25+ | he/him
just here to vibe
512
I don't have anything to ask, but it really sucks to feel as though you're unable to participate in this fandom just because so many people are waiting for an opportunity to harass others and accuse them of shit. I wish I could talk to more people about this series but it's very discouraging.
I was turned off by the fandom's transmisogyny towards Mzk long ago and despite still being into thw series, it created this block in my head that rendered me unable to exist in the fandom so I just enjoy it by myself. I really empathize with fans of rnn/polysho. I'm sorry you have to deal with this.
I have an inkling which moot this is, but regardless who, thank you :''D
To be clear, I'm locked rn due to situation in my country, but it does overlap in I don't believe people in this fandom to try to doxx me to try to turn me in to police purely for being bisexual and annoying to them, so they CAN do that to me as I'm "promoting homosexuality" as far as our government would care, regardless of whatever fringe corners of this fandom thinks real life homophobia is like, I actually AM in danger by the laws they are trying to pass right now here.
Fandom's transmisogyny towards Mizuki + only genuine queerbaiting I'd say to this day with staff refusing to this day name her as a trans girl, and making it clear that they never will as early as her third event was also why I quit the game years back initially, as a funfact.
I was a mizurui main who was also getting into emurui (which lead into polysho inevitably), who saw that they were retconning relationships that did matter to me + they clearly wouldn't say it out loud anytime soon if they didn't with what Ribbon was about, I was mad enough to quit the game, and only really ended up falling into clown rabbit hole while trying to playing it as a rhythm game after (since I had initially downloaded this game as a vocaloid fan who liked corridor style charts, and my fav game of that type was gone, so I bit the bullet, not expecting to get into any of the characters)
But also on participating in the fandom, frankly this really has been the case even before laws here had made me go priv, I've seen countless ruinene main/polyshoer friends having to go private or simply abandon interacting with the fandom after long running harassment campaigns too, and ultimately I had gotten my first priv years ago when I noticed people stalking my replies specifically whenever I mentioned Tsukasa (not by name, by the way. not in any way you would be able to stumble on those replies without outright stalking.) with this having been even happened through an out of context post of mine that got the attention of someone who was known for sending people to harass others that afaik is no longer in the fandom (or I haven't seen anyone bring up their name in the recent year or so), and for a while I've been unlocked until recent situation here, so I appreciate it :''D
favorite rui au?
I don't think after spending so many years writing with a friend 83490434092 versions of "what if Rui had left for Arc Land and had to simmer before things go awry enough for him to get the push to talk it out with them (and realize how stupid the entire thing has been because their hearts were always same all this time)" even before WL2 was ever a thing, I can say anything else is my favourite atp.
Though that feels like a bit of a cheat answer, because that's multiple verses (including some pretty major differences like whether if there is another sekai/some fragment/even how long it ends up being and how before things hit a breaking point).
If you had meant card based ones though, I suppose mainly two different verses shaped after shibufes Rui card comes to mind, one that was born from overthinking some details from Princess Tutu with a friend, and other was very loosely me thinking of how fun and awful putting Rui in anything Gravity Falls' Transcendence AU adjacent situation would be, mainly to tap into his fears of being a monster like people made him feel like, far before Rui 5 ever was on the horizon.
(Funfact, that latter verse even had a moment between Rui and Luka at night, where she comforts him with letting him rest his head on her lap and sings him a lullaby, after he ends up talking about how he's unsure what to do next about his current situation, as he having trouble sleeping for "can't really sleep as not alive not dead but secret third thing existence" reasons, with them staying the night in the sekai bc it was the only place Emunenekasa could interact with him easily without needing to be asleep themselves at the time.
