#haru inspiration

[shegananigans]

lamest phantom thieves forum users

[kusanagihaku]

under this orange sky

⭢ haru x mc, 2.6k

“It’s perfect,” Haru says. His voice is thick with something honey-warm, the same kind of whiskey that burns your own lungs when you think about the stretch of a future with him. His fingers find yours, find the ring tucked neatly on the fourth finger of your left hand. “It’s perfect.”  or: you try on wedding dresses with haru. on ao3 here.

A twinkle sounds above your head as you slide the door closed behind you. 

The sight that greets you is stunning – under the quiet piano music and soft warmth of the overhead spotlights sparkle huge wedding dresses, hung neatly on gold racks suspended from the ceiling. They shimmer as though moving, a silent symphony of lace and silk and chiffon that whispers into the background of the bridal shop. 

You feel a little out of place; the air around the dresses alone smells more expensive than your entire wardrobe. You should have expected it, of course, seeing as to how Romeo was the one who booked you the appointment, but the luxury that swirls around your feet with every step is unfamiliar all the same. 

“Ma’am?” A well-dressed staff member appears at your elbow. He bows, a stiff ninety degrees, before looking at you enquiringly. 

“I, um,” you fumble to unlock your phone, “have an appointment at three?” 

The staff member peers at your appointment confirmation text before bowing again and retreating into the forest of wedding dresses. You wonder if he has ever gotten lost in them. 

You would, if left here alone – the white dresses hung up next to you tower well above your head. The ones closest to you are studded with pearls, an opulent showering that melts into creamy silk the closer it gets to the floor. The ones further down the rack are lined with tiny white beads; they swirl around the bodice of the dress as if around a snow-capped mountain, then trail off into a lace train that brushes the floor. 

They are all absolutely beautiful. 

You exhale. When Romeo said he would pay for your dress as a wedding gift, you never in your wildest dreams would have imagined dresses like these. 

(Only the best for Harry and you, Romeo sniffed, and everyone present had pretended it was in disdain and not at all related to the shine of happy tears in his eyes. I’ll call up an old friend– here–) 

Before you can think too much about the price tags, however, an old lady slightly shorter than yourself emerges from the snowy mountains. 

Her hair is as white as the clothes that surround her, and her glasses, delicately gold-framed, sparkle as she bows slightly in greeting. The smile she gives you when you return the formality is warm. 

“Welcome,” she says. Her voice is stronger than you expect. “Romeo has already sent over your measurements.” 

“Oh,” you say, faintly, and follow her into the gaping maw of white. 

You kind of wish Haru was with you. 

Even though he’d (wisely) keep his mouth shut about how the contents of half the store could fund the entirety of Jabberwock for a year, he’d reach for your hand still, a steady rock in this stream of unfamiliarity. He’d smile at you, all soft sun and spring, then turn to face your first wedding dress appointment with the same expression he uses to face all new experiences – with a confident tilt of chin and resolute squaring of shoulders. 

But alas, Haru is still hurtling his way over on the Galaxy Express, having been held back by some Darkwick administrator or another over issues with the Jabberwock caretaking, and so you have to face this on your own. 

She leads you to a small clearing in the middle of the store. There is a glass garden table set up with pillowy chairs, and you recognise the initials on the grey file sitting on its surface to be Haru’s and your own. 

The madame gestures for you to sit. She reaches into the grey file, but instead of pulling out a lookbook or a page of silhouettes like you expect, she removes a blank sheet of paper and sets it between you. 

“I find that it helps me to imagine what the wedding will be like,” she says, mildly, uncapping a blue fountain pen. “That way I can pick out exactly what you need, you know?” 

You nod. You don’t quite know. 

She peers kindly at you. “Where is the wedding going to be?” 

“A… a vineyard.” 

Or at least, that’s the closest word you can find to describe Rui’s backyard. He’d moved to a rural part of the country upon graduation, far enough away from other humans yet close enough to a Galaxy Express station for you to visit regularly. The garden he tends to now is thrice the size of what he used to care for in Obscuary, with an apothecary taking up a sizable amount of land next to it, and he keeps up his business of growing anomalous plants for medicinal or bar-related consumption. 

He volunteered a space off the side of his garden the moment Haru broke the news – what better place for a spring wedding? he had grinned, then laughed when Romeo complained about the possibility of getting mud all over his best leather shoes. 

“Ooh,” the madame trills, and notes a squiggle down. “Indoors or outdoors?” 

“Outdoors,” you say, and she looks up. 

“Have you checked the weather?” 

Your mind flashes to lilac hair and pink eyes and the biggest hug he gave you and Haru when he found out, and you laugh. “It’ll be clear.” 

