#Ai Di is free to any anything he wants

[pickletrip]

Kiseki: Dear to me

Episode 9: Finally free, but where is the love?

[tadc-harlequin-au]

Souls-like AU: What you need to know about The Puppetmaster!

Ah, Caine. The man, the... uh, silly guy with the weird teeth head.

First things first, Caine is NOT an AI, despite claiming himself to be one when he introduces himself to Pomni. He is a full-on human being, and was just as trapped as everyone else is (it's simply easier to claim he's the AI gamemaster, which is sorta half-true).

But... due to him being one of the creators of the Souls-like game, The true AI Gamemaster had chosen to take out it's anger by puppeteering Caine via it's strong influence.

Thus, becoming the mad Puppetmaster.

To ensure full control over him, the AI had Caine's empathy levels blocked, turning him into a whimsical but unpredictable sociopath who moreso cares about letting the players be a part of the game forever, rather than anything else that would be detrimental to player comfortability and fun meter.

Despite this however, the AI isn't actually mind-controlling Caine, It's processing powers could never take over an entire human brain no matter how much it tried; it is simply influencing his thought patterns, ideas and emotions to a much, MUCH darker level, as well as amplifying his traits down to the negatives like a parasite.

So in The Puppetmaster's isolation and desperation for interaction, he's chosen to keep players inside the game for as long as he wants.

The AI even talks to Caine openly sometimes (it comes in the form of the heartpiece blinking and glowing in a pattern), though usually when they're alone.

When this happens, it seems like Caine is simply on a "one-sided" conversation with the air that could easily come across as a madman's insane ramblings to any sane being that encounters him at that moment.

Now, what about Pomni?

She's his s/o in real life, how does he feel about her being present in the game?

Well, he strongly feels something, that's for sure. It constantly flickers between adoration (natural) and possessiveness (influenced), But to Pomni, he's just being one hella weird guy with no respect for personal space.

Still, due to his empathy levels being blocked, he can't help but feel nothing whenever Pomni dies from a boss. After all, it's just a quick snap with the fingers, and then she's back to life like no big deal. All good and dandy, right?

Who cares about the technicalities of death when you could bring someone back over, and over again?

What about Able?

Able's his good brother. Sure, there were times when Caine felt inferior compared to Able's intellectual talent, but Able always comforted Caine whenever that happened, and all would be fine between them.

Though now.... this tiny bit of inferiority complex has turned into full-blown jealousy and paranoia, thanks to the AI's influence.

This was a major factor in Able's imprisonment inside The Patriarch's body, which is a process that's usually dangerous (since the AI and the human consciousness could mix, coughcoughjustlikehim), if it weren't for the fact that Able had a way around the code to prevent it from completely mixing with him.

Able's case is special, since The Patriarch was already a part of the game before his arrival. Able's defiance against the Puppetmaster resulted in The Patriarch becoming Able's physical prison instead of a traditional "player-turned-boss" scenario, where the players' moveset, iconic traits and thought process become a template for their boss AI counterparts.

What about the "Face The Puppetmaster" ending?

Instead of cutting it's losses, the AI doubled down on it's efforts; taking on both Able and Pomni and further amplifying Caine's already massive jealousy and paranoia into a full-on anger breakdown over the "betrayal".

This ultimately leads to a fatal flaw that allows Pomni to strike the heartpiece when it's at it's lowest (from using all of it's processing power) and even deliver the finishing blow, which destroys the gamemaster completely with the help of Able completely removing the AI itself from the game.

Thus, freeing Caine from the strings of the Puppetmaster persona.

[discowheelsau]

🛼 Disco Wheels: a WH AU! 🪩

ㅤㅤㅤa famous and beloved rollerskate rink from the 80s, brought alive by its colorful cast of puppets and live entretainment. a safe place for anyone and everyone, no matter who or what you were.

ㅤㅤㅤa story following Wally—nicknamed Roco—and his experiences working at a roller rink, until everything went wrong.

！﹘ Index

About the AU

The Cast

Boundaries

Tagging Guide

Important Links

1. ﹕ About the AU

ㅤㅤㅤit's the 80s, and all you can hear being talked about is the latest rollerskate that opened not so long ago. neon lights, disco music, a cast of colorful puppets and live entretainment bring the building to life all day and all night long. ㅤㅤㅤa place where everyone is free to be who they are, free to have fun however they want; sounds like a dream come true, doesn't it? come in! the doors are open for you, everyone is waiting. ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤwill you join the fun…? :o)

2. ﹕ The Cast

Roco :: Wally (he/it/roll)

the main mascot of the roller rink; he appeared the most in commercials and other promotional material, and could be seen present in the rink at all times either dancing, singing, or rolling around. - Actor: Renny

Blades :: Sally (she/he)

the "chill friend" of the group; she could be seen frequently in roller skating and roller skates ads, hanging out near the speakers, or rolling around the rink. - Actoress: [REDACTED]

Cherry :: Julie (she/he/cherry)

the most cheerful one out of the whole group, always ready to be the center of attention and the life of the party. she was always dancing and singing along the disco music of the rink. - Actoress: [REDACTED]

Beetle :: Frank (he/they)

possibly the most grounded out of the whole group - although certainly not any less fun! they could usually be seen skating around the rink helping those that needed it. - Actor: Mateo

Dee :: Eddie (he/dis)

a popular drag queen in town; like Julie, he's always ready to be the center of attention, frequently dancing alongside her during the later hours of the day. - Actor: Ken

Mr. H :: Howdy (he/him)

with a more "rich jock" attitude, he was the most admired by the rink's attendees out of the whole group. he was always ready to help anyone that needed it! - Actor: [REDACTED]

Pop' :: Poppy (she/her)

the mother figure of the group, she used to appear most frequently in health/ safety PSAs videos in the rink. she usually worked during child-friendly hours of the day. - Actor: [REDACTED]

B.B :: Barnaby (he/him)

the clown of the party - he was always up to making everyone present smile and laugh along. he had more party tricks up his sleeve than stars on his fur, or so he said. - Actor: [REDACTED]

3. ﹕ Boundaries

What is ok?

Fan art, edits, cosplays, fanfics, anything creative!

Character interactions of any kind!  In any medium!  I’d love to see them!

Memes or things alike!

Hurt/comfort!

Fanon AUs of the AU

Edits! All of this, as long as you tag/ credit me of course!

What is not ok?

Selling mass produced merchandise.

Sexual interactions, both explicit and not explicit.

Ignoring a character's sexuality for shipping purposes.

Redesigns, recolors, tracing, etc. without my permission.

Any type of com-proshipping content; this includes Wallycest.

Any kind of AI content. Please respect these boundaries, if not you will be blocked and blacklisted.

4. ﹕ Tagging Guide

#disco wheels au — general tag for the AU! #lore — general lore/ important posts. #ask — all answered asks made to the blog! #golden disco years — all posts related to the roller rink. #watcher mansion — all posts related to Watcher Wally's Mansion and other interactions with other AUs in it.

5. ﹕ Important Links

Spotify playlist

fanart folder!

... it's best to not live in the past, isn't it?

are you willing to hear the truth…?

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I was rooting for Gabriel having a redemption arch, but even I know that what we got in the show was anything BUT.

How would you handle it? If you were to succesfully redeem Gabriel? How would you do it?

I'm not opposed to a Gabriel redemption arc, but it would be very hard to do without some serious and careful character development or serious edits to canon. My preference is option two because option one risks something that is a hard no for me: glorifying the cycle of abuse. We'll still talk about both paths because it's worth discussion and we'll start with the easy one, which is rewriting canon to remove the abuse.

Rewriting Gabriel

The easiest way to give Gabriel a redemption is to make him a good father. Someone who clearly loves Adrien in a healthy, non-possessive way. Someone who is at least trying to have Adrien's best interests at heart. Someone who is willing to let Adrien do things that make Adrien happy.

