#who I also need to avoid spoilers with

[expelliarmus]

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Ok, I think I have a pretty good idea of why a lot of Akechi's dialogue is... like that.

So, even before his confidant truly started, I noticed that he has a real knack for directing the flow of a conversation. This is very fitting for someone who is both a detective and skilled at interviews - when there is a topic and a goal, Akechi is in his element.

All this to say, he's actually kind of controlling when it comes to conversational flow. He probes for information, or turns the conversation around to a particular topic, usually the Phantom Thieves. He manages to take a few of Joker's dialogue options and spin them so they sound mildly incriminating in the context he's placed them in - the only way to truly get around this is to pick answers that feign indifference, and even then, that's more than a bit telling. He's clearly very good at this kind of thing.

But then, we get conversations where either Joker does something he didn't expect, or else he doesn't have a particular goal in mind - and the conversation stutters. In the first instance, Joker does something (a particularly egregious example is putting his glasses on him and fluffing his hair in rank 3) which both leaves him wrong-footed and no longer in perfect control of the situation. He just kind of... freezes, for awhile. It's hilarious. He has no idea how to respond.

He picks up control again in the phone call afterwards, having chosen to play into it, turning this "fooling the crowds" into a kind of game or secret between them. Nice save.

But in instances where there isn't an obvious topic and the goal is somewhat nebulous, for instance, that one Leblanc scene, it becomes pretty apparent that Akechi doesn't have the right "script" to go off of. Again, it's particularly notable in that scene, because I'm fairly sure he didn't have any specific reason to be at Leblanc, other than him looking for a quiet spot now that public opinion has turned on him. And because there isn't anything specific he's digging for, he kind of just ends up throwing things at the wall to see what will stick. Probing for any kind of recognizable reaction that he can jump on and work with, and that just doesn't really happen in this scene.

He references Sae, a woman in a respectable position, to Sojiro, but instead of that netting a welcome, it earns his ire, given Sae's recent actions against him. He then tries to greet Joker, his... rival? friend? enemy? person who at least seems to somewhat enjoy spending time with him? But Joker's responses are somewhat short, and Akechi practically wilts. He tries to commiserate by oversharing. He tries to involve Futaba and reaches out for the only topic of interest he can think of around "young people". He compliments the coffee. He compliments Joker. He tries to invoke that connection between them. None of it is really sticking, nor does it serve as a jumping off point for him to steer the conversation, or even really start one.

So, he basically just ends up having a one-sided chat with himself and then leaves. Hilarious. Also a little sad, if I'm being honest. It's really giving "guy with no friends who only knows how to speak to adults" energy. If there's no specific purpose to the exchange, or he is not in control of its direction, he seems to be kind of out of his depth. He succeeds only in being a little awkward and confusing, more than anything.

[rjl11898]

Nothing gets me crying in the club faster than these two specific lesbians 🥹🥹🥹 their fate is INTERTWINED and they are eachother’s HOME UGH!!

[hijinxinprogress]

Coffee addict Never sleeps Tim drake ❌ 

Solving cases in his sleep off 87 energy drinks Tim Drake ✅

The coffee addict never sleeps perpetually tired Tim Drake thing is a widely accepted headcanon however that was elementary school tim but after he stayed up for a week straight subsisting entirely on coffee to decipher the bat weekly patrol schedule and how it aligns with rogue attacks/Arkham breakouts, he crashed then when he woke up it was fucking wednesday so he missed his chance to commemorate his discovery with pictures of Robin and he decided that shit would never happen again and made himself an ‘efficient’ sleep schedule so he could run around doing fuck shit, add to his robin shrine, and stay on honor roll bc he was even more pissed to see the gotham gazette had pictures of Robin with an on site interview credited to Vicki Vale (listen bowl cut tim had a one sided beef with vicki vale that included tim judging who gets better pics of the bats but she isn’t even aware that she’s competing with a whole ass child 😭 he’s sitting at the table with a mug of orange juice and looks at the newspaper snorts and goes ‘fucking amateur I could do better’) 

Regularly unsupervised tiny businessman in training Tim ‘Ten hours of uninterrupted sleep?? That’s so inefficient not to mention fucking stupid’ Drake is so pissed he missed getting shots of Robin dropkicking a rogue from 6 six stories up (for absolutely no reason dick just thinks it’s fun) that he just takes at least 3 hour naps every eight hours 😭 he refuses to spend almost half a day sleeping ‘for no reason when he could be doing something productive’ 

