Based On My Yttd Partner Pokemon Post! :D

thinking about the time i made my bf play yttd a few months back

he voted shin EVERY TRIAL. he was trying to kill him from the trial “test” run, all the way up to 2-2. outta nowhere, after clowning shin the ENTIRE trial, he voted kanna. i was really confused and i asked why. i figured maybe he sympathized with his character more after the trial or genuinely believed choosing logic route was better— but i was SO FAR OFF. he just shrugs and said,

“he’s my opp. if my opp dies, i have to open opplications.”

yttd x @screenshotsofdespair

plus one random one at the end to even it out

random rant, but do q-taro fans exist yet or is it just me 😭😭 ? i really like yttd but haven’t been active in fandom since 2019-2020-ish. i started liking him after 2-1 when he finally took the last poison dart for gin in alice lives route and the main game solidified my love for his character. but back in those days, mfs HATED him to death istg 😭

like, no matter how much character development or redemption he got, people (especially on tiktok) only harped on him wanting to vote on the kids/nao in chapter one. fair reason to dislike him, but as reko said…man’s just a realist.

i always felt like it was unrealistic that people didn’t vote the kids off earlier (not that i wanted that). side tangent, but i feel like— in a way, keiji agreed with qtaro on that fact, but gets way less hate for it. despite being adamant about killing shin, he votes for kanna. i don’t know if he was moved by her desire to die for the betterment of the group and for both sara and shin or what his logic behind the vote was, but i could see it going two possible ways: either he casted the vote seeing losing kanna as a “punishment” for shin, or he just found her the least useful.

i thoroughly enjoyed q-taro’s character despite his flaws though. he is not a morally great person, but most of the people in the higher percentiles of survival aren’t. sara, in many circumstances/simulatuons, was the most ruthless out of all of them— hence her survival rate. keiji is cunning and manipulative, even willing to let others die simply to take burdens off his moral conscious. q-taro ranks just below the two.

i feel like some of (not all) the best plot twists in the game relied on q-taro. the token bad ending, the 2-2 card trades, the card placement in chapter 1, the end of the banquet.

and this may be a hot take, but his death was one of the most shattering to me. as soon as he had begun to trust his allies, let his guard down, and shed off some of that willingness to betray and sacrifice others… he was betrayed. and he couldn’t even find it in his heart to resent the person who stabbed him in the back.

and in the end, the man who was willing to sacrifice others willingly let himself be burned alive to save his allies. i think he’s one of the best characters in terms of development.

also, even his ai feeling he would be willing to die for gin :((

speaking of, gin, nao, and kanna really went through so much as the most vulnerable of the group. the shit those three have went through woulda turned any other character into a villian bro.

also, following this up but way darker— i was talking w my bf and we realized somehow all 3 of them got groomed in some way. lord, help this mess of a family.

spoilers under the cut: trigger warnings for subjects like abuse, and grooming (the action of attempting to form a relationship with a child or young person, with the intention of sexually assaulting them or inducing them to commit an illegal act such as selling drugs or joining a terrorist organization.)

kanna reveals that kugie was being romanced by a “mature/adult” woman in the original japanese version of your time to shine. sara is still called “underage” by mishima when keiji thinks about drinking with her, so i assume the simulation takes place with everyone at their same ages as in the death game.

shin was groomed by sou, whether you see their relationship as romantic or not. i personally see it with slight “romantic” undertones due to the excess of photos of shin being placed around sou’s house (possibly one sided as shin, at his most affectionate points with sou, states he viewed him as a sibling or an anti-hero) but either way… it was definitely abusive. shin’s ai reveals that sou was not even a student at his school, just a random grown ass man attending.

(side tangent and personal head cannon : i wonder how much coke sou was snorting to be able to balance high school, being a “psychologist”, “prison guard”, cashier at the ice cream shop, shin’s “friend”, a “nurse”, meeting with the yabusames, working for asunaro… like, half of their funding probably goes to his booger sugar because no way you’re doing all that without speed.)

but back to the main point, he specifically picked an emotionally vulnerable teenage boy with no friends, making it easy to groom him with the intention of forcing him into the death game. shin was very uncomfortable throughout the time they shared. during the lantern scene he says they spoke between computer monitors when at his house due to how uncomfortable he felt with him, and became even more disturbed upon seeing sou peek from between them.

when clicking photos of him he claims sara is “making him remember the bad parts”. he shows the most disdain in the chapter when upon inserting the fake id card into the control room several smiling photos of him appear.

i believe one of the most heartbreaking things shin has said is when confesses relief at the sou’s death despite the loneliness of losing his only friend.

i really hate the romanticization of their relationship. it’s sad seeing a complex character have clear grooming overlooked by gooner-fans (chainsaw man fandom is rlly bad with this as well) and the “i love toxic yaoi” crowd. shin is a victim who deserved much better. he was, at best, a kid who was groomed into joining a death game due to the trust he put into his first “friend”. at worst, there’s a possibility he was groomed romantically or sexually as well.

i do like their relationship. i find it incredibly interesting from a psychological perspective— but the romanticization of it genuinely takes away from a well-written character.

