How Tf did aka fuck up this story
i think u misunderstood the ending.
ruby still has black star eyes, indicative of her trauma - she's still lying to herself saying that she has healed etc. she won't really move on from either trauma she experienced
the rest of the characters make sense:
kana: had to be kept pure/in the light so she reacted the most viscerally to aqua's death bc she was meant to bring him out of his dark persona. though she only accepted the lies presented to her by aqua
akane: willing to do anything for aqua, accepted the liar behind the lies. while morally ambiguous she will recover the best out of the 3 main girls
also you have to understand that the harem/incest subplot was always bait, the fact that aqua died this way and ended up with none is to be ironic
I don't think I misunderstood the ending, I think I simply didn't say enough in my original comment to convince you otherwise. I guess I was mainly referring to the last chapter because I was really looking forward to it and it didn't deliver the way I wanted it to.
Also, incest is quite blasphemous and I really did not like that part of the story, and being a romantic reader I actually prefer it when the protagonist ends up with someone instead of uhhh... expiring right at the end.
I really can’t tell if this is a good ending or a bad ending. It’s realistic to some extent, but good or bad is up for interpretation.
It’s realistic because revenge always begets tragedy and there is (usually) never a good outcome.
+++Aqua dying left a lot of loose ends, and while his death was tragic, it impacted everyone.
However, my main gripe is that Ruby essentially became Ai 2.0, even though it was stated that she wanted to become her own “idol,” though she has surpassed Ai to some extent. The whole “lies will become someone’s truth” is a good concept but it wouldn’t really be Ruby’s “style.”
My ideal ending would’ve been to coincide Aqua’s revenge to the Dome performance so there’s a lot more emotional depth from every character, and it would culminate to that final arc.
Oh well, still a fun read.