And he still does this as a bat but it’s just easier to tell if he didn’t take his nap bc he has less than zero impulse control and he’s just fucking done with everything like the gcpd is terrified bc tim’s saying shit like ‘This guys a fucking moron, I could’ve done this in half the time without killing anyone fucking loser doesn’t he know if you keep them alive you can prolong the torture?’ and ‘you’re like all hysterical and for what 🤨 ‘you blew up 83% of Bristol waah’ stfu and fucking rebuild it?? It’s only rich mfs that live there, it’s just a matter of them opening their fucking wallets’ once a new recruit made the mistake of asking if robin had adult supervision regularly and Tim responded with ‘well if you’re gonna snitch to cps like a little bitch then yeah’ and that cop did snitch so tim fucking doxxed him

Yj has just accepted that sometimes they will find tim in an air vent, on the roof, in one of their closets, or something just fucking knocked out then an alarm will go off and he’ll just get up like nothing happened but for the first couple of months they were probably concerned bc ‘I’ve never seen you sleep?? wtf are you on man’ and Tim’s confused bc ‘I slept next to you this morning wdym??’ and that’s how yj discovers tim sleeps with his eyes open

But one of the worst things about Tim’s ‘time efficient sleep schedule’ nonsense is that it fucking works he’s one of the most well rested and coherent bats even after back to back Arkham breakouts however the absolute worst thing about his sleep schedule is the likelihood of going into the cave and seeing tim staring in a daze but wide eyed yet somehow never blinking at the batcomputer with 57 tabs open on top of being unresponsive and thinking he has a fucking concussion or he’s been replaced but he’s just doing case work while muttering nonsense in his fucking sleep for some reason

[silverprism-s]

i have a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my mind but... i think gojo got exactly the ending he deserved. and... thats not a bad thing.

[buccellato]

Fucks me up to think about how Legato's legacy in-universe after his death in Trimax (and presumably Tristamp) is probably gonna be how much he sucked and nothing else....

Like, nobody will like Knives but Vash will be long-lived enough to be able to eventually talk about his good qualities from when he was a child and his quasi-redemption in his last days. But who remembers Legato? Livio and Vash are the only living people with any extended memory of him and neither of them would have anything nice to say (and rightfully so). Neither of them probably knew he was a slave, either—as far as Vash can tell this dude showed up one day and hated his guts, for all he knows he's just another survivor from July! Outside of Knives, Elendira, Legato, and maybe Conrad, I don't think any other character knows his actual life story.

And to add on to that, there's no way of looking up that past either—he had no name or personhood before he was effectively rescued, so who could investigators or reporters or archivists track down for information? The human being that was Legato only existed for as long as he knew Knives, before that he was something to be kept and abused as an object. There's presumably no surviving family they can reliably contact, nobody to really say "yes I knew him, here's what his life was like, here's how we can prevent something like this from happening again".

His entire existence will be reduced down to "a human weapon that was freakishly loyal to public enemy #1" without any reflection on the mechanisms that made him the way he was because there's just no actual knowledge of his life.

[intuitive-revelations]

Hmmm....

Thematically i kind of liked that.

But man that plot was... not good.

[cluescorner]

They fucking did it again those bastards. Jason Todd fucking dies 2: Electric Boogaloo. Fuck it, let's go for a threepeat at this point. It'll be funny as hell.

[autumnfangirler]

ok which one of yall (mutuals) are epic the musical enjoyers because i unintentionally found out two of yall were fans today when i thought it was just me and my siblings alone in this cruel world

[devotedlystrangewizard]

the school arc to me is so good because it drags ciel out of his position as a powerful figure and literally places him in the shoes of the person he could have been. the circus arc ALSO drags him out of his position as big bad queens watch dog/head of the phantomhive estate but the school arc feels like a mockery of a future that never was. this is what he could have been had his parents not died. and even then its NOT because he will never be that kid.

he never was.

