#idk man i just love this game in a way i'm unable to articulate bc i'm Stupid

[irregularsleepingfish]

let me break down my thoughts on ravsuka. I have soju in my body rn btw.

theyre like the only ship with anything resembling canon precedent that like REALLY compels me. Millia/Baiken is one that compels me too but that one's a bit less based in canon. and then every other ship I like is either bc its goofy or cutesy or silly or something.

raven/asuka in particular actually makes me go "oh fuck yes." and my half-lucid ass is gonna try to explain why ok

in one corner, you have a man whos around a thousand years old who cannot die under any circumstances. is impossible to kill. and has spent that entire, millenium-long existence losing his ability to feel anything to a point where he now is only capable of feeling pain, and to a point of deriving extreme pleasure from it. someone who according to his in game bio, wants to find proof he was alive, and dislikes himself for being unable to love - probably because his heart is just too jaded and distant to actually FEEL those feelings. despite that he's super loyal to asuka. asuka gives him a purpose.

in the other corner you have the sad moon man who did [insert long list of crimes] and is so crushed by the weight of his own guilt that he left to go to the moon alone, made a clone of himself that did not have a sense of morality SPECIFICALLY so the clone wouldnt feel that same crushing guilt, that he intended to replace himself with. he fucked up horrendously and he knows that. he's also been alive for 200+ years on top of all that.

asuka gives raven a purpose, and raven stuck with asuka despite everything.

asuka will forever be remembered by history as That Man, forever stained by the atrocities he's committed. raven was treated by the people he helped early on as just a machine or a service instead of a person, because of his feats of immortality. nowhere near the same severity, but they both have this experience with not being seen as an individual but rather a Thing or a Presence or a Title. I think. I might be cooking or maybe the soju is turning my brain to mush. but anyway despite that fact they both see and treat each other as individuals. they're people to each other despite the unique kind of loneliness they each know.

it definitely goes deeper than this but I'm not sure how eloquently I can break down that minutia rn lol. basically they're both real fucked up and can match each other's freak i think.

now what makes them in particular compelling to me is this: asuka says in his arcade mode (paraphrasing, it's 1am and I'm too lazy to direct quote) "I can't understand how other people feel, and I'm frustrated that I can't." he struggles with that, while raven just doesn't feel "love". despite that their connection is pretty fucking strong. i mean asuka trusts raven with overseeing his rejuvenation process when he has to like, backup his memories when he de-ages his body to keep himself alive for as long as he does. thats trust dude.

what I'm saying is I don't think it'd be lovey dovey at all and I don't even know that "romantic" is the word I'd use to describe the way I see the ship. it's too nuanced and complicated to put any label on. it has a unique shape and color all of its own and I think that's beautiful. I think they care about each other in a way nobody else could.

now that I've articulated this I'm realizing that the reason I fuck with them is because I also struggle with empathizing with people and wish I could find someone to match my freak that way. that makes sense actually.

should they kiss? idk. should they fuck? probably. should they heartachingly stare at one another from across the room as they each understand that the other is the only person on the earth OR the moon that could hope to truly understand? Yes.

[wistfulvulpine]

arknights anime hits different when you’ve read chapter 8