"An atypical juxtaposition of apathy, her design conveys her mental instability, masking, and erratic personality as a result of suicidal idealization."

official ref

• VGen for colors and more

concept art

BACKSTORY

Driven to insanity and apathy due to depression and nihilism, seeing life without a meaning led her to believe that her own existence was worthless and that she should attempt suicide in order to free herself from what she considers the rigged "Game of Life", a metaphorical concept used to show how both Azu and Nerine view life as a pointless heap of challenges and pain meant for nothing more than living until death. How humans are "meaningless creatures that want to live so badly" despite the "truth" in front of their faces.It is a fact that this variant of Azu has been through many levels of trauma and heartache from a young age, at one point even attempting to see a meaning even past all the hurt and pain. But, the more and more things seemed to worsen and not get any better, she began to lose hope and slip into the mindset that nothing mattered.Throughout her teen years with her companion Nerine, she has attempted suicide many, many times but has failed, angered by life's "persistence" to keep her alive. She hopes that one day, they can both be free from the game and cease to exist, no longer having to suffer what they deem to be a waste of time. Azu is in extreme mental pain and sorrow, masking it with the illusion that "this is what she knows she wants" and is "best for her".However, the longer they both spend their time alive, the further their lose their minds and this is how the song The Game of Life even started. They now believe it's best to proselytize their beliefs, repulsed by the people of the world who see a meaning to their life and have a desire to keep living despite any challenges they may face. This is the ultimate truth to them, and they hope to spread it to anyone that may have been tormented mentally like they "were" (they still are). Part of it is from a subconscious desire to help, but the other half comes from jealousy and/or not understanding why people would ever want to live."Where's the fun when it's just to endure the pain? Get it through your brain, why stay a pawn living in vain?"
- Azu (The Game of Life lyrics)Despite these things, Azu is not sadistic, nor masochistic. She does not take true glee out of seeing people suffer or by her hurting them. She does not like to be in pain whatsoever. She may pretend to enjoy the suffering of others, but it only deepens her own.===Lastly and aside from everything, even despite her belief in nothing mattering, Azu likes shiny and bright things, rapping, playing video games, and hanging out with Nerine. She enjoys cheap food, loose, casual clothes (despite her Apathy design), and she is known to behave a little tomboyish or overtly bold, yet still likes to dress and style on the more feminine side.

trivia

- Azu's the one "behind" the outfits (although they're more so symbolic and not "actually" worn) because of her bright personality. This is where her love of shiny things comes from and also why she likes to dress girly.
- She smiles a lot because she can't really help it. When she's upset, a frown slowly becomes a smile due to stress or anger causing her to freak out. It's rare to see her truly smile. Sometimes, she also smiles to be mocking.
- Her way of showing affection is quality time.
- She is an ENFP, but tries her best to suppress her warm side.
- The only game she's actually relatively good at is Mario Party. She is embarrassed of this fact.
- She has extremely bad luck due to the fact that The Game of Life was originally made in 2022 when it was still called "F_CKIN' BAD LUCK!" and was a Miku only original since Teto's Synth V voicebank wasn't out (or announced). The song had a sort of different meaning, particularly wanting to commit suicide due to suffering constant bad luck and not fitting in. This version never had a variant design. There are still references to this version in TGOL.
- Her name comes from the extremely toxic cyanide, being shortened to cyan, turned into the synonym of azure, and then finally "Azu". It's kind of a long winded explanation, but properly explains how her name came to be.
- She has a wildly strong spice tolerance.
- She prefers junk food because it's "easy" and tastes good.
- Azu is easily terrified of spiders and will scream very loud if she sees one. It annoys the fuck out of Nerine.
- Also, despite being very close to her, Nerine can sometimes come off as a little intimidating to Azu. This is to reference the fact that Nerine is named after the Spider Lily, and is also sort of designed around the look of a spider.
- Her and Nerine's relationship is very open to interpretation as long as it's not familial or sexual. You can see them as friends, romantic partners, or queerplatonic companions. How I portray their relationship isn't inherently a "rule".