upon taking sou’s name, shin also took upon himself the man’s personality. believing that a psychotic, sadistic, and morally dubious demeanor would save him. but upon doing so— he continued the cycle of violence (fortunately ending it out of genuine love for his victim in chapter 2.) he latched onto the weakest of the group, manipulating kanna to his will with the sacrifice card.

i frequently wonder if he did this because he saw some of himself in kanna. that same timid highschool boy that was manipulated by sou hiyori, the man he has “become”.

regardless of his later intentions and affection, he originally sought to groom her into becoming someone he could use, bend to his will, make part of his plans.

but in chapter two, he broke the cycle. he found himself becoming affectionate towards kanna— and her self-sacrifice distressed him to the point that he was willing to die for her.

that’s one of the reasons i find his name reveal so perfect— we learn of shin tsukimi when we first see that true side of himself that he tried to “kill”. sou hiyori would never care for another human being the way shin tsukimi does. sou hioyri would never feel empathy for his playthings and feared death until the end, while shin tsukimi died at peace giving himself up for kanna.

tragically — even if kanna had been the sacrifice, he was prepared to die. he knew she would choose sara to live alongside her as her surrogate sister.

shin tsukimi broke the cycle, and i find it so tragically beautiful.

favorite thing about kugie + greenblings is somehow— despite the biological siblings being separated and kugie not even being related to them… all three of them ended up gay.

shin and kugie are pretty self explanatory, but kanna gives me gay vibes as well. (this is NOT shipping in any way, just general observation) her blushing sprite is only used when sara says she smells nice in 2-2, if i remember correctly. and i don’t even know what to say about the hot springs scene… she’s visually checking her out and nobody knows wtf happens when the screen goes black. kanna in the hot tub cutscene photo always reminds me so much of the feeling of changing in locker rooms in middle school when you first start to question your sexuality— poor girl. also, either intentionally or unintentionally grabbing reko’s ass in the emotion route 😭

like, its not due to influence between them as kanna only recently found out about kugie’s girlfriend pre-death game and neither of them knew shin. it’s not genetics, since kanna and shin aren’t directly related to kugie.

just genuinely blows my mind how ALL OF THEM ended up gay.

…honestly, that could be said for most of the cast though

thought this fit him well given all the times he randomly breaks character and talks like a valley girl. also, i love beta alice so much.

aaaa! i love this!! bf got a good laugh out of it too! 🫶

funny things my bf did while playing yttd for the first time

- unintentionally killed sara twice in the first trial with joe

- tried to use the empty gun in his inventory from russian roulette on everyone (mostly shin) in ch1 while saying, “they best know i’m packing”

- gave kurumada an angry scottish accent

- gave meister the voice of lord death from soul eater

- gave rio ranger the voice of … donald trump…?

- read all of keiji’s lines in chill’s burger king foot lettuce voice except for his flashbacks pre-murder, which he voiced normally. the minute he shot his idol, my bf switched back to the chill’s voice and said “yeah, keiji’s voice just did that after the incident.”

-decided kanna was a gangster

- gave sara’s inner dialogue a deep manly voice and then a stereotypically girly voice for her spoken lines.

- every time someone defended sara in chapter one trial, he deemed them his “loyal dickriders”

-hated shin the entire game and then chose him to live in 2-2 because “if my opp dies, i have to open opplications.”

- purposefully killed hayasaka in the banquet

- screamed “he’s trying to touch my little girl butt!” every time keiji said anything about sara being cute.

- ended up being happy about saving shin instead of kanna despite his hatred of him because he thought it was cool that shin got to see his abuser die.

- believes mew-chan is evil

- his entire “top five characters list” is just sara (aka “the goat”) 5 times.

found a keisara meme out in the wild and fixed it by not sexualizing minors

in a horrific alternate universe…

funny things my bf did while playing yttd for the first time

- unintentionally killed sara twice in the first trial with joe

- tried to use the empty gun in his inventory from russian roulette on everyone (mostly shin) in ch1 while saying, “they best know i’m packing”

- gave kurumada an angry scottish accent

- gave meister the voice of lord death from soul eater

- gave rio ranger the voice of … donald trump…?

- read all of keiji’s lines in chill’s burger king foot lettuce voice except for his flashbacks pre-murder, which he voiced normally. the minute he shot his idol, my bf switched back to the chill’s voice and said “yeah, keiji’s voice just did that after the incident.”

-decided kanna was a gangster

- gave sara’s inner dialogue a deep manly voice and then a stereotypically girly voice for her spoken lines.

- every time someone defended sara in chapter one trial, he deemed them his “loyal dickriders”

-hated shin the entire game and then chose him to live in 2-2 because “if my opp dies, i have to open opplications.”

- purposefully killed hayasaka in the banquet

- screamed “he’s trying to touch my little girl butt!” every time keiji said anything about sara being cute.

- ended up being happy about saving shin instead of kanna despite his hatred of him because he thought it was cool that shin got to see his abuser die.

- believes mew-chan is evil

- his entire “top five characters list” is just sara (aka “the goat”) 5 times.