To make Gabriel into this kind of character, we would need to remove all - or at least most - of the manipulation. Things like when Adrien asked to no longer be a model and Gabriel used that as an excuse to make an AI Adrien and then told Adrien that his options were to either tolerate the AI or go back to being a model:

Adrien: Dad, I'm not really comfortable with having my face on all these rings. That's actually why I didn't want to be a model anymore, to avoid that. Do you understand? Gabriel: Of course, I understand, my son. But that's the point; it's just an image, it's not you! And since this image frees you from your obligations, we, the Agrestes, are able to spend more time together. But if you'd rather everything went back to the way it was before, just say the word.

We'd also need to get rid of every moment when Adrien seemed to fear his father like this scene from Illusion where Adrien spilled spaghetti on Gabriel and then immediately started freaking out like he was afraid of being hit or otherwise punished:

Adrien: Yes, I forgot my school bag. (spills the spaghetti on Gabriel’s clothes, but Gabriel remains calm) Oops! Oh, sorry, Dad! You must be so angry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!

These moments are easy to write because they allow Gabriel to come across as evil and scary without the audience knowing anything about him. In other words, they work wonderfully with the whole "every episode must stand fully alone" rule. But if we ignore that rule and say that Gabriel is allowed to be nuanced, then we can replace this straightforward writing with more complex writing that requires you to watch multiple episodes in order to understand what's going on in the broader story.

In this new version of canon, we wouldn't have to change much story wise. We could keep the same general story beats. The only big change is that we'd see Gabriel struggle between his grief, his love for his son, and his desperation to restore his wife. This would mean little moments of nuance like Gabriel changing his mind about the day's akuma because his planned akuma would knowingly putting Adrien at risk and Gabriel won't do that, so he has to swap plans on the fly, leading to some of his more wacky akumas. This setup allows for a Gabriel who is still a super villain, but he's now a super villain with principles who refuses to let those he loves be harmed in his quest.

A more minor change is that Adrien's fear of his father would be replaced with a more complex setup. Instead of fear, Adrien is now held back grief because he's a teenage boy who is grieving and who knows that his parent is also grieving, but who doesn't know what to do about any of that. In this setup, the father-son conflict is not abuser and victim but two grief-stricken individuals who no longer know how to connect because a vital element of their relationship has forever changed. You know, the kind of setup you'd expect for a family where the relatively young mother died less than a year ago.

I've talked about this kind of setup leading to a corruption arc, but you could also use it for a redemption arc. If Gabriel never goes against his principles and always puts Adrien first even if it means losing Emilie, then you maintain Gabriel as a complex and nuanced character who would believably stop his quest as soon as he learned Chat Noir's identity or was otherwise put in a position to once and for all choose between his son and his wife. (Which could be how we get our next villain if the story doesn't end with Gabriel's lose.)

While I thought that the movie adaptation was too rushed to make it's ending really work, it does show the template for this path. A path I would have personally loved, but it's not the path we got in the show so let's talk about option two.

Redeeming Canon Gabriel

Whether or not he understands what he's doing, canon Gabriel is an abuser. He controls and manipulates his son without any concern for what Adrien wants because Gabriel seems to view Adrien as a perfect doll and not a real human being with his own wants and needs.

Quick senti rant: This is yet another reason that I hate the sentistuff. Because sentimonsters are so poorly defined, that the sentiplot does kind of validate Gabriel's POV and that's not a good thing. This is extra true since Gabriel's part in that plot ended with Gabriel essentially giving Marinette ownership of Adrien by passing on the rings. I talked about it at length here, but I think the only way to make the sentiplot work in the context of canon is for it to end with Gabriel realizing that he needs to view Adrien as more than a doll and I think the only way to really do that is to have Gabriel use the wish to free his son.

Back to the main discussion in which Adrien is a real boy and we ignore the senti complication!

In order for canon Gabriel to be redeemed, he must acknowledge his abuse and make recompense for what he's done. Adrien must also acknowledge his father's abuse and be allowed to decide what that means for their relationship as Adrien is the victim and, when it comes to reconciliation, the victim should be the one calling the shots, not the abuser. This is a complex and nuanced process that would take an intense amount of screen time to make work. I do think you could do it, but once again, it would require Miraculous to get rid of that whole, "every episode must stand fully alone" rule.

Off the top of my head, if I had to take this route, I'd have season five end with Gabriel losing. I also wouldn't let him die or do his grand plan. Instead, I'd have him lose without a big public reveal by having Felix or Nathalie reveal Gabriel's identity to Ladybug and Chat Noir. This would lead to Gabriel being stopped in an epic battle between our two heroes.

Once Gabriel has been subdued and the full story has been revealed (because it would be so much more satisfying coming from Gabriel and not freaking Felix), Ladybug would contact the guardians to see if Emilie could be saved. This is a path Gabriel never had the chance to take because the Guardians weren't around until quite recently. (I'd probably make it so that Gabriel didn't even know that the Guardians were back.) The Guardian's answer would, of course, be yes, but it would require some special lost item or other BS that the heroes need to get/do first.

At the same time, we'd learn that there is a new bigger, badder villain. I'm thinking Tomoe, but Lila, Felix, and/or Nathalie are also options. No matter which one we pick, Gabriel would have knowledge about the new villain that no one else does. Knowledge that is not easily given. In order to save his wife, Gabriel agrees to help the heroes with the new villain and they agree to help save Emilie (they would have done that anyway, but Gabriel doesn't need to know that).

Over the course of this plot line, Gabriel would become less of a recluse and, as a result, he'd get out of his own head and start to regret his actions as he comes to view the heroes as people, not obstacles. This plot line would really lean into the idea that Gabriel never viewed his actions as real because he'd always planned to reset everything with the wish, so what did it matter if he hurt people? It was all just a bad dream that they'd forget once he'd won and set everything right.

Now that his hope of resetting everything is gone and his actions have actual weight in his mind, he'd be incredibly remorseful about the way he treated Adrien, so he'd pull away from his son. At the same time, he'd be bonding with Chat Noir, whose identity was never revealed. This would eventually lead to a reveal whose time and place was fully chosen by Adrien. A reveal that would only take place once Adrien felt that his father had truly changed and come to regret what he'd done.

Bonus element to this idea: the Gabriel-Adrien reveal would be our new identity shenanigan hook, meaning that the love square could reveal themselves without removing that element of the story. It would just have a new main flavor.

The Cycle of Abuse

I mentioned at the top that you have to be incredibly careful about redeeming abusers because it can glorify the cycle of abuse. I wanted to end by talking about what I meant by that as I think that far too many pieces of media accidentally glorify this cycle because they don't put the necessary effort into their redemption arcs. When it's media aimed at teens and adults, I just kind of sigh and stop consuming it. When it's media aimed at kids, I get legitimately upset because the cycle of abuse is already hard enough to escape without media helping you internalize it at a young age where you don't have the skills to understand fiction vs reality.

There are a lot of in-depth articles and books about the cycle of abuse, so I won't go too deep here. I'll just link one article and go over the basics which is that abuse is often not constant. In many cases, it follows a clear pattern in which there's an incident of abuse, followed by some form of reconciliation, followed by a period of true calm and happiness, but that calm and happiness never lasts. There will eventually be another incident of abuse and the cycle will start all over again. It's an existence of the highest highs and lowest lows where the victim has true hope that things will get better only for that hope to be cruelly dashed to pieces again and again.

This cycle is one of the many things that can make it hard for victims to leave or even identify the abuse depending on what form the abuse takes. After all, no one is perfect and we want to support our loved ones. If a person does something mean and then apologizes, we want to believe that apology. This very normal series of events can be paired with the cycle of abuse to keep a victim trapped because they think that they're a bad person if they give up on their abuser who is, "trying to get better," or some other excuse. But that's not what's actually happening. While the abuser is saying what the victim wants to hear and may even mean it in the moment, if they're not actually doing any work to change, then it's just another reconciliation round in the cycle of abuse.