[cubot]

My favorite thing is watching a horror film that unexpectedly, suddenly, blatantly, fully sincerely becomes queer. There is something about it that hits hard in my chest, pushes and squeezes and tears. Beyond my enjoyment of a good film, a good story, there is some pain, some hope, some part of me that wants to reach out to the protagonists and drag them out of there and help them forward. Then I sit and cry.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

i still cannot believe that people actually read my posts. case in point: i got this notification (from @tumblemumbler, thank you) and laughed until there were tears.

it's true: i want to take fox mulder to the zoo. i'm guilty as charged. i wanna point at some lions and be like "woah", and see if he thinks the lions are amazing, or if he tries to play it cool and deny that sense of wonder you get from seeing a magnificent beast. is it so wrong to want to take a full grown man out to see the Creatures, and then watch him enjoy the gift shop.......? to find a nice little novelty tie with the funniest animal from the day on it...? to say, hey fictional man, let's put aside that decades long quest for answers on the existence of aliens, and marvel at some otters splashing about... now wouldn't that be lovely?

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

I may be laying on the floor staring into the void, merely vibrating as my brain rots about Veilguard, Rook, the companions, and Solas.

...this is the perfect excuse to replay my canon route.

Apologies in advance: I'm about to make my brainrot replay a problem for everyone and everything in my vicinity.

[suffarustuffaru]

you wanna elaborate on the Heinkel-Otto parallels?

SURE THING ANON 👍👍 alright so a while back i made this reinhard-otto parallel analysis here if youre curious and wanna check that out - i also briefly go into how the suwen and astrea families have kind of sort of crossed paths? and also ottos hometown (picoutatte) is historically where ex novel drama involving wilhelm, theresia, stride, etc happened so theres that too!!

yeah so apart from the suwens and astreas having small connections in the past - regarding heinkel and otto specifically, i think the two biggest parallels are 1. the…. alcoholism……. and 2. certain. Aspects. of their personalities. im just gonna address the alcoholism first bc thats probably the most obvious parallel. (also im gonna go into arc 8 spoilers a bit btw!!)

so. i mean we all know heinkels an alcoholic - hes turned to alcoholism to deal with the Trauma Conga Line thats basically been his family history. and yeah. id say ottos an alcoholic too. when we're first introduced to otto in arc 3, hes off in a bar drinking to cope with getting into debt. in general he seems to drink often, which in story its acknowledged that yeah, hes a merchant, negotiations often include a bit of alcohol and otto knows hes gotta be able to hold his liquor - theres an arc 5 side story where he goes to find the dude he needs to restore the tome, ottos brought liquor as a gift, then they drink and thats why theres that one bit in arc 5 where otto shows up again late and hes drunk as hell lasjdfljds. but also like we get more confirmation that otto drinks to cope bc at the beginning of arc 5 after the emilia camp-ana camp meeting, hes drinking and complaining about how shitty the emilia camp's negotiation skills are to garfiel and subaru, who both act like this (otto getting drunk to deal with stress) is something that happens often. (im referring to the wn btw i dont have access to the ln hah)

(also this ask turned out very long so im putting the rest of it right under the cut)

This is what he's like when he's drunk. He's working a stressful job, so they give him his drinking time, but it might actually just encourage even more stress.

also additionally theres a few more alcohol-related things with otto. like how he gets drunk at the end of arc 4 knighting ceremony celebration - which yeah hah you can chalk up to him just you know drinking at a party to celebrate the occasion, but i swear otto 1. just keeps getting drunk on and off screen and 2. given otto is a very Anxious person, the timing of him getting drunk as hell at this party celebrating not just subarus knighthood but also like. officially marking safety - for now - and the end of all the arc 4 mindfuckery that otto got dragged into.... like the moment otto got reunited with alcohol again in arc 4 he decides to get blackout drunk akdndn. the timing is very interesting, i think. or maybe im just reading into that a bit too much hah but im 100% sure ottos an alcoholic anyway so.

