Moving forwards isn’t a linear road. Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better.
Ryoken sets out to right past wrongs and faces the choices he made along the way. Takeru finds himself seeking him out. What used to tie them together should have been settled but it seems there is still something that keeps them in each other’s paths…and maybe that something will be what brings them even closer.
Meanwhile, Spectre is left no choice but to face his own reality: no mission left to fulfill, no role left to play. But while he stubbornly rejects the notion, he might just form bonds he never expected to.
Ch.23 Summary: Soulburner and Revolver duel amidst a crumbling world.
I will prove that I´m not like her
[ID: a drawing of nanami, touga, anthy, and akio from revolutionary girl utena. nanami looks nervously over her shoulder towards a mirror behind her, where anthy is looking out as her reflection. the mirror is red and cracked, and anthy’s eye stands out from her black silhouette. both girls hold their swords up. touga and akio, also reflections of each other, stand in the shadows grasping their sisters’ shoulders. end ID]
The problem about having brainrot for your own fic is that I want to talk about it constantly but I don’t want to spoil anything but I want to talk about motives and characters and just the events but I want to preserve mystery and suspense
You know, when I see fictional characters who repress all their emotions, they're usually aloof and very blunt about keeping people at a distance, sometimes to an edgy degree—but what I don't see nearly enough are the emotionally repressed characters who are just…mellow.
Think about it. In real life, the person that's bottling up all their emotions is not the one that's brooding in the corner and snaps at you for trying to befriend them. More often than not, it's that friendly person in your circle who makes easy conversation with you, laughs with you, and listens and gives advice whenever you're upset. But you never see them upset, in fact they seem to have endless patience for you and everything around them—and so you call them their friend, you trust them. And only after months of telling them all your secrets do you realize…
…they've never actually told you anything about themselves.
Adding onto this: characters who are so deeply repressed that they don't even realize they're not fine, or at the very least not supposed to be fine. Characters who do tell you about a situation they're in that should be bad, but instantly laugh it off saying they can handle it (spoiler: they can, in fact, not handle it). Characters who laugh with you and listen to all your woes and much later you learn that they were actually going through something at least equally bad at the time, but they wave it off and don't want to speak of it. Characters whose main coping mechanism seems to be "don't think about it" on endless loop.
Basically, the fictional embodiment of the "this is fine" dog.
"characters" who do this.
18 - it’s absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on…
BANGS MY HAND ON THE DESK, EVERYBODY SLEEPING ON KUSARYO !!!! THEY HAVE POTENTIAL!!! either as a ship or friends, like both people who weren’t directly involved with the L.I but suffered from it indirectly, kusanagi having to watch jin become a shell of himself, working to support him, ryoken who watched how horrible it all was from the other side, his wish to atone and make it up to the kids and their families—
also they are are cute, kusanagi becoming fond of his mysterious regular customer who only gives little bits of truth about himself, who one day says this is the last time, who later turns out to be their enemy–! and then is gone, and then back and maybe bit by bit kusanagi constructs who kogami ryoken truly is behind the mask……maybe ryoken enjoys the regular visits to his favorite hot dog place, the warm owner, the friendly smile (and the tiredness behind it, sometimes)
people who had to grow up fast…..for different reasons….
i have thoughts on this okay
25- common fandom complaint that you’re sick of hearing
people fighting over png boy of the day is something i’m always sick of hearing, any fandom, for whatever reason like, IT’S A PNG SOMETIMES A GIF BOY WHY ARE YA’LL FIGHTING OVER HIM AGAIN (i say boy but could be anyone, it’s just often some dude).