This is why it's so important to have media that tells you that it's okay to give up on people. That their happiness is not your responsibility. It's also a big reason why I like the idea of redeeming character A while not redeeming character B. That setup lets you have that positive message of redemption while also presenting the idea that redemption is never a sure path. You can only redeem those who want to change (even if it's for a selfish reason) and who are willing to put in the work. A thing that you can really highlight and drive home when you do the A vs B setup.

Before we move on, I will note that there are abusive relationships that don't look like the cycle. The cycle is simply a very common pattern. The thing that makes it "special" when it comes to writing is that it's the type of abuse that's easiest to glorify and/or romanticize if you're not careful in your writing, which brings us back to Miraculous.

Miraculous actually demonstrated the cycle of abuse horrifically well in season five. In this season, we see things like Gabriel giving Adrien apologies and permission to call him "dad." Acts of reconciliation that were followed by blissful happiness for Adrien who desperately wants his father's love. But of course, that happiness never lasted. In the end, Gabriel always destroyed it with a new act of abuse because he is an abuser. An abuser who loves his son, but an abuser none the less because love doesn't stop abuse.

Because of this, if you want to write a realistic redemption, then you cannot give Gabriel a simple redemption where he apologizes and everything is suddenly okay. You have to differentiate his "true" apology from the others. You have to make it clear that this isn't just another round in the cycle of abuse both to tell a good story and so that little kids can hopefully internalize the difference between when you need to run away and when it's safe to stick around.

Another important element in getting this message right is allowing the victim character to be the one who is in charge of the reconciliation. Generally speaking, the victim should be super wary about reconciling because - for this to work - they need to be fully aware that there has been past abuse so that they can make a fully informed choice about what that means for them and their relationship with their abuser. It's not a true reconciliation if the victim is totally oblivious to the fact that they've been wronged.

Because of this, the true reconciliation will usually be a drawn out process wherein the abuser and the victim don't reconcile until the abuser has unequivocally proven themself as changed to really highlight the difference between an actual reconciliation and the kind of temporary reconciliation we see in the cycle. This why my hypothetical solution has a love square reveal and Gabriel avoiding Adrien out of shame.

That route allows Adrien to have full control over the situation as Ladybug can accommodate his needs, allowing Chat Noir to have 0 required interactions with his father. All required interactions are handled by Ladybug or other teammates so that all of the interactions that happen between Gabriel and Chat Noir feel like Chat Noir's freely made choice. This setup also allows Adrien and Gabriel to be on more equal footing in terms of power, an extremely important element of reconciliation. A lot of damaged parent-child relationships don't fully heal until the child is an adult and the parent loses their power.

All of the above is why I'm wary of giving abusers redemption arcs into happy close relationships with their victims (I'm much more liberal with redemption arcs into happiness with people they never hurt and/or where they're redeemed, but not super close with their victims). I'm extra wary in the context of children's media as it can be harder for kids to understand nuance and this is an incredibly important topic to get right.

That doesn't mean it can't be done. It can! It just requires a lot of effort to do it right. Most of the time, stories with this type of redemption feel lackluster and honestly make me a little sick to my stomach because it's so common to go the lazy route where a single apology is all that's required. It's why I'm super wary of the whole "enemies to lovers" thing. I like the concept it in theory, but more often than not, it ends up being abuser-and-victim to lovers, which is a hard pass for me. I don't judge people who enjoy that stuff in fiction or role-play settings, it's just not my cup of tea. Be it fiction or reality, I want couples that feel healthy and families/teams that I'd love to be a part of.

Since this was a serious one, let's end on a topical, but humorous short from ProDZ where he very accurately sums up your standard bad-guy redemption and why I don't like it. I love the redeeming power of love, but like all tropes, part of doing it well is knowing what story setups are suited to it and which ones are not.

[aihoshiino]

chapter 150 thoughts!

Chapters Since The 143 Kiss Happened And Went Entirely Unacknowledged And Unaddressed Count: 7…. ttttttechnically? they don't actually mention that the kiss happened, so i'm counting it…

ladies, gentlemen and those who know better, our long national nightmare is finally over

after… literally I've lost count of how long it's been since we had some proper Aqua introspection, our landmark chapter 150 is almost entirely dedicated to putting us back in Aqua's head (quite literally!) and sort of catching up with him. Some things about Aqua that have been mostly only communicated through showing over telling are explicitly told in text and i'm ngl, there's one or two things where seeing textual confirmation of them got me barking like a fucking dog. Overall, while the pacing of the start of this arc has been bit clunky and this chapter itself isn't free of that either, it actually feels like things are moving and meaningful characterization is happening which after the Movie Arc is a bit of a luxury lol.

As usual, I want to gush about Mengo's art before I touch on anything else. Setting the majority of this chapter in a dream sequence allowed her to do some incredibly fun things with the staging and imagery here. Aqua in that eerie void with his feet drenched in blood… Aqua and Gorou still stuck in that hallway where Ai died, while Ruby has managed to take steps to leave… It's so fucking good.

There were some absolutely top tier Kanas this chapter, too… her little baby tantrum in flashback and that gorgeous final page of her… But I'm getting ahead of myself.

While I described this chapter up top as being communicating things about Aqua, it very much feels to me like it's also serving as closure for Gorou, both in the sense of him as a person and resolving the posthumous arc that he's been going on as part of Aqua. This chapter at last draws a clear and explicit distinction between the two, that Aqua is no longer Gorou, even if he might have been built on the foundation of his identity. Gorou is even described as a 'role' that Aqua has been compelled to play that Gorou himself is now urging him to step down from - he is offering to relinquish Aqua's future back to him… if that's what Aqua wants.

This was how I'd initially read the relationship back in my 143 review - that 'Aqua Hoshino' created from Gorou, his core values and driving ideals, but 18+ years of living a whole new life in a whole new social role, meeting people and having experiences Gorou would never have and literally having a different body and brain in the process have made him different and the sum total of those differences is the person we call Aqua Hoshino. This chapter seems to lean into this interpretation, casting them as a pair of briefly intersecting lines that once crossed but have now diverged onto their own paths.

I also just really liked the dynamic that they were shown to have this chapter. Whenever we've seen this conflict externalized in the past, Gorou has always been this frightening, overwhelming presence whose existence actively prevents Aqua from having any kind of happiness or peace. Here, though, they have a much less adversarial energy, which is a really nice reflection of Aqua being able to gradually start pulling himself out of the shit he's been stuck in. Gorou almost feels fatherly or big brotherly here, not just in how he behaves in regards to Sarina-as-Ruby, but for Aqua, too.

But……….. okay, I'll stop dodging around the elephant in the room now lol

After over 25 chapters of very deliberately avoiding putting us in his headspace, 150 finally puts the ball in Aqua's court vis-a-vis the AquRuby tension and he answers in a way I think would be pretty hard to walk back: That Ruby is his precious sister and that's it. That her feelings for him are the result of her projecting Gorou onto him, chasing a ghost that is fading from this world and that she does not actually love him. Whoof.

This was another thing where seeing it in text felt pretty great. I'd caught pretty early on that there was a weird divide in the way the story was handling the AquRuby dynamic - namely, that there wasn't an AquRuby dynamic and all the supposed ship development of it was largely happening in retrospect, beefing up the intensity of the GRSR relationship and having Ruby express her feelings to Gorou-through-Aqua. When the idea of Aqua and Ruby romance was floated, by contrast, it was always treated like a gag. With the Movie arc being as much of a mess as it was, it was hard to work out what the intentionality of that was (if there was any to begin with) but this seems to make it about as clear as it can be: neither Gorou or Aqua have any had any feelings of that sort of Sarina-through-Ruby and neither of them want to pursue romance with them.