(other alcohol stuff with otto includes him having to get banned from alcohol after he was bedridden bc of his arc 5 leg injuries + every time we see otto drink alcohol in canon he drinks to get drunk aidndnd. EVERY TIME.)

anyway moving on to other details. i think its interesting to look at heinkel and otto as characters and examine who they are as people and also their arcs bc 1. i do think theyre a bit similar in some ways and 2. this factors into Why their coping mechanisms are incredibly bad T^T

yeah so. heinkel as i said earlier. we all know hes dealing Badly with his familys entire trauma-filled drama. but i also think its interesting to examine him as a person in Full, and what i mean by that is - the heinkel we see in the main story is very different from the person he used to be. and we dont get a lot of content on younger heinkel specifically, but we get still get a Lot out of it. we see that he used to be a kinder person. he loved and doted on reinhard (when you have a four year old that sneaks out of the house just to see his dad bc he got worried about his dad and the moment he sees his dad he immediately goes up to him - like that shows TRUST). and heinkels given a lot of interesting descriptions in the once upon a time in lugunica side story that are very much at odds with how he is in the present day - he has a "gentle" face, "his voice and countenance was sweet", marcos explicitly tells him "It's time you stop being nice to everyone. It's because you're like this that you've been forced into a job you're not suited for." and this is also after we get the implication (?) that heinkel basically got peer pressured into being the one to ask marcos to come back and rejoin the knights.

marcos also purposefully pokes aggressively at heinkel's insecurities; you get the sense that heinkel is lonely, most likely friendless, an outcast even as hes simultaneously well known due to his family. marcos insults heinkels abilities as a swordsman, and marcos also harshly says that heinkels cocky and tries addressing marcos as if theyre friends when theyre not. "Since when were we such good pals, you and I? Surely you don't think so just because we have the same teacher? How many students does Bordeaux have? Are all of them your friends?" and heinkel tries his best but ultimately hes in the shadow of his family and hes expected to be able to keep up while also looking after reinhard and desperately trying to find a cure for his wife (who was most likely his only Equal and close companion).

but heinkel in the end always falls short of expectations. hes painfully aware of this, with the implication that its always been this way basically for the majority of his life, if not all of his life. and being an astrea and being a knight means that hes watched very closely - or at least thats what i think is the most likely case. so when you compare younger heinkel and current heinkel, you also get the sense that he eventually burned out and gave up even trying that hard at much of anything. thats why he kind of doesnt give a shit most of the time about being harsh and mean, lashing out, saying almost anything he wants, doing what he wants but also failing miserably at that 99% of the time, and also he falls deeper into his alcoholism too and doesnt care about showing this either. hes very publicly a disgrace. he knows this. hes an emotional wreck and he cant crawl out of his own failures, so why care about what other people think? why try to fix himself? its too late. hes a miserable man only driven by 1. spite towards his family and 2. trying to find a cure for his wife and 3. his own alcoholism and 4. possibly his kind of sort of care for schult (aka heinkels reinhard replacement T^T). and we see in arc 7 and 8 too that hes so depressed and tired and jaded after dealing with a lifetime of failure that he just. kind of gives up. last time we see him in arc 8 hes being dragged around by groovy and rowan and he was drinking with rowan in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

so. what about this is similar to otto?

well, otto and heinkel both struggle with dealing with their emotions and insecurities. with heinkel thats pretty easy to see, but with otto its harder to see until you hit the really Obvious parts (arc 8). like yeah, otto gets flustered a lot, hes simultaneously sensitive but at the same time hes pretty independent, he can handle himself, he's dependable - right? but the thing with otto is that he and heinkel both have a habit of lashing out. theyre anxious. they turn to numbing behaviors to cope. theyre pushed around by external factors but at the same time theyre also reckless and do things that speed towards inevitably helping in destroying themselves. they both have friendless and lonely backstories, theyre Extremely aware about their own weakness and powerlessness especially when it comes to dangers theyre up against and especially when it comes to comparing themselves to others. they get Very angry at people they love(d), which makes them get aggressive, and for heinkel we know for sure that theres a LOT of resentment there, and for otto, the anger is Bordering on resentment if it isnt already kind of resentment at this point. theyre also haunted by their failures - with heinkel this is more obvious, but i think once you examine otto deeper hes also kind of dealing with this too.

