#suicidal ideation cw

[incognitopolls]

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[swollenbabyfat]

Quiet now children

[pirategrime]

[sunlitlemonade]

so. uh. surprising thing about jason, who might be one of the most inconsistently written characters ever, is the fact that one trait about him has remained constant throughout different eras, reboots and even an elseworld. no, it's not his thighs tho that would be a very good guess.

it's his suicidal ideation. yeah.

[here's me screaming about the fact that he feels like a phantom that has outlived its purpose of haunting in detail if you're interested]

[bookshelfdreams]

OKAY BUT

the way ofmd says "No, trust me, you really don't want to die."

Again. And again.

With Stede in s1, who doesn't have an answer when Olu asks him if he wants to live, who faces execution twice and both times says "I deserve this". It takes a literal gun to his head for him to realize that no, he does not want to die, and it takes going back to the environment that suffocated him - it takes killing his chance at happiness - for him to realize that YES. He wants to live.

And now we get this terrifying, heartbreaking spiral of destructiveness with Ed. He has a lot more insight into himself than Stede, he knows he wants to keep living, but not like this. Hasn't for a while, and when he tried to change, thought for just a moment that maybe life could be better - well.

It all came crashing down, didn't it. He thought Stede could love him, but he couldn't; Stede left. And he thought, maybe he could still build something new for himself, something away from the violence, a space where he could find safety, community, healing, maybe; but that failed, too. Izzy made sure of that. Because it takes just one well-aimed knife to kill the greatest of men and Izzy has plenty, and Ed doesn't want to die.

He just doesn't want to keep living like this.

Before he knew Stede, he may have been unhappy, but he was coping. But now that he knows how all that stuff feels like he thought he could never have - friendship, community - he can't cope anymore. He doesn't want to keep living like this, and he can't change his life into something more bearable because Izzy is standing at his back, knife at the ready.

(Oh and I do believe Izzy regrets that, wishes he could take it back and not just for his foot, wishes he knew how to ask Ed's forgiveness, wishes he knew how to tell him You can trust me)

So. What is there left for Ed to do?

Ed is increasingly unsubtle about what he wants, to a point where he literally hands Izzy a gun to shoot him, where he's practically on his knees begging to be mutinied. He realized change is impossible, so does he want to die now?

No. It's worse.

He wants someone to give enough of a shit about him to kill him.

If murder is the only intimacy he can get, his death is a price he's willing to pay. But he's not even getting that, no one will even kill him, what the fuck.

And. ofmd makes us look at it, all of it, all the self-loathing, the fear, the heartache. The pain. Makes Ed look at it, so he understands, so he can heal. Tells him,

That's a bit silly, eh? You don't even want to die! And people want you to live, you dummy.

Keep going. You have no idea how much better things are going to get.

[l3o-lion]

Stede bonnet angst stede bonnet angst stede bonnet angst

Yippee

After a bunch of tweaking and drawing we're done! :]

The quotes were a fun way to break my own heart a bit. They're all sort of about stede and his mostly passive suicidal ideation.

Gave him his own knife instead of that random one i had drawn before, put his rings on, and did a bunch of finishing work on the glass ball

The background got ignored because I can't be bothered to make it interesting rn. If im feeling good later i might make it look like the ball actually exists in a 3D space.

[its-coda]

[galedekarios]

that interview is driving me insane i've been thinking about it for the past hour and i still can't wrap my head around it. i think what really gets under my skin is it just... contradicts with the text of the game. the most positive possible reading of the ending where gale blows himself up is that it was an unavoidable tragedy dictated by fate but even that's a stretch. to say it's a good ending?? or a satisfying conclusion to his arc?? i call bull. it's more infuriating because there is such a clear good ending for gale's character arc and it's the professor ending! his arc was about learning to accept himself as he was, to value who he is as he is flaws and all, and he's done that in the professor ending! and the god of ambition ending is a bad end for him but still ties into his overall arc in a satisfying if sad way (imo). the ending where he dies just... doesn't. which is fine as a tragedy but to imply it isn't exactly that, a tragedy, is wild to me. and it being so blatantly contradictory to the actual events of the game makes me think that whole thing was just catering to people who hate gale which like... why? people who don't like him don't care about his story so why pander to them like this?