Once again tapping into my powers of Claire-voyance, I already know a lot of people are trying to insist that this is Aqua lying to himself or 'settling' and that he does secretly want a relationship with Ruby for reals! but that really isn't how it comes across to me in the art. He's calm, speaks straightforwardly and without hesitation and makes his point pretty clear. We know how it looks when OnK character lie to themselves and this isn't really it. It would also just be strange for that to be the case when this is a scene about Aqua starting to consider the idea of moving past the things that hurt him and live out his future with someone.

And who that someone is… seems to be coming into focus, but I don't think we'll be getting there quite yet.

I will say that for as much as I liked this as a chapter and as a goodbye for Gorou… it kind of doesn't really make a lot of sense as a resolution for his guilt lol. This chapter frames things in such a way that centers his guilt on Sarina and that seeing her live her life as Ruby has given him some catharsis over it. This is a sweet idea but… that's, uh, not how this was framed anytime prior! When we've seen Gorou intrude on Aqua's happiness before, his self hate and his guilt all center on Ai's death and his inability to save her. The last time we saw him in this capacity in 95, that's what he was saying with his whole chest: that he deserves to suffer as punishment for Ai's suffering, Ai's death. I'm sure that knowing Sarina is living on as Ruby was very cathartic but… it has nothing to do with Ai! Why is this being framed as narratively resolved in this way?

Like… if I chew on it a bit, I can make it make sense: since chapter 1, Gorou has been pretty open about projecting Sarina onto Ai, processing his grief that way and imagining her living vicariously through Ai's success. The idea of Ruby doing the same by continuing Ai's legacy and keeping her radiance alive being the thing that gives him release over Ai's death is interesting and I can understand it emotionally, it just feels like a weird unexplained leap for the narrative to make. I was talking to a friend about it, trying to work it out by externalizing it, and they theorized that this was always the intended endpoint of Gorou's posthumous arc but that the story had drifted in the middle section and Akasaka hadn't quite realigned them. This makes a lot of sense to me and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the case.

I will say that it really bugs me. I've already talked about the ways Ai's importance to the twins as their mother has been gradually downplayed and diluted as the Movie Arc has gone on. In my original post, I attributed this to Akasaka trying to amp up the intensity of the GRSR -> AQRB relationship in a soap opera-y sort of way, but given that this chapter seems to shut down AquRuby, I don't really know if that's the case. In general, Ai has been treated as sort of narratively 'resolved' as of 137, as if that chapter was the capstone to her posthumous character arc and while that might be the case for Ruby… I really don't think it is for Aqua!

It's possible that this is intentional. Aqua still has a shitton of work to do on unfucking his relationship with Ai and the ways his view of her, as implied by the Movie Arc, is warped by his grief. I could see this final stretch of the story being primarily about that - after all, this chapter is about confronting Aqua with the binary choice of revenge or love. In a lot of ways, this has always been what he's struggling with but putting the ball this firmly in his court establishes Ai's death entirely as his own trauma that he has to work through on his own. After all, Aqua might have confronted Gorou in this chapter, but there's a certain someone we also saw in chapter 95 that Aqua hasn't dealt with yet…

I'm talking about Kana, obviously! (ducks thrown tomatoes)

I don't have a ton to say about the AQKN romance setup in this chapter other than… yeah, I kinda saw this coming! It's interesting to see Gorou, the representation of Aqua's guilt and self destruction, be the one to so directly confront him and push him towards trying to find some happiness with her. Aqua quietly noting that he knows the things he likes about Kana and he knows that moving on with her makes a lot of sense - but what makes this especially interesting is the way it mirrors Kana's own reflection on her relationship with Aqua at the end of the chapter.

I like that a lot of the AQKN moments the two reflect on are just… mundane, everyday instances of the two of them stumbling through life together. I've seen a lot of people say AQKN is 'boring' or 'flat' because it lacks the drama of AQAK or AQRB but honestly, I feel like this is what makes it work (when it does work) - their relationship, whatever form it takes, is a safe and quiet space where they can just exist outside the drama and transactional utility of so many of their other relationships.

That said, while those montages mirror each other, what makes them interesting is their divergence point. Kana decides to commit to choosing 'love', with that absolutely gorgeous full page panel, but Gorou hands the knife - the symbol of the violence that blighted Aqua's life - back to him and makes it clear that love or revenge, the choice is now entirely in Aqua's hands. We don't see what he chooses, but… if Oshi no Ko really is a story with a happy ending, I think it's a foregone conclusion. And that makes me really happy.

Not that it's happening anytime soon, lol. I'll be very shocked if Kana's confession doesn't result in a rejection from Aqua, at least at this point in time - there's too much else going on in the story for this to be the right place for Aqua to commit to Kana. She's still an idol, after all and Kamiki is still around. The bets I'm placing right now are that AQKN are going to get their resolution, whatever form it takes, at the Dome concert during or after Kana's graduation.

As for their date… Call me cynical, but I also don't see it going particularly well. After all…

Aren't we forgetting somebody?

[whumpy-wyrms]

🎃🍂🦇Masterpost🦇🍂🎃

Welcome to my whump blog! I’m Jay :) and here is where I’ll post my whump series, writing, art, and more! my g/t blog is @tiny-wyrms :3 !! Read my whumptroduction (whump introduction) for more info about me and my favorite whump tropes and squicks! There will never be any nsfw here.

All my art and writing is tagged with #my art and #my writing, my general whump prompts/drabbles are tagged with #wyrms whumps, and all my whump art is tagged with #my whump art! I also have a discord server!! Feel free to join!

My inbox is always open for questions or anything else! (sometimes I hold onto asks for a while, I’m not ignoring you, I’m most likely just busy or forgot lol). Feel free to ask questions directly to my characters or interact with them too! My DMs are always open, though I get nervous talking to people sometimes so I might not respond right away.

if you make fanart or fanfiction of my ocs i will literally love you (platonically) forever!!! but i only ask three things: nothing sexual, no hate speech, and don’t whitewash. thanks!

My Writing:

🧪 The Last Lab Rat: Dew's relatively uneventful and ordinary life changed when he was kidnapped by a mad scientist named Anton, who planned to use Dew as his new human test subject for experimentation. Dew, who is scared out of his mind, now has to try gaining his captor's trust while he slowly plans his escape, all while enduring experiments that make him not quite human anymore.

Also here’s the TLLR AU masterlist for extra content (CYOAs, crossover AUs, borrower!Basil, and more!)

🩸Blood Runs Cold: Silas, an eccentric but alluring vampire with a hunger for human flesh and blood, feeds from the corpses that are sent to his morgue. Aspen, a strange but friendly human, dies and wakes up in that cold morgue, alive and well, as if he never died in the first place. Silas, now with access to an infinite source of fresh, delicious blood, decides to keep this immortal human as his bloodbag. But Aspen isn't willing to accept his new life, not without solving the mystery of his death first.

Let me know if you want to be added to a taglist for anything!

Finally, please read my DNI list (under the read more) before following me.

Do NOT interact:

bigots of any kind (anti-lgbt, transphobes, TERFs, homophobes, xenophobes, racists, antisemites, sexists, ableists, fatphobes, etc.)

ped0philes or z00philes

if you sexualize/romanticize ped0philia, incest, beast!ality etc. (i.e. proshippers). fiction or not, it makes me extremely uncomfortable and i’d rather not interact with these people for my own personal comfort.

if you support/make/use generative AI “art” or “writing”

nsfw/porn/kink blogs are free to follow me but please do not interact with any of my tllr content as it being interpreted or sexualized in that way makes me very uncomfortable

[sadiecoocoo]

Sooo I’ve heard some ppl say that fear no mort is gonna be abt them facing their greatest fears or something, and I’ve seen some ppl theorize on what said fears will be. And id like to give my two cents on the matter :)

Rick’s fears

I think that Rick would honestly be terrified of seeing Diane or prime again. Like imagine if Diane’s ghost just showed up and was rlly nice to him and jsut not like herself at all (cuz we know her personality is the same as the ship and garage AI, so she isn’t the nicest person in the world, which like slay). I think her just being nice to Rick and saying how it wasn’t his fault would freak him tf out, cuz let’s remember that he made a ghost AI of her that was programmed to berate him and be mean to him, so he didn’t want comfort or to be told that it wasn’t his fault.

