Do you like aoilight and what are the reasons? I think the ship is cool but I guess I never thought about the DEPTH of it

I do! Yeeeh, okay it's mostly thanks to ship osmosis from friend @blue-bird-lamentation whomst I hope is okay with being tagged here, I'm hoping maybe you'll like to read me rambling about them a bit :3 Cause I also didn't quite get it, I'm not big into shipping in on itself you see, I usually have to be very invested on the characters separately first to even have the slightest bit of a chance to potentially get into the ship lol, so I asked her what she liked about it and ended up vibing a lot with imagining them together!

To the point where I have my own headcanons now, so I tried my best to organize the base reasoning of it and my silly thoughts cohesively enough for it to hopefully make sense to you cause, yeah, there's a lot of depth to these thoughts •w•'''

Okay first of all here's the disclaimer that, I just think, if we ignore vlr and ztd, which I like to do often, then the situation of them catching feelings could just be kind of funny? In the sense that I like to think Junpei and the Fields stay friends so Clover has not one but two dumbasses who want to find their kidnappers because they wanna date them lmao Difference is Light wouldn't put his life on hold like Junpei does, obviously, and he wouldn't put up with disrespect either, but they're still keeping in contact as Junpei does his detective thing and Clover is still on her brother's case for even thinking of giving the pulls up notes arrogant, uncooperative young man, a chance lol

Okay I guess this segues into the thing about why Light would even entertain the thought in the first place, well, I've seen the point that he cares about Clover too much to be empathetic to what the Kurashikis do, since sure the parallels are there and he probably knows in some level he'd go the same lengths for Clover's sake but at the end of the day that isn't what happened, it's simply not how everything played out so he'd full on resent them, but My counterargument there is that I interpret Light to be exactly the type of person who would give weight to what ifs like that, I think he would be more than aware that he doesn't want to be judging them much when he'd hope for that very benefit of the doubt had the same situation befallen him, Clover on the other hand wouldn't feel that way at all, she would also understand why they did it and doesn't have any gripes with it morally per say but the experience is just too emotionally harmful on her end for her to let it go despite feeling a kinship with them for having been victims of the first game too, so there's the slightest bit of conflict there on the sense that she's clearly not going to feel safe if he just goes out with Aoi or something

But also, what I especially think would make him the Most inclined to forgive them and believe they're decent people outside of the bad things they were forced to do was because he was so close to them when the whole thing first happened to begin with, plus he was in the coffin from very early on up to only after the fake hostage situation even happened the second time around so he wouldn't have witnessed the uglier parts of their act or felt lied to for nine hours straight, most of the interactions he'd have had with either Kurashiki up to the point where the game is done would still be from when they were little and even then they would not be too many so I honestly think the impression of the experience on him overall would just be leaving him curious, he was one of the older kids too and had a better grasp of what was done to them so he also probably kept an actual grudge against those cradle guys so while people are like uh that was kind of fucked up but I get it Light's just internally going lmao get got

What I've noticed is always different depending on who you ask is how the Kurashikis end up settling down enough and being able to be contacted again for them to possibly get together? I mean, that's when there even is a logic to that point instead of just the vague notion of Aoi is chill now he can just go visit his boyfriend no prob, which is fine too lol, I just realized there's not much of a consensus here and many alternatives instead, I personally like to think of the Kurashikis just being kind of generally on the run and it's a long while before Junpei finds them and junepei gets a lot of time together before the Fields even ease into sharing a room with those two again Junpei talks them into it eventually and like I said it's not that Light doesn't want to he's just more preoccupied with respecting how Clover feels and she wouldn't let him go there alone at first even with Junpei and much less otherwise so it takes forever And another good one is the Fields just bumping into Aoi at complete random and him nervously being like oh shit and noping out of there while they're like NO NO YOU COME BACK AND GIVE US SOME ANSWERS

