#thank you anon for forcibly dragging me back to this blog!

[mtsworkshop]

Matching Leon and Hop icons in Stratosfear #5  by @fivepointpalettes for an anonymous requester! Please credit if using, like/reblogs appreciated as well!

[lizzyverydizzyyo]

can you do mind control whump?

Omg my first ask!!!!!! Anon ask too, and a prompt!!!!!! Thank you anon!!!!! I’m not really open yet for a prompt but I’m just so happy with getting an ask in my whump blog that I just had to do it!!!!!

Anyway, since calling the characters whumpee, caretaker, and whumper is so weird sometimes (especially in longfic), I’m just gonna use my D.E.A.N characters lol. Idk what your squicks are though, or what kind of mind control you want. I’m just gonna use scientific hypnosis because I like realism whump (or fics in general), if that’s okay with you.

Also, I’m really sorry that it becomes so long. I hope you still enjoy it lol.

[This is not canon to D.E.A.N main story, btw. It’s just an AU oneshot.]

Masterlist and overall summary of the whole novel is here. | Prompt on trope-appreciation-tuesdays that inspired this is here. |

Fandom: Original Work

Whumpee: Nick | Caretaker: Mark | (Lady) Whumper: Victoria.

Wordcount : 3071 | AO3

TW : Torture, Beating, Allusion to Noncon (not graphic), Lady Whump(er), Mind control / Sound-based Hypnosis, Captivity, Human Trafficking

------

Nick’s handlers are gripping his arms so tightly—dragging him forcibly to the point of stumbling and getting his knees scraped by the rough concrete ground repeatedly—that he is sure he is going to be bruised everywhere. Maybe, he already is. One of the people holding him, Nick doesn’t know which one, is gripping his hair painfully to the side as an attempt to pull him lower because of his tall and thin stature.

His chest hurts with each of his thundering heartbeat and attempt to inhale air into his lugs, the feeling so familiar to his repeated broken ribs before. His body feels faint with exhaustion and various aches all over it on top of the sharp pain in his agonizingly empty stomach. He is sure his organ is at the point of eating itself just to find some sustenance.

It must be a bad dream. There is no other explanation.

He was supposed to be out of this hell already. It was supposed to be over. He was supposed to be rescued from Helga syndicate. He was supposed to be with Mark and the others, taking baby steps in his recovery. How can he be here again with the monsters who have imprisoned him for years before?

It must be a bad dream, I’m sure, he keeps chanting in his mind, I’ll wake up and Mark will be there to comfort me, I’ll just have to wait, he tells himself again, but even his resolve (and maybe his delusion too) is starting to crumble the more seconds pass and the more painful these bastards’ treatment to him become.

He can sense vivid sensation of blood flowing from his temples and his nose. There are also pulsing soreness on his abdomen and his black eyes, which end up masking their heterochromatic colors. His sprained (or maybe broken) limbs ache all over too. All of them combined feels much too real to just be a nightmare.

Unless he has some third eye awakening bullshit or something, there is no way he can dream something this tangible.

“Hello, pretty boy. I’m glad to see you again.”

He hears the sickeningly saccharine voice of one of his female handlers slowly approaching him. It’s the one so etched into his mind with how often he heard it every time he was being beaten up after he disappointed a client, or if he didn’t fill his ‘sale’ quota for the week.

“I’ve missed you!” Victoria continues with exaggerated excited voice. “Don’t you miss me too, honey? We had so much fun together!”

He feels disgusting bile rising to his aching throat. He fucking hates being reminded of that aspect in his past captivity that never fails to make him feel tainted, dirty, and worthless.

Well, about to be his current captivity again, apparently.

“I can’t believe you’ve left me after all my affection and gifts that I gave you! For someone else, too! How could you? I’m so hurt.”

He finally sees the familiar figure of a tall, slim woman looking fairly youthful despite her age in the 40s range. On her back flows her platinum blond hair reaching almost to her upper thighs, just as shiny as ever. She is currently pretending to be brokenhearted while clutching her own chest in exaggeration.

“Fuck you, you fucking whore!”

One of his handlers immediately punches his head, wringing it roughly to the side and immediately followed by blurred and tilting vision along with loud ringing in his ears.