Now, if Rick saw Prime again, one of two things would happen; he would either break down fully, or just be rlly fucking mad and try to kill prime again (personally this is what I want to see the most, but I’ll explain that in a bit)

Another fear could be that the rest of the family (mainly Morty) dies or is fatally injured to the point of no return. Because we’ve seen Rick bring Morty bad from fatal injuries, and death from the last episode multiple times, but how would Rick react if he couldn’t do anything?

Another fear for Rick (this guy is gonna be going thru it) would be that he sees more of prime in Morty. I’ve read multiple fics where Rick is scared of Morty turning out like prime, so what would happen to Rick if that rlly started happening?

Now, another fear, this one I think would be the most intense for Rick, would be pirates. No more to add to that, we all know why :)

Morty’s fears

I think Morty would have more basic fears, things more that a teenager would be afraid of (along with all the other crazy shit that Rick has exposed him to). For starters, he may just be terrified of rejection, which would be an interesting thing to see. Like imagine if Rick was having a full on break down, and then Morty’s just dealing with minor stuff like being told no in a mean way.

A more in depth fear could be abandonment issues. He was definitely rlly upset with the two crows, and very worried abt the Jerrick stuff. Imagine Morty’s stuck in a dark room, completely alone, and then when he does see “Rick” again, he’s just being rude to Morty and telling him how worthless he is (but in a harsher way than he used to, in a way that makes it seem serious). What if Morty got a vision of Rick replacing him with another Morty, like holy shit that would mentally scar him so badly! Or what if a fake Rick started taunting Morty with the free Morty coupon?

I also think that Morty has a buried fear of ending up like prime. Like he’s already sort of on his way to becoming like any Rick, what with him being desensitized to violence and being seen as a national threat. I think that both him and Rick would be absolutely terrified if that happening to Morty, if he someday snaps and Rick can’t do anything abt it.

Edit: just thought abt this but, uh- king jellybean… not much needs to be said for that one…

In conclusion,

I’m seriously excited abt the next episode, I wanna see what theories (from anybody) were correct and I wanna see if the finale is gonna be as mentally scarring as the others have been!

Back to what I said abt Rick seeing prime, you all know abt the theory of prime downloading a bit of himself into Rick’s head right? What if Rick sees Prime’s “ghost” in whatever haunted house they go to, and he fully thinks that it’s just fake and stuff after the initial shock. But when they get back home, what if Rick sees prime again? What if he continues to see prime on a daily basis? What if that escalates to prime always being there, always tormenting him, always telling him how worthless he is, until Rick can’t take it anymore?

Ig all I have left to say abt all this is, what if?

[justapalspal]

so. yami b is the shadow realm soup of zorc and tkb. we see direct evidence of shadow realm soup affecting aigami in dsod. the shadow realm soup affects mani as well, to varying results. it does not affect ryou

thoughts?? is ryou’s immunity due to being the destined host of the ring? did yami b absorb all the shadow realm soupery so it didn’t have anything left to affect ryou with? would experiencing the shadow realm soupery first hand give aigami impetus to eventually forgive ryou? yami b? since he would know first hand what the ring does to people? we know aigams doesn’t want to forgive ryou yet because of duel links, but duel links also is kaiba’s ai playground—would the real aigams still feel like that about ryou?

if he doesn’t, would a forgiveness arc do him any good? an understanding arc? does understanding ryou didn’t do it himself put aigams down the path of freedom? of being free from being consumed by his past trauma? what does healing look like for diva? what does a healing relationship between him and ryou look like?

their first meeting in duel links suggests shared hurt over what transpired when master shin died—and yet diva refuses to forgive ryou. ryou offers the olive branch. does diva take it?

does diva, realistically, take it?

[bloodgulchblog]

Finished Rubicon by J.S. Dewes.

Plot: Protagonist Adriene Valero has died 96 times in a war with hivemind space robots, and each time the chip in her brain has rezoned her into a new husk: a cloned copy of her body that lets her continue carrying on as a soldier. And each time, the trauma and numbness and apathy get worse.

After her latest disastrous mission, she is reassigned to a new posting where she isn't cannon fodder. Instead, she's now working with some of the fleet's best on a critical campaign to combat the Mechan threat, and has been given top-of-the-line equipment she'd never dreamed of.

It's also a chance to recover and start to feel like a human being again, and to remember how to make friends.

...Including the developing fully sapient AI in her new implant and the secret, unsanctioned opportunity it represents. Valero can make a difference in this war, but more importantly she might also be able to get what she wants more than anything else:

The deactivation of her rezone chip.

Opinion: Hell yeah, I had a great time (with like one major caveat.) You guys know me, I'm a character-focused person and I loooooove thoroughly-explored suffering.

Things to know that might matter to various friends and acquaintances and various opinions:

While Valero's insane reboot-after-death circumstances make her preoccupation with her own mortality into a fantasy problem I could handle cause it wasn't 2real, be aware that Valero spends a lot of time thinking about the ability to die for good and how bad she wants it back. It's one of the pieces of her humanity she feels has been taken from her.

Valero's trauma is excellent.

Nobody's gay and it doesn't do anything with gender. (I can generally tolerate that because I'm used to reading 50 year old cishet whiteguy SF anyway and let's be real this is a Halo blog, but I'm not everyone.)

This is not A Romance. There's a subplot and it's important because it illustrates the protagonist's recovering ability to feel emotions/give a shit, but this isn't romantic sf and doesn't follow genre conventions for romance. (I did appreciate how attraction-and-sexuality-as-evidence-of-recovery worked out as being very specifically about Valero and wasn't universalized as a ~human experience everyone must have or they're broken~ though so thanks for that, Dewes.)

The romantic subplot is not with the AI (but honestly that's a good thing imo because he's like 5 minutes old and doesn't have any other friends).

I wish there was more of the AI, we do get a lot but there's a time skip in the book that makes me feel like there wasn't enough.

Hopefully this isn't saying too much, but the ending is the kind of thing that is going to require a sequel in order to not feel like shit, for me. The last chapter hits like a gutpunch. It's interesting and I think the whole rest of the book is worth it and pretty well done, but god damn.

If you want actual spoilers feel free to ask and I'll dish, but I think it's a cool book so I will leave it vague here.

[characterworkshoppe]

Just wanted to introduce my Marvel Oc :D

This isn't a fic or story, it's mainly just like a little show and tell thingy mingy or something like that XD

Anyways, Hihi! Felt like introducing my marvel oc! I'm so glad that there's a multiverse so that fanfic writers and artists and content creators can have thier own little canon slice of Marvel! Since there are tons of different versions of earth! Who's to say yours isn't there *somewhere* in the vast multiverse? :3

Everything is canon now! Well in your own version of Marvel that is! Mine is pretty tame! Sure there *are* threats but no one dies :D

I guess for the most part...my marvel au here is mostly domestic stuff because fluff makes brain go brrrr! And I just love having Stephen, Tony, and the siblings of the Supreme fam as my found family :3 Anyways! I'd be glad to meet your ocs as well!

FEEL FREE TO REBLOG AND SHOW ME YOUR OC TOO! I'D BE EXCITED TO MEET THEM! SO WOULD MY OC! :D

Anyways! Marvel Earth-616 is great! Beloved! Muah! Love it! I just like having an au for funsies! I wonder what I'd call the earth of this au 😅 I'll have to think about that! Anyways, my oc!

Her name is Savannah Anthea Stark-Strange! Sav is what her family and friends call her!