that, and - while otto hasnt hit rock bottom like heinkel has, i think that if otto keeps going down the path hes on now, hes gonna end up hitting that rock bottom and end up having a similar fate to heinkel right now. bitter. jaded. tired. burnt out and angry and miserable. which, when you look at the ifs - yeah any otto that ends up enslaved by russell fellow ends up bitter, jaded, tired, and an empty shell of himself. and this is also, of course, assuming that the main otto permadeath flags dont happen aljsdfljsd. because if you remember otto's third trial line, it was something along the lines of "if that's the case, then you should've left me in that cave (to die)!" (correct me if im wrong) which 1. sounds like something he would say at any point in the current arc 8 otto-related conflicts and 2. my guess is that this line is referring to when otto was captured by the witch cult in arc 3 and put in a cave. otto is eventually gonna reach a point where he just goes "well you shouldve left me to die in that cave then" which. you know, its not boding well for him hah.

and yeah so. ok im gonna try and elaborate a bit more on some of what i just said about heinkel and otto hah bc its a whole list.

heinkel and otto, i think, have spent so much of their lives with factors out of their control while simultaneously making decisions that make things worse for themselves.

of course with otto, this also manifests as his bad luck - his luck is so bad that he nearly drowned as a baby in the bath, in addition to generally being clumsy his whole life. like this is "getting fucked by the universe itself" levels of bad luck. then you have the impact otto's dp left on him which leads to him having problems with socializing with others, which also leaves him friendless and also bullied growing up (see: people ostracizing him and calling him a "freak") and later he gets chased out of the town by assassins...... then he almost gets sold into slavery, gets captured by the witch cult and almost dies to them, etc...... yeah its a lot. but then you get to otto CHOOSING to save roswaal's tome and that tome being one of the demands the witch cult makes during the arc 5 siege. and then otto gets injured by ley as a punishment for this. he spends time being bedridden, having to be banned from alcohol, knowing that some of his friends are off on some dangerous mission that he cant do anything about, and also he cant be his usual workaholic self either. when we see otto again in arc 7-8, he's participating in a full fledged WAR. and he's decided to dedicate himself to opposing subaru despite being warned that he'll destroy himself doing so. otto is making Poor Decisions right now.

otto turns to micromanaging to deal with all of this, while heinkels the one whos at the point where he gives up. he cant really go on without being pushed along. he collapses to his knees in the middle of the battlefield in arc 7 and he admits out loud that he cant do this (specifically addressing louanna as he does). for otto, he's dealt with his biggest more traumatic events thatve caused the most change in him (pre-arc 3 and arcs 3-8) all crammed in the past year. for heinkel, he's been dragged through the dirt by life and his own decisions for around the past twenty years of his life. thats more than HALF of his life. hes thirty-nine, which, yeah thats older than a lot of the cast but thats only because so much of the cast is in their twenties and under. thirty-nine is not that old. especially when you remember that that means heinkel had reinhard when he was nineteen.

but again, we dont get too much content from heinkels pov directly, but theres no denying that much of the shit happening to him is also his fault. hes ultimately self-destructive and hes also pretty much destroyed his relationship with reinhard (and people like carol and grimm, judging off of how carol understandly reacts negatively to heinkel and grimm likely follows suit), which really DID NOT need to happen. yeah. all the astrea drama involving louanna falling into a coma, theresia dying, wilhelm being an Ass, reinhard being the sword saint, the astreas in general being watched and controlled by the kingdom, and general expectations from the world are all out of heinkel's control. what couldve happened, however, is that heinkel couldve done his best to be an adult and a parent to reinhard - ESPECIALLY when he still had carol and grimm to help out with that - which wouldve turned out better for both himself and reinhard. but that didnt happen.

heinkel turned on his own son and pushed everyone away. otto has similar isolating behaviors, because like heinkel, otto doesnt actually talk to anyone in a way that makes himself vulnerable. heinkel and otto arent actually close with anybody. which, again, isnt helped by the General unpleasant aspects of their personalities (anger, irritation, lashing out, etc).

