Translation for Ache is free on ze patreon
The dialogue of "Ache" is so good I really loved Mizi's emotions. I'd expect their upbringing to be like the co-dependent bond Mizisua had in ALNST, especially with this Mizi, who was, at the time, a child living with domestic abuse and thus had to rely on Sua for emotional support and a place to live.
Mizi pushed back against Sua so much here; in ALNST she sort of leaned into it for comfort, but this Mizi has so many rough edges before she allows herself to immediately latch onto someone. In ALNST, she latched onto the first person she saw that she connected with, and now she's too scared to heavily depend on anyone in this universe. And it reveals Sua's projection of the Mizi she loves and is obsessed with in comparison to the Mizi in front of her. Even when Sua tries to pacify Mizi, Mizi pushes her away and argues because she's thrown off by Sua's passivity and how obviously she's set on Mizi. Mizi's so self-loathing right then that she can't trust Sua's intentions, but she can't also understand why Sua is so intent on the good in her to the point where she'd allow Mizi to take and take from her, even remarking that she doesn't want to feel like she's being kept like some house pet, and thats why Sua's doing her all these favors.
Mizi immediately sees Sua's words as they are and it makes her uneasy to just... have the burden taken from her by someone she doesn't trust yet, Sua sees it as a challenge to prove her devotion is true
The way Sua IMMEDIATELY jumps to suggesting Mizi can assert herself and hit her however she likes shows me just how desperate Sua is, even to self-destructive means, to have Mizi. It's just emblematic of the way Sua's character understands love; it really doesn't hide how much Sua is desperate to keep Mizi even when she insists Mizi has control in the dynamic and she's doing it out of love (at least thats how it looks as a lonely child reaches out to another pained child before it becomes the tender and selfish possessiveness of the adult Sua)-- but I think in a way she still tends to show how she really disregards Mizi and that triggers Mizi's resistance, it feels like a mockery because she can't trust Sua here yet and Sua is endlessly seeing her with rose-tinted glasses, but in ALNST its because Mizi was heavily repressed and Sua didn't understand what she'd been through, she's just seeing the ideal of Mizi- two different situations, but the core of Sua's selfish and messed-up blind devotion leads to her need to control Mizi and coddle her, when she's really not seeing Mizi at all because she's fixated on how she's thought Mizi was for the longest time, how much she was comforted by Mizi's existence
(I like the detail of her warm gaze becoming more imploring in like a split second to show how needy Sua is, as she wants to control Mizi's perception so she doesn't go away)
. I think it was clear in My fragile god fading fast too, even though Sua let Mizi get comfort in feeling powerful over her-- they were enabling each other's bad habits and coping mechanisms. Sua was enabling Mizi because she knew she was a safe space for Mizi, the only comfort in the world that somehow unconditionally saw only the best in her and also accepted all her moments of violence and cruelty. It's because Sua loves like that that she embraces whatever Mizi gives her; she'd allow Mizi to do anything to her to stay together. Mind you, this obsession manifested itself in such a cruel and selfish form in ZOMST when Sua damns them to zombie stage just so they can be together.
this AU is very good at showing Sua's enabling and toxic love. I really liked it when Sua went on and on about how much Mizi was being too hard on herself, and that Sua was the one who understood her best. ...Mizi just doesn't see herself the way Sua sees her, and she could prove to Mizi that she could be her safe haven if she just let her in and let Sua comfort her... they could share each other's suffering. Mizi obviously wants connection; she wants the comfort and the acceptance. It wears down her guarded demeanor from there because she accepts Sua's offering, a route where she can escape herself and not have to confront anything, give control of her perception to Sua while taking in the comfort of Sua's unconditional embrace
The theme is so interesting, this is Sua's movie and her idea of a good ending, yeah, the idea of her thinking selfish love like this led her to her good ending because she kept Mizi by her side and embraced her wholly and unconditionally is evident, and in their backstory, it's easy to see why they were so dependent on each other, and Sua was so eager to become a zombie with Mizi; she's literally in love with the idea of being so connected to Mizi no matter what. Becoming distant when they were growing into adults killed her in that way; exerting control like that one more time by controlling their fate is something she's always done in both AUS. Again I like the focus on that aspect of her its so good