love, forgiven: thoughts on ryebourbon
Nov. 10th, 2021 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhodochrositei stole the title off one of the longest running akam only cons because i think it is so unbelievably serendipitous that wild turkey has an alcohol blend of rye and bourbon whiskey that is called FORGIVEN like hello???? the thematic resonance...
ryebourbon is one of my fave akam variations which kind of means not that much given that all akams are queens to me BUT i do have some particular headcanons about their sexy spy assassin rivals era that i will go through in this post because canon gives us very little to go off even though their shared years in the black organisation were clearly extremely formative to their dynamic as we see it today. basically elaborating on what i said in the ryebourbon subsection of the akam section of <this post> for another 3k.
sorry in advance for switching between their various names at random i hope it's not too confusing lol.
TIMELINE
this is the timeline i'm working off, including other major events as reference:
7 YEARS AGO: hagiwara dies
5 YEARS AGO: akai joins the black organisation
4 YEARS AGO: rye, scotch and bourbon are on a team mission together (ie sometime between 4-5 years ago, scotch and amuro joined the black organisation)
3 YEARS AGO: matsuda dies
WHAT RYEBOURBON WERE NOT (TO ME)
i don't think they were fucking!!! it’s a very common headcanon that rye and bourbon had a rivals with benefits relationship but i disagree for these reasons:
OK SO WHAT WERE THEY DOING THEN
this requires a bit of reverse engineering to properly explain... basically all we know in canon is that:
1. akemi told haibara that rye and bourbon were rivals and got along poorly
it's unclear whether the hatred started before or after scotch died, since there was some time between scotch's death and rye's cover getting blown. so it's not impossible that they got along ok-ishhh before then... though personally i think it was before and scotch's death simply flipped them from professional rivalry to personal rivalry, because (1) i like haterism and want to maximise the amount of it (2) it makes the most logical sense to me that bourbon's antipathy towards rye began earlier because bourbon was far too willing to believe the worst of rye in a crazed and illogical way that went way beyond being blinded by grief, which i think probably points towards confirmation bias at work.
but i also don't think that's the full picture anymore, i think there was also a significant element of betrayed trust because bourbon really looked up to rye and thought very highly of his abilities despite the personality clash caused by akai's somewhat low empathy vs amuro's quick temper. amuro like speedran the "idol is fallible after all" crushing disillusionment so fast all the heartbreak from that got folded into his heartbreak over scotch and his feelings about akai were instead distilled into The Man I Hate So Much I Want To Kill Him (or so he believes) and then he didn't actually even end up getting disillusioned at all like he is still fully buying into The Myth Of Akai Shuichi.
anyway i'll just c/p right from my tweets:
some examples where amuro demonstrates a weirdly intense amount of trust in akai despite hating him so much:
so overall it's like this extremely confused and potent mix of resentment, attraction, admiration of an experienced and apparently infallible mentorish figure, frustration at himself for feeling like this about someone who shows no reciprocated interest that is then redirected towards rye to amplify the resentment, hurt pride both over never being able to win against rye and also rye not reciprocating. plus the natural tension arising from bourbon taking everything as an insult + being hyperaware of his relative newness/inexperience and aggressively defending against perceived slights to his pride vs rye not only being pretty emotionally insensitive (not from lack of sincerity, it's just because akai himself is a direct person) but also actively enjoying provoking bourbon due to ドS bully tendencies.