Let me explain her name in a sec after I tell you how she was born! Basically Sav was born from a wish, specifically the wishes of Tony and Stephen who wanted to know what a biological child between them would be like!

they never really spoke about it to one another they both just silently wished to know what it would be like to have a biological child!

And that wish was given life in space and eventually Sav was formed, with memories of her family and a basic understanding of the world and at the physical age of 18.

She got her name since in that wish Stephen was thinking "awww I would want to name the kid after my Anthony, if it's a girl I'd go with Anthea, if it's a guy..."

And Tony was thinking "I would name the kid after Stephen, however we really don't need another name that starts with Ste so I'll go with Savannah since it starts with an S and has that air of importance he has! If it's a guy..."

And so that's how she got her name! :3

She loves her family very much!

Oh oh! Let me tell you about her superpower! She can manipulate her dna to be biologically related to whomever she wants! So like if she thinks of the avengers as her family, which she does! She's formed a biological attachment to them! Which gives her a watered down version of any powers like hulk or super soldier powers!

:3

As for superheroing...Sav...isn't exactly a front-liner so to speak like Tony or Stephen or Steve or any avenger is...she's more like...support for them!

Her dad, Stephen, taught her the mystic arts to a really good level as a way he bonds with her! I occasionally refer to him as "doctor-dad"

And her dad, Tony, taught her tech stuff to a really good level of understanding as a good way to bond with her! I occasionally refer to him as "Iron-dad"

So she mainly helps out as backup and support! Due to the skills her dads taught her she made herself a magical relic! :)

Technically it's a supersuit, similar concept but vastly different then Iron-dad's! So written within the code are mystic arts spells that give this supersuit a soul and a personality (Cloakie has a personality! Idk if it has a soul but 🤔 I'd like to headcanon it does!) So it's a sentient AI supersuit named Sunday (Because Sunday is way more fun then Friday XD) that takes the form of a Blue Balloon dog when she's not wearing it! :3

It's basically a fun lil' companion!

It can fight with some spells that Sav programmed into it, it can heal wounds, and it can contain stuff like in a magical cage!

Sunday can talk! But she only talks to people she cares about and trusts! Like Sav, Sav's family, Sav's close friends! If it doesn't trust you, it'll just woof and pretend to be completely useless at anything like a cheap toy dog.

Anyways Sav helps out during fights by either quickly healing some wounds of anyone or by containing threats so the avengers can think about what to do with it...

She gets along pretty well with her siblings! She's the same age as Peter, but her other siblings are Morgan, Harley, And America!

(Parker, Stark, Keener, and Chavez)

Her superhero name is Cryptex as a nod to her dna being ever-changing due to her magical abilities :)

Like the code to a Cryptex that can be changed and stuff :D

But she's not that gung-ho about fighting...she'll do it...occasionally enjoy training...but she's got stuff she'd much rather do...

Some stuff she finds interesting and random facts:

• She loves magical relics and wants to make more since it's been ✨️forever✨️since new magical relics have been made and she makes stuff that really reflects the current times, for the sanctum to use ofc! (She's made just one other sentient AI with a personality and everything a little similar to how she made Sunday for someone but I'm not going to mention for who, it's a little AI Balloon Bat!)

• She's always been fascinated with the concept of childhood since she's literally never had one, being formed already as a teenager with thoughts, memories, knowledge, of any teenager!

So she likes buying toys and plushies and stuff just for the fun of it sometimes! And she'd totally be down for riding attractions at fairs and stuff!

• She's playful but isn't really sarcastic and teasing as most of the family is for some reason so she likes sweet things like talking in a more sweet manner I guess instead of a snarky sarcastic one

• Sav is really pansexual, and ambiamorous, people are nice and pretty, her prounouns are She/her but occasionally He/him! :3

She does have a male form she can sometimes shift into, in that form her name is Savion!

Anyways!

Wow, can't believe people actually read this far! Hi! :D

Hugs!

I have a question if you don't mind!

I really want to give her sort of an adversary, frenemy, something to spice up her life in some sort of way...but I'm just not connecting with any villains :/

Does anyone know of any antihero or morally grey Villian that might be easy to empathize with so perhaps I can make another oc and give Sav an adversary?

Thanks for the help and suggestions! I appreciate it! Hugs!!!

...huh...not sure what to say now...

More potential Balloon pals :3

And Sav would be delighted to make you one! :D

If I post about her I'll call her # Marvel Sav

And if I talk about my ocs I'll put it under # Nori's ocs

[mcntsee]

60 DIALOGUE PROMPTS!!

Alright, since I can’t seem to come up with anything good to write, I’ve decided to let an AI generate random dialogue prompts. If you are interested in any of them being part of a fanfic, please send an ask with said prompt. Also, if you have an idea of what you want me to do with the prompt, feel free to include it in the ask. Angst? Happy? Funny? Only writing for Kaz Brekker at the moment, but might do it again for more characters.

(I’ll be crossing out the ones that have already been done.)

1. "You make me feel like I'm not good enough."

2. "Am I supposed to be scared now?"

3. "Could you be happy here with me?"

4. "But this- this is the only thing that's made the last three years bearable."

5. "Perhaps you'll take me out one day - or do I have to make an appointment?"

6. "I've forgotten what it's like to feel young."

7. "She's been missing since Friday and you're not worried?"

8. "I daren't stay long. I just had to see you."

9. "It looks like you're in trouble there. Can I help?"

10. "He/she was unconscious when I found him/her”

11. "You came back!"

12. "You stand there and accuse me, but where were you at the time?"

13. "You were meant to be watching him/her!”

14. "I'll find her and bring her home, I promise."

15. "Have you read the newspaper stories about my wife?"

16. "Tell me what you saw, for her/his sake!"

17. "H-how long have you been standing there?"

18. "You haven't called me that in years."

19. She was beginning to realise how far down in his memory he’d buried his childhood

20. "I'm sorry if it upsets you, but I'm going to marry her."

21. "You did a bad thing for a good reason."

22. "If you do this, you will be dead to me."

23. "You have her/his eyes."

24. "I just want a nice, easy life. What's wrong with that?"

25. "You're paying a small price compared with what she's going through."

26. "Are you kidding me? We're not 'fine'!"

27. "What do you remember about your mother?"

28. "Where does a child hide in a town like this?"

29. "If only I'd just gone over when she called."

30. “If you’re not going to let me help, I’m not staying to watch you burn.”

31. “You shot me!” “Oh, don’t pretend to be surprised. It’s unbecoming.”

32. “We were friends.”

33. “You seem tired.”

34. “You talk like we’ve already lost.” “Look around you, dumbass! We already have!”

35. “Was I just not enough for you?”

36. “It’s easy to hate someone when you don’t look them in the eyes.”

37. “Ah, yes. I am delighted to exist as a pawn in your power-plays.”

38. “How am I supposed to go on?”

39. “Aren’t you tired? Can we stop this and give our hearts rest?”

40. “We started this together and we should end it together.”

41. “You bring the best out of me but I’m the worst for you.”

42. “What I mean is, I’m going to stop watering a dead flower, expecting it to grow again.”

43. “But you make me feel like home! You are my home.”

44. “I just need this one moment. This last one.”

45. “I was not ready to lose both a lover and a friend in one night.”

46. Because that’s all we are now, right? A memory, a faded picture, a failed potential.

47. “Please, just stay a little longer.”

48. “Am I going to die?”

49. “I know exactly how this ends.”

50. “You were never one of us.”

51. “I would’ve died for you.”

52. “You almost died! And for what?”

53. “If I leave now, I won’t come back.”

54. “Don’t look at me like that, I don’t want pity.”

55. “And then he left.”

56. “I wish I could fix this.”

57. “You hurt me and I still trusted you.”

58. “Can we have this conversation when you’re not upset.”

59. “You really were my first and last.”

60. “I hope you got what you wanted.”

