rhodochrosite | you live in the same world as me

it only took me [checks watch] four years but i finally finished yugioh vrains last week and it killed me dead. yugioh protag x yugioh rival will always get me i will never change i will never improve. anyway maybe one day i'll do a full manifesto for yuryo but for now i will just elaborate on this jpn shipping meme i filled out for them the other day 😢😢 BEING NARRATIVE PARALLELS IS THE MOST ROMANTIC THING IN THE UNIVERSE... BEING ENEMIES IS THE MOST ROMANTIC THING IN THE UNIVERSE.... BEING ENEMIES WHO ARE NARRATIVE PARALLELS IS THE MOST ROMANTIC THING IN THE UNIVERSE!!!

please excuse my horrible finger on phone screen drawing skills and also my super elementary jpn:

the ship
fujiki yusaku [playmaker] x kogami ryoken [revolver]

the dynamic
[the] ENEMIES [of my enemies are my friends?]
rivals
comrades? childhood friends?

basically: what if i saved you at the cost of my father's life when we were children and then we grew into ideologically opposed enemies on opposite sides of a war and by the time we found out who we had once been to each other i believed it was too late, our paths were set and we could not turn back even if we wanted to? but you refused to accept it, you wanted to save me like i saved you, you never stopped trying to reach out to me and convince me that we could create a new future for ourselves, we didn't have to stay trapped by our pasts? and this conflict was never fully resolved due to circumstances beyond our control but your faith in my potential to be more than myself never wavered and in truth neither did my faith in you?

the questions
1. would you choose the fate of the other person or the fate of the world?
yusaku: the world
ryoken: the world

both of them are really aware of their responsibilities, yusaku starts out seeking only personal revenge but his worldview broadens to encompass the whole world while ryoken views himself fully as a tool to carry out his father's will for the good of humanity. so no matter how much pain it brings them they'll eventually put the world first, though i think it'll take yusaku much longer to go through with it than ryoken, yusaku tends to really struggle to act for the greater good when he knows it'll harm somebody he cares about, but he always does so in the end
yusaku will never stop trying to make ryoken's fate align with the fate of the world so he doesn't have to choose, though. he'll fight/doom/kill ryoken to save the world but he'll be desperately trying to change ryoken's mind the whole time
and technically when ryoken saved yusaku as children, he doomed both his own father and the entire world in doing so. every time yusaku brings it up to prove his belief that ryoken is inherently good, ryoken tells yusaku he strongly regretted it, but i think ryoken would make that choice again if he went back...

2. would you sacrifice yourself for the other person?
yusaku: yes
ryoken: yes

literally canonically... they'd even gamble the person they hold most dear in the world (ryoken's father, ai) on the other

3. if the other person became an insane monster, could you kill them?
yusaku: yes
ryoken: yes

definitely. if yusaku could kill ai, he can kill ryoken, even if it'd break his heart. and ryoken is a master of compartmentalisation and rationalisation so he'd be able to execute yusaku just fine and he wouldn't let himself mourn at all except he'd probably carry yusaku's deck around with him for the rest of his life and totally not think about how the choice between saving yusaku and saving his father was a nullity in the end because he's lost both of them

a. would you take revenge if the other person was killed?
yusaku: yes (but not only for ryoken's sake)

the guy who canonically kills ryoken also killed a lot of other people yusaku cares about and was trying to eliminate humanity as a whole so yusaku wasn't only taking revenge for ryoken. in a hypothetical situation i think he would too, yusaku's so fixed on saving ryoken and telling him to run when the situation is dangerous and all that, so i feel like he would want to avenge ryoken

ryoken: yes (an 'i'm the only person who can defeat you' type of feeling)

despite his constant claim that he regrets saving yusaku, ryoken is really really protective of yusaku. when faust suggested attacking yusaku in real life, ryoken blew up at him because ryoken has a sort of code of honour about it, plus he keeps going out of his way to assist yusaku against other enemies (gifting him a special protection program he coded, showing up in duels to save his ass, giving him his ace monster in the final boss battle, etc)
- "survive this fight. if you survive, then we'll settle things between us" <3

but more importantly, both would rather focus on protecting the other for the sake of staying alive together, so they'd be more concerned with prevention than revenge

b. would you follow the other person into death?
yusaku: no
ryoken: no

they have too much to do and live for, they don't have the luxury of selfishly reuniting in death

5. is there a possibility of getting married?
yusaku: no
ryoken: no

i'm not really a marriage person so i haven't really thought about it much but i'm kinda not feeling it. at most they get workmarried postcanon
<this art> was cute tho

