#shin when sara:

[tamariixs]

i saw this hat like a couple of times and this idea was in my head 24/7

[kkoct-ik]

yttdisms now im moved in

[raweggs9-5]

NEWSNEAKPEAKSFROMNANKIDAI NEWSNEAKPEAKSFROMNANKIDAI NEWSNEAKPEAKSFROMNANKIDAI NEWSNEAKPEAKSFROMNANKIDAI!!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉

[clearlydusty]

SPOILERS FOR YTTD CHAPTER 3

SHIN TSUMIKI ... 0.0%

(little bonus comic underneath :) )

[fave-fix]

hey guys do we realize that the main difference betwen how kai and midori developed is that kai was given the chance to learn what normal life and love and family was like by working with chidouins while midori was kept under asunaros thumb all his life. do we realize that just a few changes could have kai acting just as cruel and merciless as midori. do we realize that midori is a victim of asunaro too, and though that doesn't excuse his actions it does make them more tragic. do we realize this or are we all being serious when we say midori is the only character who isn't worth redemption.

[anthenasikes]

⚠️

[beanieman]

Man isn’t it crazy how Shin is willing to lie to get his way? And that he uses people to his advantage to better his chances of survival? I’m sure glad that no other character is similar to that at times. Especially on the logic route....Oh wait. 

[my-past-disgusts-me]

And to the surprise of no one I am once again staying up far too late drawing Shin and Sara interactions

[cantobear]

a few of my new yttd merch! silly little guys

[dostyaak]

*Funny caption or something*

[loonarmuunar]

Figured out more stuff for the sister Sara au!!

Sou is still suspicious of Sara and Joe, but focuses more of his negative attention on Joe than Sara. This is mostly because of his lack of a statistic, and bc of the emails Sou read.

He also knows if Sara is killed, or starts to distrust him, he’s dead. He sees the way people trust Sara, how she protects those who trust her, and knows he’d rather be with her than against her. He doesn’t REALLY trust her obviously, but he’s on her side.

Sou reasons Joe is more of an immediate threat to him than Sara. Sara wholeheartedly trusts Joe’s judgment and reasoning, she likes to consider his opinion on things, and Joe was much more openly distrusting (and slightly aggressive) towards the other participants than Sara. He thinks Sara is a mastermind, but he can pretend he’s still naive to that. She seems to believe his front, and that’s good enough.

But Joe? If Joe gets mouthy, says things about him to Sara? That could mean his death. Sou tries to keep Sara away from Joe as much as possible, constantly guiding her away from the places he usually is. But Sara keeps trying to get to Joe. It’s not enough.

But if Joe was taken out of the picture?

Sou doesn’t trust him anyways. He could be with the kidnappers.

He can’t feel bad about it, not when it means his survival.

[rosehippiefield]

🍬: Post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character :3

I'm going with Shin in this one because I'm not as involved in other fandoms and I don't really remember any hot takes I have in other media

Since he's such a divisive character I think there are so many opinions that are both popular and not so much that I don't know how unpopular my opinions are

Well, I think that Shin doesn't plan his revenge yet and his goal is still to survive because he cooperates with the others and hasn't done anything troublesome in the third chapter. Plus he cares about Gin. I feel like he doesn't exactly hate Sara and Keiji anymore (or at least as strongly as before) but nothing can be said with certainty. And I hope for the best (even though if he learns who Kanna was it's going to be a major problem)

Also maybe I'm cheating because I have talked about this before but I don't think that his portrayal in logic route is necessarily worse than before and also that it's not inferior to Kanna's developement. I don't know how unpopular that is but I've seen complaints about how logic route is bad as we don't get enough of Shin

Of course, Kanna is very active and could be mistaken for protagonist (and that's great! I love Kanna and I love her development!) while Shin seemingly fades to sidelines (personally, I think he wasn't completely sidelined, his arc is simply different from Kanna's), but it is not a bad thing and it makes sense. Kanna was saved due to being cherished as a person, she was loved by the cast and loved them back. Shin's sacrifice helped her understand that she had value outside of simply being useful. While in Shin's situation it's polar opposite: he doesn't really have allies (or at least he probably feels like he doesn't), he was spared to be a tool, Kanna's sacrifice in his opinion was a stupid act of naive kid. Is he supposed to thank Sara? He thinks he should at least show how much he hates her, which isn't justification for evil Joe AI but at least explains his attitude