So okay, getting into the actual reasons peeps thing their dynamic is cute now, there is the bookmark thing, love bringing that one up, like regardless of how truthful Santa's being when ranting about disliking the leaf words Aoi still kept it, through all those years he still had it close and even if he only does it because Akane let's him know they'll need it he'd have the reminder there. I think he put a lot of thought into their circumstances and probably ended up interpreting the words in his own way, but one of the thoughts I imagine crossed his mind at some point must have been how genuine those words were and how kind of a thing for that kid to do it was and how he can literally not imagine being that way himself, like, he's impressed at and thankful for how well Light handled the situation even years after drawing the short end of the stick as far as any luck that he promised them was concerned. I like to think Light was at least there for him on the immediate aftermath of Akane's death too, because he'd be a mess and all the other kids would be too confused or too young to try and comfort him even a little and I love Seven but even if he wasn't busy I don't think he would have done a great job at that even taking out of the equation that'd he'd just be more receptive to someone his own age trying to get through to him in such a state because like, personally I can't imagine tiny Light Not trying his best after witnessing all that, he probably doesn't think about it as often as Aoi does but if he remembers Akane dying he probably remembers trying stay by Aoi's side as much as possible as soon as they all got to shore, he probably wondered for a good while how that kid that lost his sister was doing (he's doing bad) which, it's interesting to think he probably had to work through not having closure for that and not letting it drag down moving his own life forward but Aoi had probably the opposite, something like being aware that the guy is probably doing fine and feeling guilty over having to drag him back into all this, and like, the reason they barely interact in the game proper is very much part of the plan so I like to think part of Aoi actively wants to avoid him out of all that guilt while the other wants to avoid him because it's burdening him with unnecessary feelings LMAO pretty sure in the last scene with everyone in the incinerator Aoi straight up ignores the Fields (and Hazuki) altogether because of course he needs laser focus at that point and at the start of the game they only have the very brief exchange of Light suddenly laughing at something Aoi said in a very serious tone which results in the best delivered "What the fuck?" in history lmao the mocking "Oh I'm sorry, you just sounded so confident" is so entertaining to me I imagine Aoi just blanks on how to react there, since he was talking about how the doors work I can see that being an instance of Light catching onto the act pretty instantly too

Their personalities just generally mesh quite well too if you ask me, with Aoi being emotional but practical minded and shit at working through feelings and Light being very smart and rational but also on the creative field and with some actual honest to god bare minimum emotional intelligence! Which I think neither of the Kurashikis has ever even heard of! It's very entertaining to imagine Light being super artsy about stuff to his stockbroker boyfriend who hasn't so much as laid eyes on a creative activity since he was like eight but who is going along with it just to gawk at and listen to his partner and I like to think he forces Aoi to get a hobby too, idk what, just something not related to him being a provider/caretaker and that isn't self-destructive would be good for a change of pace

I like to imagine Aoi being an apologetic mess upon first contact outside of a death game but that being in any kind of relationship, hell even just any honest conversation, is still off limits for him for a looong while and difficult and he just keeps acting tough at anytime vulnerability is asked of him but Light not only enjoys pushing his buttons but also if Aoi gets really rude he just isn't phased and has a comeback on the ready of something along the lines of "if you wanted to kill me you already had the chance so I'm sure you're exaggerating" which shuts him up everytime

I think Aoi would have it on the back of his head that Light's very pretty at first and after spending some normal time with him he'd just slowly unravel his thoughts and quietly realize that he didn't have time to think about it that way before but back when Light did the whole leaf words thing he was so cool and reliable and just so positive Aoi can barely conceptualize "positive" at all by himself but Light just thought of all of that up so easily and said it so sincerely that it calmed down a whole group and he still feels some of that positivity and reassurance when he's with him now even if he speaks in layers of sarcasm and cynicism nowadays he's still so sure of who he is and is always assertive and I think he'd just generally be amazed by how Light manages to thrive despite not being your picture book lucky or "normal" guy either and that whole realization would be something he frankly cannot entirely process what to do with meanwhile Light would just be like Yes I am great <3