"Portrayed as the more tomboyish one of the duo, she remains bright and loud to contrast her design's meaning of apathy, suicidality, and instability."

official ref

• VGen for colors and more

concept art

BACKSTORY

For as delicate as her name seems, she appears as the total opposite of it. Usually dry, sarcastic, and ignorant, stuck in her ways even if shown an alternate way of thinking, Nerine comes off as an overly difficult person at first glance. She's quick to shut someone down in the middle of their attempts to help her.This behavior comes from her nihilistic worldview, seeing everything as meaningless and that people are truly alive just to suffer and die, knowing the true goal in life is to reach the end. She views life's ups and downs and the torment as the "game" and knowing such truth means it's best to skip over it all and to end your life. Basically, "Why be tricked by the game when you can just end it all? Death is beating it, is it not?"Seeing people find meaning in life and enjoy it confuses Nerine because she can't experience it herself anymore, so it results in resentment and furthers her misery in her existence. She's been suicidal ever since falling into it.She shares this mindset with Azu, a long-time semi-platonic companion and best friend of hers that remained as the only person Nerine truly trusted after everything. They had met in their early tweens, promising each other that they'd stick together no matter what happened, and later on in life, to die together. This included multiple suicide attempts throughout their teen years, each attempt ending in failure and causing the two utmost frustration. Life's "persistence" to keep them living angers them, deeming death as freedom and peace.It eventually led to the worsening of their mental states and what caused The Game of Life to happen, and for them to proselytize these views of life. Spreading it around is their way to "save" people from the misery that is life through their "truth". The two have convinced themselves that they're better off this way, free from their past torment, but that's far from true as they still suffer.She wasn't always this way, however. At one point as a child, she was very sweet, almost to a fault. Being unwanted since birth had caused her to want to seek out affection from someone other than her parents, resulting in a lot of clinginess towards the smallest sign of kindness. She didn't quite get along with other people because of this, and after constant rejection or mistreatment, she found herself leaning into aggressive avoidance until she became a societal recluse, and then easily agitated with others if they even tried to get close to her. Azu is the last person she doesn't "protect" herself from.Nerine has a lot of hatred for herself and things she can't control, such as her appearance, name, and birthday. She believed that being born on the 1st of April made her "unlucky" and a "fool", considering it being April Fools' Day, and she thinks she's "not all that pretty" for being less than the Japanese beauty standards, which is a warped perspective considering she's merely average. Lastly, she felt like she was named after a poisonous flower because of her parents not wanting her. All of this worsens her view on life and confirms her belief that it's all just suffering."Where's the fun when you can predict the game? It all ends the same, deny that and you'll go insane!"
- Nerine (The Game of Life lyrics)Although she seems to take joy in "proving" the nature of life, Nerine is not sadistic or masochistic, just like Azu. Matter of fact, being this way actually hurts her, even if she refuses to admit it. It feels like she's almost pushing people into the same awful state she was in as a child and it hurts her to do. That's why she can be less heavy than Azu, opting to pretend like she doesn't care about how people feel instead.===Other than these things and her nihilism, Nerine is quite sweet with Azu, playfully bantering with her and being quite affectionate, just in her own way. She spends a lot of her time writing lyrics or poetry to cope and sharing that with Azu, as they sometimes work on music together. Because Nerine spent a lot of time alone and had to make her own food as an older kid, she became quite good at making homemade meals and tries her best to offer Azu some, due to hating Azu's consumption of junk food and instant ramen. It never really works, leaving her mildly irritated.Nerine loves to play video games, being quite good at games like Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart on the N64. She's snarky and likes to tease if Azu loses, which happens... quite often. She enjoys board and card games as well, including hanafuda games and poker. Her fashion taste is overly casual, almost to the point of laziness which contradicts her personality of being way more productive than Azu is. She can be physically affectionate with Azu (think cuddling or forehead kisses), but it's very rare.Post-healing, she tries her best to open up to socializing after years of being isolated from society, and even if her smile or words are a little awkward, Nerine is sweet a lot like she was as a little girl._{(from her unlisted Vgen profile)}

trivia

- Nerine never had the chance to eat junk food as a kid, so due to learning how to cook her whole childhood, it led her to prefer home-cooked meals only.
- She is named after the poisonous Nerine japonica, aka Lycoris radiata, the Spider Lily. This is due to her red hair and eyes, among other things 👀 (part of it also comes from being Latin for "Japan", where she's from)
- She shows affection through acts of service. Sometimes she opts for physical affection, but this is rare.
- Nerine prefers writing lyrics/poetry over singing, but she will sing if a song calls for it.
- She just looks mean. In reality, she can be the more polite one, but not by much. Her attitude lies more in sarcasm than being rude.
- She has a bit of larger muscle mass than Azu. Not very pleasant to get into a fight with her, that's for sure.
- She's mistaken as the older one a lot, partially due to her height and having a more matured face.
- The bags under her eyes come from a lack of sleep and frequent crying. She doesn't like to cry in front of people, not even Azu.
- Nerine is extremely good at Super Smash Bros. on the N64.
- She has a bad spice tolerance.
- Her and Azu's relationship is very open to interpretation as long as it's not familial or sexual. You can see them as friends, romantic partners, or queerplatonic companions. How I portray their relationship isn't inherently a "rule".