WHAT ABOUT RYE'S FEELINGS TOWARDS BOURBON
the above is extremely amuro focused because i am extremely amuro focused and somewhat unwilling to delve too deep into akai interiority at this stage. also rye in general is harder for me to get a read on because it's really unclear what kind of persona akai was projecting as rye, whereas we actually do get to see how bourbon behaves and operates onscreen, and i'm not sure i've come up with a completely satisfactory theory yet... i've read a lot of ryebourbon doujins and am still percolating through the implications of the various depictions of rye.
i do think that rye was probably meaner than akai... since rye is akai's killersona this makes sense to me because akai would want to be emotionally distant for cover maintenance reasons. there's a very common rye/bourbon trope to have rye being condescending towards bourbon for his youth/inexperience... on one hand it's sexy, on the other hand akai has never been dismissive of anyone for being younger than him in fact quite the opposite case in point CONAN, on the third hand that is akai and not rye so it's still possible. in the vol 84-85 AR conversation amuro indicates that he didn't think of rye as someone who was kind to children, which contradicts how akai was acting with conan a few years before he joined the black org, so this supports the idea that rye was consciously colder than akai. i've been pretty influenced by kitada-san's doujins where rye is like... REALLY cold and dismissive and uncommunicative even though i don't think he was thatttt bad. but i think he was pretty bad.
but i also feel like even though they never really got along there were probably some quiet and companionable moments in there in the downtime... like times where bourbon fell asleep on rye's shoulder (and was deeply embarrassed and THIS NEVER HAPPENED about it upon waking up) or rye helped patch bourbon up after a mission or something. i think kou-nim got it right in <this art> (as always)... normally arguing and fighting but sometimes unexpected moments of kindness. and of course their perfect teamwork synergy where they function flawlessly as a unit when they're on the clock despite personal feelings, whatever those happen to be.
akai as a person is geared towards protecting and i think that would bleed through to rye as well, like i do think that akai has always wanted to take care of amuro. akai also specifically only ever uses 君 second-person pronoun on amuro and this must have started during their black org years since there's no reason he would randomly decide to switch after leaving the black org and potentially never seeing amuro again. so i don't think rye was ever like outright nice to bourbon but would occasionally do some スパダリ style actions... why would he do this to amuro's young and fairly innocent heart💢🙄 akai shuichi.......
also like i said above i think rye was attracted to bourbon and aware that bourbon was crushing hard, but he was purposefully refraining from doing anything even though bourbon not-so-secretly really really really wanted him to and was also like a walking billboard sign reading CORRUPTIBLE in huge flashing lights. all of this is why i think the sexual tension between rye and bourbon went continuously unresolved while they were in the black organisation together... but after akai's cover is blown and he has to leave the black org and becomes #1 Black Organisation Nemesis and breaks up with akemi to protect her while bourbon remains in the black org and dreams of killing akai in revenge for scotch and now they're enemies for real... that is a different story. and it is a love story in the end... eventually :)
ryebourbon is one of my fave akam variations which kind of means not that much given that all akams are queens to me BUT i do have some particular headcanons about their sexy spy assassin rivals era that i will go through in this post because canon gives us very little to go off even though their shared years in the black organisation were clearly extremely formative to their dynamic as we see it today. basically elaborating on what i said in the ryebourbon subsection of the akam section of <this post> for another 3k.
sorry in advance for switching between their various names at random i hope it's not too confusing lol.
