u/Eins_V

It's going to be a little messy, 'cause I'm too lazy right now to structure a proper essay, I just wanna share some thoughts on mischaracterisation/simplification of Shin's personality, and how I imagine him acting outside of the Death Game.

So, you see, I really don't like how majority of the fandom depicts pre-game Shin. Yeah, Shin isn't a real villain he tries to be in the Death Game, and yeah, he's actually a kind and timid guy. This is like basic knowlege, but my problem is with how some people exaggerate it to the point that they depict Shin as helples, constant victim and the most innocent smol bean in the world.

Think about it, we actually know almost nothing about how Shin normaly acted before the Death game. We know a lot about his life, like a job, parents, friendship with Hiyori ect ect, but we have not so much examples on his... you know? Behaivor? Let's analyse what we have

1. Memory with Hiyori. It's one short dialogue, but it's the most reliable example.

2. Shin's AI behaivor. Now this is interesting, because I want to argue that Shin's AI is not as reliable. Firstly, we know for sure: these AIs are extremely close to the original, but not perfect. The evidence is Reko's AI. Reko herself says that bongos are as important to her as her life. And if you buy Reko's personal info and talk to her AI... She's confused about it? AND the thing people don't talk about much, SHIN AI WAS CREATED BY MIDORI, THINK ABOUT ITTT. Midori is a mentally ill person, who is obsessed with Shin and who ENJOYS his kindness and timidness in a sort of... predatory way. So even if Hiyori studied Shin for a long time and really tried to collect various data about him... He would still subconciously pay more attention to these parts of his character that were most interesting to him. I mean like, it would go to anyone who would try to recreate a person's character, but considering Midori is insane it's just so much worse imo. Okay, moving on

3. Nankidai's sketches. A little more reliable, I think, but also not perfectly, because it's A) Mostly AUs that, for sure, do depict characters personalities, but I feel like they still would be kinda different cause they have different life expiriences B) Most of them are absurd I belive? Though there ARE def some curious ones, like the festival one, but I don't have patience to talk about each.

So yeah, we can confidently say Shin was timid and kind person, but hear me out... We have such scarce resources to claim it's ALL that there was to his personality. I mean it's at the very least boring to make him morally flawless! And it's also boring to not acknowlege stornger points of character, but... I kinda talked about them in my previous post. So let's talk about flaws.

You see, to analyse his character you have to do a huge work, separating his lies and acting from his geniune reactions and thoughts. And if you try to take into account all details... it's actually quite hard. I feel like in general the fandom KINDA goes with "these bad things he said and did – he did as Sou Hiyori, and these kind things is his true persona". So we kinda end up erasing his negative traits from his "true personality". I mean obv there are people who really don't like him, so they don't excuse him... But my point isn't about excusing or not excusing his actions. There are... few things I want to point out, that will, perhaps, help us form a little more complicated view on his pre game persona?

1. The very fact of him deciding to take a villain persona, imo, already proves he wasn't a helples sheep who can do no harm. And yeah, lol, I'm pretty sure his hallucination ironicaly called him that. But my point is: it's not like he was a complete sheep all the way and then SUDDENLY took the villaions persona. NO, I KNOW HE DID IT BECAUSE OF HIS LOW PERCENTS, I KNOW HE JUST WANTS TO SURVIVE, BUT HE HAD A COURAGE (!) TO CHANGE HIMSELF THAT MUCH, TO LIE THAT MUCH, TO PLAY A VILLAIN. He could just gave up and cry or whatever, yk. But he had something in his heart.

2. NOTICE HOW HE DOESN'T COPY HIYORI'S PERSONA PERFECTLY. It goes beyond him being obviously better as a person. It's even small details... And here's an example of one – he can be kinda rude! And I don't think it's ALWAYS about acting. Look: both Shin and Hiyori are mostly polite. Shin in a timid way, Hiyori in an ironic way, wich just contrast his cruelty. They both could use politness as part of manipulative facade, but imo their politness feels SO different. And so is their rudness. Shin sometimes just blurt rude things out... as, let's say, calling Sara heavy in second chapter (I don't remember when exactly it happened, but there were an option to lean on him or smth like that). Like you can say he was just playing a rude villaionus guy, but I kinda feel like he actually just kinda rude sometimes... And not in a way that he tries to offend people, but in a way that he's straightforward. His name literally means truth, so I think it would be so cool for him to be a honest person... But sometimes TOO honest, rudely straightforward! And also I remembered how he made a misogynistic comment in a first fight with Maple... Eh, I belive he said something like it's hard to deal with women's emotions? I don't think he's extremely (!) misogynistic, but slightly – yes. And it's a second little flaw I would give him if I was to write a fic with his pre-game version.

3. He's revengeful, it's obvious. It's more of... morally debatable trait. I personally don't view revenge as justice, but some people may definetly disagree. However! It still a trait to take into consideration that also can help NOT to write Shin exageratedly innocent and boneless

Ok, whew, that's kinda all, I think. Perhaps I was especially unlucky with pre-game Shin's depictions because I tried to read a lot of soushin fics. And these have huge problems with acknowleging Shin as anyting BESIDE victim! Don't get me wrong, he was OBJECTIVELY a victim, but I mean like... Ficwriters should still allow him to have traits that just AREN'T ABOUT him being a abused. He still could do wrong, he still could have flaws, and HELL he technically could even do something wrong to HIYORI sometimes. It doesn't mean it's comparable to Hiyori's abuse, it just means he's human. You know writing this post (specifically part about Shin AI) made me realise how much some of soushin fics feel like they were written by Hiyori. And in the worst possible way too.

Thanks for hearing me out if some of you will read it all. I would love to hear your thoughts, there's definetly more to be said, but I'm done for now

Also my eng grammar probably sucks as usually, but nvm.

There are a few things I want to add:

1. I hope it's obvious, but to prevent any misunderstanding: I don't approve on shipping any adult characters with teenagers and kids, there are just some interesting examples when I see why people do that and I wanted to comment these specifically

2. I know Ranger is like four years old, but I meant that I'm not sure how old he is psyhologically. I don't see him as an adult, but neither I see him as a child

3. In case you don't know there's a theory that Kugie's "mature" girlfriend Kanna talked about in YTTS is Megumi, 'cause some people assume Kanna meant as if it was an actual adult. Though I fail to remember why some people think it was Megumi specifically. So yeah. Weird as fuck, tbh

4. MidoMeister is one ship that doesn't even makes sence TO ME. I don't see Midori having feelings for Meister, and I don't see Meister having feelings for Midori, and yet there's a hint of homosexual tension I see between them in my head even though there's so obviously isn't any. Anyway, love their dynamic they have in deleted scenes

5. I kinda like MidoMiley because they're lowkey my bisexual panic duo. But I honestly think they're more like toxic besties

6. I was too lazy to mention it in the tier list, but I suppose I also see why people ship Midori and Sara. Midori's behaivor in that one scene in the classroom was... uh.......uhhhh............ God he's horrible

7. I still didn't have time to play YTTS somehow, but I saw a lot of scenes from there, and also I once talked to the person who analysed YTTS a lot, and they explained to me how Megumi was hinted to have a weird obsession with Keiji, and omg, I hope I will play it eventually and I hope we will see more

8. I basically like NaoShin because I relate to Shin a lot and I think if not the death game these two could actually be a good match. Also I think it's so fucking funny how this ship mostly exist because she hited him with a frying pan

I could say so much more, but ummm... I feel like I've already said too much lol.

I don't hate any of yttd characters, including Anzu, Nao and Ranmaru. But it's true they are one of my least favorite