^ As you can imagine, I had a real ball with that verse in terms of playing around with things like how a '(partial) dream demon' would interact with a world made out of magitech-based-on-music-made-of-strong-feelings, one specifically made of positive ones on top of that, just how his presence if tapping into TAU at all would effect WxS Sekai, and ditto in the future even when Emunenekasa eventually pass away, wouldn't he be able to keep some part of it alive, though not unchanged, if their sekai became a part of his mindscape, etc.)
hello! I really love your threads! They are so satisfactory and id actually very deep and I have a question: Do you think the thing/conflict between Rui and Nene during middleschool is fully solved? Like not as in they still are melancholic about it but like is it fully fleshed out yet or it really needs its own addressing?
Heyya, I'm glad you enjoy them :''D
Honestly, I'd say a lot of the things I talk about (besides maybe me overthinking card/outfit details) are things that are not difficult to pick up on when you refresh on events/just generally think in terms of "okay, what is this trying to convey? How does it connect to things I already know? Does it say anything new, and if so what?" than trying to analyze any single event/scene as something disconnected from the whole of the work, though this is a bit of general literary analysis tip ultimately.
And as for the MS Ruinene question, this overlaps a bit with my reply to Dizzy's ask just before this one, and I don't believe it is fully resolved, at least not in terms of it being something they finally get to talk about/showing the audience what happened, even if I don't expect it to be a major fight, just ultimately that both Rui 5 and Nene 6 felt like more of a groundwork for both to tackle more individual parts of their own respective MS trauma before addressing the elephants in the room with them, especially when they go above and beyond to keep reminding the audience the MS Rui elephant in the room with CC, anytime they depict that event anywhere.
So ideally, I'd like to see some conversation between them/someway they give us more than ambiguity of things like the kami play on how much of that to chalk up to how Nene feels about the situation back then as her own guilt complex vs how literal to take it.
(ie. does she feel like she might as well said Rui is too much of an annoyance that she wishes gone from her life that she regrets it, more indirectly by being unable to invite Rui during the Potatoes flashback, or was there something else that was 'it' for why she does have such would-have-been-survivor's-guilt over the entire thing, to the point of for three years his MS expression haunted her in canon?
Especially when they went out of their way to draw a parallel between Honami and Nene in Read Aloud, and making this point specifically with ones most present in the event having been Ichihona and Ruinene, with Honami also textually having been haunted by her guilt towards MS Ichika?)
And ditto just how exactly Rui's time in HS 1 might have been, if the omission isn't just due to irrelevance but also because there has to have been a change in mindset for him between the flashbacks we see of him in MS, what Nene mentions in Dazzling about him having tried to comfort her after kami play went awry, and him transfering to Kamikou with making it clear he was looking for chances to drag her to stage by the time Tsukasa makes his offer to him in the main story.
My hope is that they get back to tackling all the elephants in the room with two of them eventually, though I have little direct guesses on how and when at the current point we are at, given they took years to even pull the trigger on things they did in Rui 5 and Nene 6 with their personal MS traumas, all I really know is that ultimately the door is open now with things they did tackle by this point vs before fifth rotation, as I don't think they could have dunked those two immediately into any form of MS years confrontation without first airing their personal skeletons from those years (and even then, arguably Rui 5 was start of Rui being able to acknowledge MS at all, after bloomfes nudging him).
Thank you for the ask <33
Hi hi Ira!!! it's dizzy lol You finally got an alterspring and honestly it's a little hard to read through most of your threads sometimes (I do try I promise) but reading your longer answers here feels sooo refreshing. Like finally free from that stupid twt word limit. I wanted to ask about your thoughts on middle school ruinene, or even just Rui's first year in middle school, and whether you think it'll ever actually get addressed properly. I know you’ve talked about it a bit before, and I've tried forming my own opinions based on previous wxs events, kinda connecting the dots and seeing where the story could go… but at this point I feel like every time I think I've got a direction, the events just completely surprise me!!! there's like no clean linear progression anymore. After Nene6, I had a bit of hope that it might tie into the Arcland offer somehow, but then your last ask mentioned that it might've been retconned??? (Rui5) and now I genuinely don't even know what direction they're taking with it anymore. I was SO convinced Asahi would be addressed in Rui6 too… and then just. nothing 😭 Lately though, I've been thinking about something else, WxS themselves have talked about wanting to perform a production of their own, right? Rui6 Chapter 1 if I am correct.