Victoria laughs cruelly. “A bit hypocritical coming from you, don’t you think?”

She keeps walking, her head high and her back straight like the aristocrat that she is with her blue blood heritage from a European monarchy. He forgot which country it is, but he knows she occupies the scant positions at the very top of Helga hierarchy with the privilege to control the entire international syndicate. They wouldn’t get that position unless they’re multibillionaire or a family member of powerful countries leaders, or both.

Unfortunately, it also means that they get to handpick which victims to toy around and use privately, or to be rented out to their equally powerful friends for some one-sided BDSM and orgies (on the victims’ side, obviously). And she picked him.

His legs buckle, dropping him to his knees in front of her before she even commands him to do so.

“Good boy,” she says as she touches his chin, pointedly insulting him for his involuntary kneeling position.

There is some part of him that wants to spit at her face, but with how familiar everything feels to his past captivity, his trained obedience also comes back at full force and takes hold of his body again.

“I was wondering who pulled your heart away strongly enough that you finally left me.”

It isn’t true, and she knows it. His last handlers left him to die in the last port they stayed in because they caught him repeatedly feeding their locations to the authorities. He didn’t leave or run away.

“I gotta say, you do have good taste.”

His heart drops. Is she—

“Bring him out,” she says before he finishes his thought.

The other handlers, the ones that he didn’t see before, walk out from behind her, almost like haunting ghosts coming out of the dark doorway from where she also came out before. There are several of them walking out, followed by each other, before he finally catches the sight of someone familiar—someone close to his heart—also being gripped roughly as he is.

“Mark?!”

The tall blond young man looks up to him, his own ragged appearance bellies similar treatment to what Nick just received.

“Oh, god, Nicky. Fuck, I couldn’t find you!”

Nick suddenly has another surge of strength to fight his handlers’ hold, feeling his heart aching to embrace the man with the deep and captivating blue eyes. They, of course, hit the side of his head again until he sags in their grips.

“Don’t fucking touch him,” Mark screams gutturally. “I’m gonna fucking kill you all! Let him go!”

Victoria claps slowly with a cruel laugh.

“Such a romantic theatric that you’ve got there. You should have been an actor, instead of whatever it is you do at D.E.A.N.”

Mark fights against his hold too, similarly getting hit by the rifle in the head by one of the handlers.

“Mark, Mark, stop. It’s fine,” he frantically tells the older man, “I’m fine, it’s okay.”

He knows that fighting these people are just going to land them closer and closer to the grave. He’s learned that lesson long and hard that even after his rescue, the instinct to submit still violently comes back to him. He is used to it, but he doesn’t want Mark to go through the same thing. He can’t let it happen.

Mark stares at him with devastated look, his face falling into tearful but angry one.

“You know what, Nicky? I’m feeling generous.”

Victoria walks to him and circles him like vultures circling a carcass.

“You want to go back to him?” she wrings his jaw up to force him to gaze at her sharp and devilish eyes, “I’ll let you go back to him right now.”

He looks at her in puzzlement, just as Mark’s face is right now.

There has got to be a catch.

“I want to show you something too. You know, a little experiment to widen Helga’s ventures a little bit. You’ve missed it before, since you decided to be an ungrateful whore and leave us.”

She stares at him with a wicked smile. He feels his gut drop, fear gripping his heart even if he doesn’t know what she is talking about. He just knows it can’t be good.

Few feet across him, he sees Mark’s eyes widening and his mouth opening wide as if preparing to scream.

“No, no! Fuck no, get him away! Fuck, get him the fuck away. Nick, get out of here, please! Fuck let him go!” Mark frantically screams and begs.

Victoria smirks at Mark then and Nick before she walks to the side where a briefcase sits on a table. She clicks the lock open, giving a cheeky smile at Nick again for each click while Mark’s scream and pleadings fill out the whole warehouse.

What is going on? What did they do to Mark?

The senior woman pushes the briefcase cover up so that the upper side is perpendicular to the desk. She teasingly caresses her palms downward on the sides of the open briefcase, stalling and tormenting Mark with whatever it is she is going to do.