uhg. i am sorry for blowing up your inbox like this i just feel like i'm gonna rip my hair out and need to express that to a fellow gale appreciator. i love gale's epilogue SO MUCH it made me feel for a bit like maybe the writers had actually changed how they felt about him but. nope! silly of me to hope for that. wish i could memory wipe that whole interview from my brain dark urge style.

don't be sorry at all! 🖤 i feel the same way in a lot of ways. altho i feel the need to mention that gale's writer, jan van dosselaer, was not involved in this interview.

i started to make a meta post about this yesterday, but reading things like this from gale:

act ii [after elminster] Player: An old man with a craving for cheese. Hardly the great wizard of legend. Gale: A wizard doesn't reach Elminster's age without enjoying their home comforts. Those who seek danger over cheese don't tend to live as long. Gale: For Mystra to have sent him... The severity of her bidding could not be clearer. Or weigh more heavily on me. devnote: reflecting on mystra sending elminster, of all people - a powerful individual, becoming reflective. Gale: Time seems so infinite when you are young... a month is an age, a year is a lifetime... it is a strange feeling, to realise how little of it one might have left. Player: You're seriously considering doing what Elminster said?   Gale: Of course - he offered the clearest solution to our problem. All I have to do is find the right place and time, close my eyes, and let go... devnote: Trying to sound upbeat, not fully engaging with what he's saying (that he's going to kill himself). Gale: Then the slate will be clean, wrongs will be righted, the Absolute will be gone... devnote: Trying to sound upbeat, not fully engaging with what he's saying (that he's going to kill himself). Gale: ...and I along with it. devnote: Still trying to sound upbeat, though this time the reality that this means he will die weighs a bit heavier

and:

act ii [act ii romance scene] Gale: I am terrified - I will not claim otherwise. My face could scarcely conceal it even if my words sought to deny it. nodecontext: Hushed, vulnerable Gale: There is no point in running from the inevitable. Better to meet it, on my own terms. nodecontext: Resigned

as well as this:

act ii [act ii friendship version] Gale: Yes... but there is so much to live for, and so few moments in which to house it all. Gale: Damn you. Damn you for giving me so much to care about. Our friends, our adventures... this would have been so much easier if it was just me. But it isn't. Gale: If there is a way - any way - to save all that's grown dear to me, I want to seize it. I just cannot fathom what that might be, other than to fail Mystra and condemn the world. Gale: Stay with me, will you? I don't want to think of it any more, but I don't want to be alone either.

act iii [before the netherbrain] Player: Gale... I think we should consider using the orb as Mystra intended. To blow up the Netherbrain. Gale: I'm getting rather tired of how often those I care about seem to reach the same conclusion.

when you have this:

and i just... couldn't finish the meta.

it's absolutely beyond comprehension for me how anyone could try to frame this as an ending that is the right one in "many ways", as the "guy who starts off annoying everyone", eating your "most priced possessions", having to "give back to the world".

for the founder of the company to say he wasn't "ready" the "first time", but he's finally "ready" now.

gale's death isn't only unnecessary, an instruction given to him by his former mentor on the behalf of a goddess, who would've sacrificed not only him but thousands of others to achieve her own goals, he doesn't want to die. he's terrified. he wants to live. he is offering this because he believes that his time has run out. because he wants his death to have purpose if it must happen. because he feels he made a mistake far bigger than he can ever make up for. because he doesn't want others to waste their chance at life like he feels he has. the will he leaves behind in the epilogue if he sacrifices himself isn't finished because he thought there would be more time. i could go on and on.

and again, the question is too... for what exactly does he need to "give back to the world"?

being perceived as annoying after coming out of what is presented as isolation and depression? asking for help with a now chronic impairment that feeds on his very soul and wreaks havoc on his body? for making a mistake? by that logic every companion deserves the same fate.

which brings me to the contrast to how most of the other companions are framed in this interview: k*rlach, "the labrador of the party". l*e'zel, "she's so young". ast*rion, "much of what he does it out of fear". sh*dowheart, "the jason bourne" and "victim of religous trauma". w*ll, "the true baldur's gate hero".

the difference is staggering. there's empathy here. there's at least a surface level understanding and/or appreciation of the characters there.