Well, why wasn't he plotting revenge and was somewhere in the background? Because he's confused and conflicted about everything. Having already traumatised Sara he probably had at least some doubts about completing his revenge (I don't have concrete evidence that he feels guilty after evil Joe AI, but my intuition tells me he does, even if a little). Aaaand Kanna didn't want more bloodshed. Aaaand he met Midori. He has to process so many things he just follows the crowd. Kanna doesn't have such doubts in her route so she can move forward easier. Shin can't contribute as much because he doesn't have energy for that (plus he did help out, he didn't let Sara lose hope that Keiji was alive and overall he participated in discussions)

So his writing in the third chapter is good and makes sense. Emotion route and logic route are quite different but both are more or less natural in how events happen

Well, maybe I should also post opinion I haven't voiced yet: while Shin's "showing collar" sprites are hot, his CG during first main game argument (war of words? Something like that) is superior. Look at it please, it's so cool

[sssoup-sonata]

i don’t know how to articulate my thoughts about this in a coherent way but it’s turning me into a freak beast so i’m forcing you to look at it anyways

[kanna-kizuchi-enjoyer]

ough i forgot how much chapter two wrecks me

[livyslabyrinth]

little known yttd fact:

shin tsukimi’s “final present” to sara is very misleading. most believe his “gift” to her was the joe ai… but that just happened to be there, tbh. in reality, he just passed down his fuckass posture. the minute she made contact with his lifeless body, the curse transferred to a new bearer, as seen when she’s speaking to the ai!

[kkoct-ik]

PLEASE explain ur shin DID thoughts I wanna know so bad

boy am i glad you asked (LONG POST)

prefacing by saying the sou DID headcanon is very special to me to the point that i talk about it as if it is canon. i know it is not canon. i'm not arguing that this is what these moments mean, i'm arguing this is an interpretation that i really enjoy, and this interpretation of sou's character speaks to the DID experience Unnervingly well.

i use sou & shin interchangebly, they are parts of the same person, but generally i say sou for during the death game and shin for before.

so. first.

the important bit — sou's dissociation from shin tsukimi

during his first trial, shin tsukimi is given the winning percentages. there he learns that 'shin tsukimi' cannot survive the death game.

to escape shin tsukimi's weakness and inevitable death, shin abandons him, and instead takes on the name and certain characteristics of midori, to build a new self — sou hiyori. he disowns his identity as shin tsukimi to psychologically escape from his fate, so that he can psychologically survive in this moment and keep living.

a part of DID is the repression and disowning of the weak and hurting parts of you, and in turn outwardly becoming & functioning as someone or something else that can survive.

sou very literally dissociates from the weak parts of his identity and becomes & functions as someone else to survive.

and that's the absolute basis of the headcanon. turn back now if you want to. the rest is me slowly losing my sanity.

me slowly losing my sanity

so. listen. here's the thing. theres a lot more in sous behaviour that you could interpret as DID if you know where to look.

it's not quite as simple as "there are two of him: shin tsukimi (who was weak, easily manipulated, and incredibly scared) and sou hiyori (who is not that)". there are quite a few more moving parts to this guy, and also a lot of grey areas where his identity breaks down and develops over the course of the game.

the sou we first meet is timid, but not particularly vulnerable: polite, but observant. you get the vibe he is silently taking note of everything you do, because he is. during the first main game, he takes control of the discussion by claiming to be the Keymaster, both securing his survival, and giving himself a level of control over the discussions.

when the information he found on the laptop and his attempts to throw suspicion on Sara causes everyone to doubt him, he begins to panic. he brings up the moment Nao hit him - something that must have been triggering to him, considering what defines 'sou hiyori' is that he is not weak like shin tsukimi is.

i like to think in this moment a subconcious part of him realises that the present sou hiyori is not removed enough from shin tsukimi to be free of danger. despite his distance, he's weak enough to be attacked - he could have been killed, and now he's at the mercy of the masses.

his protective parts and mechanisms need to kick in at 200%. so they do.

under the pressure sou snaps and goes into a a very aggressive protector part. sou projects outwards his vulnerability complex, calling everybody else 'weaklings' who are going to die (reinforcing his dissociation from shin tsukimi). he suddenly openly rejects the value of trust and human cooperation, in an attempt to make himself seem untouchable and entirely in control.

section: sou's protector part

i love this guy so i marked out a section just to break down his protective mechanisms. this is a direct continuation from the paragraph i just ended.

after his first instance in the first main game, sou's protector part (easily spotted by his fucking mastermind persona) appears multiple times to cover up moments of vulnerability. it makes him out to be a liar, but it also makes him seem incredibly calculating and dangerous, which works just fine for him.

during the token trade game, sou 'fakes' amnesia to avoid being singled out for his actions during the first main game. he reverts back to his polite & timid demeanour for a portion of the chapter, and also sleeps for a large portion of it (due to his sickness). but to allow himself this leeway (either to play up or let slip his weakness) he employs protective mechanisms: he enthusiastically tells Sara that his memory loss was a lie, and that he's been playing them all for fools. he intentionally gives her the impression that every moment of weakness he has let slip or otherwise is part of an elaborate plot.

whether this is purely for the sake of managing how the person he fears most percieves him, or because in this part he is genuinely so disconnected from his vulnerable parts and weakness that he refuses to acknowledge it was real, is up to interpretation to me. but i do love how many layers of lies and contradiction he symbolises.