As Marcus’ voice gets hoarser and his pleadings morphs more into weeping than screaming, Victoria finally reaches into the briefcase to pull out a metronome. She grabs it with both her arms and walks to where Mark is kneeling and flailing. Her long satin gown bellows as she moves almost angelically, juxtaposing her obvious rotten soul.

She bends down to put the metronome right next to Mark where Mark is visibly crying and trying to get away from the offending item, whatever the reason. Nick just watches with increasing worry and puzzlement.

Victoria gives another teasing look at Nick as she holds the needle of the metronome to the side.

“You want him back, Nicky? I’ll give him back to you.”

She lets go of the metronome needle, and immediately, the loud ticking sound of the metronome echoes throughout the huge warehouse.

“Tick, tock, tick, tock,” she cruelly taunts him with heartless glint in her eyes and another wicked smile.

Nick just stares at increasingly frantic and wild Mark, screaming much louder than he has ever heard him before.

“NOOOO! FUCK STOP!!! STOP!! LET ME GO!”

Mark is visibly trying to pull his arms up to his ears as he curls inward while leaning to the side, but the bastards holding him don’t let up. He keeps sobbing as he relentlessly tries to get away, filling Nick’s heart with mounting fear for whatever it is about to happen.

Something catches in Nick’s throat as he starts to see the change in Mark’s behavior. The older man gradually stops fighting the hold around him as his eyes blink rapidly, his awareness seemingly seeping out of his mind.

Victoria bends down again with her fingers starting to click loudly. Her face gets closer to Mark’s ear along with her repeatedly snapping fingers just in time with the metronome ticking.

“Marcus. Listen,” she almost softly says right into Mark’s ear. His muscular body is now getting increasingly still, and his cries slowly taper off. Eventually, Mark stops moving completely with his eyes staring straight ahead. They look empty and soulless.

Fuck, what have they done to Mark? What is going on with him?

Her smile gets wider and more demented as she gazes straight to Nick’s eyes with her face still close to Mark’s ear. She finally talks just as cruelly and as softly as before.

“Target. Nikolai Khiem Belyaev.”

What the fuck?

Mark’s face sharply turns towards Nick.

Nick doesn’t see recognition in his familiar blue eyes, which now look cold and terrifying instead. Behind them both, the handlers who are holding him and Mark let go simultaneously, and Nick can’t help dropping backwards with cold sweat drenching his body.

He remembers months ago as he was still handcuffed in the holding cell of Mark’s D.E.A.N team. He mouthed off to Mark before Mark realized that Nick was actually a Helga victim. Nick has never forgotten the feeling of Mark wrapping his palm around Nick’s throat afterwards, his eyes full of hatred and murderous intent as he kept squeezing the life out of Nick.

Reminiscent to how Nick saw Mark back then in that holding cell, this Mark immediately rises from his kneeling position just as the handlers stop touching his body, and he stalks up rigidly to Nick’s direction.

Nick can’t help scrambling backwards.

“Mark? Mark? What are you doing?” he frantically asks, hoping to snap him out of whatever it is that’s holding Mark’s mind prisoner.

The muscular blond doesn’t seem to hear him.

Nick keeps scrambling backwards. He shakily calls out to Mark again.

“Marcus? It’s me, Nicky. Please, Mark! It’s me, you know me. Mark!”

Victoria just cackles in the background as she casually leans against the table where the briefcase is. “He is not gonna hear you, honey.”

Fuck, what did they do to Mark?

Eventually, Nick realizes—as he looks at Mark’s sure and alarming gait with his empty eyes—that Mark is gone from his body until whatever it is that can pull him back to reality is done. Nick shakily and hurriedly turns his battered body around and pushes himself up so that he can run away.

He is too slow.

In an instant, his body is roughly pulled up by a hand locking around his neck painfully. He is lifted up off the floor like a ragdoll as he claws at Mark’s powerful forearm. His own bony body has sadly never been a match to Mark’s combat-adept one even just slightly, so he chokes repeatedly as he continues to scratch Mark’s muscular arm or pull it away from his neck.

He is violently thrown back to that day in the holding cell again as the same arm was strangling him. He can’t shake himself out of the painful memory either, considering even his reality is repeating that moment again right now.

“Ma..rk, p..le..ase, i..t’s,” he chokes painfully as he squeezes his eyes in pain, “...me...pl..ea..sss.”

