shin tsukimi rant because i need it

i have so many emotions about this stupid little twink and i need to put it somewhere so here we go

one thing that i NEED to talk about is the way shin is treated by the fandom, especially in comparison to midori (although most people i know (EXCEPT DAN) hate midori anyways) or at least how he compares in canon to midori

something i feel is so overlooked is the fact that, in the first 2 chapters, shin acts like a bit of a dick, and im not gonna deny that! it may have been the fact the person who i watched play the game had a massive grudge against him, but yeah it wasnt hard to tell that shin was meant to be disliked by the player and he actively made your life harder, so from the players/sara's perspective, OBVIOUSLY this guy is just an asshole, right?

WRONG.

there are 2 parts to his actions and personality in this section of the game that i find so important, and important for people to understand in order to understand shin himself and his actions

1. imagine for me; youre a poor young adult, not in university so you have to go between low paid jobs, you struggle making friends and the only friend you did have vanished suddenly a while ago. one day, you wake up in a room you dont recognise, having no idea how you got there. a voice speaks to you; they tell you you've been kidnapped and thrown into a game where you and other members vote to kill eachother. what? you dont want to die, sure your life was hard, but you didnt want to die. the voice doesnt care, it proceeds to tell you extremely precise and pre-planned data for the game, they show you sheets of paper with the names of everyone involved, including you, of how likely you are to survive. you search for your name in a panic. the percentage is a flat, unwavering, 0.0%. you are certainly going to die. and for what? what did you do? why would you, of all people, some random guy just trying to get by in a failure of a life, be forced into a game where there isnt even a chance that you can make it out. what are you meant to do about it? what can you do? the voice tells you; nothing. shin tsukimi's life is already over.

you meet the other people in the game, they are all acting like nothing bad is going to happen, you already know. you know that any of them could live. you see the person most likely to succeed, some random high school girl. what if shes the one who kills you? its likely, she has to have won somehow. why do you deserve to die when all of these people can choose it for themselves? what is wrong with you that leaves you dead last?

you dont want to die. youve never wanted to die. one of the names on the papers, however, isnt here. your old friend, sou hiyori, who went missing. you know he isnt going to show up, but he had a chance of surviving. you feel jealous. someone already dead was more likely to live than you, someone still alive? its ironic. but it gives you a chance. if sou was already dead, what would it hurt taking his place? an artificial chance is still higher than 0.0%, its all you have.

yeah, this isnt necessarily an excuse for anything, but its a pretty damn good reason to act the way he does. sure he was still an asshole to you as the player, playing sara, but that brings me to my next point

2. this was something i realised during chapter 3 and really thought about it after the whole game ended, and honestly i feel like an idiot for not realising it, but it was more of the sort of thing you think is so obvious, but when you actually THINK about it its like. OH.

shin is acting as sou for the whole game, and since none of the others had actually met the real sou, he could've basically acted like himself the whole time, which is what i thought he did before we actually met midori, since i thought he just died or something and wouldnt show up. i assumed that this personality we had met was just how shin was-- obviously way more desperate than he probably was in his day to day life, but ultimately he was just a good liar. i tried to convince myself to still dislike him since he was an asshole and even if he wasnt the real sou, this was still his personality and all his actions were his own

then, we met midori, and it clicked in my brain. shin is a terrible liar, and he knew that. and the only way he thought he could be a good enough liar was to copy the best liar he ever met: midori. the entire game, shin wasnt pretending that shin tsukimi was sou hiyori, he was pretending that HE was sou hiyori, the whole package, and the only reason his personality that the player interacted with was different to midori was literally BECAUSE hes a bad liar and couldnt copy midori perfectly, because if you think about it, its clear that was what he was doing. he lacked so much self confidence in himself that he, quoting from the game, "threw shin tsukimi away", meaning he tried to get rid of his own personality and identity completely.

all this "annoying, troublesome, manipulative, insane" shin that made sara hate him so much was shin's poor attempt at copying MIDORI. it was never shin. and while he still acted like that, and maybe some of it was real (if not him convincing himself he really was like that, which i wouldnt doubt after spending so much time acting like it), its obvious he was fuelled by fear, never actual malicious intent. maybe that was why he spent so much time alone or with kanna, because he knew nobody else would trust him and he didnt want to keep up the act all of the time.

oh, and also, i just want you to imagine for a sec, POV: you spent several of your developing years, mostly with 1 guy who you think is your friend because its as close as you have, but he spends basically all his time with you purposefully trying to make you uncomfortable because he finds it entertaining/enjoyable to see you suffering or in discomfort. randomly he never comes back, you feel a mix of grief and relief at his vanishing, its hard for you to get over that discomfort and you know if he could see your pain right now he would love it. you still miss him and you hate it.

got that? great. you are now going to die in (at most) a few weeks and your only hope to live is to pretend you ARE him. you have to BE the man who caused you loads of developmental trauma. as a bonus, this teenage girl may murder you! congrats!

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i dont think we've ever really seen the true shin tsukimi in YTTD yet, since in chapters 1 and 2 he was acting as midori, and in chapter 3 (if hes still alive) hes so overcome with grief for kanna (and the fact midori is BACK) while still trying to use midoris personality as some sort of emotional shield between him and sara since hes gotten so used to hiding behind it, that its hard to say any of what we see of him in this chapter is genuine, aside from a few moments. IF ANYTHING the shin ai may genuinely be the closest thing to his real personality, since it was coded by midori who spent every day with him for a long time, and it's creation took place before midori's disappearance and the killing game. and considering that the shin ai is helpful and friendly to the group, its only proof that the contrast of his deceptive and sneaky nature in the game is a front he is putting on and doesnt actually represent any of his true personality.

TLDR: i am strong believer that most of the hate for shin isnt actually hate for shin at all and is hate for sou/midori by proxy, i also get super emotional over my comfort characters and shin makes me UPSET so LEAVE HIM ALONE!!! hes got so much depth as a character and it may or may not be one of the reasons i love the logic route so much.... character development..... sorry kanna....

if you wanna discuss this feel free in the comments i love character analysis and other perspectives would be valued :3