mikaguralab

[mikaguralab]

Your name is RUKI MAKINO. You have a variety of INTERESTS, including VISUAL NOVELS. Your outfit is SIMILAR, but UNRELATED to THAT ARTIST GUY YOU MET AT A CONVENTION ONCE, which you consider to be an INTERESTING COINCIDENCE.

You are currently waiting for your copy of the BETA to arrive in the MAIL, because apparently the studio, HYPNOS, is STILL USING PHYSICAL DELIVERY MEDIA IN 2023.

Your handle is trichromaticGirlkisser [TG], and you talk informally and without punctuation

What will you do?

[mikaguralab]

Reblogging for the implication of Ruki

being still hung up on an ex-girlfriend literal centuries later

to the point of making her shikigami/current gf wear her outfit

I mean *gestures at the bad end AU drama CDs* it's not like that isn't completely in-character for her I guess!

TL;DR: Woe. Passing Through the Dendera Digital Fields At Night be upon ye

costume swap~

[mikaguralab]

Digital yuri…

[mikaguralab]

[mikaguralab]

> Be me, Fate fan becoming obsessed with Digimon Tamers

> Planning a roleswap fanfic that ultimately never materialized

> "You know, the main character of this WIP is turning out to be Ruki's natural enemy. I already decided that she became a huge Fate/Grand Order fan during her hospital stay, so it would be very funny if the girl who hates her guts is also the only person she can talk to about her blorbo madness."

> Slowly accumulate elaborate headcanons about Ruki's preference of the Tsukihime routes, her favorite Servants, etc.

> Flash forward a few months

> Talking about how Tamers is one of the few Digimon anime where people actually die when they're killed, and how that affects the storytelling

> The early parts of the anime set up a neat contrast between Takato, who's genre-aware for the wrong genre, and Ruki, who's genre-aware for the right genre but is herself out of place in it

> Takato's character arc is about accepting that he's in a genre where he has to kill people, but he still tries to maintain a shred of normalcy through his relationship with Ciel-senpai until she tries to kill him in the final act and the illusions come crashing down--

> ...Wait, "Ciel-senpai"...???

> HOLD ON A GODDAMN SECOND

> Realize that Digimon Tamers is actually an adaptation of Tsukihime (specifically the Near Side; you can tell they wanted to do some Far Side stuff, and had they gotten a second season instead of Frontier, they probably would have, but the anime we actually got is mostly based on Ciel's route)

> Realize that Takato is, in fact, actually the Tamers staff's interpretation of Shiki Tohno

> Realize that Ruki's genre-aware status, if translated into more specific terms, means that she has read Tsukihime

> mfw my meme headcanon was literally spot-on

> mfw Ruki's favorite route is Arcueid's

what ive learned from making joke headcanons is that within an hour theyre usually no longer a joke

[mikaguralab]

"Hey, can we have the Small Kyubey? I need the diagonal blast discs for something."

"We have the Small Kyubey at home."

The Small Kyubey at home:

[mikaguralab]

This AI's hair is a bit strangely designed. It's almost like it's meant to look like a pair of sideburns.

Picture of the founder of the Golden Age of Science Fiction who's primarily known for writing about robots unrelated.

[mikaguralab]

DAY 3 REDO

My last post was ass, here's a new one

I've talked about this before but I just can't get over it, Tagiru and Ryouma's potential friendship was groundwork for an incredibly poignant moment and what I personally believe to be one of the biggest shows of compassion and humility in the franchise. I know, Tagiru and humility in the same sentence, but hear me out! Tagiru finally found someone with the exact same dream as him, and connected to him so quickly I was shocked by how natural it felt. He spent the entire show antagonized by Ryouma, but it was so easy to move past it... then Ryouma betrays everyone and antagonizes everyone once more. After the real reason was revealed, Tagiru could have gotten angry, or hated him, or left him behind to wallow in his guilt and focused on the problem at hand. Tagiru knows better than that, he (almost) got Kaneda hurt in the exact same way Ryouma just got Taiki hurt. It was his biggest blunder in the entire show to be exact! So, Tagiru reiterates how he and Ryouma are on the exact same level, just like he did in episode 77. These two understand each other and can empathize with each other in a way other characters (besides Gumdramon of course) can match. It's a perfect understanding, despite being different as night and day. We didn't get to see much else of those two, but one day if we get a sequel, I hope I get to see more of those two.