The madame claps in delight. “Beautiful. Have you decided on the flower arrangements?” 

You haven’t, actually, but an image blooms almost instantly when you close your eyes. “Sunflowers.” 

She raises her eyebrows. 

Before you can elaborate, however, a chime echoes throughout the store. There is an instant, almost imperceptible change in the atmosphere, a voltaic thrum that smooths itself over your skin and settles into a familiar comfort. You barely have time to turn before he appears, all windswept and warmth, breathless at the crook of your elbow. 

“Sorry I’m late,” Haru murmurs. He smells like the sun, like the electric hum of earth, sweet and solid and yours, and you can’t help the unfurl of your smile at the kiss he presses into your hair as he slides into the seat next to you. 

“We just began,” the madame assures him. She eyes the way he scrapes his chair slightly closer to yours. “Now, how did you meet?” 

A smile bubbles up on Haru’s face, then. He takes your hand in his. “In school.” 

Days of Darkwick past flash through your mind, but here is what you see– 

Meadows of pink and rolling green. Skies of blue and black and grey and everything in between, and oceans twice as rich. Paths that wind through forests and fields, through hills and pastures, through sunset and sunrise and the beats of your heart. 

Through the beats of his heart, echoed with your head on his chest, on nights littered with stars and kisses. 

For someone who has spent the better part of your first year cursed there is little you recall beyond the soft-bright of Haru’s laugh. 

“He was the busiest captain alive,” you say, instead. “I was assigned to help his house once or twice.” 

“You were assigned to save my ass once or twice,” Haru corrects, then amends, “Ended up saving my life once or twice, too.” 

You elbow him, grinning; the returning beam he throws you sends a honey-thick swell through your heart. 

The madame notes something else down in an indecipherable squiggle. “And when did you realise you’d fallen in love?”

You blink. That’s not quite a question you were expecting– 

“Oh,” Haru laughs. “Almost instantly.” 

You flush, but the sparkle of Haru’s laugh settles into the air between you, nestles itself into the intertwine of your fingers. His thumb strokes the back of your hand. 

“There was this field we used to have to cross,” he says, “to get from the main campus to my dorm.” 

(You remember it. You could always see the red mushroom-top of Jabberwock from across the grass.)

“When you have a distance like that, y’know, the first thing you’d think of is how much you want to get across it as fast as you can. Just to save time. I used to, uh, run across the field just to get across faster.” Haru half-turns to face you, then, still sheepish at the memory. His smile is pillow-soft, fond, a quiet adoration that soaks into the clouds of his vowels. “But after we met… I found myself walking across it more often. I’d always be thinking of how nice it would be to slow down, to be able to walk and look at the wildflowers with her.” 

Oh, and the number of times you had – the number of times Haru had taken your hand in his, steady and sweet, pointed out the violets and golds and pinks and creams painting the backdrops of your evenings. The number of times he’d bumped his shoulder into yours, leaning in so close you could see where his eyelashes brushed his cheeks, where the humidity curled the ends of his hair against his forehead. The number of times he’d kissed you in the middle of that field, the number of times you’d pull away to catch the blush under his faint freckles bloom into a smile brighter than the sun. 

You’d fallen in love much slower, of course, as much as the circumstances had allowed, but you’ve long lost count of the number of times you’d decided, standing in that sea of gold-green and anchored only by his hand on your jaw, that no matter how fast Haru may run, you’d do anything to follow him. 

Your sun, your light. To love Haru, you think, is to be his personal sunflower. 

The madame does not wait for you to respond. She rises, silently, setting her pen down on the table before retreating into walls of white. 

Haru visibly relaxes into your side. His lips brush your temple as you lean into his warmth. “Romeo sure picked an expensive place, huh?” 

You snort. “Understatement. How was work?” 

Haru chortles. He flips your entwined hands over, so that the back of your hand rests on his thigh. “Same old. Had to show the new Jabberwock vice-captain how to feed the aquatics. Again.” 

You hum in sympathy. “It’s always a steep learning curve.” 

“Good thing I’m a patient teacher,” Haru muses, exasperated amusement colouring his voice. 

It reminds you so much of the time he tried to train the Capybus that you laugh, too, leaning up to press a kiss to his smile. His eyes crinkle up further, crow’s feet deepening when you break apart, but he doesn’t pull away. “Missed you.” 

“You saw me yesterday.” 

Haru presses his nose to yours. “I still missed you.” 

You can’t help the flutter of your heart; even after all this time, the sincerity behind Haru’s every word still slip-slides a giddiness under your skin. You squeeze his hand. “Good thing you’ll see me every night for the rest of your life.” 

