#dynamic analysis

On the other hand, Trey was so ecstatic to see Riddle again to the point that he was yapping and talking to his Heartslabyul dorm members about how good of a person Riddle is during the 2nd years ceremony

> also note, Riddle fully crashed out during their ceremony because Floyd GRABBED Riddle's hair and obviously that's rude but Riddle had to be physically restrained by Vargas too; might've been not a good first impression to the other Heartslabyul who didn't believe Trey's gassing up of Riddle.

Eventually driven by self motivation, Riddle takes the crown of Heartslabyul 2 weeks in the school year, and the vice dorm leader is removed as well which prompts Riddle call in an election of the dorm to choose their next vice. Yes. He didn't choose Trey as his vice, he didn't even ask or anything, Riddle just acted alone.

The rest of the dorm, probably scared shitless, votes the one person that could "handle" Riddle (and also technically the one that kept hyping up Riddle anyway) which was Trey.

To be honest, I don't recall any other canon info about what happened during the first year of Riddle's rule (there's probably more hidden in voice lines or vignettes that I just don't know..) so let's move on!

Cut to Prologue and Book 1, Trey and Riddle have clearly settled into their duo position more comfortably than ever. Riddle acknowledges Trey, and the dorm is stable now (I had another analysis of how good Riddle administered/changed Heartslabyul if ever)

A lot of things happened which I'm not gonna narrate again because suddenly my brain ran out of fuel actually...

And then the overblotting happens, and finally it forces to Trey to act because it's not a moment where Riddle just got mad at a student and Trey can just ease both people involved later - it's one where it's a literal "fight or die" scenario.

A metaphysical moment that I think really altered my brain on Trey and Riddle was when Riddle shoots to harm people and then Trey raises his pen and vanishes the lethal spell within seconds, and Riddle has a meltdown.

This could go in two route: for a pragmatic argument to this, I theorize that maybe he viewed Trey as inferior to him and so when Trey "wrote" over his magic that was supposed to be stronger, he got upset at the realization that Trey is possibly more powerful than him

OR, if we wanna go down the more emotional route: Maybe it was more like Riddle was devastated. Ever since he's been in NRC, after meeting Trey again, fulfilling the duties of being a dorm leader, and supervising a chaotic dorm, Trey has been with him for more than a year.

Most likely, he's probably comforted Riddle through a lot of vulnerable moments too and not just through moments where he gets angry.

It's the devastation that someone who you trusted, who helped you in your vulnerable times, someone who's been the shield to your sword, your aid, turned his back against you in your most vulnerable moment possibly.

He's supposed to know Riddle's mother is right, doesn't he? He's seen it himself when they were kids. So, why did he go against him, against her? And why can he do it, when Riddle can't? How can he step away, when Riddle has been bound his entire life? Why can he overwrite his magic so easily, when Riddle spent his entire childhood perfecting it? What did he have, that Riddle doesn't?

Maybe Trey eventually became his shield whether Riddle realized it or not at some point or subconsciously. In a dorm where people slowly but surely started to antagonise Riddle; Trey was technically one of the true ones that was locked in to whatever insanity Riddle had.

But, even a shield can't be your true shield if they technically "lie" to you because they want to "protect" you, because is it really protecting if you won't help the sword sharpen itself for future battles?

Even from the very beginning of their NRC arc, Trey has only looked at Riddle with his past version etched into mind; the one who smiled more, the one who beamed when he won a little harder at croquet and the version that Trey gave a strawberry tart to.

This aspect was actually made so obvious in the manga when Riddle overblots and there's blot tears running down his face, and right next to that panel of Overblot Riddle is child Riddle crying.

In the events of Book 2, I find Riddle immediately jumping to action after Trey was hurt so deeply healing because he wants to protect Trey for once; to show him that he does care and he's trying to change, even if it's slow.

Extra Trey and Riddle moments thoughts:

There's a scene in the TWST Anthology where Ace catches up with Riddle who's worrying about keeping up to standard and Ace tells him something along the lines of "Trey advised you to stop doing that, because what matters is that you try anyway."