TIMELINE
this is the timeline i'm working off, including other major events as reference:
7 YEARS AGO: hagiwara dies
5 YEARS AGO: akai joins the black organisation
4 YEARS AGO: rye, scotch and bourbon are on a team mission together (ie sometime between 4-5 years ago, scotch and amuro joined the black organisation)
3 YEARS AGO: matsuda dies
(A) 3 YEARS AGO: scotch dies
or
(B) 2 YEARS AGO: scotch dies
or
(B) 2 YEARS AGO: scotch dies
2 YEARS AGO: akai's cover is exposed and he leaves the black organisation, returning to america
1 YEAR AGO: date dies
CURRENT YEAR THAT HAS LASTED 20 YEARS: akemi dies. also akai """dies"""
1 YEAR AGO: date dies
CURRENT YEAR THAT HAS LASTED 20 YEARS: akemi dies. also akai """dies"""
WHAT RYEBOURBON WERE NOT (TO ME)
i don't think they were fucking!!! it’s a very common headcanon that rye and bourbon had a rivals with benefits relationship but i disagree for these reasons:
- akai was dating akemi at the time and canonically in love with her!!! even if you handwave the in love part away, which i would never do because it’s a huge disservice to both of their stories, i think that akai’s strong and unwavering sense of loyalty is a really important part of his character… he even broke off his relationship with jodie when he started dating akemi even though it was only part of his cover so i really think it’s super ooc for akai to cheat
- i believe strongly that akai will always carry some part of akemi in his heart. it isn’t possible to love and part!! and akemi was very important to amuro as well so i think amuro likes that akai will never forget her. akai/akemi is strictly something in past tense to me but it very much did happen and it's integral to the narrative that it did IMO
- also i'm akemilover9000 so i'm like ERASE HER ON PAIN OF DEATH... at this stage i'm genuinely convinced she's the most important woman in the entire show objectively speaking, nobody else has had such a deep impact on all four main pillars of the story
- cheating is personally my #1 landmine anyway
- even if akai and akemi broke up earlier, it is way way sexier for the tension between akai and amuro to be unresolved at this stage… it’s literally hotter for rye to refuse to fuck bourbon than for them to actually fuck even though bourbon is trying even though he pretends he isn’t. it's about the deliberate restraint and the intensely explosive potential lying just beneath the surface...
- i think the best rye/bourbon is bourbon being really attracted to rye and hating that he is so he overcompensates by being even more aggressive and hateristic and prickly towards rye. while rye is super cold and seemingly uninterested and barely returning the rivalristic energy and constantly shutting bourbon down
- i DO think the attraction was mutual though it's just that rye wasn't interested in acting on it
MY favourite rye/bourbon headcanon is that bourbon gets sex pollen’d while on a honeypot recon mission and rye has to deal with the fallout (fully unrepressed bourbon begging rye to fuck him -> rye does not do so and knocks bourbon out somehow -> bourbon wakes up next day with rye’s jacket draped over him as a blanket). i do still really enjoy r18 rye/bourbon though i am fully capable of looking at things solely with my sag moon monkey brain and going with the akai and akemi broke up canon divergence au. but it still has to pass my Akemi Respecter mental test.
OK SO WHAT WERE THEY DOING THEN
this requires a bit of reverse engineering to properly explain... basically all we know in canon is that:
1. akemi told haibara that rye and bourbon were rivals and got along poorly
- and this is technically hearsay subject to akemi's interpretation of her presumably limited observations of rye and bourbon, possibly even secondhand hearsay of matters akemi heard from rye
- i'm inclined to trust akemi's judgement as she is smart and perceptive and emotionally astute, but i can't discount the possibility that she is working off flawed data
it's unclear whether the hatred started before or after scotch died, since there was some time between scotch's death and rye's cover getting blown. so it's not impossible that they got along ok-ishhh before then... though personally i think it was before and scotch's death simply flipped them from professional rivalry to personal rivalry, because (1) i like haterism and want to maximise the amount of it (2) it makes the most logical sense to me that bourbon's antipathy towards rye began earlier because bourbon was far too willing to believe the worst of rye in a crazed and illogical way that went way beyond being blinded by grief, which i think probably points towards confirmation bias at work.
but i also don't think that's the full picture anymore, i think there was also a significant element of betrayed trust because bourbon really looked up to rye and thought very highly of his abilities despite the personality clash caused by akai's somewhat low empathy vs amuro's quick temper. amuro like speedran the "idol is fallible after all" crushing disillusionment so fast all the heartbreak from that got folded into his heartbreak over scotch and his feelings about akai were instead distilled into The Man I Hate So Much I Want To Kill Him (or so he believes) and then he didn't actually even end up getting disillusioned at all like he is still fully buying into The Myth Of Akai Shuichi.