The laugh that bubbles out of Haru is dizzy and golden and free, tender with adoration. “Lucky me.” 

He presses another quick kiss to your lips, before you are broken apart by a large bronze hanger being wheeled out from the forest of wedding dresses. On it is a dust-bag sleek in silver, hung neatly on its metal frame with only a bit of white floating out its bottom.

“This design has been sitting in my drafts for a while,” the madame says. She adjusts her glasses, and peers over them at you. “It’s been waiting for the right person, and well… after all I’ve heard… I think it might be you.” 

You share a glance with Haru before standing. For some reason you feel more nervous than you did coming in, like whatever she is offering you is more valuable than you could ever imagine. 

A staff member materialises from your left, and hefts the dustbag into a corner you failed to notice before. She unzips it on a small white podium she has set up in front of three angled mirrors. 

Another staff member materialises from your right, tugging almond curtains around where she gestures for you to stand. 

“You can undress here,” she whispers, before leaving you with the too-loud hammer of your heart. 

You barely see what the wedding dress puddled underneath your feet looks like before the madame, standing between you and the mirror, tugs it up for you, sliding the silk up and cinching it in the right places. The fabric feels like air on your skin, light and soft; as her hands work with pins and tiny safety clips you catch glimpses of tiny pearls and gold thread. 

But oh, when she steps away from the mirror, when they pull back the curtains, when you finally do see it– 

It’s beautiful. 

The lace covering the front of the dress is studded with white sequins and pearls, forming gently weaved branches of ginkgo leaves and five-petaled flowers. It winds its way from the sweetheart neckline to your torso and wraps around you to the back of the dress. Underneath the lace mesh is a glitter layer of chiffon, resting almost innocently over a nearly-cream silk; spilling down from your waistline are fine threads of gold. 

The effect is almost iridescent. It turns the artificial warmth of the store lights into diamonds glinting off the surface of a lake, into sunlight winking off drops of dew in the morning.

As you move everything sparkles. 

The strands catches the light as you shift – even though you first notice the ginkgo leaves and sequins, the bodice melts into a shimmer that is hard to pull your eyes away from. It glints a bright gold under the lights, gold like a kiss, gold like lips pressed to your temple to your cheek to your lips. Gold like solar flare through the fire-red of Haru’s hair, gold like the scent of sun in the crook of his neck. 

Gold like a dawn that breaks without either of you noticing, like a sunrise that steals over you when you’re asleep in Haru’s arms. Gold like a promise hummed into your hair, like a vow murmured wordless into the tips of your fingers. Gold like the inside of your ribcage at the end of Haru’s laugh. 

You hear a faint gasp from the madame, and a louder one from Haru. When your eyes meet his in the mirror you find him pressing his fist into his mouth, eyes wet with tears. 

His name is loaded on the tip of your tongue, and yet you are almost afraid to break the magic of the moment, of Haru’s eyes trained on you, tears sparkling on the thick of his eyelashes. You twist slightly to face him, hand slightly outstretched; he takes an involuntary step forward, and another, and another, hands reaching out for yours. 

As you turn you catch sight of the train of the gown. The lace at the edge of the train is different this time, a field of wildflowers embroidered with white beads that shimmer with movement. They wink at you when you turn; you blink, and suddenly you are back in the Jabberwock fields with Haru, bathed in the gold of sunset with grass and glittering wildflowers underfoot. There is wind in your hair and you are laughing at something or another, Haru’s loud cackle in your ear and mushroom-top of the dorm looming in the distance. His hand is in yours, warm and solid. Your heart is in his, sure and sweet, one step away from the frozen edge of forever. 

“My, my,” the madame is saying, “I knew it would be perfect–“ but then Haru is there, cradling your jaw, tipping his forehead onto yours.

“It’s perfect,” Haru says. His voice is thick with something honey-warm, the same kind of whiskey that burns your own lungs when you think about the stretch of a future with him. His fingers find yours, find the ring tucked neatly on the fourth finger of your left hand. “It’s perfect.” 

It is. 

[raechannau]

thinking of Reinhard kidnapping some fellow teens (< felt camp route)

[dani-the-toad]

theyre like if yuri was yaoi was het

[keeper-door]

2024-09-06

A girl and her cat

[blushblushbear]

Hey, I was wondering if you create headcannons for the Blush Blush boys. If so, I was wondering 👀

Can you describe how any of the immortal characters (Stirling, Seth, Reece?, Aki, Haru, Fuyu) would react if their SO/MC/Love interest reincarnates after they die of old age for example?