Tsukasa and all his experience with leading roles
Nene with her growth + Morinomiya Revue
Emu not just performing but also developing her business/management side with the park
and even Rui recently stepping more into acting himself (well at least in rui6) It kinda feels like they're slowly being set up to combine all of that into something bigger, like a fully self-produced show where they’re not just performers, but creators too. And if they do go down that route… I wonder if that could be a natural way to reintroduce unresolved stuff like Asahi? Like maybe through connections at PXL or the industry side of things, instead of forcing it directly into a character-focused event like Rui6. It feels like the kind of plotline that would need a bigger stage (literally) to actually land properly. At the same time though… I'm trying not to theory too hard anymore because I've genuinely learned my lesson. Twice. 💀 Every time I think "oh yeah this is definitely where it's going" they just flip everything. So now I'm kinda just sitting here like… I see the potential threads, but I don't trust them anymore LMAO. What do you think? Do you feel like they're building toward something like a full WxS production, or am I just connecting things that won't actually matter again ehuehehee 😭
Hello, and honestly I have no idea what they will do, as even for this event it was mainly teaser + logo invoking things that are loaded for Rui symbolism wise that I took any shots at trying to guess anything concrete about it, as otherwise I generally tend to try to focus on larger storybeats, rather than trying to guess exactly how and when they will tackle something, since that really does end up being a bit of a fool's errand before long.
So, as far as it goes, my honest answer is I have no idea what they will do with Asahi, in terms of when they will get back to it, given they did spend near five years to get back to things like Nene's MS trauma over the failed performance, and even current event had multiple things it connects back to solely on how many times WxS being involved in movie making has came up already.
(Going minimum as far back as PiMH, where gang hears Rakunosuke helped with a movie to Mr. Riley, as Emu also is being set to be involved with a movie more directly some day, like how Rui and Nene have been so far in their respective events)
So my very lame answer is ultimately "they will get back to it when they do", and the "retcon" in question was people apparently saying Rui thinking to himself he turned Asahi's offer down as a retcon, since my response was me trying to explain why I don't view that to be the case, especially right now.
(Rui already had his answer since OHE set to be "no" even if Asahi does ask him after all, and post his bloomfes and WL2, he has no reason to consider it an uresolved issue on his end, while it's still hilariously like "did you even TELL him about this", while for Asahi I did explain my logic in said response that I don't think they could have really engaged Asahi's character meaningfully without there being some questioning and change in his mindset, while what he promised did make sense with where his head was in CC, so it really depends to how they handle this for if I'd really call it a retcon than simply characters not being static/their world widening for them in a way it becomes kind of moot)
But yeah, WxS currently are at their "we are trying to make a name for ourselves as an independent troupe, now that we have been learning and making connections around the field, especially since we just had an entire mini arc on what quality of acting and directing is expected at big shot places we want to be commissioned from as we continue together as a troupe" arc seemingly, and something to do with Phennyland is ultimately a matter of when than if, especially when Emu expressed interest in holding a workshop there sometime more than once now. I just don't know if I'd say Phennyland as immediate pit stop with current direction, at least not without anything more pointing towards that.
My thoughts on MS Ruinene honestly mainly is that I'm side eyeing the kami play and monster play for how relevant Nene feeling like she said something horrible to someone dear to her/shooting a Rui stand-in is, as I don't get the vibe they had a fight still, but there is something loaded there that I'm not going to throw mud to the wall over whether if it is just her own sense of guilt is speaking given the way MS Rui is positioned so insistently as a specter that haunts her, but besides that I'm more curious about if Rui's completely omitted first year of high school ever will be relevant.