He keeps choking and gurgling agonizingly, the air failing to fill his lungs as black spots start to blanket the edge of his vision. He tries to weakly punch back at Mark’s body behind him as his legs keep flailing and kicking, but the seemingly possessed young man just wraps his other arm around Nick’s abdomen together with both of his arms.

Now he is squeezed on both his neck and his stomach crushingly with no chance to pull the offending limbs away from himself.

His tears—he doesn’t know whether it’s from pain, fear, or heartbreak at how the usually affectionate eyes no longer have any warmth and tenderness in them—start flowing from his eyes to his cheeks without his command. He can only let the tears out with no audible cry or visible trembles as he sobs with how tightly he is being gripped.

He has no way to escape. He’s going to die in Mark’s hand.

His sight continues to blur and darken until he feels faint all over his body, finally edging onto the land of unconsciousness and away from the agony in his body.

“Marcus, back!” he suddenly hears Victoria bellows with two claps echoing around the warehouse.

Nick is suddenly dropped to the ground. He chokes and coughs weakly still with his vision swimming painfully.

“Oh, fuck!” he hears Mark’s familiar and terrified voice.

The body that was very close to sending him to afterlife drops down and cradles him instead as he is turned to the side so he can look at Mark’s face again.

“Fuck, Nicky, I’m sorry. Fuck, I didn’t mean to, oh my god,” Mark says frantically as tears flow to his cheeks, one drop falling to Nick’s forehead.

Nick blinks up sluggishly in pain and scant consciousness. He doesn’t have enough strength to even feel afraid anymore despite his mind still tethering between reality and that memory months ago in his holding cell.

“Nicky, look at me. Hold on, come on,” Mark frantically says again with his palm gently but urgently holding Nick’s jaw, shaking his head slightly.

Nick’s face just lolls to the side, unable to hold the position anymore.

“Don’t go, please hold on to me,” he hears Mark say again.

As he swims in and out of consciousness, he can slightly hear the click-clacking of high heels approaching him.

“You fucking bitch!” Mark screams angrily above him.

As he lays weakly in Mark’s arms, he hears Victoria laughs again tauntingly.

“Well?” she asks loudly, “What do you think, Nicky? You like our new product?”

He can’t… he can’t think.

“How fucking dare you?” Mark screams angrily and tearfully.

She chuckles again with no regards to Mark’s anger. “Your boyfriend is quite stupid, isn’t he, Nicky?”

Nick feels more than hear her walking away, and then he is jolted around as Mark screams, “NO! DON’T!”

It’s followed by Mark’s lower and more devastated tearful voice. “Please, don’t! Please, I’m begging you. He’s not gonna survive another one, please.”

There is a silence. Nick doesn’t know what’s going on. He can’t see to where Victoria—or anyone else, really—is located right now. Even the vision of Mark above him is blurry as it goes in and out of focus.

“Then you know your options.”

Victoria’s voice is serious now, no longer having any hint of cruel mischievousness like before.

Mark keeps sobbing with his arms around Nick getting tighter, but in a gentler and more protective way this time.

“I can’t… I can’t let him go to you… he can’t go through that again. He doesn’t deserve it,” Mark cries with pleading voice as more drops of tear fall to Nick’s face. Then his voice gets angrier again as he yells, “Just fucking let him go, you monster!”

Nick hears the high heels click-clack again, and almost like a well-trained dog, Mark yells “NO!” again.

“Then, as I said, you know your options.”

“Fuck,” Nick hears Mark croaks, “Fuck, Nick.”

Nick keeps blinking sluggishly with occasional weak winces of pain before he feels Mark pulling his shoulder and head up to an almost sitting position. His face is then softly but urgently pushed to Mark’s firm chest while Mark’s own jaw is buried into the side of Nick’s head. It’s then followed by the sensation of Mark’s lips pressed onto his hair.

“I’m not a fan of soap operas, Agent Hayden, so take your pick right now before I pick it for you.”

Mark’s head rises from Nick’s forehead.

“Give him up, forget that all of this ever happened, and you can happily go back to your silly little D.E.A.N team.”

He breathes heavily as wheezing sound keeps coming out his bruised and bloody lips.