I’m a huge fan of reincarnation x immortal stuff, cause it gives off a happy ending and hope that their love will never die even if they’re reborn in a different time💖

I wanna start at the top by saying I think all of them freak out at least a little bit when they see their long dead lover seemingly up and alive again

I'll get into each one individually but needless to say, it's a bit of a shock to the lot of them

also I did a thing about The Immortals dealing with your death (that I will but a link to here later but right now I can't be bothered to shift through my many bullshit posts to find it atm OOPS SORRY)

(ps: love your stuff btw!!! <3 )

STARTING OFF

Stirling:

I think he's gone through this too many times and loves the drama of it all too much to ever have him claim that he will never love again after you (at least not forever)

but suffice it to say he doesn't think he'll ever have a love like you again in any of his life times worth of living he has left to get through

he also didn't become a vampire to kick the bucket quickly nor does he think he'll be headed in the same direction as you when he eventually does so he's in no particular hurry to 'follow you' as it were

so he has made his peace with forever longing for you and eternally mourning your passing a little bit all the time

until one day he happens to spot

well

you

I mean it can't be you but he knows that face

he knows that body

that aura, that smile

it's definitely you

your face was probably in the crowd at one of his competitions

he did loose points for how he fumbled when he clocked you

(but he still won don't get it twisted)

I think the moment his routine is done he b-lines it to his dressing room then directly to go find 'you'

he does find you in a crowd and nervously and suddenly asks if you'd like to go for dinner with him

like

now

right now.

how bout it??

you tentatively say yes and you two end up having the most awkward dinner of either of your lives

he's trying so hard not to flip out cause it's definitely you but also it can't be

can it????

BUT YOU WERE DEAD

he slowly begins to romance you

the new you

which is a lot like the old you

I think he's the handsome yet mysterious man who is romancing you and he doesn't fully let anything slip until one night you stay over and you find a painting of what is definitely but also so not you on the wall

cue him finding you staring at it and accidentally scaring you

only to calm you down then explain the whole sorted mess

and how he believes you are the reincarnation of his lover

I think no matter what there's going to be some push and pull moving forward

he has to decide if he loves you or just the idea of you that acts as some theoretical replacement for his great dead love

will there be a happy ending??

will love prevail??

can love continue on even after death??

only time will tell...

but he does not intend to give up on you that easily...

Seth:

you being reincarnated is actually his doing

against his best laid plans, you didn't end up in hell with him when you died

I think he could only stand it for a few months before he called in a favor and got your soul entered into the reincarnation program

that DOES mean he'll have to wait 18+ years to even attempt to make a move

and also that you won't remember him

or much if anything of your previous life

which means there's a 50/50 toss up that you'll be happily taken when he can actually find you again

he doesn't watch over you as you grow cause that's too creepy

but he does put some lesser demons/spirits to keep an eye on you and keep you safe

he doesn't want to have to start this process all over again

nor does he know how many otherworldly favors he can rely on for this

I think he 'randomly' bumps into you one day when you're old enough and he starts flirting and asks you out

I think whether or not he tells you about the whole deal will depend on how things play out

he doesn't necessarily see the need to but on the other hand

maybe it's worth you knowing

also it's the biggest romantic move he ever pulled

also honesty is nice in a relationship

but all in all it's just nice to have you back again

where he can see and hold and kiss you

also he probably had to call in a favor just to get to the mortal realm in the first place

idk he's burning a lot of big favors for this meet cute to go down but it's worth it

Reece:

I think with Reece it's less of a reincarnation and more an alt time line version of you

one where you never met and you got to live your life without it being crash landed into by a space traveling cat boy

I think at first he meant to keep his distance

you're not HIS you after all

but he couldn't help but watch you just

exist

for a bit

he missed you

and I think one thing lead to another and he ended up bumping into you and you gave him that cute smile and he didn't mean to but he heard himself asking you for coffee before he could give it a second thought

and then before he could give it a second word you had said yes

and then he was just over come with joy cause you said yes to a date so excitedly and quickly

it all kinda just

happened

I think you have a wonderful first date and he spends most of it working up the courage to tell you everything and also just enjoying the date

but towards the end of it he finally fesses up

you guys had done all this before

well, a different version of you in another timeline/universe

but all the same

he has already gone down this road

and now he's just doing it again cause it's hard for him to stay away from you

but you are gone

were gone

are

in his version of things anyway

and this was fun but maybe...

maybe it should end here

one last night

where he got to tell you goodbye

(with a kiss)

but this is Definitely Not Dr Who bby--- something crazy happens at the end and the goodbyes are put on hold while you two go on Just This One crazy space adventure (that is totally not just this one lol)

CUE THE DOCTOR WHO THEME BEING PLAYED ON THAT CAT PIANO!