Which, admittedly, isn't necessarily only about his relationship to Nene, even if presumably him starting to look for chances to bring Nene back to stage must have happened somewhere between what Nene references in Dazzling as him apparently having tried to comfort her after hearing about what happened at some point in MS last year for him and him switching to Kamiyama around the start of his second year as a high schooler main story, for best I can try to pinpoint that.
I do think, ultimately, after all that setup since basically game existed, it would be odd to me if they really just say they wrapped MS up through symbolically Nene getting to 'right the wrong' of being able to play a role where she called help for/stood up for someone dear to her that she would otherwise lose, and Rui by being there when she was presumably going to have potentially a repeat incident due to her trauma and fear over what happened in MS play when it was all riding on her and how that ended up for everyone else, as it really did feel to me more like beginning of things starting to be addressed than entire thing wrapped up, but I don't have actual future vision to be able to say what writers will do besides that.
TL;DR I think Ruinene (especially them at least talking at some point/acknowledging MS between them in some form, with potential CC connection if/when it happens) is still a loaded gun they will get back to, short of something unexpected happening, and for Asahi I generally just have what I was floating in previous reply that I'm expecting he played a hand in their happy end and so it will be viceversa with helping him reconnect with people dear to him/'find his own path', ditto I think a Phennyland pit stop eventually is inevitable, if only just for "Emu intends to come back to there before heading for the world, mentioned multiple times explicitly as her current overarching plans", I just don't know when and how each of those points will be tackled, so we'll see I guess.
hello! i always enjoy reading your rui and wxs analysis, you're always so thoughtful and insightful. i have one question: what do you think of rui saying he rejected asahi's offer in deeper and deeper? i've always felt like it was in character to rationalize it this way but seeing so many people say it's just a retcon and using it as evidence to doompost about how the asahi stuff is going to be handled is making me doubt myself so i'm curious about your take.
Thank you, I'm glad to hear you enjoy my rambles ;w;
Honestly, I don't think after OHE (and especially after WL1 & WL2 tripled and quadrupled down on this) I saw Rui's mindset on the matter being anything but "I now have an answer to give (no) if he actually does ask me again" either.
And ditto I'm with you that it's actually hilariously in character for Rui to find his own answer inside his own mind on a subject, and just failing to update other parties involved while he REALLY should, and the hilarity and frustration that causes too, rather than meant to be a retcon. (especially in the sense of this is something lacking forethought)
I'm curious if we will even get back to him for sure next events (especially knowing they love to play the long game with planting ideas years before they get back to them with WxS), as the angle right now seems to be now that the training portion of this arc over, and they had an entire mini arc on what standards they have to be up to as actors and director to be commissioned on places like Arc Land, WxS trying to establish a name for themselves as an independent freelance troupe (Emu even lampshades this in the current event), which can easily continue into next events without Asahi being mentioned still.
And even if/when he does get addressed, I think Protagonista especially conveyed he's starting to understand what drew him to WxS and why it wasn't as simple as sweeping Rui (or for that matter Tsukasa or Nene, per his reactions to them in Nenekasa's 6th banners) off his feet to replace the bonds that allows them to shine like this, which seems to be why WL2 even existed: to get across that Asahi can't remain a static character either, if he's going to continue foiling four of them in getting across to the audience why their personal bonds with each other nourishes their craft.
(Which is something WxS events and event songs, including things like their unit concept songs repeatedly keep underlining being the case, with Tetrad especially having declared they will spread that happiness they give to each other to others too/encourage them to bond like they did with shows, which is also part of what Asahi talks about recognizing in Protagonista stinger on how if anything he's behind them)
So, I don't think by now the offer is very likely to come up, at least not in the ways we thought back then in CC, simply because worlds of everyone has been widening compared to back then.
Rui had only really time younger with Nene and whoever stuck around a bit until WxS, and even with them only shows related to Phoenix Wonderland, and entire framing of what their options has been shaped by what has been the reality for Nene's own idol that of course his experiences and view of how things could work was limited at the time vs things he knows now/will know in the future, including every event since CC up to when WL2 happened, and things like his bloomfes by the time he said he "turned down that offer" in Rui 5.