its hard to see otto's isolation more than heinkel (who is very clearly hated by a bunch of people, his wife has been in a coma for ages, and basically almost no one respects him so like. OF COURSE he doesnt have anyone to confide in), but i think that it gets more clear when you look at otto closely. yeah, otto usually makes it clear when hes annoyed or irritated or angry about something, and otto does things like declare hes subarus friend or open up about his backstory to the emilia camp in various side stories - but hes never actually more vulnerable. when you look at him talk about his backstory, it doesnt feel like theres emotion attached to it - its more like "yeah this happened and this happened". its more factual. and then you remember that he doesnt actually talk about his feelings any deeper than that with Anyone. hes either got his head stuck in work, or theres the occasional "otto sneaks off and gets drunk" scene, or theres all the times where otto goes "yeah so i did this for you, subaru, but im not gonna tell you why or anything" or "yeah i will totally leave at the first sign of danger", or otto only lets himself be a tiny bit vulnerable at a time. like when he tells subaru that theyre friends, or when he reunites with subaru in arc 8 and takes the time to sneak into the room just to quickly say that hes glad that subarus back and to not worry that much. but its absolutely more focused on other people, namely subaru, and not otto. his problem in arc 8 is that hes keeping all his feelings to himself because its all connected to all his other secrets (his arc 8 plans). hes open about being pissed off about staying in vollachia, but its more so "this is a dumb decision and puts us in danger, the more logical route would be to leave" and less "im afraid that we might get hurt the longer we stay here and its making me anxious and angry". he doesnt ACTUALLY talk to anyone in depth about whatever the hell his issues are (roswaal doesnt count bc otto just brushes off roswaal's warnings), he just insists on dealing with it himself like he does with almost anything. his tsundere habits are normally played for laughs, and yeah it IS amusing. but no completely well-adjusted person deals with intimacy by getting all pissy like otto does. why did he see subaru in the forest in arc 4 and immediately jump to punching subaru and giving a "this is why you suck, but also please just let me help you" speech?

and when it comes to like - complicated issues regarding Relationships, you look over at heinkel too and heinkel still misses reinhard. heinkel wouldnt need to use schult as a reinhard replacement if heinkel didnt actually miss reinhard deep down. theres like a love-hate dynamic there when it comes to heinkel and reinhard - heinkel hates reinhard the sword saint. but heinkel misses his son, which is interesting because schult Conveniently looks and acts like how a younger reinhard would, right? heinkel and little kid reinhard was most likely the last time heinkel was ever happy, judging off of the trajectory of heinkels life so far. reinhard is the last person that heinkel has left, and reinhards near silence when hes anywhere near heinkel says so much because there USED to be love there. but heinkel very much obviously resents reinhard now because after reinhard kills theresia in arc 5, heinkel VOWS to make reinhards life a living hell.

its kind of like a version of otto deciding to oppose subaru but to a Much Further extent, because otto doesnt hate subaru. but otto hates subaru's actions in arc 8 because it puts subaru in danger. but again, ottos playing with fire here because the ottosuba conflict is pitting them against each other and Resentment and Anger are gonna come out of that. and i think that otto misses subaru, because the arc 8 conflict is drifting them further apart more than ever. ottos afraid to lose subaru, so hes been going to extremes to not lose subaru. heinkel, i think, thinks that hes Already lost the reinhard that he loved. so turning to schult + getting rid of the current reinhard is the next best thing. otto is still clinging onto subaru with all his might, basically. which ironically is what heinkel was doing with reinhard - especially with Everything going on with the astreas - until that switch from "reinhard is my son and he wouldnt kill his grandmother" to "this is all reinhard's fault" happened somewhere around when reinhard was five or so. that switch wasnt instant. you dont go from loving to hating someone in an instant in most cases, and we know that heinkel defended reinhard from wilhelm at first. this change was gradual, the cracks just started then.

we're seeing these cracks happen with ottosuba, because subaru is ottos closest relationship. theres something to be said too, about the slight parallel between heinkel-louanna and otto-subaru in the sense that i think that theres a very likely chance that heinkel knows that even if louanna wakes up, she most likely wont like him anymore. and theres no way that heinkel doesnt know that things wont be the same anymore with her anyway because she was frozen in time. shes twenty years old. the same age as their son. shes missed Way Too Much, and if she even still remembers anyone, shes absolutely not going to approve of heinkel being an absolute asshole. and i think heinkel hates himself too much NOT to notice - at least a little bit - this. that louanna might just end up hating him in the end. but heinkels one redeeming quality now is that hes still dedicated to his wife all these years later. hes been trying to find a cure for her since he was twenty one years old. theres a side story where we see him in the present tracking down a possible lead and being absolutely devastated AGAIN that the lead was a dead end and theres still no cure. and this is with the possibility that heinkel knows that louanna might end up hating him when she wakes up anyway.