...and then you have gale.

it's alienating and disappointing to see devs have so little respect and care for their own character, as well as for the parts of their fandom who have grown attached to the character exactly for the strengths and flaws he has, for the struggles he faces and for the healing journey he can have if he is helped and lives.

[ssaalexblake]

on behalf of all the people who didn't realise they weren't straight until their early 20's (even despite how obvious it may be in hindsight) i wish a very happy Fuck You to all the self absorbed assholes saying Yaz's arc is bad or lacks agency or sucks as gay rep Because she didn't know this till she was 20ish and didn't admit it to herself until EOTD, like honestly, at this point go take a long walk off a short pier.

The people who didn't ~see~ thasmin before it was verbally recognised are merely irritating and exhibiting heterosexual blindness, You lot are out there insulting the experiences of many very Real people because it's not good enough for you.

Literally. What you're peddling is SO awful and said with the assumed moral high ground, and all i have to offer you is one huge 'ew' at that terrible behaviour.

Look, this is not actually about Yaz, but lol, Yaz was a bullied teenager on the verge of or actively suicidal, she is not shown to have One friend and her family are actively shocked she's taken friends home in arachnids because Yaz doesn't Have friends. That Yaz did not immediately clock she was into Thirteen and thought they were just good mates actually makes perfect sense bc she doesn't know what #besties feels like to differentiate the two things. Is that depressing? yeah, but the point is yaz built herself up into the person she is in tpotd in a coming of age type story, she Does have support and friends at the end, she Does know her sexuality better by the end, she Has achieved what she wanted in being able to help people. She grew and learnt! Good for her.

It's also like, personally think that it's a more valid interpretation of the show to say that Yaz was troubled and didn't want to admit this to herself before eotd because of 13's avoidance and behaviour, rather than anything else going on. Yaz is never shown to be repressing this because of the gayness, she's worried because 13 is squirrely and they fight so much and 13 Still doesn't open up to her.

Mostly, in the end, idgaf what you think of Yaz's arc but if it's related to one type of person's discovery of their sexuality being Better than another then honestly, you need to not subject other people to your 'takes', because all you're being is cruel and you don't even have the self awareness to realise.

Watch your damn words. I don't care if somebody realised they're not straight/not cis/not whatever when they're 99 years old. To use an internet cliche, that is Perfectly Valid and a story worth telling in any kind of media out there. If you want to watch the story of a queer character in dw very secure abt their sexuality and Not on a voyage of self discovery/coming of age narrative that happens to include that Discovery, go and watch Bill's episodes and stop saying shitty things about real people not being good enough for you.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

It's weird that John doesn't have any friends apart from Sherlock. The only other friend he has is Lestrade, who's a mutual, and who's also known Sherlock longer than he's known John.

John is usually considered more approachable, I think. I mean, he's polite enough to get dates to go out on regularly.

But he's quite closed off and quite rude to Mike Stamford in ASIP. Mike seems to be so polite, and yet he doesn't correct John when he says, "Who would want to be my flatmate?", not even out of an attempt to be nice in that moment.

Odd, isn't it?

Hey Lovely!!

We have to remember that John's "approachability" only happened AFTER he met and lived with Sherlock. Perhaps he was in a past life before the army as well, but war changes people, especially when one is traumatized with a sudden life-shift as John was.

God knows that the government treats war vets like shit, so already John is doomed to struggle without help. He hated seeing his (probably army-provided, mandatory) therapist, struggled with just existing and, from context clues in ASiP, we know he probably never ate either. Before ASIP, I assume he just recently re-entered civilian life after a LONG healing period (if he almost died – and probably did - we can make the assumption that he was probably hospitalized for a long time too, probably a few months) and fresh off of a forced honourable discharge. He tried his best to just carry on as Brits do, but it's not HELPING. He's struggling emotionally and physically, poor, depressed, and just trying to survive after the government basically threw him to the side.