Aki:

OOO BOY IS THIS DUDE IN DENIAL

no grace, no decorum, no hesistation

he sees your face in a crowd and runs up and hugs you and begins to tear up as he says how much he missed you

meanwhile you are in the iron grip of big excitable fox man (time has past since your death and he's grown some) whom you definitely don't know and also he's calling you bunny

you try to tell him he's got the wrong person sorry

BUT HE IS HEARING NONE OF IT

cue him telling you all about your lives together and talking you to the home of the autumn clan and doing anything and everything to desperately rejog your memories

if you do get your memories back then commence Aki's great romance two electric boogaloo

but if you can't then he will get so heart broken

he'll ask you to still stay

let him learn the new you

let him show you the him you forgot

let him love you again

please don't leave him

(if you do decide to leave low key Aki will follow you and try to check in on you from time to time)

(if not out right sneak stalk you)

(please accept his feelings reincarnated love-chan)

Haru:

shocked, stunned, shook

he sees your face from across the bar and he can't believe it

like actually he can't believe it

he ends up staring for a really long time

then he's just watching you from different spots around the bar

getting better looks at different angles

keeping the biggest eye on you and drinking you in

yep

it's definitely you

but it can't be

they must just look like you

a lot like you

like exactly

must be a distant relatives

genetics are crazy

or maybe you had a love child...???

NO.

no no no no

you were Haru's loyal mate until the day you died

you wouldn't

and even if you did, you def would've invited him to the threesome

(one of the reasons he loved you so much)

whatever

he must be so drunk out of his mind and crazy lonely that he's seeing shit

whatever, they're hot and he could use a you substitute in his bed (not like he's had many people in his bed after you anyway-- too heart broken)

so fuck it, fuck them (like, in the sex way not the angry way)

so he goes up and starts hitting on them and when they turn around

oh no

they're definitely you

right down to the look they're giving him

I won't lie, he panics and bolts

he can't stop freaking out about last night all the next day

so he goes to that bar again and low and behold there you are again

Haru can't tell if he's relieved or more panicked by that

but still he has to dig some more

so he goes back over, trying the whole time not to absolutely loose it

gives you some line about being overcome by your beauty which is why he left in a panic haha

but seriously he'd love to get dinner with you sometime, here's his number, give him a call

oh also what's your name

he again can't tell if he's happy or freaked when you do actually call

he spends the whole dinner gently prying for info and just generally vibe checking to see if they're like his dead lover

and they really are

they definitely look it

and thus begins Haru's new torment of being so fucking CONFLICTED

he's so freaked that it's like you're alive again but also so happy to have you by his side

I think there's a lot of push and pull until he spills the beans

and then even more after he does

this is about to be the messiest relationship of Haru's life

which is saying something

BUT HE CAN'T NOT, IT'S YOU

Fuyu:

Fuyu bumps into you by chance and he's the most torn up about it of the lot of them

and visibly so too, he can't hide his feelings on this even a little bit

I think he is the quickest to tell you the whole thing

and also he calls you by the name of your past life (which may or may not be your name now)

he really does believe you are his heavenly gift sent back to him because your love is so fated

he takes some time getting used to

it's actually funny, this is the exact opposite of who you two were the first time

he's so unbelievably open to you from the word go

he bares his heart and feelings so much

you look so much like yourself before you left him, he can't help it

you were his safe place that he let all his walls down around

he can't put them back up now

his heart is beating open and bloody for you

he doesn't try and play it cool, he doesn't beat around the bush

he let's you know who you were to him

ARE to him

and asks you to be his once again

steam rolling you with love

and then waiting 'patiently' (not patient, he's sitting by like a puppy who wants a bite of your food) for you answer

it's quite a situation you find yourself in, isn't it

[lollipopcatxdxd]

🥀 Kuro

[zoraedits]

Kou & Futaba

By @zoraedits

⟨don't remove watermark & repost elsewhere⟩

[akiumzeno]

Sin Route Analysis

This is an analysis of the general route and not a specific ending of sorts.

!!!MAJOR SPOILERS!!!

So, the sin route. Honestly, it's undoubtedly one of the darkest and most tragic routes of the game and the game wastes no effort to make that apparent. The music that plays as you do the route is glitchy, has no melody, and the music has no comfort or catchiness to it. The visuals become glitchy and distorted, giving another layer of uneasiness and distress and become more severe as Maeno's headspace gets more muddled and stressed. And the characters act dark and cold, more than they do in any other route.