and otto, with all of his intelligence and how much time he devotes to doing things behind subaru's back, most likely knows that subaru will end up angry and devastated and might even hate otto if he ever finds out about ottos plans regarding louis/spica. like imagine being subaru and you find out that otto, someone you very deeply trust, has been keeping secrets so that your DAUGHTER dies. like this is relationship ruining shit, and theres no way that otto doesnt know that. otto knows that subaru cares about her. otto knows all about subarus love for others and his self-sacrificial tendencies. thats why ottos keeping all these secrets - he knows subaru wouldnt approve and he does it anyway. i know i love to joke about how otto is basically hitting subaru with a car and then trying to nurse him back to health like a baby bird but that is quite LITERALLY what otto is trying to do.

also regarding otto and heinkel being insecure about their weaknesses: heinkel is clear with this - the dude has been scrutinized by everyone for at least the past twenty years, AND everyone else in his family from theresia to wilhelm to reinhard is more powerful and capable than he is. this is also not helped by heinkels alcoholism, general mental instability, and reoccurring failures - failing to measure up to expectations, failing to find a cure for louanna, theresia almost killing him in arc 5 and then being killed by reinhard in front of him, and the first time theresia died was because she went on the white whale mission in heinkels stead because he was too afraid to go on it and KNEW that he wasnt fit for that mission. AND THEN reinhard got her sword saint dp. heinkel has dealt with a lot of failure in his life. it made him bitter and harsh but its worn him down. otto is the one whos gotten Sharper because of his own failures.

with otto, we dont see much insecurity about his powerlessness UNTIL arc 8 is extremely straightforward about it with "walking in light/darkness". otto compares himself to julius, emilia, subaru, and says that they walk in the light while he walks in the dark. its honestly sad to see - this is otto acknowledging that he CANT be as good as julius, emilia, and subaru. otto straight up lists their good traits - their idealism, their determination, their ability to see the good in things and try their absolute best at that - and otto says that he cant do it. otto acknowledges that hes basically useless compared to them unless he resigns himself to the "darkness" - so he takes up being an enemy, essentially, to subaru as his reason to live on. its quite frankly depressing and self-destructive. hes going "i cant be good like them, so why try? i'll go another path even if it kills me" which i think is a sentiment heinkel can relate to.

but heinkel and otto think that theres no other option than what they are Now when thats clearly not the case. and they need to see that theres Other Ways to go about their lives. theres no need to stay in the darkness forever, which is the key problems they need to deal with at the moment.

and one last quick note - yeah, heinkel and otto are the black sheep of their family. of course, the suwens have an actual healthy family dynamic while the astreas are a whole mess of generational trauma, but otto notes that hes lead to a lot of trouble for his family. iirc in the arc 4 wn he calls himself a burden on them too and how he'd like to pay them back for all the years they looked after him despite all the trouble he brought (you know, regarding ottos dp, that one time he caused a bug swarm in the town, being chased out by assassins, etc). otto is basically the unwitting "trouble child" of the family. this is a fact that also increases when you remember the ifs - in every if, either otto ends up dead, sold into slavery, or hes main otto whos stuck in the middle of a war right now and is willing to get his hands dirty. otto is known to his whole family as someone who gets into trouble, and they all worry about him but purposefully make a point to not think about him too much or theyll get anxious thinking about wtf hes even doing.

meanwhile heinkel is a black sheep with his own family in the sense that 1. this is even reflected in his character design with the sheer amount of black and brown hes wearing - just take a look at his design compared to the rest of his family and 2. hes way weaker compared to everyone else (not counting louanna) and 3. hes distant from all of them. wilhelm, theresia, reinhard. regarding wilhelm and theresia - we dont know much about their parenting when it comes to heinkel, but its interesting to note that it seems that even before everything went Wrong, it may have been a bit distant. when theresia tells wilhelm that heinkel cant go on the white whale mission, wilhelm calls heinkel a coward. i know that like all these characters are thinking with Medieval Logic, but its still a Cold thing to say. if heinkels not ready for that mission, then hes going to fucking die on that mission, which doesnt seem to occur to wilhelm. like yeah, theresias sworn off sword sainting and its a whole Thing that shes got trauma about. but theresia the sword saint logically wouldnt have died on that mission if it wasnt for pandora + losing her dp suddenly. heinkel on the other hand most likely wouldve died if he went on that mission.