“Or you kill him with your own bare hands.”

He falls unconscious before he finds out what Mark chooses.

[ghoststorytmaaa-blog]

whoever sent me (6) anons imma answer them in a text post cause it’s about to get long and salty. sorry to everyone else who just let me have my on opinion and didn’t be an ass about it 💕

1. Steve never “dismissed” Bucky’s opinion during CATFA, he was trying to explain why he needed to be in the battle to. Just because he joined the Army anyways doesn’t mean he didn’t care about Bucky’s opinion, but you can’t base your future on what other people think is right for you.

2. Bucky was suffering PTSD, why would he WANT to discuss his torture? In the middle of war during a time where men were heavily discouraged from expressing emotions because they need to be ‘strong’?

3. Bucky NEVER told Steve to leave him alone, he hadn’t seen him in two years. Steve “forcibly dragged him back” because he was triggered by Zemo and thus both a risk to himself and others. Shield didn’t follow him that was Ross’s guys and Steve only went there because he knew Bucky would fight back and there was a shoot on sight order for him.

4. When did Steve ever baby Bucky or tell him to man up? He was being cautious around him in the beginning because he didn’t know if Bucky still remembered him for sure and knew could attack or flee if provoked. He tries to tell Bucky it’s not his fault and looks really sad when Bucky says he isn’t worth it, that’s not insensitivity it’s compassion.

5 was the worst one. Steve NEVER gaslit Bucky. Gaslighting is decieving/lying to make someone question their sanity. He ASKED Bucky if he knew what Zemo wanted, he was desperate for answers. He didn’t withhold from Bucky, robot Zemo showed him a paper for 5 seconds & implied Hydra probably killed the Starks, then fired a missile at him. The letter implies he was in denial. Your idea of toxic is ironic considering you ship Winteriron. Tony has literally never done anything but try to kill Bucky.

P.S. Steve NEVER forced Bucky to fight anybody. Bucky had the option of going home in WWII and Steve asked if he was willing to keep fighting, Bucky said yes. He didn’t ask him to fight in IW either, T’Challa did because he knew they needed everyone who could fight to help. Did we watch the same movies or have you been spending too much time in the Anti-Steve tag?

1) Steve outright ignored Bucky’s opinion because he was willing to DIE being strong headed doesn’t change that he ONLY ran off to war to prove something to Bucky. He didn’t go because he thought it was right, he had NO PLANS to go before Bucky went. He then dismissed Bucky IN Cap 1 when Bucky stated he didn’t think shit was a good idea Steve was like 🤷🏻‍♀️

2. Firstly great generalization there asshole that people with PTSD automatically don’t want too and also check your history facts most people would discuss their situation and a lot of camps had advisors as well as FRIENDS. Among that we’ve SEEN that 40s Bucky would be honest about his emotions with Steve, Steve just fucking blanked him

3) Bucky literally kept legging it from Steve, that’s not an invitation. Then Steve went to stop him from fighting his wait out on a shoot on sight order? Are you telling me that was helpful? Are you telling me that Bucky’s face when Steve went ‘you’ll kill people’ was good? ON TOP OF THAT STEVE STILL HAD NO RIGHT TO DRAG HIM BACK HE HAD NO RIGHT TO TAKE HIM IN Steve kept going and going and chasing him even when Bucky ran and that’s *not fair*

4) Firstly, yep you’re right. It was Ross's men, not SHIELD, it was late and we all make mistakes but an opinion was given and no offer for a debate was made, you sound like a pompous asshole out for a fight. Steve is not a good friend to Bucky, accept it it doesn’t change that he’s a good person who was trying, he just fucked up in this regard

5). Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity.

Steve deliberately chose to omit the murder of Tony's family, Steve deliberately triggered Bucky into remembering the winter program, Steve deliberately controlled what Bucky knew and what he didn't now, whilst he didn't do it with malicious intent that DOESNT change that it would cause serious trust, reality and memory issues in Bucky AND Tony both. He's controlling their knowledge and their truths, with Bucky it creates a false reality in which he doesn't know everything, doesn't trust what he does know and CANT trust steve. MALICIOUS OR NOT ITS DELIBERATE

( see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtG-jnpw0X8 )

steve rescues Bucky, not once does he ask "are you okay?" " can you walk?" "what happened?"