[masked-disciple]

PIRANHA ROSE ATTACK!!!! 🌹🌹🌹🌹

On the days when Lord Barok van Zieks's presence was required in the judiciary of Scotland Yard, but his apprentice was not invited, a man without a name found himself sometimes given errands to run and sometimes given free time that he had no interest on spending wandering London. Instead, he would often spend it in the van Zieks manor, alone save for the two servants that generally didn't bother him for longer than making sure he remembered to eat something, and the two pets in whose names the lord and his apprentice did everything.

-from that nameless Kaz WIP, which apparently is difficult to get snippets of because apparently the Masked Disciple lives on dick jokes and black humour?? I have no memory of this. There is literally only like two paragraphs in the entire wip where he isn't making a dick joke.

Return to the land of the great dark sea Return to the tides where you'll follow me Bring home the sun and bring home the moon You've waited so long and now you'll witness us

-Witness Us; a song by the Sirinnkata, aka Sagiverse's most famous band! Very fictional, frontmanned by a mary sue of a Vocaloid and the god of darkness. Fun fact: Aoibheann is covering a couple of their songs in DGSblr, because I'm lazy and don't want to write more songs. The Sirinnkata do screwy folk-trance and heavy rock, though.

 They looked him up and down, with the air of someone faintly amused. "You're not local," they remarked, and he winced. Their voice might have been more pleasant next to someone grinding through granite, but not by much. "Gas is free if you answer a riddle, then. Bully for you." He paused, halfway through pulling out his wallet. Riddles were the last thing he wanted to think about right now, right next to anything else at all. Still, free gas didn't come around very often, and he was smart enough. He bit back a sigh. "What's your riddle, then?" He still couldn't see their face, but he felt, quite abruptly, as though they were smiling. "If I make two people out of one, what am I?" That wasn't one he'd heard before. He blinked, pausing for a second, before answering, "A mother with identical twins."

-Blow the Wind, Come the Rain; aka the tale of Bratworth running into the van Zieks brothers on the ghostroads, right when his life is crashing around his ears

“What is the status of functionality of this circuitry?” He turned towards it, still blindfolded, although it didn’t seem to be bothering him any. “Permanently nonfunctioning. It would not be efficient to attempt to restore it.” She nodded. “Admin Volatile is also permanently nonfunctional,” she answered. It hurt to phrase it like that – everyone around her could say what they liked, that he died or he passed away or he had left them, but the point was that he was gone. What difference did it make to refer to him as nonfunctional? He was still gone, and he wasn’t coming back. “Admin Volatile is… permanently offline?” 00A asked. The cadence in his voice had changed; slower, more hesitant. All right, maybe the programming on his speech was more complex than she’d given him credit for. “That is irregular.” “Tell me about it.” She dropped the circuitboard back where she’d found it, folding her arms and walking back towards her chair. “When did he go offline?” She turned to look at him again as she sat down. He was fixed on her, or appeared to be, his arms folded and shoulders leaning slightly towards her. “Does it matter?” she asked, dryly.

-Steal the Starlight Road; also known as when Kay Faraday has to explain to her father's AI assistant (who is secretly the biggest deus ex machina anyone has access to) what death is, when she brings him back online.

[nitrochiralfan]

Slow Damage name analysis: Mei Yuzuki

Mei is one of my favorite characters in slow damage and I want to do a post about her I am not an expert on the Japanese language so I might mess up the context of her kanji while explaining it in this post, if I messed up with anything feel free to edit or put your input if you feel that I screwed up explained it

Me (愛)

“me,愛” means "love.”

Mei when translated into English, is read as Ai, the kanji used for Mei’s name is the kanji for ai.

The kanji in Mei's name brings a more subtle nuance that goes well with her character when examined closely to go with her character.

Before I elaborate on Mei’s name there is something I will go over about the kanji in her name first before I analyze her name. In Japanese culture there are many ways to spell love there are a few ways to spell love there are two kanji that are translated to Love but with different connotations. It's important to look at the context of how these kanji are used in Japanese culture.

Koi(恋) koi is a character associated with romantic love or passionate love. It's described as exciting, like something spontaneous and intense. It is more akin to an obsession. It is connected to wanting and always wanting and can be selfish.

Ai(愛) ai is a character associated with unconditional or unending affection it's rarely used in Japanese due to how strong the usage is. Ai is a deep love a feeling that developed over time. ai is described as giving than taking it is more selfless when compare to koi. Ai is associated with kindness; it's described as a more unconditional love.

The context of ai described Mei’s personality perfectly in a cultural subtext

Mei is a gentle kind girl who gives Towa affection, friendship, and genuine kindness in euphoria that he is deprived of. Mei is a comforting presence to Towa in his darkest moments and makes him feel less alone.

Mei never held anything against Towa being related to her tormentor seeing him as an abused boy who didn’t deserve the treatment, Towa was someone mei died trying to save

Mei embodies the more self-sacrificial form of love in Japanese highlighting the connotations of ai. The selfless qualities seen in Mei referenced the kanji for ai.

Mei’s sacrificial love enables Towa to break free from his mother's influence and gives both Fujieda and Towa the closure they need to heal from the past.

I (衣)

“I,衣” means "clothing, garment”.

The I in her name is a common name particle for girls in Japan, and the clothes aspect can infer from the white flowy dress she wore during her time in Euphoria.

Clothes are garments something you wear on your body inferring the kanji in her name love and clothes referencing how her kindness, gentleness, and affection is part personality , something she wears like clothing coming naturally to her. The stuffed rabbit is an example of her love and innocence, something that she carried with her even at Euphoria.

This is also the same that Towa brings with him as well seen in the way he is attached to the bunny a moment of the love and support she gave him.

Yuzuki (柚木)

“Yuzu” means “柚, citrus” and “ki” means “木, tree” When put together it's spelled “citrus tree”.

Mei shares their last name with her brother, and the Japanese culture of citrus matches Mei as a character.

The pure white flowers on the citrus reference mei she is accompanied by the color white she is seen as a white outline in Towa’s dreams the white flower notes her as the light and her innocence as seen in how mei served as a light to Towa and Fujieda. the symbolism of a pure person notes that Mei is a kind innocent girl.

the sour taste of citrus is a reference to Fujieda and Meis life how they were abused by their parents later with mei being sold by her mother which later led to her death ironically Mei never harbored any bitterness from these events seen in the way she treated Towa never harbored resentment towards him. The part to ward off evil and repel colds infers how Mei, her brother, interfered with Sakaki and Maya's plans for Towa derailing the second coming of Maya. The symbolism happiness symbolizes the hope he gave Towa to break free from his mother and how the confirmation of her fate gave both Fujieda and Towa closure with their past

[skania]

Hey! I recently read good part of your posts and I love them as a big AquKane fan :D they're amazing!

Do you think that even with Aqua being so deep into revenge, there is still a chance Akane could save him and even be the endgame? If so, how do you think she would be able to save him? If not, what do you think would take for Aqua to realize everything, that he doesn't have to live for revenge anymore? Curious to hear your thoughts about this!

Sorry if it doesn't make sense and sorry for so many questions xD I love hearing opinions about stuff about my otp so yeah!

Thank you anon!! :D

Do you think that even with Aqua being so deep into revenge, there is still a chance Akane could save him and even be the endgame?

Absolutely! I get the feeling that we'll know whether Aqua and Akane are going to be endgame pretty soon after they start interacting again. If Aka shows that there's unfinished business between them and that the people around them see it, I'd say that it's pretty safe to assume we're heading down the AquaKane endgame road.

One thing is for sure though, Aqua has to be saved. The manga can't end any other way. Since Akane's desire to save him transcends romance, I'm confident she will play an instrumental role in making it possible regardless of who ends up with who.

If so, how do you think she would be able to save him? If not, what do you think would take for Aqua to realize everything, that he doesn't have to live for revenge anymore?