and post-Everything Going Wrong in the Astrea Family, in arc 5, theresia is dying again and her last words are ONLY for wilhelm. she has more than enough time in her last moments to spare AT LEAST a quick "love you" for reinhard or heinkel but she doesnt. she has nothing to say to her son and grandson, and heinkel notes that theresia looked hatefully at him and reinhard. heinkel specifically says something along the lines of "who else could that have been but mother?" after noting how she looked at him too. yeah, heinkels an unreliable narrator who thinks that everyone around him hates him just like he hates himself (see: his narration in arc 7 thinking that another character is looking at him angrily when that character from their pov just Pities him). but at the same time - theresia not having anything left to say to her son and grandson is not a good look. and wilhelm deciding to turn his back on five year old reinhard, and most likely heinkel for trying to defend reinhard at the time, is not a good look either. this is also not helped by heinkel again being very Publicly an absolute wreck, so of course no one respects him.

so yeah uh. tldr: heinkel is an extreme version of ottos worst traits in a lot of ways and otto is just the one thats a little better at looking put together while heinkels so damn tired hes given that up a long time ago. and if otto keeps trying to do questionable shit hes gonna end up miserable in a very heinkel-like way. they are both pretty sad and pathetic and also in desperate need of psychiatric help <3 also they need to ACTUALLY address their core issues and feelings or they are going to keep being fucked in that darkness forever for sure.

[ryusaidate]

i love saito. i love that uchikoshi does not know or care what's wrong with him. i love that everyone else in the game has real life medical issues and his brain issues are just "i don't fucking know he kills people. we're doing a Bit about Love And Family. he's got Murders People disease."

i love whatever's going on in both versions of in the VaiN. and that when someone asked uchikoshi what was with the scene at the end of the hit route with So was he was like "he's fucked up. you know how it is." and that was the full explanation.

everything he does as a-set especially in the arg videos is so so so funny. this man is having the time of his life pretending to be a fucked up and evil teen idol streamer. "this is your idol" "be seeing you. but you won't be seeing me" i will shove him in a locker also i know i already drew it but "this is kaname date he's a real hot piece of twink ass but unfortunately his personality is awful. he lost his memory or something i don't care" is everything to me

love that he's making this incredibly intricate plan to ruin the life of this random fucking guy he CHOSE to bodyswap with on a whim because he... what, he escaped out the window? you really just wanted him to sit there while you killed a guy as rohan, realised the oxytocin release didn't carry over also half your vision is fucked now, swap back, and then kill him so he can't narc? that was Theft Done To Personally Spite You? anyway he's doing all that and he's like "i mean i guess i'll kill my dad while i'm at it" and i love that.

i'm. still thinking about "killed by your own father" why are you pretending to be your own dad shooting yourself in the middle of your last ditch "well whatever plan's fucked may as kill him" moment!! just another one of your "i'm technically not lying teehee" bits?? (and i KNOW the reading that it's about mizuki but that makes even less sense to me. & i'm a 'most cringefail reading possible' truther.) i really do love 'i didn't lie, i kept my promise' just to be a jackass

i love that he's so candid about talking about his murders and says shit like "homicide is my hobby" but when it comes to shooting people he either says some bullshit like "blowing their brains out" or calling them "fireworks" or it's about date "watching them die." the only time he calls it "shooting" is when someone else is doing it. and normally that sort of thing reads as 'distancing yourself from the crimes' but wouldn't that be fucking wild lmao. i think it reads more like it's above just shooting? it's art! perfect, beautiful art of a lonely moment in time.

and all the "(you were) a murderer. a serial killer" "have you been using other men's names for so long that you've forgotten your own" talk feels like it should be leading into a "we're not so different you and i" but it never does. (i'd be tempted to say it's just self restraint on the part of the writing team but i find that VERY hard to believe given the. everything. about every uchi game.) like he hates date but he views himself as above him and he can't pull himself down to date's level, even to upset him. he's just taking hypocritical shots at date because he knows he cares about "justice" and "morality" and garbage like that, without acknowledging their similarities

i'm normal? i'm normal.

[andrewknightley]

I like the tagging system in ao3 but for fic writers who put twist and reveals and have to tag it just ruins the surprise 😬