#And I think that’s what made it so good and cool and akdjskdjs

[nyeh-sureiguess]

Y’all it’s 7 am in my timezone but I needed to make this post cause I legit just woke up from a dream about the True Rivals ship and I’m losing my mind

(Disclaimer off the bat: it wasn’t anything inappropriate, not to worry)

The premise was simple enough: Leon and Raihan were scheduled to have an exhibition match one early morning. Leon came, doing his usual shtick of hyping everyone up in the audience by making some “stage talk” with his rival (throwing out some light disses, prideful remarks, how he plans to keep his title as champion no matter how much the other would try— those sorts of things that don’t actually mean anything of substance outside of the stadium since his relationship with the other had always been a good natured rivalry).

Raihan, on the other hand, was feeling off.

He wasn’t feeling particularly bad in any way, no; he was feeling really happy and content with where he was. Maybe a little too much to the point that he had forgotten to keep up his public face of being the wild and fierce dragon-tamer everyone else in Galar knew.

He didn’t respond to any of Leon’s antics, didn’t try to make any faces that would usually show off his passion for battling and wanting to be the best in the region— all he did instead was just stand there, right in front of Leon as they were in the middle of the field. He stood there, silent, with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket and a soft smile on his face as he watched his rival go about. Even the commentator of the match themselves made a comment on how “passive” Raihan was being, speculating that it was nothing more than a strategy to throw the champion off his game so that he wouldn’t possibly be able to guess his game plan later on in battle.

In reality, he’s caught in the bliss of realizing how far he’d come with Leon as one of his closest friends. He’s reminiscing back to simpler times, back to when Leon wasn’t even champion yet and someone he just happened to encounter on the same route early on in his journey. He never would’ve believed that, years later, that same boy who could barely navigate a one-way road would become the decade-long reigning champion of the Galar region.

And more so, he wouldn’t have ever believed that he would still be considered as his greatest rival of all time.

Back in the present, Leon soon notices how the other had been silent all this time, doing nothing but staring at him with a gentleness in his features that he usually only got to see when they were out of the public’s eye and playing undercover for the sake of being able to hang out as friends without being paraded by fans. The early morning sunlight was bouncing off the other’s face, making his relaxed and admiring expression all the more prominent and framing that humbled smile of his perfectly.

And it was driving Leon insane.

He found himself unable to do anything else but fluster up after seeing how genuine the other was being as compared to his usual showboating, a deep shade of red quickly filling up his features before he stopped doing his stage talk entirely and stammered to one of the referees for the match to start already.

This is what finally gets Raihan off out of his trance on the other, and all he does is response is let out a hearty chuckle before smoothing out the cloth on his headgear and pulling himself back into his stage appearance of an obnoxiously wide smirk and hunched over pose.

He doesn’t feel an ounce of regret from letting himself go for a moment there though, because seeing the other’s blushing state and near-speechless reaction made it all so worth it.

[ruby-rambling]

*bluescreens*

you're making me feel like when i first started reading your l'manburg critical posts, having no previous knowledge of dsmp analysis/meta:

"...wait a minute, are you telling me l'manburg vs. dream team isn't your classic revolution story-? did the fandom(tm) get it... wrong? waht."

*shakes you* what do you mean connor is a villain!? WAIT- wait wait wait- "connor antis are the only people with good character analysis in the fandom </3 i am sorry but the 'connor is a villain' agenda must persist he is Messed up and i Love him." C!DREAM APOLOGISTS???

my god. yeah connor did so much shit. when you list it all like that it's very clear for me (i never actually played the game, only saw playthroughs and read so. much. fic. so i had canon distorted from the get go lol). now that i think about it, i always craved the more "morally gray", conflicted yet very competent at his job (murder) connor fics. but alas there were very little of them, deviance-centric fics had to do.

i think most of the fandom woobified him because they could just say that he didn't have agency. which is straight up false (i think? it's been a while), Connor was made with agency in mind, the whole game is him making choices ffs xD (and they're not simple decisions either!)

and if he doesn't deviate he still keeps making choices! just. more murder-y ones... (i remember so little about that route, please enlighten me, if you want of course)

uhh sorry for rambling in your askbox,,, it's just. *holds DBH gently* tell me more if you want ruby <3 know that i will read it all :')

"you can kill him and he'll always come back because not even death can stop him from catching up to you and picking you apart, he is terrifying." he is <3 and do you know what is also terrifying? in the first mission, if he throws himself off the roof to kill the deviant, when he comes back as the next model, he will still remember dying, being visibly distressed when he has to look over the railing of a different building. he would do it again though. if it means finishing the mission.

dakjdksjd no that’s such a mood it’s that quiet realization innit just having a moral crisis-

YEAH I JOINED THE FANDOM AND IMMEDIATELY JOINED THEIR OWN EQUIVALENT OF DREBLR IDK WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME AT THIS POINT HELP I JUST DO THIS TO MYSELF AJDHSJD

but i can also fight on the other side of the battlefield you see >:D

yeah he did have agency. he just literally wanted to stop the deviants but then slowly realizes he is not the hero of the story and has one shot at redemption and i think that’s brilliant. he ruthless and scary and just. i love his storyline

also he’s traumatized. my boy has Issues i just *holds gently with tears streaming down face* get Help.

please do ramble with me i need emotional support akdjskdjs

you know that scene after hank kills him where he’s just. visibly shaken and hank will very sarcastically dismiss his hurt because he failed to lie enough to make him think he was the perfect partner and didn’t try to become friends with him.

i hate them and i love them. they’re horrible people but in certain timelines they *care* and i just

after a moment you realize everything is a lot more messed up than you thought. and it’s great despite the fact everyone in the fandom still wants to fight the creator behind a denny’s <3

yeah fanon connor my beloathed. he’s a good character but a dumbed down version of the actual one - though deviant connor is also horrible. his max body count on the deviant route is 28 (yes, we counted it, these people know more about lore than anyone else. one of them has found deleted scenes via data mining the code and is working on making them all playable, it’s insane.) and he always kills the guards in the elevator which just. honestly made me feel very Off when i first saw it but at this point it makes sense because he didn’t just magically become a good person. he’s representing / the main threat to the actual protagonists the entire game and just watching how terrified the deviants are of him. the “last chance” scene with the fricking dead bodies on the wall and him just proudly standing over his work because he collected “evidence”. oh my God.

it kinda all clicks when you see the analysis. he’s a villain and always has been - pretending to be a law-abiding detective to cover up the tracks of a corporation that doesn’t care about human lives and sent him out to do their dirty work, no matter the cost. it is So Cool.