#thats a lie but whatever | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

twistmusings · 8 months ago

Text

Character Analysis of the Twisted Wonderland Dorm Rooms - Ignihyde

Dorm Room Character Analysis Series

Idia Shroud

Idia's room is an interesting case because I can't exactly tell if it's meant to be cluttered or if it's intended to be messy. There is a difference to be noted with that - cluttered meaning that there's a lot of items that are disorganized and not put away but are clean, whereas messy would be more characteristic of trash lying around or visible dirt. For that reason, I think it's worth talking about some real life examples, so the next paragraph I'm going to be expounding on that a bit with an example from myself. I promise there is a point to this.

When you are talking about mess and clutter both, they can be common in people who are neurodiverse and people who struggle with their mental health. As someone who has been diagnosed as Neurodiverse (currently working with a psychologist in order to get a better understanding of the specifics of that) and who has been diagnosed with Depression and Anxiety, I certainly notice this myself. It tends to be that when I am struggling with a depressive rut or with executive dysfunction, the situation leans more toward mess, though even when I'm in a good place, my brain has a natural tendency to clutter. I will pick something up, and then it ends up in a pile. The key difference is, when it's a mess, I couldn't tell you exactly what is in those piles, when it's clutter, I tend to group similar things together, I just haven't put them away because I haven't had the energy. So how does that relate to Idia? Well, because Idia exhibits patterns of cluttering, but not necessarily patterns of mess.

Though Idia has a lot of stuff in his room, we can see that he has some categorization in mind with how these piles are arranged. For example, his packages and mail are stacked together, as are the Manga next to his bed. However, these are not put away, they are piled where it's convenient for him to know where they are.

His closet is also an interesting tell. You can see that his jacket is hung up nicely, however he has one drawer open, and the clothing is hanging half-out of the drawer or have fallen onto the floor. I actually don't think these are dirty clothes, I think Idia has left these things open because for his brain, it makes more sense for him to be able to see what he has. While his clothes have landed on the floor and some have come unfolded, I suspect that Idia probably folded them himself, but doesn't have the energy to put them back away when they come undone, however because hanging his jacket that he wears frequently up is an easier task for him, his hung clothes remain in order.

It is worth noting, Idia is one of the few characters to have a visible trash can, and it's empty. It's not a situation where he's just been tossing his trash and it's overflowing - Idia would have had to take this out himself or had Ortho help him take it out. At the same time, it looks like something has fallen beside his desk that he hasn't picked up yet. So while he's not exactly messy, he is cluttered.

Another thing I feel is worth pointing out in this regard is the post-it notes that Idia has attached to the towers of his computer on his desk. It's common for people who struggle with memory or motivation due to executive dysfunction to write reminders and place them in visible places in order to remind themselves of things. It's a practice I also used before moving to more digital reminders with alarms, and many people still use this.

So, all of that to say, I highly suspect that Idia is Neurodiverse, mentally ill, or both. While I certainly don't have the qualifications to say how he's neurodiverse, it seems like the designers wanted to go out of their way to show small touches that he is using these sort of systems to manage his life. This also seems in-line with what we see of his character, and I certainly have more thoughts on that, but since this is focused only on their rooms, I'll save those thoughts for now.

Idia has manga that are hidden under the leg of his bed. I can't even lie, this is such a funny hidden touch that definitely speaks to the fact that Idia is an awkward teenager even though he's 18. I honestly love this touch and I think it's hilarious that they were even allowed to include it. I'm certain a lot of people have been here before, but for the sake of clarity, I'll explain in more depth.

So, of course, the obvious takeaway here is that Idia has dirty manga hidden under his bed - however we can't be certain that's what those are. In fact, it's not so straightforward as you might think - there are a lot of reasons someone might hide something. We also need to take into consideration Idia's living situation in tandem with this. Idia isn't living at home, he's living in a dorm, which means that whatever these are, he's hiding them because he doesn't want his peers or Ortho to know he has them. That in mind, that means that while they might be pornographic or suggestive Manga, there's any other number of things it could be. While I can't speak with any certainty, here are a few:

1) It could be manga that's typically aimed at a more feminine audience - Idia has a lot of manga, and given that there's social pressure for people who are assigned male at birth to be masculine, it's possible he has some cutesy magical girl manga tucked away that he's embarrassed for other people to know that he reads.