Okay but lmao I imagine that from Light's pov then there's how like, during the game he is the most onto their act from the start, it almost feels like if he was allowed to interact more with the two he'd have figured it all out and Uchikoshi has said how much Light ever knew was supposed to be kind of ambiguous too, I mean he did obscure some stuff written in his note up until the end, he very much is a secretive person, and no one there aside from him and the Kurashikis know what that note fully said for sure, and I like to think this dynamic would translate into Aoi not being able to deflect or put on an act with him around because the way Light perceives things is just different and it means he's attentive to certain details instead of focusing on more general things that fool other people, so much so that he just catches him trying to bullshit his way out of uncomfortable situations before he can even try, and most importantly he's a smartass that likes to figure things out before everyone else so I basically think Light would be super curious about what Aoi's really like after all those years, like I really imagine the initial attraction there for him really is on the basis of "oh there is so much going on with you I want to study that" and also it's so funny to me to imahine he'd have a bit of a he could make me worse <3 mindset too but mostly the dynamic is yes you're off-putting but you've charmed me can I study you kadjksjs

I think a very interesting part of all this is that they'd still have to pull a lot of weight for a relationship to work, a lot of trauma that they'd have to work through alongside each other and a willingness to change up some attitudes, junepei is like that in theory too but I personally can't imagine Akane being able to compromise or Junpei to stop making excuses for her for it to ever quite get to an entirely healthy place meanwhile I think aoilight does have the possibility to be that eventually so that's a big part of why I like it, for me it's easier to imagine some healing going on with them and I just want good things for Aoi y'know, especially cause genuinely talking to more than one person on the regular would be really good for him imo <3 I also love love love the idea of him and Phi being platonic besties but like I said I'm ignoring all of that and my brain unfortunately doesn't compute both of these being able to happen in like the same timeline so rip and I straight up just don't believe he'd even give a shot at an actual relationship with anyone outside of this whole mess just because he would 1) be way too marked by the experience to connect at more than surface level with someone who is unaware of it 2) definitely not open up about it to anyone new though like never ever like not even under oath, so yeah and then he'd figure there'd be so much work with setting boundaries and just general trust and honesty that I think he'd probably want to just run off at some point and Akane would have to knock sense into him but it works out I imagine she does briefly try to walk on her and Junpei's wedding too but that also works out dw

Also to reiterate, I only imagine all this stuff without the sequels happening, I personally can't wrap my head around them ever possibly being a thing™ after the Kurashikis kidnap Clover a second time, or even just having anything else to take care of after saving Akane at all since at that point I don't think there's salvaging any trust between them and all the innocent parties involved in the nonary games, Clover reminisces in vlr that they did what they had to in a surprisingly understanding way so I like to think that attitude towards them would remain as long as they actually didn't do anything else fucked up like that afterwards, but what do I know, people have SOIS and Crash Keys end up being cooperative somehow all the time so maybe there's something to it there too, I've seen a lot of AUs where they end up as co-workers and even one where Light's like a double agent or something I dunno didn't actually look into that one but it's out there! Along with many different highly specific scenarios! Idk!

Also sibling shenanigans you know I love those and it is hilarious to me to think of Clover being just as aggressive towards Aoi as he is towards Junpei, the "break my siblings heart and you're dead <3" energy just irradiates off these people, meanwhile Light and Akane actually get along and act civilized around each other, tbh I imagine Akane just nodding along without even paying full attention to what her brother's saying and then just plainly telling him that yeah no you two definitely have my blessings I think he can fix you, which I mean, she could have at least pretended she meant it as a joke but no lmao

Okay! So! I think that's all I have here to share akshjs hope it's good food for thought I can understand how it can look like it's just putting them together for no good reason but also take into consideration that the cast is relatively small y'know? Especially with these two only appearing in the first game and like, I'm not the kind of person who absolutely needs to find every character a match but I can see how that'd make people gravitate to this one