All in all, the experience is unpleasant, to say the least.

I have a few aspects I wish to unpack with the sin routes which range from the title to the endings.

Why is it called the Sin route?

While one might gloss over the name of the sin route as just a cool-sounding name (I did when I first saw it) but I later realised that there's more to it.

"Sin" refers to two different things.

This is the route where Maeno can act the most sinful while still being himself

You, yourself committed one.

With the first point, someone I've mentioned in my Punishment ending analysis is that one of Maeno's core character traits is his need to save others. In the normal endings, he's determined to escape with Tsugino and cure him despite not having much knowledge on what to do alongside the true endings. Even in Ushirono's part, Tsugino literally attacks and damages his leg but is still willing to lend out a hand to him to cure him of his ZENO.

He is not willing to leave anyone behind or try to not help out someone. But in the sin route, he still is trying to help Tsugino but his ways are questionable and are morally gray, if not then black. By all means, his core character trait of trying to save everyone is still there but takes a dark twist. Hence acting the most sinful while still being himself.

With the second point, this moreso refers to letting Fuyu die.

The sin route can only happen if the player chooses to linger in Maeno's room for 5 minutes with no real reason. While you might accidentally trigger it by going afk for a moment to come back to your game suddenly being glitchy and music now being disturbing, for most of us, we choose to do the Sin route and let Fuyu die which goes against Maeno's ideals.

He doesn't want anyone to die or be left being uncured and the only times he does abandon someone is in only certain endings (and with only Fuyu, funnily enough) like in Oblivion where he can't remember his connection with Fuyu or in Proof where Fuyu hits stage 4 and cannot be saved. Those are circumstances where it can't be helped.

But you instead choose to let him die. You didn't bother to save him. And not because you were scrambling to find the sedative, you were doing nothing but staring at the wall. And in-universe, Maeno knows this and because of it, he begins to feel ashamed and distressed. This isn't what he wanted. He feels sinful.

He feels like a failure for not saving Fuyu, his childhood friend and one of the only pieces of his life left and he feels this way because of you. You could've saved him but you chose not to.

It was a Sin to not save him.

Maeno's behaviour and deconstruction of his ideals

As mentioned before, Maeno has a huge value of saving others. There's no shortage of Maeno's behaviour that doesn't display this behaviour. Saving people is his priority.

When he sees the bloody patients in the facility, he becomes unsettled from seeing that they likely were mistreated and were put through harsh experiments.

When Tsugino get bitten by Fuyu, he immediately treats the wound.

When Tsugino gains ZENO, he's determined to cure him.

And as said before, Maeno still retains that desire to save others but it takes a dark turn. His chronic hero syndrome begins to make his mental state start to decline. The glitch is a visual representation of that, as said before.

From Maeno's perspective, he's just found out that his workplace is now a desolate facility filled with dead bodies with only him, Tsugino and Fuyu left as the only survivors. However, Fuyu soon dies and the other survivor is currently insane and wants to murder him. Not only that, he also cannibalised Fuyu's sister around 3-5 years ago with the promise of finding a cure for ZENO to help other people. There's no nearby help and any solution rests on his shoulders.

That's a whole lot of information, shock, pain, pressure and stress all at once. However, he doesn't have any time to soak it in or process it, lest he gets murdered by Tsugino. So his only instinct is to fix the problem by curing Tsugino and attempting to fulfil his promise. But because he's doing it all with a very stressed and grieving mind which leads to him making the wrong decisions. Put a pin in this, we'll talk about it later.

Maeno is chasing this ideal of trying to save everyone at his own expense. He neglects letting himself grieve and process Fuyu's death in favour of making Tsugino the priority in an anxious "If I save him, then everything will be okay" way. But the thing is you can't always save everyone and that's something you have to come to terms with. We're all humans who can only do so much. But Maeno cannot accept that. It might be a feeling that not saving Tsugino means that it was all for nothing and everyone in the facility died in vain or that it would be a failure to not grant Natsu's wish, but regardless of the exact desire, he cannot accept not curing Tsugino.

His mentality is unhealthy right now. He's now obsessed with curing Tsugino because it's all he has right now. If he leaves the facility with Tsugino uncured then he has nothing. His childhood friend is dead, the aforementioned friend's sister is dead, Tsugino cannot be saved, his parents are dead, he now has no job... there's nothing left for him. Tsugino is his only and only hope of having something. So he forfeits whatever to try and cure Tsugino which turns out either unsuccessful or doing immoral things to achieve them.