anyway i'll just c/p right from my tweets:
...I Just Think That its so interesting that even tho amuro is so crazily petty about hating anything vaguely connected to akai his high opinion of akais abilities is not even grudging like he genuinely does think akai is superhuman...i remember i was surprised that amuro seems to respect akai's skills so much given that he disrespects everything else about akai and clearly he is extremely illogical about akai so it's not like he feels bound to acknowledge any objective akai-related truth, but i think it must stem from their time in the black org together. i'm sure that's where amuro formed a really high opinion of akai's abilities over the course of working together with him and it became second nature to assume that akai can do anything as a matter of fact. amuro's extreme emotional responses often tend to stem from where akai doesn't live up to the standard he believes akai should be at.
its unusual bc hes totally irrational about akai otherwise but he has such a randomly objective view of akais skills... Or actually not that objective i think he overestimates akai even. the idolisation is just like hilariously out of place
Maybe amuro doesnt even realise hes doing it or else he would be more pressed/embarrassed about it lol all his haterism is directed at the specific action that akai does or doesnt take but the underlying assumption that ofc akai is capable of miracles just goes unquestioned
some examples where amuro demonstrates a weirdly intense amount of trust in akai despite hating him so much:
- i feel like one of the key reasons amuro is so angry and hurt by akai "killing" scotch even though rationally speaking ofc rye had to protect his cover is that he believes akai should have been able to find a way to save scotch while preserving his cover. what way? amuro doesn't know but he has this like furious blind faith in akai, so the betrayal stems from the fact that he thinks akai could have done something but didn't. as amuro says in zero's tea time: why did you let him die... someone as skilled as you [lit. if it's a man like you]----
- my queen kanki2k suggested that if scotch died shortly before rye was called to work under gin (timeline scenario (B)), it's possible that amuro believes that not only did rye cause scotch's death to preserve his own cover, but actually did so in order to gain favour with the black org and infiltrate deeper by getting rid of a spy... which is also exactly what amuro planned to do in the scarlet arc by capturing akai with the aim of handing him over to the black org to ingratiate himself further in the hierarchy. and i think this theory holds a lot of weight because it explains why amuro never questioned akai's lie about killing scotch even though amuro knew the evidence indicated that scotch killed himself--if he concluded that akai wanted to take credit for the act for the sake of career advancement, that's a reasonable justification that wouldn't warrant further investigation. it would also be an aggravating factor for his intense hatred of akai because then rye's actions weren't just reactive self-preservation but actively and intentionally self-serving at the cost of scotch's life
- even though this all should have made it clear to amuro that akai isn't perfect he still continues to trust and rely on akai's abilities... for whatever reason...
- i think that even though part of amuro's conviction that akai didn't die at raiha pass when kir shot him stems from his delusional belief that he is the only one who can kill akai, as vodka said, the other major part is that he truly doesn't believe akai could be killed so easily. and he goes to such ridiculous lengths to prove that akai is alive because he believes so strongly that akai is literally invincible
- in the darkest nightmare, there's a part where amuro yells out like "is there no way to counterattack, fbi? is that rifle just an accessory?" and it's really like, amuro assumes that akai can see solutions to problems that amuro himself can't (even though he has to phrase it in an insulting way)... once akai outlines his strategy then amuro is able to problemsolve the actual enactment but it's that instinctive reliance on akai to come up with something in the first place that is so ??? to me
- in zero the enforcer, amuro refers to akai and conan as the only two people in the world who are scarier than himself, which i think is sooooo telling because he wasn't even pressed about it, just slightly rueful that conan appears to be six. in context he didn't even have to acknowledge akai but he did anyway...
