i don't know if it's just me but hope peak labeling Xander as an "ultimate rebel" feels soooo insanely shady of them to do and so backhanded. like can i- we just talk about that for a moment. i Think too much. one could argue that they used a term with simpler meaning such as 'rebel' to refer to his activism and revolutionist work for the general public to digest the complexity & heaviness of what he stands for & does while getting the gist of what he specializes in.
thing is that this term has negative connotations which are usually heightened when applied to young adults and teenagers. typically this term is attached to an certain appearance and how the behavior affects others more than what is being said itself. that way when it is applied to people, it is used as as a way to dismiss their genuine criticisms of the status quo. it's assumed they're not justified to feel so strongly about criticizing norms in society because of it's heavy association with young people and as i've mentioned, how it makes others feel when you are critical of norms.
using the words "revolutionist" and "activist" may be uncomfortable but at least it directly tells you the complexity going behind his work and perhaps beliefs. yet using "rebel" is such an interesting word to describe his work, as it appears more like Hope peak is undermining his work & beliefs and calling him a trouble maker at once. even more so as he is a pretty young person himself, it is assumed by the story that he is a fresh adult going into college and finally facing the real world.
if hopes peak is willing to treat his work and activism like this, there is the question to why let him be in college in the first place? why bother accepting a student like this if they're aware that he will be a reflection of the school. hope's peak actions make the title of his more suspicious, specifically their cover-ups. i can't help but interpret Xander's presence in the college being thought of because Hope's peak wanted him into the school hoping that he could be "tamed" or perhaps watched, while taking advantage of his image by making the school appear "progressive" than it is.
there are various of possibilities to why Hope peak even got the thought in the first place, i have a few but this post is going on too long and i need to sleep. i don't know what to end this post at because these are just random thoughts i got.
as much as Hope's peak is very suspicious and calculated, his ultimate title seems unnecessarily damn petty to the point it's kind of funny.
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a bit of spoilers about chapter 2, its just me rambling about xander and david, mostly davids trust
ive been thinking whether david was genuine about xander or not and i think he was genuine, at least a bit
i keep thinking whether he was lying or being genuine. he can be a manipulator and a liar but that doesnt make him apathetic or lack sympathy at all
when teruko tried to explain how xander was a liar and traitor, david tried his hard to defend his name because somehow and somewhat he refused to believe xander could be these things (probably thinking xander couldnt be like him, or worst than him, tho this is just a theory of mine)
im just saying, if david didnt care about xander, he could just not defend him at all and it wont change anything, yet, he did and tried to say xander wasnt like someone bad
i dont even think he did it for sympathy or to look at someone nice, because at that point, it was clear xander tried to kill teruko, i mean even whit was on our side. david could just drop xander and say "oh yeah, he did try to kill you teruko i can see it now"
so at some point he felt genuine happiness and hope thanks to xander, and probably even believed he could be his friend
also he hasnt slandered (yet) xander, just min and arei
Teruko x Charles x whit thrived so hard this chapter.
[ this has spoilers for all of chapter 2 (till episode 11)]
Charles and whit hanging out interacting being ✨Bros✨
Charles actively wanting to search the second floor with Teruko
Whit being a wingman for Teruko and charles
Charles telling Teruko how much he cares for her by telling her how similar he was to her in the first chapter.
[Whit and Teruko barely had any moments this chapter but I loved their moments in chapter one. Whit trying to make her laugh and apologizing to her if he suspects he's made her uncomfortable. (This is the bare minimum but it's rare to see this in shows.)]
Charles knowing whit's mannerisms
Whit constantly making Charles blush during the class trial
" teruko we fucked up" - ✨married coupled goals✨
The three are roommates. Teruko desperately wants them to kick her out the polycule because she she believes she's hurting them but whit and Charles reassure her that she's the best person to them.