John felt aimless, unloved, and lonely, and absolutely suicidal by the time we meet him. He was rude because he didn't WANT to try anymore, but he still gave Mike the opportunity to catch up, which shows us that deep down John DID want to TRY.

And Mike didn't correct John simply because he is a doctor. And we can presume an ARMY doctor if he's at Barts, so he KNOWS John isn't going to do well after war. John is NOT Mike's first time seeing a traumatized war vet. That's why Mike is gentle and knows John is struggling. And Mike knew JUST the perfect chaotic person to keep John's mind off of the tedium of his life-after-war.

Mike is a genius in my book.

Sherlock saved John just as much as John saved Sherlock.

Two loner misfits with strained relationships with their living relatives and thought weird by society? Totally meant to be!

[mutantbanner]

Here's the new comic I was talking about.

Next chapter ->

Here it is on AO3!

I have the whole thing planned out, so CWs under the cut for those of you who are interested.

CW: Psychological horror, hallucinations, drug use (kind of), severe suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, character death/ambiguous ending

[autistic-sidestep]

yeah

(inspired by @m3k-fhr's hysterical tags)

[r0b0t1me]

how did he lose that arm anyway

[all-of-her-light]

Aqua, Guilt, and Gorou

Let's set the stage. It's Chapter 50, in the middle of rehearsal for Tokyo Blade, and Aqua is trying to learn emotional acting from Kana. She tells him that in order to portray a moment of joy from his character, he should remember times when he himself was happy.

And so Aqua begins collecting his happy memories. (Perhaps meaningfully, all of the ones we see him recalling are from the past few in-universe months.) It's enough to put a smile on his face, and even make him blush a little as he looks back at Kana. But then –

An apparition of Gorou in Aqua's mind berates him for enjoying himself when he couldn't save Ai, and Aqua begins to have a panic attack. As the next chapter opens, Aqua leaves the rehearsal session to go rest, but Ai's death and the Gorou apparition haunt his dreams:

This is the first time we directly see Aqua struggling with guilt over Ai's death. Of course, Chapters 11 and 12 show that he's strongly motivated to prevent Ai's tragedy from repeating with Ruby, and in Chapter 26 we get a hint that he feels some kind of responsibility for Ai's death:

Guilt and self-blame are conspicuously absent from Aqua's extensive monologuing about Ai's death in Chapter 10, though. I think the in-universe explanation for that would have to be something like "the idea that Ai's death was in any sense his fault is too painful for him to even consider so soon after it happened" – and maybe that was Akasaka's intent, or maybe Aqua feeling guilty just wasn't part of his plans yet. Either way, though, as of Chapter 50, Aqua's guilt is very much present and here to stay.

Notably, Chapters 50 and 51 are also the first time that the manga plays with the idea of a Hoshino twin's past life as a separate entity from their current self. (For instance, Aqua has always referred to Gorou in first person in his inner monologue, and likewise with Ruby and Sarina.) I think it's clear that Aqua is not literally being haunted by Gorou's ghost here – for one thing, Crow Girl strongly implies in Chapter 75 that Aqua's soul is Gorou's soul – but the split does make sense symbolically and psychologically for Aqua. After all, Gorou was an adult who took on the responsibility of caring for Ai and helping her achieve the family life that she wanted...

...and when that life was ripped away from her before his eyes, it's understandable that he'd feel like he ultimately failed her. But Aqua Hoshino, who was only three years old when Ai died, is someone who obviously has no business feeling guilt like that, and indeed no one holds him at all responsible for Ai's death. So Aqua's guilt manifests in his mind as Gorou, his past life standing in the way of him properly living his current one.

After Chapter 51, we next see the Gorou apparition in Chapter 55, just before Tokyo Blade's opening performance. Aqua prepares for the show by staring at a picture of Ai on his phone and recalling her death, reaching the verge of a panic attack – and summoning the apparition.

