#aquruby

[junosartz]

what have i created....

[rintokki]

sweet dreams~ 😴💞

[0bs1dian]

Aqua x Ruby Blinkies.

They are, the peak.

[xia-feng]

Any aqua x ruby enjoyers

[amitysmischief]

well, since the leaks are pretty much true, i'm just gonna say that i was right and everyone was wrong and i feel completely satisfied with myself

[ramblings-of-fessa]

First aquruby now vvcest the twincest revival is coming back fellas

[aihoshiino]

So I actually only just found out that OnK ended and I think I only read up to where S1 of the anime finished, so imagine my horror when I learned that not only did AquaRu happen (technically? I know there was a kiss, at least), but that Aqua dies after coming up with what's probably the stupidest plan I've ever heard of. I'm going off of this from the wiki, btw, so feel free to correct me if I'm missing anything, but I thought this story was going to be a critique on the entertainment industry mixed in with a "catch the killer" plot when I first started, yet it just looks like nobody learned anything by the end of it and the villain's defeat was underwhelming.

Good news! AquRuby did not really happen.

Bad news! AquRuby did not really happen.

Honestly, to this day, I have no idea wtf Akasaka was cooking when it came to the AquRuby stuff... my best guess is that because Oshi no Ko was influenced pretty strongly by Mengo's past works & Aka was trying to emulate some elements of it (to good effect, sometimes!) the AquRuby stuff was inserted to appeal to her and it actually playing out on page was them being like "lalala, playing with our toys" and wasn't ever something the two of them took really seriously.

By coincidence I ended up rambling about this off tumblr the other day, so I'll just grab what I said and slap it here so I'm not just repeating myself;

I'm gonna be so real, I don't think an AquRuby ending was ever something anybody on the series including Mengo ever took all that seriously as a direction the series was going to take. Despite what a lot of people will try and tell you, Ruby and her relationship with Aqua were just never really written remotely in the sort of way you would build up your endgame heroine. Prior to 123 it wasn't really something the series tabled in any meaningful way and even past 123, Ruby's apparent attraction to Aqua is largely just played as shallow brocon gag fodder. It's only when the manga talks about her love for Gorou that it takes her remotely seriously and even then that's dropped like a rock past 150 and never addressed again. The biggest red flag for me though is that the series never actually addresses the concept of incest in the context of Aqua and Ruby's relationship. It is the one big major roadblock to a hypothetical romance between them but the roadblock that is actually, textually floated by the narrative is Gorou and Sarina's past life age gap which is, as Ruby repeatedly asserts, no longer an issue. It's honestly bizarre to see a series have a whole ass subplot about a character falling in love with their blood related twin and pursuing it to the point of forcing a kiss on them and just... never ever address the concept of incest??? It ends up feeling kind of deliberate - like, Akasaka knew that the second the obstacle that is the social taboo of incest came up on-panel it would be the death knell for being able to shiptease AquRuby (and thus, get clicks and attention from hyping it up for better or worse). So we get the... whatever the hell he was cooking that happened on page.

[In response to a comment asserting that Ruby was "absolutely written as the main heroine" as refutation to the above;]

When I say that Ruby was not built up as the main/endgame heroine, I mean moreso in the sense that for over half of the manga, she and Aqua just... don't really have a relationship that is given weight and consequence in the story in comparison to their individual relationships to the other characters. Even before the story was seriously teasing the idea of a romance between them this was always a point of critique in the fandom - hell, if you go back and read comments on it from around 2022 onwards, Ruby's sidelining and the lack of meat to her and Aqua's relationship is always something people have (imo, rightfully) had issue with. And like, sure, maybe Akasaka just wanted her status as the final/true heroine to be a surprise but even if that's what he was going for, there were tons of opportunities in the first 120+ chapters of the manga to properly sow those seeds. I know this is The low hanging fruit to point at and I know we're all aware that Aka deliberately orchestrated this moment to make sure Aqua and Ruby wouldn't discover each other's past identities before he decided it wanted to happen, but it's still characterization that Aka chose to put on the page and informs Aqua's character - Akane and Ruby found a literal dead body and instead of checking in on his sister, Aqua chose to spend time with (and kiss!) Akane. It would've been extremely easy to include Ruby more prominently in moments like chapter 68 when Aqua thinks about living a normal life free of revenge, or when Gorou confronts him in 65 about his 'happy life filled with love'. Even in the anime which makes a point of emphasizing Ruby more in Aqua's 'happy memory' montage from chapter 50's material fails to do this. Or hell, maybe even have it be a point of conflict during the AquAka 'real dating' period, that he ends up prioritizing Ruby more than Akane to a degree that it causes conflict in the relationship and clearly betrays where his real feelings lie. But none of that really happens. Hell, even after 123, Aqua and Ruby still barely interact and all the newfound intensity in that relationship comes primarily from Ruby doing brocon gag bits every time they make eye contact. Even the kiss is difficult to really take seriously because it has absolutely zero impact on Aqua and Ruby both individually and as a duo. It does not affect any change in the series whatsoever to the point where I legit don't even know whether it's been retconned out of continuity or not. That just doesn't feel to me like a 'main heroine' whose feelings and relationship to the main character are being taken seriously by the author. That's why the whole "btw i was reincarnated to be ruby's attack dog them kms" resolution at the end of the series feels so jarring and would have done with or without any AquRuby ship teasing. It was the story trying to cash cheques vis-a-vis the twins' relationship it hadn't bothered to write.

[cori-randomstuff]

Now that oshi no ko is over, I gotta say it's funny how the fandom had a meltdown over aquruby. People were either screaming about how onk is ruined or celebrating because it's peak now with the twincest. Only for the whole aquruby plotline to turn out a nothing burger. The 143 kiss? It's as if it never happened? Ruby's one-sided romantic feelings is never addressed or acknowledged post ch150.

*shrek voice* It's not even good incest.

[sunsetsmakemesad]

On one hand I am glad oshi no ko manga is over I would not be able to physically tolerate a bunch of people left and right conjuring up the most tasteless opinions/theories at some point

[writeronartblock]

SPOILERS for Oshi no Ko, chp 150

HOLY SHIT, AQUKANA NATION WE WOOOONNNN!!!!!

Aaahhh, thank you Aka-sensei!

[junosartz]

a few aquruby sketches

[rintokki]

Gift art for someone 💖💕

[delicioussoupandalsoexplosions]

As an Oshi no Ko reader my adjacency to the state of being a Sonic fan continues to do me no favours

[mrfangirlapocalypse]

124

oh lord oshi no ko 124 about to be wild. still wont' drop tho cuz I believe in aka to handle it well

how? uh. fuck.

i'm on so much copium please no aquruby pls no aquruby

[ramblings-of-fessa]

here's how aquruby can still win

[sachsoup]

things js feel so rushed

my feelings on oshi no ko are so mixed right now...

I really feel like its going to be impossible to judge this without looking at the whole work at once after it's done with a whole lot of retrospect

just because. this bit of twist, untwist, back and forth, just kind of makes things feel muddled in the moment