#mostly just cuz kieran answered the door and was immediately like Oh It's Bad That You're Here

[albatris]

badly-worded extremely long-winded question post for people who don’t mind lots of ATDAO spoilers

of the “hey is this an understandable thing to happen or would people think it’s a plot hole?” sort

it’s under a readmore but WATCH OUT the tags contain probably even more spoilers. I got to the end of the post and was like “oh I’m not done, actually”

though tbf the tags are not about the question, they’re me being like “ok this sounds like just a dodgy excuse for miscommunication as a plot device but listen” and they are not relevant to the post so you can just. glide right on over those without reading if you like

idk if it would be considered a plot hole for Kieran to see Kai for the first time with zero of the time loop context and just

not realise that anything is off??

like for Kieran to see Kai and immediately be like “you fucking bastard I’m gonna kill you let’s fucking go right now” rather than “oh hey you haven’t aged at all what’s up with that”

like what happens is that……. basically no one in Kai’s family has any idea what actually happened to Kai beyond missing-presumed-dead?? n for them seven years have passed, they had a funeral, n like, they’ve been dealing with the fallout and the emotional trauma and the grief of losing their child / sibling / family member, things kind of fell apart and never quite returned to normal

and it’s been seven years! yeah! Kai would be about 23 years old had they not taken a surprise vacaction outside the linear flow of time

but I imagine there is a LOT going on in Kieran’s head in the seconds immediately following him opening that door and none of those things are likely “hm I am going to take the time to think about this rationally and logically before having an emotional reaction :)”

I think it just goes

confusion -> recognition -> relief -> realisation -> fucking blinding all-consuming FURY

like in terms of emotional reaction Kieran cycles through a whoooole lot in the span of about thirty-two seconds before landing on “you absolute fucking bastard”

ie “you left us to fucking deal with all this on our own and we mourned you and everything fell apart and you were just off doing god knows what for seven years without even bothering to show your face how fucking DARE you assume you’re welcome here”

like I feel like the fact that Kai should be 23 may be vaguely on Kieran’s radar but I feel like you just would not be unpacking that in his position

AND TO BE FAIR some people don’t change in appearance very much? like, most people do, but also, my best friend still looks super super similar, like, working within the same time frame

so I feel like it maaaaay not be immediate cause to be like “hmm something weird might be going on”? but that also feels like bending over backwards to try and justify it

I guess the main question is just like…… if I don’t elaborate on Kieran’s reaction or try and justify it with “ehhh it’s not IMPOSSIBLE that Kai might look basically the same despite being seven years older” would people be like “uhhhh how could he not realise something was wrong??? that’s a huge plot hole??”

like whether with Kieran’s extreme emotional reaction and being in the heat of the moment people would be like “oh sure it’s understandable that he wasn’t exactly thinking clearly and this didn’t cross his mind”

whether that’s a Reasonable Thing That Makes Sense