阮草 → the Tender (canonical)

After a long re-derivation (2026-07-17/18), we scrapped 阮草’s old provision/receive arc and rebuilt her from scratch as the Tender — the Kiki of the cast, a burnout-and-recovery arc. Signed canonical by Wedge 2026-07-18. Authoritative card: tsumugu-core/docs/companion/craft/RUANCAO-MASTER.md.

What she is now. The Vietnamese student whose hands make living things thrive (mát tay, the real Vietnamese folk “cool hand”), staged on real expert mushroom cultivation. Her magic is powered by love as the why: tending from love makes the hand flow (effortless) and gives joy. Moral core, the Tender’s creed: (1) everything alive can be kept alive, and love keeps it alive; (2) tend from love, or it dies; (3) you are a living thing too — let yourself be tended.

The lost-magic mechanism (the hard-won part). Internal-first, clear causality — the load-bearing law Wedge kept restating: challenges derive from within; external factors are symptoms, never causes. The internal loss is the why curdling from love to obligation (the grind, the envelope) → the hand grips and forces → flow dies → joy dies → and a forcing hand cannot fruit a mushroom (you cannot force a pin), so the barren blocks are the symptom, never the cause. Outward faces: absence, worth-collapse, withdrawal. Recovery runs why→flow→joy: rest stops the forcing, being fed/seen loosens the grip, the first fruit comes when she tends from love again (clumsy). Permanent cost, internal: the innocent-effortless love is gone; adult-chosen love replaces it.

Why this shape. Mapped from Kiki’s actual film losses (D joy, G flow/effortlessness, F the authentic why, with A/E/H as relational and self-worth faces) — Wedge ruled “all of it,” and the three core losses resolve into one fire (love-as-why) with a single clean causal spine. Grounded in 322k-token research on the real du học sinh experience (RUANCAO-MASTER.md §, DU-HOC-SINH-GROUND-TRUTH.md).

Superseded / to sweep (flagged, not silently reconciled). RUANCAO-ARC-CATALOG.md (superseded banner added); MORAL-CORE.md 阮草 card (re-derived same-day); wiki The Moral Core table row (front-facing — flag only); the founding-pair provision-vs-presence engine with 沈文 (biggest downstream — needs a coherence pass); RUANCAO-DEEPENING, ARC-ruancao-shenwen, CAST.md, SERIES-SPINE, STORY-ARCS, CHARACTER-BEATS.

Kept. Mushrooms/ferments (now central, at expert depth); the perfected mountain deep-conversation scene with 星野 (「影子」); the objects (best piece, the shelf); the du học sinh texture; B5 empire seat + forward vow + friendship-holds (re-rooted).

Open (Wedge’s calls): the Tombo-function collaborative-chamber beat; the Jiji-complex permanent-cost beads (grandmother’s line / hát ru); the crisis shape (Tết alone vs Tết + rescued shadow-track countrywoman); the forge specifics (the childhood mát tay-naming scene).

New craft docs from this run: MORAL-CORE-ARC-PAIRINGS.md, GROWTH-ARC-CATALOG.md, RUANCAO-MUSHROOM-CATALOG.md, DIALOGUE-RULES.md, wiki/Story Craft/The Burnout Arc.md, research/DU-HOC-SINH-GROUND-TRUTH.md.