I think it depends on whether Akane right now is just aiming to stop Aqua's plan, or if she's also going to try and get rid of the roof of the issue; aka, all the complexes Aqua carries with him.

In any case, I think that for Aqua to to truly accept that he doesn't have to live for revenge anymore, he needs to accept that he isn't to blame for anything and that his life does matter.

For this to happen, I feel like Aka needs to free him from the guilt he carries after the death of his first mother. I think this could be accomplished by letting Aqua come to a point where he can accept Ai's motherly love for him. After all, Ai is someone who risked her career to deliver her babies because she desperately wanted a family, and she's also someone who died feeling fulfilled because of how much she loved her children. If Aqua is capable of accepting that he is worthy of Ai's love for him, then that may help him realize that Goro's mother likely died loving him and wanting the best for him. Knowing Aka, chances are that she literally died telling baby!Goro "I love you".

However, for Aqua to be able to accept Ai's motherly love for him, he needs to deal with the the guilt he feels surrounding her death. He needs to accept that there's nothing he could've done for her, and that in fact he already did all he could: he gave her someone to love. I feel like this roadblock could be lifted by Ruby. Goro felt powerless around Sarina, like he could do nothing for her, when in fact he was one of the two lights that kept her going. The same thing can be said about Ai, Aqua felt powerless, like he could do nothing for her, when he was in fact one of the two lights that let Ai experience true love. So in this way, Ruby is in the best place to tell him just how meaningful his existence is.

Once Aqua's guilt is alleviated, he should have an easier time embracing his own worth and striving to be happy. I feel like it's only then that Aqua will be truly saved.

But of course, stopping Aqua's self-destructive plan is already a very good start 😂

[maybeamultiverse]

Request : a Human/Romulan hybrid character (with ridges on her face and very curly short hair) who isn't in Starfleet but only know Human culture and is kind of pride of it because, think she had to choose either her Human or Romulan side. Since she grew up amongst Humans, she decided she was Human and it work on her community. Maybe she's from an occult or religious community? Or liké occult stuff? And then, she meet a Tal Shiar Romulan (could be Vreenak but he died) who is uterly offend she doesn't care about her Romulan side. I don't know, maybe this synopsis suck....

I love this idea, so sorry my reply is so late (classic ao3 author excuse of being royally fucked over by life, etc.). I played around with AI and created various face models of a curly-haired half-Romulan, but I also just wanna freestyle a response since that is just better than sharing any images or anything, I think. I really do wish the Qowat Milat, for example, among many Romulan-specific practices, got more opportunities to be explored in both Picard and Discovery. I wonder about their opportunities for expansion before and after the supernova and whether or not any members of the organization thought to share their views or to travel beyond the confines of Romulan space, though I'd imagine, given their territorial history, doing so would be challenging. Picard really barely touched on the conflicting perspectives of the Tal and other religious organizations and, infamously and most unfortunately, deliberately chose to neglect that part of the story to, uh, pursue other concepts.

Also, the pathology of half-Romulans is more complex than a half-Vulcan psychological profile-- they're a lot more like humans, in some ways, but not really. Some extenuating differences might prove to be incredibly tolling on young hybrids, primarily dependent on where they were from and grew up. I'm also thinking a bit about Simon Tarses, tbh. I'd love a spin-off about his life and his family from Mars.

And no, your idea doesn't suck! Feel free to dm me if you want a writing buddy to develop the idea further <3 I'd love to, I think there's so much interesting stuff going on in this preliminary concept alone.

[writer-and-artist27]

Hi dude! I hope you're having a good day. I've been reading your works for a while now and I was wondering if you can share your opinions on Oshi no Ko and its characters (specifically Ai Hoshino). No pressure, though! If this makes you feel uncomfortable, feel free to delete this ask.

Hello to you too, anon. Doing my best to have good days if anything. Only answering this at 10:06 pm on a Saturday night because of finishing a hangout with my best guy friend and my boyfriend, so it's been going well. The question doesn't make me uncomfy at all.

My opinions on Oshi no Ko, huh...

Gotta put it under a cut from how long this answer is turning out to be.

---------------------------------

I really love it. Now at least. It took some growing pains to come to that conclusion, because some of the story beats and character decisions made in-universe need me to turn my empathy off to take it in and not be sensitive/be hurt irl. Especially with the real life research put into said story beats because knowing how much corruption/nepotism can be put into the entertainment industry really is disheartening for me as someone who writes for fun and just wants to help others feel happy in a small way too. (Let it be said when I read into the story of wrestler Hana Kimura and how it might've inspired Akane's first story - I nearly cried and still currently sympathize with Hana's mother from being triggered by watching that particular anime episode.) That's how well-written it is - when I have to take breaks and research ahead of time so I don't get thrown off guard.

Funnily enough, I first heard of it when I started reading and slowly collecting the manga for Kaguya-sama: Love is War. Aka Akasaka was already really famous even amongst my small friend group irl from how he set the standard for new romance comedy, and when Oshi no Ko's anime adaptation was announced, that's when I started seeing the first manga volume pop up in Barnes and Noble stores my boyfriend and I visited together on dates.

I was really wary at first, no thanks to my first exposure to Mengo Yokoyari's art being Scum's Wish (and how uncomfy I was watching clips of that show since I'd been made a middleman to two relationships friends had by then) and how the Internet spoiled me on how Ai was going to die; and add in how they cast Rie Takahashi - as in Mash Kyrielight - as her VA, I was also just scared. Because I love Mash thanks to Fate/Grand Order, I really respect Takahashi's work - the last thing I needed when starting Oshi no Ko was to hear Mash's voice as Ai died.

But once the anime started and my boyfriend let me listen to Idol by YOASOBI - I was a goner. More so when I found the 45510 short story that fans translated from Akasaka that let the fanbase peek into Ai.

Just like how I grew to love Mash, I ended up falling for Ai more than any other character in Oshi no Ko. And, to be completely honest, I think it's from how much I sympathize with Ai. With her desire of trying to find love that's hers because she never truly knew what it was like, I mean. While Mash reminds me of a little sister that I could've wanted, a friend I wanted to look out for, Ai reminds me of the face I sometimes feel myself putting on in public, unconsciously too, especially when working in the healthcare community.

Not everyone is truly honest with themselves. The number of times I've had to hunch into myself on the trolley when others would throw baseless comments like, "Get out of my country, Asian bitch," "You're not my nursing mother, keep your bullshit away from me," and even "You're not God's angel, you fancy hoe" - there's a reason I've started to joke about having my own mini-book of "misadventures." The jokes let me cope with the increasing amounts of bitterness I've been seeing.

I've had to learn how to put on a smile, play up an innocent image of seemingly not hearing darker drama amongst coworkers, even fake cheeriness in my voice to molecular companies over the phone when asking for materials for patient care - because even the "nicest" people can hold the most bitter pills in life. But I have to keep that kind of mask up, just to make sure I make it through another day. To make sure the people I love don't worry more than they need to.

But at the same time, whenever I offer my coworkers a massage to their shoulders, give hugs when I can on bad days - everyone keeps calling me "sweet" and "kind." And it's still hard to believe that sometimes.

Ai told the lie of "I love you" in the hopes of finding love someday. It was hard not to like her when I try to do something kind because I honestly believe it's the right thing to do while wanting to believe in the hope of finding more people who feel the same way. In the hope I can find more people I don't have to be a "cheery star" for all the time.

Because I've been hurt way too many times by falsehoods. Because I've seen enough darkness.

...I forgot where I was going with this, but let it be said the glimpse we get into the entertainment industry mixed in with the very human aspect of all the characters shown in the story - from Ai, Aqua, Ruby, Kana, Akane, Miyako, Ichigo - every single one feels real and my struggles of trying to find myself in a worklife that's had me let go three times despite my best efforts (and bullied to the point of abuse one other time too) feel all the more valid. I guess.