like, people will have opinions you disagree with! maybe they are even wrong! who knows! but getting into arguments online about a fictional character just leads to nothing lol. block, mute and move on with your life if you disagree so strongly or it affects your well being, complain loudly to your friends. cause going “UM YOU’RE WRONG ABOUT THEM (character)!!!!” to someone who doesn’t care or has their own opinion??? is pointless and will just end up with everyone pissed off (like if you want to debate and be polite about it, that’s cool, but let’s be real in fandom that rarely happens it’s just ppl barking at each other)
“Hot and bothered” in the sense that it is 90 degrees out and I am extremely annoyed
8 - common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about
it’s been a while since i’ve seen it out in the wild but talking about vrains it was (is???) common for the “ryoken is ALSO to blame for the L.I incident!!” from ppl who don’t like him which LOL that’s dumb, he was a kid back then, this is a stupid take sorry. at most we can argue if he was used somehow back then by kogami to reach the L.I kids (like how he bumped into yusaku, we don’t have much context on what happens after or if that was staged or not, which could explain part of the guilt ryoken carries over it!). like, hate him as a character all you want, i don’t care, but ur wrong <3
also this is just my personal opinion (it’s not a hill i die on like the previous one LOL) but rev and pm don’t feel like THE vrains rivals. s1 establishes them as enemies and yusaku was too focused on revenge to care about having a rival; revolver was his enemy for most of the season. at the end when he finds out who he is, we can say he saw him as less of an enemy and more of a potential friend(?) but after s1 there’s not rivalry feels between them. they never do duel again tho i wish they had but rivals are meant to push at each other and make each other stronger and i don’t get that vibe from them? like THEY COULD HAVE BEEN but it didn’t happen……you know who it did happen with, sobarevo, am i a bit biased, maybe
9 - worst part of canon
this varies from canon to canon tbh xD if we’re talking ygo, for example in vrains i wish we had MORE SLICE OF LIFE EPISODES!!! MORE CHARACTER INTERACTION MOMENTS!! that for me is vrains’ weakest point cause i wanted to see my faves being silly or in chill situations, no high stakes moments, they all deserve a break (which for example is something i really like in CFV where characters often got beach episodes or low stakes moments for character building)
honestly i think this can apply to a lot of media; give your characters breathing room! give them that beach episode, let them interact with each other outside of “story plot” ! those episodes often give random trivia abt characters that is so fun to know about.
10 - worst part of fanon
i understand that some fanon interpretations are popular for a reason but people who take those as CANON and shit on ppl who have headcanons that do not agree with the popular take irk me so much….bro we’re all trying to have fun, chill!
also lots of fanon interpreations of characters just feel very bland and one dimensional/reducing a character to two characteristics only. people can enjoy content/shows/characters/etc however they want but for me it sucks when a cool character gets reduced to being one(1) thing only (“the mean one” “the angry one” “the dumb one” etc. sometimes canon suffers from this too!)
🔥 choose violence ask game 🔥
- the character everyone gets wrong
- a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom
- screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr
- what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?
- worst discord server and why
- which ship fans are the most annoying?
- what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?
- common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about
- worst part of canon
- worst part of fanon
- number of fandom-related words you've filtered
- the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them
- worst blorboficiation
- that one thing you see in fics all the time
- that one thing you see in fanart all the time
- you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)
- there should be more of this type of fic/art
- it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...
- you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...
- part of canon you found tedious or boring
- part of canon you think is overhyped
- your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores
- ship you've unwillingly come around to
- topic that brings up the most rancid discourse
- common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing
twt can’t die yet we’re having takeryo week in august dammit >:I
Everytime I see posts like this I get filled with such profound sadness
Cause you know who has the same brainrot as you? The same unhinged feelings as you after you've read the fic? The person who always wants to scream about the fic with you?
THE PERSON WHO WROTE IT
I never used to leave comments but since I got into the habit of commenting on everything i enjoy it's been incredible. Especially when the author gets back to me about it and we get to have a discussion of what other ideas they had. One writer replied to my comment with a 5 paragraph essay detailing the Floorplan of the building the characters lived in and it was incredible
Anyways this is all to say that if you find a fic that just makes you want to scream from the rooftops, leave a comment saying that to the author and maybe they will join you and you can scream incoherently together