Here, Aqua reciprocates the apparition's practice of referring to him and it as separate entities. (Which makes this the first and only time as of Chapter 136 that Aqua internally refers to Gorou as a separate entity, if it counts.) Even so, though, the guilt that the apparition embodies is intermingled with the emotions that Aqua consciously experiences:

And why is Aqua practicing calling his own trauma to mind like this? So he can use it for emotional acting, of course. (Pretty messed up.) We see the fruits of this in Chapters 64 and 65, when Aqua's character has to react to the apparent death of the one for whose sake he fought, and Aqua himself is in about as much turmoil. But this encounter with the Gorou apparition – the final one of the arc – goes a bit differently from the others.

This time, Aqua refuses to separate the apparition from himself, instead recognizing it as a manifestation of his very own past trauma. Correspondingly, the apparition's form as Gorou – an identity that Aqua has left behind – dissipates to reveal Aqua as he was in the immediate aftermath of Ai's death. Aqua still maintains some conscious distance from those feelings, represented by his current self existing separately in the scene and handling the narration – which makes sense, since he's trying to control the feelings for acting purposes. But they're nonetheless his feelings, and he takes advantage of that to fuel his acting.

Also notable are the apparition's own words here, which frame Aqua's revenge as an obligation that he has no right to be happy before fulfilling – presumably because of his failure to save Ai. Aqua's revenge quest, it seems, is motivated in large part by his guilt; making himself miserable living only for revenge is an attempt at penance, and all of the blood and suffering that he intends to extract from Ai's murderer is an attempt to repay Ai for everything he let her lose.

And then Chapter 68 happens. One of Aqua's DNA tests has revealed that he and Taiki Himekawa share the same father. Taiki's father is Seijuurou Uehara, who is dead. Which means Aqua's father is dead, and avenging Ai is no longer possible. Right?

That's certainly what Aqua chooses to believe. Because if avenging Ai is no longer possible, then it's no longer obligatory, and Aqua doesn't have to make himself miserable anymore. He's finally free to do the things that make him happy without being crippled by guilt about how he should be obsessing over revenge instead.

Also, since Aqua is no longer bound to penance for Gorou's failure to protect Ai, thoughts of Gorou's life don't demand nearly as much space in his mind now. There's really only one loose end from his past life left to tie up:

Of course, the corpse that Aqua wants to find is Gorou's. He stops looking for it once Akane points out that the "pet's corpse" is probably either buried or scattered – but when she stumbles on it later anyway, he's very grateful to her:

By the way, it seems like Aqua means it when he says he always wanted Gorou's corpse to be found. This monologue of his echoes one in Chapter 7 of all places:

And as it happens, on the very next page, we see Aqua ask Ruby about her past life – a conversation which swiftly ends as follows:

In general, it seems like Gorou wasn't a very happy or fulfilled person, so it's not surprising that even aside from carried-over guilt, Aqua is motivated to forget about his past life in favor of his new one as a young person full of potential. I'm inclined to see his desire for Gorou's corpse to be found as at least partially a desire to symbolically say goodbye to Gorou; to see Gorou confirmed to the world as dead and laid properly to rest.

Speaking of carried-over guilt, Chapter 75 reveals that Gorou was at least implicitly made to feel guilty by his maternal grandparents over his mother's death from giving birth to him. And then in Chapter 78, when Aqua is talking to Akane, he blames himself for her having seen Gorou's corpse even though she ended up finding it by chance. He even claims that he tried to manipulate her into finding it for him when Chapter 75 pretty clearly shows him giving up on it being found. Akane comments a couple times in Chapter 78 that this behavior is typical for him:

So it seems like the Takachiho arc is intentionally establishing "feels guilty and responsible for things that aren't really his fault" as a general character trait of Gorou/Aqua, stemming originally from how Gorou's grandparents made him feel about his mother's death. (Chapter 122 takes this trait significantly further by portraying Gorou/Aqua as so guilty about being unable to save Sarina that, despite suspecting Ruby was Sarina, he spent his whole life as Aqua in denial of it. Please forgive me if I smell a retcon.)