I don't know a ship name for them
They need a ship name because I luv these three as a group and can't wait for more for them. I hope these survive.
so i was just thinking about whit's behavior in chapter two; he's trying to be so secretive about david's secret to the point of disrupting the flow of trying to survive in a life or death situation. this behavior from him is likely an extension of his behavior in chapter one, where he tried to keep the reason behind charles behavior and the interactions between the two of them a secret as much as possible.
what motivated the secrecy was him being emotionally aware about trauma; how trauma is such an intimate and personal thing. so here in chapter two, could this flaw be in root of him being emotionally aware of how mentally (and life) damaging it could be on david's life if his career, which largely financially supports his life, is suddenly tarnished?
he values privacy so much to the point it becomes a flaw. the root of this flaw is his emotional maturity and awareness towards other people (i can't word this in a way that also acknowledges his awkwardness with dealing with people). and then i think about his relationship with romance, commitment, detachment and his career. the reason he is an ultimate at what he does is because of his heightened awareness towards the emotional aspects behind romance. his patience and consideration of others suggests emotional awareness.
yet despite how serious and aware he is about romance, him flirting as a joke—thus burying down how prudish he actually is (confirmed by drdt dev)—suggests he attempts at somewhat detaching himself from the concept of romance by treating romance as a joke when it's applied to him and his interactions with others. in other words, this behavior can show you're not putting your full commitment when it comes to romance. hinted by treating your romantic words lightly to detach them from romance.
that trait isn't always an immediate deep thing, but what makes it deep for him is that this is an extension of him constantly joking about serious things in general, thus expressing detachment from dealing with the weight of an impactful situation. as he is aware of the impact about romance, this means he is aware of the commitment—and responsibility, which connects with commitment—that intertwines with romance (the commitment can be vary to little or a lot).
so in a way, it appears he has some sense of aversion about commitment and responsibility that he is very aware of. he acknowledges the responsibility with revealing other people's secrets, so he avoids that, even if it means hes heightening up the risk of a deadly situation by being secretive. in fact this interests me because i can take it far and say this aversion of his could very much be linked to his mother's death and neglectful childhood.
i dont want to say too much tho so i wont go on about how. if anyone does want to hear more thoughts then ask me. anyways any other people who analyze characters way more better than i do/get his character way more than me PLEASEE talk to me what do we think .. i usually dont trust myself with deeper thoughts on characters so im just gonna say this is more like an interpretation than a serious analysis
Other than my headcanon that her hair is damaged due to the random, drastically wavier strands in her curly/coily hair and her depression...
Her voice being robotic has been so interesting to me. I assume that she's around professionals a lot as they've had a heavy influence on her life, thus I headcanon robotic tone as a result from code switching a lot. In business, it's quite common to change your vocab and even your voice. It's occurred so much to the point that her fake accent & vocab almost has dominated her real accent & vocab now. I also think this bit of information would tie nicely with her character revolving around being trapped; she is a character who is very passive in breaking free from the organization which now "owns" her creativity. Her accent, voice and vocab being mostly from code-switching could also reference how professions dominate her life and humanity.
She hardly remembers what she was like before. More like she doesn't want to remember Haha.
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Hu's case is interesting to me because the objects associated with her (butterflies) seem to imply that her character revolves around changing & rebirth due to its symbolism, and she herself finally has the strength to speak about her secret while implying she wanted to put the secret "behind her."
This along with the chapter's themes around change/regression could hint to her "change" already happening before the killing game, similarly to Levi. Although at first I thought it would be least satisfying thing for her to be the murderer due to the symbolism and potential of her character, this "change" of hers already happening before the series taking place mean there's a more likely chance that her being the culprit can be executed in a satisfying way since the murder could act as her arc due to it being the "regression" to her "change."
This is more of an interpretation of mines, but I feel like the this regression arc of hers is more likely to happen because the series has been deconstructing that this "change" Hu implies is partially or even entirely false and struggling to occur. Her emphasis on life being fulfilling if she has a purpose (or feel useful) fuels her constant need to repress her emotions to reduce her humanity into a person who lives only to serve for others.