The sin route is a deconstruction of Maeno's ideals to try and help everyone in the game. He's left with a struggling and unhealthy mental state and clinging onto saving Tsugino like it's a lifejacket. His inability to accept that he might not be able to save Tsugino ends up putting him in a worse place. He ends up just digging himself deeper and getting obsessed with finding a cure which leads to his own undoing.

And digging that hole leads to him either his grave or he's no longer than the man he was.

Endings C and D

Now, we'll take the pin out. Endings C and D are the endings where Maeno and Tsugino both end up dying. These endings show Maeno's ideals leading him to die.

And something interesting is that despite Maeno going into Tsugino's memories, he doesn't even get close to resolving Tsugino's trauma because Fuyu isn't there. It was he and Fuyu working together and using both of their research to figure out that trauma is the cause of ZENO and ruling out other ideas.

Because when Maeno ate Natsu, he mistakenly focused on the surface level of the interaction to think that eating another person with ZENO is what leads to the cure and not the emotional aspect of the shock and pain of eating someone you love ended up curing him. However, in contrast, Fuyu was able to gather that memories played a part in ZENO and even deduced it was trauma in Part Ushirono when Maeno had his ZENO relapse. As a result, Maeno doesn't figure out that trauma is the cause of ZENO and makes the wrong choice of making Tsugino see his memories and the part where he eats Natsu even though that is exactly the cause of his ZENO.

In short, Maeno needs Fuyu's help to cure ZENO. But he's left without it and thus cannot solve it.

Now, let's get into the details of the endings.

Ending D

I said I would talk about this, so let's do that. In my Punishment Ending analysis, I said this was one of the three endings where Maeno gives himself up for Tsugino to eat (when he has all his memories).

Similar to the Punishment Ending, Maeno gives himself up because of guilt. And in here, I would say that his guilt is slightly changed. In here, he's feeling guilty for being unable to cure Tsugino. That's his goal and he tried to do it and failed. Now, he has Tsugino with a knife over him and is tempted to kill him and is fighting against himself to kill Maeno.

And he has the choice to fight back or lay down his life. And he decides to lay his life down.

He can't possibly live on and leave the facility without achieving that. That would mean all that work was for nothing. He couldn't succeed and he CAN'T succeed. So if he can't, he might as well give Tsugino the pleasure of killing him. Or maybe he just wanted to die.

And I think that at this moment, he was feeling all the guilt of Natsu and Fuyu dying. How they died so cruelly...

It would only be fitting to let himself die in the same way he killed someone he viewed as a little sister. He couldn't even cure the disease he was hired and promised he would cure.

So he gives himself up and Tsugino ends up killing him with half of him being distressed and the other pleasured and pleased.

But if you read my Punishment Ending analysis, more likely than not, Tsugino would taste no "love" from eating Maeno and face a similar emotional breakdown as he realises he was searching for the wrong thing. But it's later shown that he was still alive when the police searched the facility but was at stage 4. And I think he likely reached stage 4 because he lost his meaning in life as Tsugino and feels guilty for killing "Tsugino" as "Maeno". But since he can't be controlled during stage 4, he can only be put out of his misery.

Ending C

Now, this is Maeno choosing to instead keep trying to cure ZENO and clinging onto his ideals. But since Tsugino cannot fight against killing Maeno, he's led to only one choice. He has to kill himself to save Maeno.

So he directs the knife at himself to stop himself.

But that isn't what Maeno wanted. This isn't saving Tsugino. He NEEDS to save him. But he can't. That was the only thing he had left. And now it's gone.

The loss of everything now hits him when he was trying to compensate and ignore it before. And that leads to this...

His ZENO comes back and it wants to destroy everything. If there's anything left for him, that is.

And I think the implication here is that Maeno blew himself up.

Maeno trying to avoid and ignore everything he's lost and that he needs to grieve comes back in full force and it destroys him. He tried to repress it and now all his feelings just exploded (pun not intended). He's lost everything and now there's no point. No point but to destroy everything flashily and beautifully.

Endings A and B

Now, I find these endings to have a lil more meat to them thematically and not in the way you think.

I think these endings reflect the facility's treatment of their patients. Think about it for a moment.

The two recorded ways that ZENO was cured/treated was through memory loss and cannibalism. These discoveries were reflected in how Fuyu treated patients by trying to relieve their symptoms by getting rid of their childhood memories and the facility served human meat to their patients in an attempt that would do something.

When we take a look at Ending A, Maeno assumes Tsugino's identity and makes Tsugino forget who he is and makes him believe he's Maeno. This reflects Fuyu's treatment of patients.