6. at the end of the world, would you go to the other person?
yusaku: no

he trusts ryoken can take care of himself, he'll use his time to fight off the end of the world instead

ryoken: yes (he always always seeks out yusaku)

ryoken always shows up to save yusaku when it comes down to it. the only time he was ever emotionally vulnerable and honest with yusaku was in the moments before he died, so i think that if it really was the end of the world he would put down all his barriers and denials and go to yusaku openly because there's no harm in admitting he cares if they're both going to die shortly. and this would make yusaku very very happy
- the longstanding conflict between yusaku and ryoken is that ryoken won't let go of his past while yusaku won't stop insisting they can forge a new future together, so technically if there is no future thanks to the impending apocalypse ryoken can be with yusaku for this short moment without compromising his mindset

7. would you tell a serious lie?
yusaku: no
ryoken: no

even though they're enemies, they are very honest with each other and trust that the other will be honest too. of course yusaku doesn't lie to ryoken, but ryoken won't lie to yusaku either. ryoken's had several chances to hurt yusaku through dishonesty -- when he gave yusaku the protection program, which yusaku installed into his duel disk without hesitation (EXTREMELY UNWARRANTED TRUST IMO YOU'RE LITERALLY ENEMIES!!!), he could easily have given him a virus that harmed ai instead, but he really was only there to help yusaku. ryoken is also super transparent and forthcoming about his plans, he plays the truth revealer role a few times, he isn't interested in killing yusaku by subterfuge and really is actively trying to give yusaku all of the facts
- as an aside ryoken isn't lying when he says he regrets saving yusaku, because that act kickstarted a chain of events that killed his father and could (in ryoken's view) doom the world, so it really was a heavy and regretful cost. but it is one that ryoken bears

8. the other person has been freed from hellish suffering by death. if you could you resurrect them, would you?
yusaku: no (but it's complicated)
ryoken: yes (but it's complicated)

cindi interpreted this question as essentially asking whether the nature of your love is selfish (you want to bring the other person back so you can be together even though they'll be in pain again) or altruistic (you let the other person go even though you'll be alone), but even taking into account the fact that resurrection is a canonical mechanic in yugioh so the stakes aren't quite the same as in a mundane canon, i don't think it's necessarily that clear-cut? i think you can want to resurrect someone for unselfish reasons eg if they have important responsibilities they haven't yet discharged, which is the basis on which i believe either of them might choose to bring the other back into suffering -- because they know it's what the other would have wanted.
- if they had the choice, i think both would want to stay alive in pain and finish what they had to do, so if they happened to die before that, they would want to come back, and the other would respect that wish and bring them back. canonically ryoken revives his father for this reason (among others), so i chose yes for him, but i'm not really sure if that situation is translatable to yusaku...
in the absence of some incomplete duty, i think they're both the type who would respect the other's choice, which is why i chose no for yusaku. yusaku is very very persistent about wanting ryoken to give up his AI mass slaughter crusade and come over to yusaku's side, but he only does it when they're already engaged in some kind of duel or interaction. he nearly always leaves it to ryoken to approach him first, on ryoken's terms. so i think if ryoken were in a situation where he needed to be euthanised, yusaku would let him go. it is, after all, what he did with ai, despite his grief
- however, both of them are very attached to the past, though yusaku is significantly further along in his LettingGoOlogy degree than ryoken, so it's still possible... i also read a fic where yusaku did bring ai back and fucked around with his programming to make sure ai stayed because the weight of his grief and love was unbearable, and it did create an image that really made me think

9. could the two of you escape everything by throwing away your positions and responsibilities?
yusaku: no
ryoken: no

ABSOLUTELY NO WAYYY LMAO... and even if they DID throw away their responsibilities they wouldn't be able to escape anyway. again: yusaku wouldn't even abandon the world for ai, and ryoken is deliberate about destroying all parts of himself that aren't in service to the ideals of the knights of hanoi so he literally has nothing if he throws away his responsibilities
HOWEVER i think yusaku could be convinced if ryoken finally capitulated and came over to yusaku's side but with the caveat that they had to run away together... but since ryoken would literally never ever ever do that it's kind of a moot point

10. at the time of eternal farewell, what is the last thing you would say to the other person?
yusaku: 1) pull yourself together, revolver! 2) ryoken...
ryoken: 1) i'll leave the rest to you, playmaker... 2) fujiki yusaku

canon very kindly provided us with TWO instances of yuryo parting words (though ryoken ended up surviving the first set, obviously)
the second was the first time they both called each other by their real names )':

11. would you want to meet again if you are reborn?
yusaku: yes
ryoken: yes

the two of them are "prisoners of destiny" so they might be able to be happy in the next life
they're always looking for each other, they're always saving each other, when yusaku disappears at the end of vrains ryoken is the one who expresses his firm belief that yusaku will return. they'll find each other again in this life, and they'll do it again in the next

12. finally, describe the relationship between the two in a single word
you're able to save me! i'm able to save you!
we'll seize a new future together!