NOPE it's all about steve with "i thought you were dead" "come on!"

BUCKY ASKS STEVE WHAT HAPPENED THOUGH, AND IF IT HURT, IF HE'S OKAY BUT STEVE DOESN'T ASK BUCKY

He then takes Bucky right to the sound of gunfire, into the fight, letting go of him to walk and only looking back when Bucky talks to him

AND THEN WE GET BACK FROM THE BASE IN WHICH BUCKY IS INJURED, HAS BEEN TORTURED, IN PAIN, COULD ONLY WALK PROPERLY DUE TO ADRENALINE AND MMM I LOVE ME THIS PART

( see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAoD6-CF9Jo )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAoD6-CF9Jo

1:29 onwards: steve does state some men need medical attention (thank fucking hell, not bucky tho because he's bucky) but the second Peggy comes in Steve forgets about anyone in a five mile radius and HE DOESN'T EVEN TRY AND SHARE THE GLORY DESPITE THE MEN FIGHTING JUST AS HARD AS HIM SO SURE HE'S SELFLESS DEFINITELY YEAH

( see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X1qo2xsH2c )

3:50 onwards- Steve then instantly lies AGAIN in order to keep up the facade and his reality, even though they'd all JUST seen the truth thats when its proven to be deliberate control and manipulation. HE TRIED TO LIE AGAIN DESPITE GETTING CAUGH

steve's in bucky's house to get Bucky but thinks he has the right to go through Bucky's things, to read his books and his notes. I would actually punch someone if they did this???? That's PRIVATE and steves like "lookie here, whats this??"

Steve, every time Bucky talks "you're lying" "you're wrong" "yes you do know" "you're not thinking right" "i know better" EVEN THOUGH HE DOESN'T ACTUALLY KNOW???? HE DOESN'T ACTUALLY HAVE PROOF??

( see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK3e8m_xcXw )

Steve then immediately tells Bucky to stop so he doesn't kill anyone, despite having absolutely no qualms with ANY of his other team mates or himself killing because *it goes against his image of bucky*

STEVE DELIBERATELY FORCES BUCKY TO REMEMBER SEVERELY TRAUMATIC EVENTS WHICH MAY BE FALSE IMPLANTS AND WHEN BUCKY CAN'T HIS ANSWER IS *THATS NOT GOOD ENOUGH*

( see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbG1iJsDfYg )

also adding to the end of you message, I am very aware how toxic winteriron is but again this is fiction and you can write them better then they’re written in canon and develop relationships about traumatic events, which was the whole point of my original post, that yeah steve’s been a bad friend but you can fix it without taking away everything that he is as a character.

AND my post was in no light anti steve rogers, he is by far one of my favorite characters, hell i even write him, but just because he’s my favorite doesn’t make him any less problematic.

i have more but this is already too long and rambling as it is, reminder that this is MY blog and i’m allowed to post MY opinions and if you dislike them or disagree there’s an unfollow and block button for a reason 💕

[oumakokichi]

Thoughts regarding hoshi?

Oh, thank you anon! It’s been a while since I’ve had anotherquestion about Ryouma, and he was one of the very first characters I got totalk about on this blog. The first ask is here if you want to see it!

I’m very fond of him overall. I don’t think there’s everbeen a character in DR quite like him before, and I found him perhaps one ofthe most relatable characters among the ndrv3 cast. There have been manyvictims in DR before, and many characters who have been depressed or miserableor upset, but I don’t think there’s ever been any other characters beforeRyouma who just straight up did not want to live anymore, and yet remainedconflicted over their own desire to die.

DR is usually pretty straightforwardly about characters who wantto survive no matter what, and arewilling to do questionable things in order to attempt that. Even if a characterkills themselves, it’s almost always a willing thing of self-sacrifice, andnever a matter of, “No, actually, they legitimately really just did not want tokeep living anymore.” And before ndrv3 I think there was always this kind ofassumption that having a character who was like that would be “uninteresting”or “predictable” (in case anyone’s guess for one of the trials was suicide,like with Sakura’s), and that there’d be no real way to pull an audience in.