In Ending B, Maeno cuts off pieces of his own body for Tsugino to eat as regular meals. This reflects how human meat was served in the cafeteria for patients to eat. But more importantly, in here, Tsugino cries and is distressed by having to eat Maeno despite not being actually cured and only having the sedative to relieve symptoms. This is probably reflecting how the actual patients of the facility felt about their treatment and hated being there (refer back to how Maeno reckoned they were being mistreated whilst in the laboratory room).

There's not too much in depth about this but I thought it was a neat thought that should've been recorded.

Now, I wanna talk about their clothes in the Sin route.

Maeno's clothes are now changed to a black hoodie while Tsugino wears a white turtleneck.

I believe that their outfit colours represent their morality.

When we take a look at Tsugino and Maeno's regular outfits, the most prominent colours on their shirts are white with Maeno and black with Tsugino.

However, Maeno does also have a red tank top under his white shirt. While I'm not going to elaborate on this as I'll leave that for when I analyse their outfits, but the red tank top ends up covered up whenever Maeno wears his lab coat which is also white.

Thus, Maeno's prominent colour is white. Not to mention, in the sin route, he's wearing the lab coat.

Now, when we do ending A and B, Maeno is now wearing black while Tsugino wears white.

When we look back to their regular outfits, Maeno is the sane and good one while Tsugino is the one who is going crazy and is trying to kill Maeno. We can interpret Maeno's white clothes as showing that he's morally pure as he's the one who's trying to save everyone and Tsugino's black clothing represents that he's the antagonist and morally black.

But in the sin ending, their colours are now swapped. This likely shows that now things are switched. Now Maeno is the one who's acting more evil while Tsugino is now more pure as Maeno either wipes his memories or forces Tsugino to eat human meat.

Another thing you can note is that now Maeno is wearing a hoodie which Tsugino also wears a hoodie as a patient in the facility. This is also another tie in that their dynamic (or as far as even their identities) have now swapped places with Maeno as the antagonistic one and Tsugino as the purer one.

Ending B

Now, in this ending, the only thing I want to to talk about is how Maeno tries to cure Tsugino—which is through cannibalism.

As said before, Maeno only focuses on the surface level of why eating Natsu fixed his ZENO which is that it must be eating a live ZENO patient must've been the cure. However, the audience knows better.

So since all the other ZENO patients are dead and Maeno had previously had ZENO, then it's more likely that Tsugino eating him would solve his ZENO. So he ends up cutting off pieces of his leg and gouging out his eyeball to serve to Tsugino.

And I believe this is a physical metaphor of just how far Maeno is willing to go to solve Tsugino's ZENO and is quite literally harming himself to achieve it with results that may or may not work.

This is how far his obsession with saving Tsugino will go. How far his own mentality is taking him that he will sacrifice everything for it.

[gingergari]

i had a vision

[kurokawaia]

I have an angsty itachi Drabble brewing…

[taikitsune]

[harr0w7]

— ART COLLAB WITH @cherriibloss

Hello Tumblr people !! and Zeno remake fans, me and my best friend started working on this fun art collab yesterday and we have finally finished it today! The idea was to draw them falling in the rabbit hole, as in Alice in Wonderland. We also decided to give them in one of their eyes a card shape; Maeno has the Hearts while Tsugino has the Clubs.

I drew Maeno and @cherriibloss drew Tsugino! My best friend is very skilled at drawing, and I am very proud of how far they came with their art, please go check her out if you wanna! I love her so much ♥️

**the background is from the original movie, I just edited it**

— VARIATIONS —

I edited the art and the background and came up with different variations, have a look ↓

Thank you for reading and I hope you liked this!! ♥️

[kuruk]

oh my god I know like it sounds weird to say this when it's just avatar but the original show has aang go back to the southern air temple to show katara and sokka his home only to find evidence of the genocide of his people and the loss of his loved ones and it's quiet until you see his grief and his rage but you just see the aftermath a hundred years later and the netflix adaptation makes it feel like they wanted it to be a cool action movie with an epic scene showing the fighting and running of the airbenders like that side by side with aang running away and it's like ??? okay it's "darker" congratulations I can see that's what the goal is based on the differences in firebending and early on screen deaths go and focus on every bit of violence for the audience's lazy sadistic pleasure instead of any of the characters personal narratives especially the women that can all be taken right out + the discovery of different places all over the world in the earth kingdom and outside of it. put everything in omashu so they don't get to meet people and see the diversity of the world and each town and SEE what life is like for them under war and have these experiences with all these people build up to something bigger at the end

[dorospam]

Trashed older Arvio concept ^^”

[hotsugarbyglassanimals]

hi look at them ^_^