relevant, Viktor’s looking at all these skaters and remembering what he loved so much about competing, and about making his own programs. He’s not thinking about it at this point, but this is what Yuuri sees when he thinks Viktor wants to go back

"Let's end this” happens because of Yuuri’s anxiety brain

Viktor’s all sorts of distressed about this, but one of the biggest things is just... what did Yuuri see that convinced him Viktor wanted to go back? Was there something he missed that Yuuri had seen?

He loves coaching Yuuri, but he loved skating first. Seeing everyone skate so passionately made him remember that viscerally, so that new revelation along with Yuuri’s insistence on not stealing him away from the skating he loves makes him doubt himself

Look, Viktor barely even knows himself as it is, after ten years of putting on one mask after another - maybe Yuuri really does know him better, he was already the one who told Viktor there was a person to be loved under all the masks (he doesn’t, but also anxiety brain)

Anyways, Viktor and Yuuri end that talk on a... tense note, but with a promise that they’ll both think independently on what they want personally, rather than what they think would work best for their fairly young relationship

The free skate happens, in all it’s beautiful glory, and Viktor realizes what Yuuri wants - Yuuri’s always been a beautiful skater, but he’s been mired down by his doubts and anxieties. This skate is quite literally the best he’s ever done, and Viktor knows Yuuri well enough to know that Yuuri wants to be even better. He hasn’t reached his zenith yet, but he still has the drive to improve, and enough determination that Viktor won’t have to sacrifice his dreams to help Yuuri with his goal

also YUURI WINS GOLD which isn’t so much a Raskovnik thing as it is me still being slightly salty about the ending thing

I’m just saying Yuuri deserved gold and also it would have fit the narrative journey better

(The matter of his dream is a different story)

Okay, here I have two potential endings, depending on how I’m feeling about Yuuri getting the wrong medal in canon

The first one is further from canon, in that Viktor decides wholesale that he doesn’t want to skate competitively. He remembers why he loved it because of the passion everyone (and especially Yuuri) showed, but it's in a nostalgic way. It’s not what he wants anymore, but it’s good to know that he wasn’t imagining it when he thought he used to love skating competitively

The other one is actually my saltier one, because like... you didn’t actually need to steal Yuuri’s gold to have Viktor skating in the next season. Specifically, this ties into the fact that Viktor ended his last season with gold shackles clamped around his throat

it’s... it’s not really the high note that one might want to end a competitive season

It’s also going to be how he ends his career if he doesn’t choose to skate next year

considering that Viktor’s recently recaptured his love for competitive skating, and considering the fact that he only really has this year to try it, he’d like to end on an emotional high note, regardless of how he scores, so he chooses to skate next season as well

Considering how much he’s learned from Yuuri and how much Yuuri’s learned from him, they can both kind of teach each other while also training under Yakov, assuming that doesn’t cause problems

I have to admit, I’m not too clear on skating regulations, except that it seems like there’d be issues regarding the idea of having a competitor also coaching as a massive conflict of interest

In any case, the season basically finishes with Viktor being cured of the disease, since he finally figured out the balance of loving Yuuri without sacrificing himself (and like, there’s nothing wrong with sacrifices for the one you love, but they very much shouldn’t be because you think you’re worth less, or because you don’t value your own joy and happiness)

it takes a few days for the plant to well and truly starve, at which point it dies and Viktor ends up hacking up a bunch of roots along with the Raskovnik ‘petals’

It’s not exactly romantic, but its also the end of the disease, at a very convenient timing because Viktor’s lost a fair amount of lung capacity from it, he’s going to need to train himself back up for the next season (NOT for Worlds, that’s way too soon)

Additional notes

As mentioned before, Phichit has done quite a bit of research and gone on quite a few angry rants about “hanahaki, as it’s wrongly called” - Yuuri ends up introducing him to Phichit through video chat so they can talk about things

I was debating whether or not to have Viktor journaling in the meanwhile, to track his mental state and the state of the disease. If he did the journals, they could be good case study material for in-universe scientists studying Raskovnik, but it might also be extraneous to the story, so who knows

The fact that Yuuri rightfully wins gold means that Yurio doesn’t, which I honestly think fits better for his arc as well - part of the problem for the show is that he’s very much trying to fill in Viktors (and Yuuri’s) skates, and he’s being pushed to skate ‘beautifully’ when it goes against a lot of his nature

that’s not to say he doesn’t like being beautiful, but Yurio is fierce and passionate more than he is beautiful, and that’s the way he likes it (side note, I tend to headcanon Yurio’s theme for the season as ‘passion’ or something similar, due to the juxtaposition of the holy passion of his SP and the firey energy of his FS

Anyways Yurio pushes himself too far, as was foreshadowed for the entire season, and tires out too much to skate his FS perfectly

He still does really well, though, because he managed to skate the way he wanted, in his determination to convince Yuuri to stay (it’s not exactly a game-changer, because he was already going to, but it’s very encouraging for Yuuri nonetheless)

His skate is fiery and elegant and fierce in a way that it hadn’t been before, at least until he tired out - it contrasts pretty distinctly with Vitkor’s skating, which tends more for a more smooth, serene type of elegance, which Viktor and Yuuri both bring up at separate points

This ends up being why Yurio changes up his exhibition - he’s been kind of thinking about this for a while, but he never got the chance to perform as he wanted and well. He’s impatient, so he’s going to take that chance now

And that’s how he ends up mixing brainchild skate ideas with Otabek’s music and their combined teenage fashion skills to make Welcome to the Madness

Despite the fact that Yuuri did, in fact, win gold, the wedding needs to be postponed because the entirety of Hasetsu might actually try to murder them if they’re not at least involved.

also, planning a proper wedding at the same time as multiple skate programs (three to six, depending on your ending of choice) and also a good amount of coaching seems like a really bad idea

So anyway, this entire mess of an AU is brought to you by my brain rebelling against one too many hanahaki AUs, with Yuri on Ice ending up as the inadvertent victim. I have a few things written for this, but not near enough to post in any really coherent form, so I figured I’d release the thing to the wild in this way instead

(If anyone wants to do anything with this, I’d just like credit and a link so I can see your stuff. If you want to use the idea for anything outside of Yuri on Ice, that’s perfectly fine, too)

#yuri on ice #raskovnik AU #long post #VERY long post #because I apparently have a lot to say about hanahaki au in general but especially in regards to Yuri on Ice #also #rough count #but I made it through 87 out of the 100 points tumblr's apparently allowing now #and only a few of those points are for dramatic formatting

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