Let's continue with the story now. Aqua spends about a year in-universe believing that Ai's killer is dead – but then in Chapter 95, Ichigo points out to him that Seijuurou Uehara died before Ai moved to the apartment where she was killed, and the DNA test doesn't eliminate the possibility that Uehara isn't Taiki's biological father. Aqua begins spiraling, and we see the Gorou apparition confront him for the first time since Chapter 65. Alongside it is a separate apparition taking the form of young Aqua; it seems to embody sadistic hatred for Ai's killer while Gorou embodies Aqua's guilt.

I think the logic behind the two distinct apparitions is this: the reason why these feelings manifest as apparitions separate from Aqua in the first place is that they're egodystonic feelings that he doesn't want to feel, and as of late he's been trying to avoid feeling both his guilt over Ai's death (Gorou) and his hatred for her killer (young Aqua) for the sake of leading a normal happy life.

Aqua now consciously believes that he cannot pursue revenge and be happy at the same time, but he struggles with which one to choose. He comes to Akane for advice in Chapter 97, probably hoping that she'll tell him to forget about revenge – but instead, she tries to deal with the culprit herself behind his back. He catches her, though, and reveals that he's made his decision:

And when he says he's going to hell, he may not be exaggerating. His renewed pursuit of revenge is much more directly self-destructive than before; he deliberately pushes away Akane and later Ruby as well, consciously intending to die or at least ruin his life in the course of revenge, and not wanting his loved ones to suffer when it happens.

(For what it's worth, this is not the first time we see Aqua consider dying. There's also an instance in Chapter 10, though that one is framed more as Aqua just feeling completely lost in life without Ai.)

Aqua's renewed revenge is also somewhat more consciously sadistic than before, I think; despite knowing the culprit's identity, he puts off killing him for the sole purpose of executing a plan to make him suffer as much as possible (see Chapters 99 and 108). Granted, that plan was one he came up with when he was little (Chapter 108), and wanting the culprit to suffer was always part of his conscious motivation (Chapter 13), but just as often he'd state his goal as simply killing him (e.g. Chapters 10 and 52). Black-starred Aqua, however, displays a level of intent to make the culprit suffer while alive that was previously only the territory of the apparitions from his mind's dark corners.

Speaking of the apparitions, all of black-starred Aqua's talk about going to hell and making Ai's killer suffer and "I've thrown away the naive thought about being happy" (Chapter 108) seems like it should be right up their alley, but after Chapter 95 (and as of Chapter 136), they're nowhere to be seen. I think this is because Aqua's guilt and hatred essentially won the battle for his ego that occurred in Chapters 95-98; they now manifest directly in his thoughts and behavior instead of as apparitions. Black-starred Aqua consciously believes that both he and the culprit deserve nothing but suffering for their roles in Ai's death. It's Aqua's desire to move forward that's marginalized in his mind now.

Perhaps relevantly, in the panel after Ruby bids Aqua farewell in Chapter 106, Aqua himself appears as a black silhouette – just like the Gorou apparition in several places in the Tokyo Blade arc. And then in Chapter 122, when Aqua has discovered Ruby's past identity and is trying to convince her to stop worrying about revenge, this exchange happens:

It's possible that Aqua here is mentally "being Gorou" or speaking as him only as a reaction to this specific situation – but given everything else we've talked about here, I can't help but suspect that this reflects a stable feature of black-starred Aqua's self-concept. Black-starred Aqua thinks of himself as Gorou, the man who failed Ai. "Aqua Hoshino" is just a mask that he's been wearing – once to hide from his responsibility, and now to fulfill it through his revenge plan. He doesn't deserve to sincerely call himself by the name that tempts him with a chance at a happy life.

