YEAH SO. First impressions of Mahiru wasn't a big deal because--and this applies to basically everyone in her worldview--she likes people, but she tends to like people more as story material than as themselves. For the most part, she's very detached to people even as she takes a huge interest in them for writing her paper. Mahiru stood out a little because !! fellow photographer!! but other than that she didn't really make much of an impact.
Mahiru offering to help her with Bunbunmaru, however... Bunbunmaru is like. Aya's entire life. She'd probably rather die than not write her newspaper. First reception to her issue wasn't too surprising because it's canon that everyone hates her paper, but slightly surprising was the fact that some people actually seemed to like it, and very surprising was the fact that Mahiru wanted to be an aide. I'm like 99% certain Bunbunmaru is an entirely solo work--Aya gathers data, writes it, sends it to the printing tengu, distributes it to entirely unwilling subjects all by herself. She didn't make a big deal of accepting Mahiru as a copywriter because Aya is pretty impulsive and thoughtless and tends to be an actor rather than a thinker, but yeah, Mahiru helping her with her paper definitely added like +3289 points to their social link. The Bunbunmaru is like... the entire point of Aya's existence. SHE IS THE NEWSPAPER TOUHOU. So having someone else work with her on it--while it was happening, she didn't think much of it because she figured she could just kick Mahiru out if she wanted to mess with Aya's precious paper too much, but that didn't happen and this was basically huge and she didn't even know it.
Aya tends to be extremely selfish and though she was curious about Mahiru and her world, she... didn't really put much effort into getting to know her as a person. On Mahiru's side she thought of their relationship as pretty healthy?? Aya basically like. Put almost 0 thought into their relationship at all, even as Mahiru served as an aide. She definitely took Mahiru for granted and just mooched off of her for food and help without thinking about it. Part of this was probably because Mahiru died early so they couldn't get to know each other at all in 2-3 days but yeah, Mahiru dying was really a shock and made her realize about the taking her for granted thing and... yeah, she was bitter about this, this was probably the one death in the entire game that really got to her and it kinda bothered her because she's above being attached to humans. Humans die!! That's barely story material. She got surprisingly attached to people in game just due to the circumstances--this is a grade a Incident, for instance, whereas outsiders being eaten by youkai in gensokyo is just Daily Life.
It was slightly annoying to her how uncharacteristically sentimental she got about Mahiru's death, but Mahiru tends to be the Sentiment to Aya's... well, she's not a pragmatist at all, but just look at their photography styles. Smiles vs Scandals. Terrible. She may or may not have used photography for sentimental purposes like hundreds of years ago, but she doesn't bother with them for making memories even if she's extremely long-lived because like a bird, Aya can be rather short-sighted and flighty and just hops from novelty to novelty without thinking too much about it. In canon she even forgets about a flower incident that happens every 60 years even though she'd definitely have been around 60 years ago when it occurred. Mahiru made a huge impact on how she viewed her photography--humans die and she's basically never bothered by it, but she knew Mahiru for only 3 days and she was the only person to ever offer to help with her paper and she suddenly wished for the first time she had just a few more memories and smiles to capture thanks to her.
no subject
YEAH SO. First impressions of Mahiru wasn't a big deal because--and this applies to basically everyone in her worldview--she likes people, but she tends to like people more as story material than as themselves. For the most part, she's very detached to people even as she takes a huge interest in them for writing her paper. Mahiru stood out a little because !! fellow photographer!! but other than that she didn't really make much of an impact.
Mahiru offering to help her with Bunbunmaru, however... Bunbunmaru is like. Aya's entire life. She'd probably rather die than not write her newspaper. First reception to her issue wasn't too surprising because it's canon that everyone hates her paper, but slightly surprising was the fact that some people actually seemed to like it, and very surprising was the fact that Mahiru wanted to be an aide. I'm like 99% certain Bunbunmaru is an entirely solo work--Aya gathers data, writes it, sends it to the printing tengu, distributes it to entirely unwilling subjects all by herself. She didn't make a big deal of accepting Mahiru as a copywriter because Aya is pretty impulsive and thoughtless and tends to be an actor rather than a thinker, but yeah, Mahiru helping her with her paper definitely added like +3289 points to their social link. The Bunbunmaru is like... the entire point of Aya's existence. SHE IS THE NEWSPAPER TOUHOU. So having someone else work with her on it--while it was happening, she didn't think much of it because she figured she could just kick Mahiru out if she wanted to mess with Aya's precious paper too much, but that didn't happen and this was basically huge and she didn't even know it.
Aya tends to be extremely selfish and though she was curious about Mahiru and her world, she... didn't really put much effort into getting to know her as a person. On Mahiru's side she thought of their relationship as pretty healthy?? Aya basically like. Put almost 0 thought into their relationship at all, even as Mahiru served as an aide. She definitely took Mahiru for granted and just mooched off of her for food and help without thinking about it. Part of this was probably because Mahiru died early so they couldn't get to know each other at all in 2-3 days but yeah, Mahiru dying was really a shock and made her realize about the taking her for granted thing and... yeah, she was bitter about this, this was probably the one death in the entire game that really got to her and it kinda bothered her because she's above being attached to humans. Humans die!! That's barely story material. She got surprisingly attached to people in game just due to the circumstances--this is a grade a Incident, for instance, whereas outsiders being eaten by youkai in gensokyo is just Daily Life.
It was slightly annoying to her how uncharacteristically sentimental she got about Mahiru's death, but Mahiru tends to be the Sentiment to Aya's... well, she's not a pragmatist at all, but just look at their photography styles. Smiles vs Scandals. Terrible. She may or may not have used photography for sentimental purposes like hundreds of years ago, but she doesn't bother with them for making memories even if she's extremely long-lived because like a bird, Aya can be rather short-sighted and flighty and just hops from novelty to novelty without thinking too much about it. In canon she even forgets about a flower incident that happens every 60 years even though she'd definitely have been around 60 years ago when it occurred. Mahiru made a huge impact on how she viewed her photography--humans die and she's basically never bothered by it, but she knew Mahiru for only 3 days and she was the only person to ever offer to help with her paper and she suddenly wished for the first time she had just a few more memories and smiles to capture thanks to her.