#this got sooo much longer than i wanted it to whoopsss

[atlas-of-galaxies]

pls explain how ur choosing which entities to give to which yttd characters i am listening

i love u thank u for indulging me

I'm gonna go ahead and put this under the cut tho cuz it's about to get Very long and Very spoilery

Sara as the Desolation

right out of the gate is one of my favorite assignments!! Sara has proven many times that she (understandably) is willing to use others to keep herself and the ones she cares about alive. the moment with Anzu being sacrificed over Gin in the Coffin Russian Roulette is an obvious example, but she's shown her selfishness many times throughout the game, such as her scramble to find enough tokens to dump her Sacrifice onto someone else, and her subsequent reaction when she suddenly realizes she's free of it. it's one of my favorite parts of her character.

Desolation is also a lot about loss of potential; Joe's death weighs heavy over her, and she feels nothing but guilt and responsibility for the fact he died so young. not to mention her own role in the Death Game as the supposed 15.5% player; her own potential for cruelty is held over her head by both Shin and Midori, and Keiji's pressure over her to become a leader undoubtedly adds to the expectations she's already crumbling under. she's being pulled every which way, and I really do hope she has her moment of catharsis in 3-2.

... speaking of ... she has quite a similar story to Agnes Montague, doesn't she? :) and I'll admit this next bit is just coincidence, but the Desolation is always antagonistic with the Web, out of all other entities. and the Web in my silly little assignments is, well ...

Shin as the Web

okay, I'll admit I have a very specific idea for Shin, but hear me out. one of my favorite little worldbuilding details in TMA is utilized with Mike Crew: the idea of devoting yourself to one entity to escape another.

Shin is, quite bluntly, the Stranger's ideal target: he mistrusts others, he is terrified of kindness as a mask for evil intentions, and its whole thing is the perversion of identity and self. I think that his First Trial would serve as the culminating realization of his utter hopelessness and inability to trust those who may mean his downfall - however, instead of plainly falling victim to the Stranger, he turns to the coping mechanisms that Midori taught him.

he turns to the Web. he takes that same fear of manipulation he learned from Midori, weaponizing it and doing everything in his power to turn the Game to his favor. granted, he's not nearly as good at it as Midori was, but he certainly puts on a good show, and the Spider is nothing if not dramatic.

Keiji as the Slaughter

another favorite of mine. :) one mistake, one slip in judgement, one hasty pull of the trigger, and Keiji is suddenly haunted for life. he was tricked into violence, sure, but that doesn't mean he isn't still responsible for it, and he's terrified of that part of himself that killed his idol. who's to say it won't happen again? will the next person he hurts be less innocent than his idol? does that make it better?

I think he also has a little bit of Fear Soup Syndrome going on; his fear is very much Slaughter-based, but it manifests in a Spiral-esque fashion, hence the hallucinations. Keiji's absolute lack of trust in himself is also very rooted in the Spiral. Sara, too, but to a less intense degree.

speaking of,

Joe as the Spiral

what else would fit the guy who had to deceive others to try to survive but the embodiment of deceit? even in the single chapter we know him for, Joe has multiple moments where he shows a lack of faith in himself or his beliefs. honestly, he's really only exceptionally strong in his stances where Sara is concerned, hence his one man show in the first Main Game. even if he had somehow managed to survive, though, the guilt I have no doubt he'd foster over tricking the others would weigh heavy on his shoulders. what kind of guy would let 9 people die for his sake? no one worth trusting, that's for sure.

and, of course, then there's the easy part of the assignment: Hallucination Joe! not much to explain there.

Reko as the Stranger

here's an easy one: she literally gets Not!Themed. she doesn't die, sure (at least in one route), but she gets swapped out with a fake that can't quite get Reko down right. the fake is even a doll, for hell's sake. reko was the blueprint (i'm joking i'm 90% sure not!sasha was introduced years before)

barring the elephant in the room, though, her regular self still fits the bill; she's a performer at heart, and her distaste at being manipulated into specific roles and boxes could definitely align with the Stranger's dealings with identity. hell, even her dealings with Alice lend themselves to the Stranger, as she finds his supposed actions utterly incomprehensible. how did she ever trust someone who has the potential to take a life?

Alice as the End

everyday I think about the fact that Alice doesn't even remember the actual act that put him in prison. his entire life becomes tarnished and defined by this singular event that he cannot even recall; I can only assume that his brain moved to fill in the horrifying gaps and concoct his own version of events from what he's gathered in court proceedings.

he parallels Keiji very nicely in this regard, so I could see Slaughter working for him, too. but the thing that strikes me is that Alice's punishment becomes his entire existence, while Keiji's strife is over the fact he isn't punished. Alice isn't even allowed to forget his role in the Death Game; he's constantly in his prisoner's uniform, and his occupation is listened as a Murderer (I'm sure that's more Midori being petty than anything else but it still counts).

the final nail in the coffin is the fact that death is the thing that keeps Reko and Alice from reconciling, which is really the one thing Alice wanted to do before he dies.

Nao as the Corruption

I love assigning characters as the Corruption because it's almost always for one of the less-utilized aspects of it: toxic love. and Nao, through no fault of her own, fits the bill quite well. whether it's her maddened grief that inadvertently endangers Gin and gets manipulated into attacking Shin, or the fact that she is responsible for the only canon ending we have so far at the price of the lives of 6 people, Nao is almost always put into a situation where sympathizing with her means harming others.

she seems to have issues with boundaries too, as evidenced in her rapidly warming up to Sara, a total stranger, and some. um. choice scenes in YTTS. she gets attached hard and fast to others, even if those others happen to be an AI of her dead professor ... I forget if any characters call it out as such, but I doubt such coping is exactly healthy.

I feel like I'm absolutely dragging Nao thru the mud rn and I feel BAD cuz I adore her, but she's a wonderfully complex character who, despite her understandable situation, is capable of doing some very bad things. she's fascinating and I miss her deeply.

Kai as the Hunt

as an extension of the organization that has been tracking and studying the participants for years before the Death Game, Kai fits quite neatly into the Hunt. his role as the hunter ("stalking" Sara, protecting the Chidouins, keeping track of other participants) suddenly being flipped into being prey (being put into the Death Game, receiving the Sage) is classic Hunt behavior.

hell, he's even an assassin who doesn't like to kill! people engage in the Hunt for the chase, not the end result.

okay this is already long enough so I'll save the last four for once I finish their pieces, but I will say that I didn't repeat entities anywhere so. do with that information what you will