#… sorry hkti took up like 80% of the post and its Spoilers for you

[p1x1x]

Ok but what if I asked you to rate all your Arcaea ships on the “guilt each feels towards the other or for whatever reason” scale for uh flavoring reasons

what is this... shonen powerscaling but for guilt?? i suck at scaling anything... (my friends no longer ask me to rate things like that 😔)

i think hikatai is at the top tbh... i've said it before but yeah while they get a pretty happy ending canonically i just dont think. hikari would ever forget the guilt of killing tairitsu... and that guilt turns into overprotectiveness, to never let tairitsu experience pain again for as long as they're here...

and the revival... sorry this would get into spoilers for you so if you want skip this paragraph go ahead but. in the moment, hikari was willing to sacrifice Everything to get tairitsu back (if that gives any scale how guilty she felt right then and there lol)... it included altering tairitsu's memories, to forget the specifics of her despair and her meeting with hikari... (the ending states that tairitsu just remembers experiencing some sort of hardship, but not what). it might ease her pain, and, while there's this whole idea that what they experience here in this 'afterlife' is just as real of an experience as living and that they forgo the past and future whatnot—i feel like that's not going to just happen so easily... tairitsu has no idea what hikari did when she came back to life, but given her kind, naive soul, of course she'd comfort a crying girl that's clinging to her like she was her only salvation. to hear the words "whatever you did, you made it right, didn't you?" was probably what hikari needed in that moment—it might've felt like forgiveness... but after... hikari knows that tairitsu doesn't remember anything hikari had done. you are not telling me that she just leaves her guilt behind like that!!! maybe for a little bit she's happy with that but... is it fair of hikari to accept this kindness, but never tell the truth of what happened to tairitsu? that's just... taking advantage of her not knowing, isn't it?

and if hikari truly values tairitsu, then surely she would end up thinking about that eventually... and who knows how much time might pass before she does, since there's no real clock here...

(realistically, i think if hikari was able to explain everything... tairitsu might just forgive her by her kind nature. those memories were gone with the storm in the revival, so tairitsu only has the lingering feelings of uncertain hardship and hikari's words, and none of the actual weight of despair. but hikari's afraid... because of her own feelings about her actions, she'd believe tairitsu would rightfully be angry about it... either being killed, or maybe that hikari had taken away a part of her life that was hers, even if it was painful...)

so the guilt will just continue on... it's easier to just think she's protecting tairitsu from pain by not telling. bear the guilt, instead of possibly shattering this happy life tairitsu has right now...

(tairitsu smiles gently at her, and hikari doesn't want to be the cause of ending that...)

(i do think tairitsu would recognize there's something on hikari's mind... even ask multiple times, but hikari keeps pushing it off...)

okay so where does this lead to a happy ending at all in this interpretation i Dont really know. at some point hikari would reach a breaking point at that rate... not here to discuss happy endings though just read the official one and ignore all this for that .um. guilt in other ships Yes

between lethesaya and vitasaya (bc i dont really see any guilt factor in other duos)... lethe is the more guilty one in ltsy. going off the AD and alstro stuff yk—lethe knows that saya was trying. and that saya had at least understood lethe’s beliefs having seen her memory, while lethe has to linger on the fact she had always ended up dismissing saya’s beliefs (she’d listened, but would continue to see saya only as an obstacle in her duty… saya kind of thinks similarly to lethe, but i feel like with her being the one who asked to work together, it’s a thought that just lingers back there… i dont know, more thought about how saya’s heart is rather kind sometimes. (she’s still a Little bit of a jerk sometimes… that comes from being a little arrogant. honestly so funny of her…))

then there’s the guilt about saya being in pain that isnt exactly Her fault but it was her scythe that ended up slashing saya’s side so how is she supposed to feel about that other than guilt (i dont think lethe could blame others…). or that time i mentioned Somewhere about lethe having seriously wanting to kill saya, but then learning that saya had been taking care of a kid and having seen vita cry for saya there… wrong about cold hearts, a failure to get to know saya… And was about to kill this kid’s guardian!!! lethe’s kinda stacked in the guilt department… a little less overwhelming than hikari’s, but its like. guilt over several things vs guilt over this one specific ordeal. saya’s also better at getting lethe to speak about her worries… so it seems, they are at least managing… Okay.

saya’s guilt is probably about not trying enough… to lethe, but also in general… how she felt it was all meaningless, even though she had clearly put so much effort into trying. and when you add vita into the mix, it Kinda Sucks feeling like nothing’s worth it, especially because vita helped saya with her goal a bit (and saya led her on this goal). another guilt would be not being able to protect vita… and in this case, i feel like vitasaya might have a little more guilt? at least viewing how the character’s feel. because vita spent more time with saya than lethe did, and by having to take care of the kid (and the responsibility for another’s life), vita was probably more important to saya than lethe… lethesaya guilt is about what they could’ve done (and also what they had done…), while vitasaya is saya going “Shit” over vita being kidnapped by possibly the Worst person to get kidnapped by

uhhhh sorry if this scale sucks i spent too long thinking 😔 ig it might be hkti, vtsy, then ltsy… its not really a scale in my head though because the guilt flavors are different and it ends up being preference (also ltsy and vtsy are kind of linked to each other… no separating them…)