jacksmysterylabyrinth

[jacksmysterylabyrinth]

There's a few routes in this game that say a lot about how fickle and unstable Takumi can be, that really warps him on an existential level.

It's hard to grasp how sometimes, but I think it starts with this...

Essentially, he's a person whose 'programming went faulty'. Namely, the issue of 'Karua', and how she's at once both a propaganda piece projected into his brain, and also Nozomi's words filtering in.

I don't think he's able to fully separate those things with conviction, as much as he wants to. He doesn't get how projection works, that's already something difficult for a sheltered and clueless teenager to unpack but... this is a whole other level of 'challenge: impossible' mind-fuckery. If the group have ever had some disconnect between their sense of identity and their 'memory', Takumi's is soup.

But what especially gets me, is his 'younger teen self' dismisses 'Karua's' studies in the most incurious way- 'what's this, the outside world? Why bother with all of that? Why do you care? Conspiracy theorist', etc. which I imagine is what he was 'supposed' to do with anything 'weird' like any potential new information. Until the programming got funny at odd moments when Nozomi's interest would seep through, and then, you'd catch Takumi responding to 'Karua's' interest... with more interest for once.

(Now the brain doesn't know what to do. Oh sure, you want to take charge of your destiny, but actually it's better to just sleep and forget it all. Not like you ever cared about learning anything, right?)

I'd say Takumi's avoidance mechanisms later, are a response to Nozomi's existence as if she was a virus. Which... says a lot about the fascist state of the Artificial Satellite, and how Takumi was designed for the 'most ordinary kind of life' that wasn't meant to know it.

It's kind of unclear how the programming works- whether it takes the subject's base personality and uses it to run an 'AI scenario' based upon whatever Kamukura wanted to project into them, or if it doesn't bother matching personality at all and just shoves scenes into their head regardless if it's something they'd do. Either way, it feels that something went especially wrong with Takumi, even if his personality matched the 'memories' he was given, because for the first time one of the pod-programs was actually adapting to outside stimuli.

The symbolism about that moon is especially interesting. Because Eito - the 'moon' - learns the truth about the world and its wars, and remains a significant challenge for Takumi to grapple with- only for him to kill him and redo everything at the end of the first scenario, suggesting he had kind of failed that (basically undoing the work that Eito had done to stop the weapon without knowing that they're not on Earth, for one...). The moon also represents 'illusion'- what the SDU look up at from Futurum is actually the Artificial Satellite where they've spent their whole lives in a pod, Eito's major trauma deals with illusions that physically warp what humans are (the glitch also doesn't even fully distinguish between 'Human' and 'Futuran' in the first place which makes it even less of an objective judgement)...

...on that note, this here from the Casual route continues to haunt me, and it's been hard to put into words exactly why. Because it might very well have come from Eito's mouth if he were there, since he's trapped in some terrible stuff too. But Eito's not there- that's a dream state that Takumi is in, so those words came from Takumi.

It's like his subconscious has been screaming to get out of the cage for a long time, but he keeps wanting to go back in anyway.

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It's so tempting to go through that route with a fine toothed comb because gdi I can't.

I can't stop thinking about this situation and how messed up it is for everyone involved and how shite it is to just lump all that blame on Takumi who was suffering alone, just?? Even the one person most responsible for what happened was fucked up due to brainwash-by-proxy and didn't have a chance to course-correct before things started to escalate

Sirei, on the other hand, encourages substance abuse in chapter 00 - where Takumi strictly refuses, by the way - and in 10A kept pressuring Takumi by using his survivor's guilt as a cudgel while he was under the influence of a drug primarily meant to 'cure' his depression episode. Like I'm sorry but if the rest of the class sans Nozomi are affected by-proxy, and the effects are that strong, what of the person who's actually taking it?

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............................

'Takumi didn't ask them to stop and had selfish motivations and feelings so he wasn't actually a victim in 10A'

I

Just.

Are.

You.

Fucking.

KIDDING ME

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Spoiler poll talk (poll end)

...even the link is a spoiler image so under the cut it goes

Yk what, I'm happy with this result! I know I was kind of contrarian and went for Eito but it's more satisfying to me that it was either that, or that they're simultaneously broken because they're matched

Idk it's more. Say what you will about the narrative aspect of him being unable to win, the idea to me is that even if Takumi wins, strictly speaking, and regains himself... he still loses himself. Which is the most horrible thing- his sense of being, his understanding of himself and his relation to the world and others is fucking tarnished.

It makes it all the more sickly ironic that he's seeing the others as they are, finally, but they're unable to see him as he is. Where he is. I. don't know how you even come back from the place he's in. God

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( coming of age )

you’re exactly how you should be

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Something is bothering me and I gotta wrangle it out

Gonna ramble a bit about one route then

I feel as though people put a whole lot of scrutiny on Takumi's shaky morality regarding DCRT in the CoA, and not nearly enough on nigh everyone else also deciding it was 'fine because circumstances'. In fact, it was that in the first place that had Takumi acquiesce to it, and this is, again, telling of how he's adapting badly to being a leader

What happened was, Takumi tried to get the others' opinion on Eva's brainwashing, which resulted in him shelving his own doubts- something that didn't happen entirely, when it was just Sirei trying to convince him. If anything this showed how weak Takumi could be to group pressure, 'the greater good', time constraints and more, in one package - never mind the effect of Nozomi's opinion* - and being dropped unceremoniously into these pressures right after waking from a week+ long coma doesn't help anything either, doubly because said coma wasted a whole lot of time for him.