But the thing is, by virtue of being so understandable andso distinctly human, Ryouma’s urge to just die because he feels like there’s noincentive for him to keep going is actually very interesting. What’sinteresting too is how he’s distinctly sympathetic and humanized, while alsostill somewhat flawed. Ryouma wants to give up and die, yes, and in Chapter 1he even makes comments about how he’ll “take one for the team” basically anddie if it means postponing the 2 day time limit. But the thing is, doing so andagreeing to die so easily for the sake of dying and inviting anyone to comemurder him still carries with it the risk that everyone might actually guesswrong, and might all end up dying at the school trial. And that’s a risk Ryoumadoesn’t really consider or stop to think about when he makes those kinds ofcomments.

And I can completely understand, because if I were in asuper stressful, super tense situation like a killing game and being constantlysurrounded by doubt and trauma, my first instinct would also probably be “I can’thandle this anymore, I wish I were just dead.” It’s really, truly anunderstandable reaction, and in situations where you feel as if no one reallycares or would miss you when you’re gone, it’s hard to truly feel as if yourdeath would have any real consequences or meaning to it.

Something worth mentioning that I haven’t seen a lot ofother people point out, too: I really, honestly love Kirumi, and I think shewas an incredibly interesting culprit, and super interesting from thestandpoint of (like many other ndrv3 characters) definitely having emotional attachmentsto the group but still being incredibly emotionally manipulative regardless.And therefore, when Kirumi told the group her “whydunnit” just before herexecution, I do think she was lying on many points.

She claims that by telling Ryouma about her video and askinghim to die for the sake of the country, that he simply turned around and gaveup his life willingly, without any sort of hesitation, because he had justgiven up. But the more I look back on Chapter 2, the more I feel like her claimdoesn’t make sense. If that were the case, why the necessity of drowning him? She hit him on the headenough to disorient him, dragged him to the sink, forcibly drowned him, andeven used handcuffs. None of the things Saihara brings up in the climaxreasoning really mesh with Kirumi’s own supposed version of events—and thismakes sense from the perspective that she’s lying.

We know she was attempting to manipulate the group intofeeling sorry for her (hence why before she even started explaining, she said, “You’llbe sorry when I tell you”) and that she wanted them to even try and lay down theirlives for her by rebelling against Monokuma because of how much importance she holds“in the outside world.” Hence, she definitely would want to avoid talking aboutRyouma as anything other than a willing victim who she chose only because hewas the most willing and ready for the job.

But I think there are plenty of indicators, including Ryouma’sFTEs and the comic relief scene in which he and Saihara are running from Gonta,in which he indicates that despite feeling so miserable and as if he has noincentive to live on, he also very much doesn’twant to die, and feels frustrated and more than a little conflicted that hekeeps trying to put up a self-image of being very cool and composed andabsolutely willing to die at a moment’s notice, but still has these lingeringregrets.

I think most people here on Tumblr in particular can reallyrelate to that aspect of Ryouma. I myself can relate. It’s only natural that he’snot sure whether he really wants to keep going or not because he ultimatelylacks direction, and in struggling to find it he has to accept the fact thatmaybe he doesn’t want to die as much as he thinks he does.

What Kirumi insisted was Ryouma “giving up” and “offeringher his life willingly��� was, I think, Ryouma just having a prettystraightforward breakdown. It wasn’t a plea for death, it wasn’t a straightforward“sure, go ahead, kill me,” it was just that he was miserable and upset and verydistraught over his own motive video’s contents, and Kirumi took it uponherself to assume that he was just givingup, and killed him without hesitation or mercy. It was a murder, make nomistake, but I think the fact that she phrased it in a way that would be morebeneficial to herself made a lot of people confused and they took herexplanation at 100% face value, which has been pretty unfortunate for Ryouma.

I really enjoy Ryouma as a character and I’m still extremelygrateful that he’s perhaps one of the first DR “joke characters” who hasn’texisted strictly for perverted comic relief in some capacity. They really madehim an enjoyable figure in the group, and a sympathetic one, and he wasincredibly sweet and badass simultaneously. Thank you for asking me about himagain anon! I hope I’ll keep seeing good Ryouma art in the tags from here onout!