@aihoshiino points out that Aqua has been acting somewhat awkward around Ruby since the mutual past-life reveal (e.g. in their talk in Chapter 132), and theorizes that part of the reason for this is that Ruby is now seeing Aqua as Gorou, but Aqua doesn't want to be Gorou. Given what I've been theorizing here, though, I think Aqua's discomfort is more precisely because Ruby is seeing him as Gorou and loving him for it. From Ruby's perspective, Gorou is wonderful and it's wonderful that she's been reunited with him. But from Aqua's perspective, Gorou let Ai die. Gorou is a failure. Gorou doesn't deserve Ruby's love. (He doesn't want her love in a romantic sense anyway, I think, but he feels he doesn't deserve any kind of love from her.) And he feels especially bad because he's letting her love him regardless for the sake of the movie revenge plan, which eventually involves his destruction. He's using her for a purpose that she'd never agree to and that will leave her heartbroken if it succeeds – even if he believes that what she loves is a lie.

[aihoshiino]

any thoughts on aqua’s decision to reveal themselves as ai’s kids, specifically aqua’s ‘ai is dead and this should be used for the benefit of the living’ vs ruby’s ‘you’re betraying her / you don’t care about her anymore’

I always thought this was a super interesting angle for the twins to conflict on and tbh, I kind of wish it hadn't gotten thrown to the side once the past life reveal happened…a big issue I have with how that was handled is how it basically got used to hit a reset button on both Ruby's ongoing arc and the conflict she & Aqua were having and put them back to the status quo. In general, I feel like Aqua and Ruby outing themselves as Ai's kids ended up being a really nothing reveal given there has been absolutely zero focus on the repercussions outside of the immediate aftermath BUT THAT'S A RANT FOR ANOTHER ASK…

Anyway, the reason I liked it so much as conflict because it wasn't simply a black and white issue. Ruby is absolutely not wrong to be aghast and appalled at Aqua blasting this information out into the world - not only is he tarnishing Ai's reputation in doing so but he's making Ruby complicit as well, without her informed consent. Ruby doesn't bring this up during their argument but this has also tossed Ruby right into the fray and forced her to deal with the media shitstorm that will inevitably get stirred up by this news breaking.

Not only that but Aqua goes out of his way to be about as callous about this as possible. He refuses to explain his reasoning or meet Ruby in the middle, emotionally speaking, and pretty clearly allows her to project the worst possible bad faith intentions on him. Even so… it's hard to not also see his POV. They were fully stuck between a rock and a hard place and it came down to saving Kana (who Aqua is historically NOT!!! particularly reasonable about when it comes to her wellbeing) or preserving Ai's image and… well, only one of those people is still around to be hurt.

It's horrible, don't get me wrong! It's another example of Ai being sacrificed, bought and sold and traded to have the value wrung out of her, even in death. Once again, she is the 'invincible' idol, not just because of her public image but because she is literally dead and beyond help or harm. Aqua was forced to make a hard call and chose to make one that, in his eyes, did the most amount of good and the least amount of harm. It was definitely still a shit call but sometimes you don't have the luxury of making good choices: just deciding which one is the least Actively Bad.

A really important factor of this conversation that I think gets left at the wayside sometimes is also that Aqua is very purposely trying to break Ruby away from him here. The argument even ends on the most explicitly stated expression of Aqua's suicidal ideation since volume one — that he wants to make sure Ruby can keep living even when he's gone. Aqua's plan necessitates him ending his life, directly or indirectly, and that means pushing away the people who love him and who he loves in turn. This is why Tsukuyomi calls out his revealing himself as Gorou to Ruby as a 'bad move' — it temporarily got her back on her feet, sure, but it also means that once Aqua is gone, she'll crash even harder.

So the tl;dr I guess is that I like it in theory and I wish it would've been expanded on more. It didn't pay off quite as interestingly as I would've hoped but that's an issue I have with OnK as a whole at this point.

[lifeinpoetry]

Beneath new prescriptions. Inside small talk at a bar. Behind hiding all the knives. Between incessant travel. In drafts of suicide notes. I just can’t sit still.

I’ve been thinking of dying. Right here and now.

— Diamond Sharp, from "Land of the Dead," Super Sad Black Girl