Messadaily vanished and my favorite sadistic(-ish) doctor is not getting enough attention, despite my despising of his kit being full physical when his entire synergy bonus is based on guns and gun damage (which ticks me off irrationally) his synergy is one of my favorites, though it does make me Wonder (heh), with such a big discrepancy between his weapons of choice in the metaverse and the real world (many others don't have one to be compared to while the few that do at least remain in a similar ballpark (heh, get it? Because motoha who would probably choose a bat pre Phantom Thieves has another melee bludgeoning weapon)) just how much of Wonder's perception of the person actually affects their Phantom Idol? Because although it's Kira's skills with a gun that enthrall Nagisa into reaching out in the first place, and their shared hobby deep into the rest of their relationship, it's still the sadistic-adjacent tendencies that shape the majority of Messa's appearance and ability set, not the guns that he is so proficient with. For Marian it's her dream as stated very early on in her story that you are intending to help with that is the basis of her character, for Phoebe and Okyann it's images they show you of their past dreams that they show you early in their stories and for their characters this mixes with their current positions for their abilities because Phoebe is still the bartender and Okyann is still the party dreamer, for BUI it's her avatar and at first only appearance you have of her compounded with the concept of co-op gaming as it's what your relationship revolves around, but for Messa the only trait that shines through is the Doctor, none of the gun skills that are technically the foundation of your relationship shine through, and that's weird when perception is the one of the two stated bases of these idols, so why is it so separate?
Heh, I know you sent this ask yesterday, but @messadaily just updated today, so I guess you have that, now? That said, sometimes even daily blogs need to take a break, or miss some days- there's nothing wrong with that. And while I'm sure you didn't mean your ask this way, I don't think it's good to put extra pressure on creators to keep creating constantly, especially when they're doing it for free. Sometimes life gets in the way! As an artist myself, I think the best approach when you're excited about someone's art is to just be polite and patient, and appreciate whatever they want to share with others when they have the ability to post something. A nice comment (in a reblog/reply, or just the tags) on someone's art can go a long way!
(Not to mention- I think it's a little amusing that you feel Kira "is not getting enough attention" when he's one of the more popular characters on Tumblr, and we know at least in the early poll results he's one of the top 10 favorites in the whole English/Japanese fandom. I haven't seen a daily art blog pop up here for anyone else in this game, haha! When's the last time someone posted fanart for Yukimi Fujikawa on Tumblr?)
As for the rest of your musings here, I think the answer is that you're forgetting Phantom Idols are supposed to be based on the character's desires, in addition to Wonder's cognition of them. Sure, it may be Wonder's cognition of their desires, but their desires are still an important factor here! Yumi enjoys being a flairtender and Minami wants to be a nurse, so Phoebe and Marian reflect those respective desires, while Kayo still loves fashion and misses being connected with the youth, so Okyann reflects the fashionable youth she desires. I would argue that Musubi seems like she envies Yui's relatively stress-free in-game life, and ability to earnestly be herself without awkwardness, so Bui reflects that desire. The later Bui alt could be seen as reflecting an evolution of that desire, too.
So with that established, I think the reason that Messa doesn't reflect Kira's gun skills is because that's not really the core of his desires, even if it does inform Wonder's cognition of him to an extent. The focus of Kira's Synergy is that he's a doctor trying to understand a problem (the lack of desires) and figure out how to help people, so it makes sense that his Phantom Idol form reflects that desire first and foremost. I always interpreted the fact that Messa tends to lean more into his "sadistic" (as you called it, for lack of a better term) side as being informed by how he acts when he's focused on a combat situation, which we get a glimpse of when he plays Gun About. One could argue that perhaps that attitude when they're playing together left a strong impression on Wonder, and that cognition is tied into Messa, as well.
Basically, in my interpretation, while Kira does teach Wonder gun skills, his proficiency at gun-based video games isn't what Kira really cares about as a character, so that's not what his Phantom Idol is focused on, either.