[mikaguralab]

(I initially tried to type this up in the tags but it got too long.)

God. Being a Ruki Makino enjoyer is suffering. Entirely too many people have the barest surface understanding of her, and then try to talk meta and/or write fic of her, making the depths of their Not Getting It very obvious in the process.

She doesn't kill because she "doesn't think of digimon as people" or whatever. She kills because she exists in a Tsukihime world a world where not killing her enemies would immediately and brutally cost her and her partner their lives, and the tamers who don't kill eventually have to come to terms with this fact.

She isn't a cold asshole who doesn't care about her partner. In fact, they were both head-over-heels for each other from the moment we first saw them. Ruki just objectively sucks at communicating, and is self-aware enough about it for her fear of screwing up and unintentionally hurting her to kick in.

No matter when in the timeline you found her, if you compared her to Neo Saiba, she would immediately strangle you for having the gall to suggest that she'd even think of killing her own partner.

It's a unique type of frustration when you agree that a character is deeply flawed but other people keep missing what's actually wrong with them and assigning them new flaws that they don't even have it's like free my man he did none of that. He did a bunch of other shit tho.

[mikaguralab]

^ ruki. btw

[mikaguralab]

WAIT THIS IS RENAMON AND RUKI ACTUALLY

[mikaguralab]

I mean that’s not what I expected but he’s not wrong

it’s enforced times and times again through the serie that humans are determinators (through Masaru especially) this serie isn’t about how love makes us stronger or hate or the desire to protect someone; in the end, what makes Masaru stands above everyone, what allow these bitches to fight a literal god, is that they refuse to stay down

[mikaguralab]

Usually when people present the trolley problem in fiction, the focus is on the lives that are at stake. It's what if the one person you had to sacrifice was a loved one? What if it was your own life? Can you kill someone you love for the greater good? Is your loved one worth ten other lives? Is it morally correct to shoot one to save the many? Is it morally justified of you to kill the many to survive?

And don't get me wrong, I think it fucks. I eat that shit up. But a part of the trolley problem that is often ignored is that it's less about what is morally right or even what you would choose as it is about can you do it? Even if all eleven of these people are strangers. Whatever you think is right, can you do it?

Can you kill someone? Think. Imagine. Really imagine. Don't give me an answer based on logic and reasoning. Imagine yourself there, imagine the smell of rust and dust, the sound of the train incoming, the cold iron under your palm. Can you do it? This is a person. Like you. They have a life. They have friends. A family. Dreams. Hopes. They promised a friend they'd grab lunch together tomorrow. They planned their vacations three months from now. There's so much they've planned to do, so much they want to do.

Now answer me: can you do it? Can you kill them? Can you take a life with your own two hands? Can you tell their husband and daughter that there was a way for their beloved to stay alive, and you robbed it from them?

And on the other hand. If you can't do it, all you have to do is sit back and watch. All you have to do is nothing. Is it easier? Imagine. The fault isn't yours. You're not killing anyone, you're just failing at saving people. Can you do it? Can you sit back and watch it happen? Can you sit back and know that you could have prevented this?

You don't have time to think. The train is coming. You don't have time to debate or argue on morality or consequences. You only have a moment. What do you do? What can you do?

[mikaguralab]

Someone had to make the big video essay defending Hunters. It is a good show and I will die on this hill.

[mikaguralab]

This happened in Tamers

"No fully evolved pokemon can beat a fully evolved digimon. " But have you considered this?

[mikaguralab]

[mikaguralab]

Headcanoning that the clockmaker tried to get the V-Tamer version of Taichi to fill the sixth slot, got as far as summoning Neo and the Alias III... and then Taichi himself was running late, so he had to improvise and brought over the Adventure version instead.