Thus in the process she reduces other people's humanity, speaks over them and is the negative fuel to her dynamics (Hu/Nico) & (Hu/Ace) [this example is more complex as of course Ace also the one who negativity fuels their dynamic, she surely does add to it by simplifying him as a villain than a human]. These are things that increase the unlikeness of getting outside support she needs, helping her become stuck in her chambers even more.
Her pushing aside the secret with a "putting it behind me" is although understandable due to the nature of it and her depression, the wording could be interpreted as not truly addressing her issues and the severity of her depression. I could see if she wanted to brush aside her secret if she acknowledges that it could trigger regression to recovery. Problem is that her actions so far has shown poor attempts, or hardly any attempts at all, at addressing her mental health, especially with her fixation on being useful and repressing her humanity. It doesn't seem as if she focus on recovery but more on superficial change. In a way, she constantly isolates herself from others and even herself. In way she's just developed another way to harm herself.
We genuinely cant forget that what makes her even more isolated is her preferably getting emotional connections through her idealizations of people, instead of deconstructing those standards herself. She approaches herself and others in such a shallow way. She only see people (including herself) as ideas more than genuine people, and her ideals being broken constantly isn't helping either.
There can be depth to her being the culprit other than her suicidal tendencies. She could risk being the culprit if it meant to she would go out in "glory" because she was "useful" when it came to taking Arei out. I can't pinpoint why she specifically would want to kill Arei, other than Hu desire to target her being rooted in a negative interpretation of Arei (her being the "trouble of the group"), because she wasn't there when Arei blatantly said she wanted to change.
Maybe Arei came during the wrong place wrong time, thus the murder at first was accidental before the culprit and possible accomplices decided to take the steps to make the murder seemed "planned" or "suicide." Or maybe Arei was the planned target yet the murder and planned still managed to fuck up somehow. I don't know man Okay lol. I can't explain how I feel about the murder scene, but it feels unusually sloppy yet planned at once, as if there was a sudden transition to motivates or plans or something.
The main point of this post is to see how her being a culprit could make sense for the story and her story, not really as an attempt to entirely decide that she's the culprit. I'm trying to keep my options open. Problem with deciding that she's immediately the culprit is that her words during the trial (episode 12) specifically gave an emphasis on living. Which could still mean she's involved in the murder case, but more of a planner than the one doing the killing.
Can I just go back to the symbolism for a minute. Why does she cover herself in butterflies, other than their association with femininity that she embraces in? Perhaps she admires the idea of change, but can't find the true methods to change. Maybe her covering herself in butterflies is an attempt to "force" the association with her, as a shallow attempt to say she's change without actually doing the recovery behind the change. With this "change" actually happening before the killing game, the symbolism could really be seen in a different perspective...
Semi-related but another post out there admitted that they were scared for the story, and to be honest I do too. I'm feeling too conflicted about how the story is going so far although I'm not willing to say there are writing issues yet.. im just conflicted about stuff. Okay. Okay. Okay bye im done talking.
Also, I am a little disappointed that most of the predictions of Hu being the culprit doesn't really come out of concern for her character and story, but because they don't like her. I really do feel like she's so severely misunderstood, it sucks imo.
unlike most people who keep suggesting Hu is the culprit, i think i'll genuinely, actually be quite agitated if she is the culprit. if she is the culprit, it would be very strange to me as chapter two is the process of building up negative dynamics for chapter three to explore & expand on, and she has already been involved in multiple negative dynamics (hu/nico & hu/ace) with the recent one (hu/david) literally being formed in the trial. not only that but there is SO much potential for her character. with her wanting to feel like she has a purpose in life which can be touched on in many ways in future chapters. her design revolves around butterflies which could act as symbolism. if it does act as symbolism then that means her character could be revolving around rebirth & change real soon. like ... it will feel like all that symbolism and potential will be for NOTHING if she's the culprit. Like what the freak!
people want her to be the culprit because there's "nothing to her" but what if... the point would be that it appears as if there's "nothing to her" right now for her character to be more explored in chapter three. what if there's "nothing to her" because Hu purposely tries to simplify herself to appear as if she's not an actual human but a character for everybody else's story... because she wants to have a purpose in life...