Of course, after knowing how much happier they are now when he didn't take that offer vs the hypothetical personal torment nexus his brain cooked up, he's going to be feeling firmer on what his response would be and not treat it as even a question, even compared to earlier post OHE days.
While Asahi (at least going by roles he gets and what that says about him + what Protagonista shows us) seems to be well connected and knows about people like Sakurako, Reki, and Kijima, people like him and he's regarded highly, but ultimately he was always positioned as someone who (especially if WL2 dream was accurate at all on how easily he might have left TCT + how Protagonista had him leave TCT after realizing he feels his bonds with his cast is, for lack of better words, too shallow in his eyes compared to what he was looking for) similarly never felt quite rooted/at home, even when he's supposed to be founding member of TCT, and how there has been that imbalance in his dynamics that he is truly starting to realize right now.
And all of this comes back to (as ensekai kind of completely butchered this overlap) how, similar to Rui in a sense, Asahi sees shows he makes as both a way to search for someone he will feel at home with himself, while also said shows "help people who, like him back when he saw Tom's show, might be able to survive but not live", to help others connect too, because shows as a lifeline has been a major part of how he seems to feel about all this, including even acknowledging in Rui 5 that he chose to be actor than a director specifically in hopes of maybe one day he'd get to act for Tom.
(And ditto how that then feeds into him latching onto the idea of him and Rui together being able to 'make Tom's words come true', as a director his age and someone who can, for lack of better words, 'keep up with him' per how his introduction was framed in CC).
So, ultimately either it was going to be Asahi, given he's a side character, would have remained more static and no change in mindset that we would get the bookend that CC him promised, or he would be eventually challenged on this, specifically when in his case, this is framed as something that doesn't allow him to really connect with people around himself/that just like he had said he has the feeling that 'Rui's answer lies somewhere else' (with WxS), his answer has to be lie at a different place too.
And given WxS's framing since start has been to help others to reconnect through shows (including Ruinene themselves, and WMS for Emu's own family), just as much as inspiring others to not give up on their dreams and ideals, and we do have things like him likely having been the one to invite Sakurako to TCT before too (with her being mentioned in Emu's bloomfes as looking for chances to widen her horizons as an actor, even if unlike Asahi, she had a place dear to her she stayed true to by continuing to work as diva of Phoenix Stage, in the Phoenix Wonderland so dear to her), and again first name basis with people like Reki seemingly...
I'm giving them benefit of the doubt and assuming they are building up to 'WxS helps Asahi to find his own direction, given how without Asahi's own awareness of Rui's feelings towards Emunenekasa and essentially giving him that nudge he needed to take action, OHE would not have happened, a return of that gesture at some point with the crisis Asahi is facing right now'.
Hence why I say I feel like the way they are currently going about it doesn't feel a retcon to me (yet), specifically because they are actually accounting for the way both Rui and Asahi would be primed to think back in CC, and how things are changing in a way that makes sense if that doesn't end up happening/if angle for it is different for what kind of convo they will have if Asahi shows up around when Ruikasa will graduate eventually, at least not in a way I'm going to be doomposting just yet.
I hope this rambly mess of a response makes sense for where my head is on what they seem to be doing with the tortoise right now :''D
can you explain the daikon visual gag please?
It's simply that 大根 (daikon) is literally just a type of white turnip, and there is slang usage of it as "大根役者" (daikon yakusha), which would be more literally "daikon actor", meaning someone is a bad/hammy/too stiff of an actor.
Emunenekasa look at Nagamine's acting, and think he kinda sucks, so they made a visual gag of showing daikons behind them as they hold their tongues to show what they are thinking/audience can get what they were going to say, as to my knowledge it's a common enough visual gag when you make fun of someone's acting in media (and Emu even starts to say that phrase before she's shushed, because Nagamine's fans are around, so let's not get jumped and cause a scene today)
no question. just wanna say that i love reading thru your multi thread analyses thank u :3
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