- even in super tense moments where amuro is trying to hurt/kill akai he like reflexively checks for akai's approval(??)... at the end of the ferris wheel fight in darkest nightmare amuro is still in battle mode even after conan's asked them for help dismantling the bombs in the ferris wheel before everyone gets blown up and it takes akai firmly shaking his head no to get amuro to finally back down. also during the loaded guns confrontation at the kudo mansion at the end of the unsolved cocktail case after yusaku turns on the light amuro looks to akai for confirmation(...? i really have no idea why he looks at akai maybe he was just like What The Fuck and needed to check if the other person in the room was seeing this too) and akai nods at him like Dw It's Fine... like it's crazyyyy how fast amuro flips from trying to beat up / shoot akai into trusting akai's judgement and cooperating with him
so overall it's like this extremely confused and potent mix of resentment, attraction, admiration of an experienced and apparently infallible mentorish figure, frustration at himself for feeling like this about someone who shows no reciprocated interest that is then redirected towards rye to amplify the resentment, hurt pride both over never being able to win against rye and also rye not reciprocating. plus the natural tension arising from bourbon taking everything as an insult + being hyperaware of his relative newness/inexperience and aggressively defending against perceived slights to his pride vs rye not only being pretty emotionally insensitive (not from lack of sincerity, it's just because akai himself is a direct person) but also actively enjoying provoking bourbon due to ドS bully tendencies.
WHAT ABOUT RYE'S FEELINGS TOWARDS BOURBON
the above is extremely amuro focused because i am extremely amuro focused and somewhat unwilling to delve too deep into akai interiority at this stage. also rye in general is harder for me to get a read on because it's really unclear what kind of persona akai was projecting as rye, whereas we actually do get to see how bourbon behaves and operates onscreen, and i'm not sure i've come up with a completely satisfactory theory yet... i've read a lot of ryebourbon doujins and am still percolating through the implications of the various depictions of rye.
i do think that rye was probably meaner than akai... since rye is akai's killersona this makes sense to me because akai would want to be emotionally distant for cover maintenance reasons. there's a very common rye/bourbon trope to have rye being condescending towards bourbon for his youth/inexperience... on one hand it's sexy, on the other hand akai has never been dismissive of anyone for being younger than him in fact quite the opposite case in point CONAN, on the third hand that is akai and not rye so it's still possible. in the vol 84-85 AR conversation amuro indicates that he didn't think of rye as someone who was kind to children, which contradicts how akai was acting with conan a few years before he joined the black org, so this supports the idea that rye was consciously colder than akai. i've been pretty influenced by kitada-san's doujins where rye is like... REALLY cold and dismissive and uncommunicative even though i don't think he was thatttt bad. but i think he was pretty bad.
but i also feel like even though they never really got along there were probably some quiet and companionable moments in there in the downtime... like times where bourbon fell asleep on rye's shoulder (and was deeply embarrassed and THIS NEVER HAPPENED about it upon waking up) or rye helped patch bourbon up after a mission or something. i think kou-nim got it right in <this art> (as always)... normally arguing and fighting but sometimes unexpected moments of kindness. and of course their perfect teamwork synergy where they function flawlessly as a unit when they're on the clock despite personal feelings, whatever those happen to be.
akai as a person is geared towards protecting and i think that would bleed through to rye as well, like i do think that akai has always wanted to take care of amuro. akai also specifically only ever uses 君 second-person pronoun on amuro and this must have started during their black org years since there's no reason he would randomly decide to switch after leaving the black org and potentially never seeing amuro again. so i don't think rye was ever like outright nice to bourbon but would occasionally do some スパダリ style actions... why would he do this to amuro's young and fairly innocent heart💢🙄 akai shuichi.......
also like i said above i think rye was attracted to bourbon and aware that bourbon was crushing hard, but he was purposefully refraining from doing anything even though bourbon not-so-secretly really really really wanted him to and was also like a walking billboard sign reading CORRUPTIBLE in huge flashing lights. all of this is why i think the sexual tension between rye and bourbon went continuously unresolved while they were in the black organisation together... but after akai's cover is blown and he has to leave the black org and becomes #1 Black Organisation Nemesis and breaks up with akemi to protect her while bourbon remains in the black org and dreams of killing akai in revenge for scotch and now they're enemies for real... that is a different story. and it is a love story in the end... eventually :)