*which... says a lot not just for how Takumi holds her in regard, but the way Nozomi sees herself and her own experimentation. Ick

Sans the coma, this is shit that had 2nd scenario-him going along with the friend-sacrifice, whereas CoA had him thinking craftily and outside the box (before Sirei even has a chance to namedrop people) when coming off from Eito's idea to hide the truth about Nozomi

(Eito's influence sure does make him go a bit funny sometimes but this is something else- it uh, worked all right, if at a cost)

Anyway, the 2nd scenario had Takumi far more grounded to resist Sirei on the DCRT meddling because not only had he witnessed someone he knows experience the effects - Hiruko, who he'd spoken to more recently, as opposed to someone he had never even understood the speech of before and like a hundred days ago- he had come to experience firsthand what DCRT actually did to someone. At which point there was no easy compartmentalisation, unlike this-

-very detached and 'pragmatic' manner he displays in CoA-

-in an attempt to reassure the others that they'd be ready-

-plus the group insisting on taking responsibility themselves, with even Ima retracting what he'd said in the flow, as well.

Plus, Sirei taking over from there- which... kinda makes me think he would have tried this anyway, even without Takumi's suggestion, but it also means Takumi never has to witness the torture that results.

Still, even all this doesn't stop the sheer cognitive dissonance that Takumi deals with after the fact, as well as disbelief

...which Takumi doesn't feel he's in a position to grapple with. He doesn't have any clue that Eito's memory hasn't been affected, but he can't say for sure that it wasn't. It's a complete blank spot, since he doesn't fully grasp what DCRT is and does to someone's mind.

Plus, Eito absolutely did manipulate this situation, and the fact that Takumi still at this point doesn't grasp the entire weight of it-

-so you'd expect a sheltered teenager be clueless about being strung along in a situation like that. He's less so 'completely stupid' about it as he is naiive in the hands of people far smarter. Plus, everyone else has fallen for the ruse too- which means Eito is good at playing everyone, not just Takumi. Just like he did in the original scenario

Though mind you: Eito manipulated the situation the way he did in large part to stay under Sirei's radar, because if he was openly caught to be a subject failure, he'd probably be killed. So it's not as if things were easy for him, and he had every reason to hate Takumi about it- Takumi's dismissal of Eito's agency was not good in the slightest. But is this Takumi's fault entirely? Does he alone deserve the worst about it? No! Many others are responsible. And that's the point-that even the everyman - maybe especially, at times - can be lured into morally warped acts through the right amount of pressure in the right place.

Frankly, it doesn't even matter how smart you are, or aren't. Which makes this far more complex of an issue than a 'Takumi wants his ideal Eito back and wants the easy ways out damn the consequences' kinda selfishness, even if he is selfish in this route. It's just a twisted irony that this selfishness resulted from him making a huge gamble to save from sacrificing others.

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...when I get sunk enough - which I suspect is pretty soon - I just know I'm going to draw 100s of parallels between the Hundred Line and Danganronpa V3. The latter is a case of 'has war themes under 17 layers of irony and misdirection' while the Hundred Line is, well, at least a hundred times more blatant and undeniable about them

I have a feeling this would require another 'fandom thesis post', huh

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...I sure hope they have braille

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Probably my favourite moment in this route, is this. This was presented as the 'most leader-like decision', but it stuck with me that it moreso showed just how being a leader fucks with Takumi

Takemaru being stunned by the outburst really hit me, too

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Yeah um, about that...

...meanwhile, in a Cult of Takumi branch?

Not sure what to do with this information, honestly. At the very least, Takumi's Class Armour works- and later in the second scenario the satellite DOES get attacked, by Undying Flames, which is like the peak quality of 'cryptoglobin' fuel so uh... perhaps an assumption?

Also, it doesn't really make much sense because if a major commonality between Karua's 'memory' and Nozomi's actual ones is trauma triggered by sirens, then no duh, the satellite has been attacked a whole bunch, just not by the divine blood warriors

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...

...this might not be evidence of looping, per se, but it is a bit suspicious that whatever funky stuff Sirei put in that drink has NO effect on Hiruko, and we're supposed to let that go as a one-off gag

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I love how this inbetween shot of Takumi's choice-screen makes it look like he's in the Matrix

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Wound up rewriting an entire section because I wasn't happy with it and my writing is overall rusty, though keeping progress drafts helps? I just sure am in the weird place of not being able to talk about it and phoning it in Hahaha

...gods, I can't get out of my head some very specific trauma that would result from chapter 10A. And uh

.............remembering flashes of it in the post-Steady Fundamental timeline, where more loop memories have started to return to Takumi

It happens when Yugamu very Innocently offers to 'enhance' Takumi's body. Which, to some circumstance or other was a necessary and welcome thing- e.g, they can't use divine blood powers off planet, and Yugamu seems to have some miracle drug for just about anything, given time and resources, yk, whatever the case is.

Except the second he brings up enhancing of cryptoglobin effects and offers pills, Takumi just kind of slurs his speech and blanks out, like he's having a stroke or seizure. Then after a solid ten seconds like this, it just seems to... fizzle out, and he doesn't even remember

At which point Hiruko just fucking snatches it out of his hands

[jacksmysterylabyrinth]

i need you to understand that i play horror games for fun ive always been a fan of horror media ive got nerves of steel but seeing this ingame with no prior warning made me scream louder than any actual horror media ever has in my life i was afraid for my safety

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Hmmmmm??

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This is why Takumi is so relateable for ADHDheads like me.

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Snapped the post because tagging would be tagging spoilers

But

Toxic Hirutaku potential much!? I'm thinking Slasher-like loops but where Hiruko is just so fixated on caring for Takumi above all else, and there's just no stopping her in the worst of it because her senses have just kind of. Gone. Doubly so if the break-loop attempt in the 55th ending FAILED and she's back at square one, oh God oh God