2) It could be manga that's not straight. Plenty of people who have questioned their sexuality have bought manga to read that features queer couples. Again, given social pressure, if Idia were reading that sort of Manga, he might feel like he needs to tuck it away because he doesn't want to feel pressured to know exactly how he feels about his sexuality yet.

3) Even if it was pornographic manga, it might be pornographic manga that's not the sort you would expect. It's entirely possible that these could be ones that are exploring, for example, monsterfucking or BDSM that he wouldn't feel comfortable with others knowing of those sort of kinks.

Really, it could be any number of things. Ultimately, it tells us that there are parts of Idia's personality that he hides from other people, and the typical reason that people would hide those things is either a) they are afraid of how people would react if they found out, b) they are ashamed of those parts of themselves, or c) they don't feel confident in those parts of themselves.

Idia has a phone stand on a boom arm attached to his bed. He is, quite literally, chronically online. This points toward him reinforcing his own bad habits and probably spending a lot of time at his desk or in his bed.

Of course I have to point out that there is Pain and Panic on the shelves. Though this has been pointed out before, I don't actually see a lot of people mention is that this is thematically pretty apt for Idia and Ortho - Idia, as a person, is canonically panicky, and Ortho... well... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The rest of this post will contain spoilers for book 6, for those who are still struggling with that segment of the game and don't want to read spoilers.

It's also worth pointing out, that while Ortho did not initially have a room, he seems to have a charging bay in Idia's room. Ortho's room was not released until the second year of the game's release, implying that Ortho didn't have a room of his own until Crowley accepted him as a student of Night Raven College. This makes sense, as he was hesitant to even give Yuu and Grim a room when they first begin the school year.

So, what that means for Idia is that for a large portion of Idia's tenure at Night Raven College, he didn't have privacy. Idia's room would always have another resident, and he's notably the only Dorm Leader who had a roommate because of this.

Idia's hidden Mickey is on a book in a box near the front of his room.

Ortho Shroud

Ortho's room is surprisingly hard to find screencaps for, so I put in a couple of them so you can see the full scope of his room. Again, I assume this is because this room dropped after the initial releases of the room backgrounds, so please bear with me.

First to note, Ortho certainly shows some similarities to his brother. He has a rug that features the Cerberus from the Legend of the Underworld, as well as the Stone Titan and Ice Titan from Star Rogue in universe, so whereas Idia didn't actually have much front-facing merch aside from Pain and Panic, Ortho wears his nerd card with pride.

Ortho has a couple of gaming systems on the bookshelf in his room, and its of note that he has a single controller pulled out. Most of the time when we see Ortho mention games, they're games that he and Idia played together, however the fact that there's only one controller out would imply that Ortho is exploring his own interests independent of Idia after the events of book 6.

Ortho has a variety of kits and parts set aside in his room. While these could certainly be a lot of things, it would seem likely to me that Ortho has taken a bit more of a direct hand in his own repairs, again establishing his independence from Idia.

Also of note, Ortho has two small figures on top of his bookshelf, one in blue and one in red. While there's not a concrete by any means, I imagine this is a callback to Ortho and Idia. It's also worth noting that common colors for multiplayer games from local co-op will often make the colors for Player 1 and Player 2 red and blue. We know generally speaking that Idia's motif is blue, so it makes me wonder if Ortho's favorite color may be red. That's mostly just conjecture though, as there's not enough of the color red to be certain.

While I wasn't able to spot the hidden Mickey in Ortho's room, I suspect it may be this figure here, though if it is, it's not nearly as clearly defined as any of the other rooms.

#twisted wonderland #twst #ignihyde #idia shroud #ortho shroud #not writing;;#I can't lie when I spotted the manga hidden under Idia's bed I had to do a double take #because I couldnt believe they were allowed to put that detail in #It gave me a laugh #It was almost as bad as General Lilia's summon line being 'call me whatever you like but dont call me father'#I KNOW THATS ESSENTIALLY WHAT IS SAID IN JAPANESE BUT LIKE #THE PHRASING ENG TWIST

63 notes · View notes