(i choose to believe his amnesia was a genuine moment of vulnerability, because the scene makes me So Happy if i read it as a vulnerable part slipping through the cracks, who's entirely disconnected from the stressful events of the main game and is genuinely terrified. i like to think his later claim it was a lie was because he could not risk Sara genuinely witnessing his repressed weakness that he swore he disowned at the door. but i digress)

he has a similar 'moment of weakness' during the second main game, where he makes it more explicit that he is not necessarily him telling the truth when he says his earlier weakness was a lie. he relies on other's confusion and the fact people think he is one step ahead of them to protect himself.

he continues to employ his mastermind persona even after the shin tsukimi reveal - although its effect is somewhat lost now that everybody knows that he has vulnerable parts (and people he loves) to protect, and that his persona exists for their sake, not because it's his true personality.

mfw when the ego protection mechanism crumbles because i was vulnerable once and now my protector part hates me.

section: shadow sou

i was going to immediately follow onto shinai and what we can learn from him, but i want to clarify shadow sou first.

the long and short of it is i think he's the closest thing we have to a midori introject. while you could argue sou hiyori has introjected traits (which he most certainly does: he takes his name for christ's sake), i think shadow sou most explicitly takes after him, especially if you read soushin as an emotionally abusive relationship.

(lingo: what is an introject? an introject is an alter who represents internalised traits and figures. for example, if you had a personality who treated you like your mother treated you, and reinforces the beliefs you internalised from her, that would be an introject of your mother. they do not have to be accurate to the real person's personality; they only echo how you saw and internalised them.)

shadow sou speaks with sou like an familiar but condescending friend, comments on sou no longer being shin, and exists to reinforce shin's feeling of weakness. midori encourages shin to become the person you want to be; shadow sou is the one to pressure shin into becoming someone else. midori is a 'scary friend' of shin's, shadow sou physically frightens and attacks shin during his moment of panic.

as far as we know, we never meet shadow sou from Sara's point of view, so i interpret him as a more internal alter. there's a lot to play off with sou's / shin's / shadow sou's relationship: i think they are soooo cute. i just wanted to point out the similarities between him and midori.

section: shinaiiiiiiii: what can he tell us?

ok yaay onto shinai. although not strictly a version of sou (not his repressed weak personality, not his polite but wary personality, not his masterminding ego protection personality, and not his internal shadow self), because he is a computer program, he does give us a certain perspective on who sou used to be.

disclaimer: we know shinai was trained by midori's love poetry, and thus you can argue his personality could be slightly altered to be more suited to midori's purposes. for the sake of this section we will take things with a grain of salt: it's what shinai can suggest about shin, not tell.

shinai gives us the impression that shin tsukimi was polite, had somewhat low self esteem, and was conflicted on midori: on one hand, he scared him a lot, but on the other, he considered him close, and they spent a lot of time together.

during the maple boss fight, shinai sobs for midori to help him. i get the impression that despite being afraid of him, shin still relied on midori for security and reassurance (sou's lantern dialogue to corroborate).

my friend suggested that shinai's / sou's conflicting accounts (with part of him being afraid of midori, and the other seeking assurance from him) could in itself imply that shin (even before the game even began) is made up of two alters with opposing attachment styles. i dont disagree.

sou vs the shinai test data

this one will be short i promise.

i really like sou's morbid interest in the shinai test data. and i know the joke is that it's love poetry and sou is embarassed and repulsed by how midori saw him, especially now that he knows how cruel midori can be, but the scene also spoke to me as a dissociative person; there is nothing more viscerally uncomfortable than learning about things you did as a different personality. it messes with your brain, because it was you, but it also wasn't you - it can't be you, you don't remember it, and it's not the kind of thing you would do, but you did - and so your dissociative rejection signals go absolutely insane. so i like this tiny scene for personal reasons.

and thatse it (i think). i think i said it all.

tl;dr:

this is my headcanon :33 or well. a graphic i made a few months ago as i was solidifying the headcanon. some minor things ive changed my opinion on / perception of since but it gets the idea across.

that said i fully support any other interpreted sou hiyori systems. go fuckin wild. i spoke to a friend a bit ago about their personal DID sou take and i had so much fun.

thank you for hearing me out