Book 7 scene where Trey headpats Riddle, and Riddle is genuinely caught off guard by the casual sign of affection - I also see this as Trey finally feeling comfortable around Riddle as well outside of trying to be formal (tbf it was also Malleus disaster confrontation time lol)

Anyway, thanks so much for the ask btw anon!! They have a certain tragedy to them that can't be easily replicated, and adding Chenya to the mix is another thing too (maybe I'll make a Chenya dynamic analysis if someone asks lmaoskdj)

AND I ended up rambling so much oh my god, beware i hate these two from the very molecules of my dissolved tears (⁠个⁠_⁠个⁠)

evan rosier as fred jones is the kind of casting choice that makes everything else immediately fall into place.

because on the surface, fred is the “leader.” he’s the one with the plans, the structure, the “gang, split up and look for clues” energy. and evan fits that in the most deceptive way possible — not because he’s the most stable, but because he’s the one most willing to take control of chaos and shape it into something that looks like order.

evan isn’t leading because he’s sensible. he’s leading because he’s fearless in a way that borders on reckless.

fred builds traps. evan would build traps that are slightly too elaborate, slightly too dangerous, and definitely more personal than they need to be. like fred sets up a net and a pulley system; evan rigs something that requires precision timing, a bit of luck, and the implicit understanding that if it goes wrong, oh well.

and the thing is — it usually doesn’t go wrong. which only makes him worse.

he’s got that same hyper-focus too. when fred locks onto a plan, nothing distracts him. when evan locks onto something, it’s game over. he’s not letting it go. he’s not letting you go. he’ll grin through it, joke through it, but there’s something sharp underneath — something that says this was never a game for him in the first place.

also: the aesthetic. fred is clean-cut, all-american golden boy. evan is that same silhouette dragged through something darker — still striking, still magnetic, but with an edge that makes people hesitate for half a second too long. he looks like he knows exactly how things are going to end and is enjoying the process anyway.

and the most important part — the dynamic.

fred is the one who keeps the group moving forward. not because he understands everyone the best, but because he refuses to let them fall apart.

evan does the same thing, just… meaner about it.

he’ll tease, provoke, push — but it’s all in service of keeping everyone engaged, keeping them sharp, keeping them from drifting. he doesn’t do soft encouragement. he does tension. he does challenge. he does that thing where you want to prove him wrong just to shut him up — and somehow, that keeps you going.

he’s the centre of motion, not because he’s safe, but because he’s impossible to ignore.

fred jones, if fred jones had teeth.

-

regulus black as daphne blake is the kind of casting that starts as a joke and ends up being painfully accurate.

because everyone thinks they understand daphne.

she’s the pretty one. the composed one. the one who looks like she belongs somewhere softer, safer, more put-together than the chaos she’s constantly standing in.

and that’s exactly what people do with regulus.

they see the poise. the control. the way he holds himself like something carved and careful and intentional. they see the beauty of it — the symmetry, the stillness — and assume that’s all there is.

but daphne isn’t just “the pretty one.”

she’s the one who keeps ending up in the centre of things.

kidnapped, targeted, singled out — not because she’s weak, but because she’s visible. because she draws attention. because she looks like the easiest point of fracture in the group.

and regulus exists like that too.

he’s the one people choose. the one people reach for, test, push, try to break open. not because he’s fragile, but because there’s something about him that feels like if you could just get past the surface, you’d find something important.

and they’re not wrong.

what people forget about daphne — what they always forget — is that she survives everything.

she gets out. she fights back. she adapts.

and sometimes she does it quietly.

sometimes she does it by playing the part they expect long enough to turn it on its head.

that’s regulus.

he understands the role he’s been placed in. he understands exactly how he’s being perceived — delicate, ornamental, controlled — and he uses that. he lets people underestimate him just enough to get close, just enough to miscalculate.

and then he changes the outcome.

also — and this matters — daphne is the emotional hinge of the group in a way people don’t talk about enough.

she notices things. she feels shifts. she picks up on tension before it breaks.

regulus does that too, but where daphne smooths things over, regulus holds it. carries it. lets it sit in his chest until it turns into something heavier, sharper, more decisive.

he’s not the heart in the soft way.

he’s the heart in the way that hurts.

and visually? yeah. obviously.

put him in daphne’s silhouette — the clean lines, the deliberate presentation, the almost too-perfect exterior — and it works immediately.

but it’s the subversion that makes it stick.

because underneath all of that, both of them are far more capable, far more dangerous, and far more aware than anyone ever gives them credit for.

daphne blake, if you stopped mistaking softness for weakness.

-

dorcas meadowes as velma dinkley is the kind of casting that feels obvious until you actually look at it properly — and then it becomes perfect.

because velma isn’t just “the smart one.”

she’s the one who sees everything.

patterns, inconsistencies, the tiny details everyone else misses because they’re too busy running, arguing, or pretending they’re not scared. velma is always a step ahead — not louder about it, not showy — just right.

and dorcas has that exact energy.

she’s observant in a way that borders on surgical. she doesn’t just look at a situation, she dissects it. pulls it apart, lays it out, understands how it works and where it’s going to break.

and the thing about velma — the thing people forget — is that she’s not passive intelligence.

she’s sharp. she’s blunt. she will absolutely tell you when you’re being stupid, and she won’t soften it to make you feel better.

that’s dorcas all over.

she’s the one calling things out. the one grounding the group when they start spiralling off into nonsense, dragging them back to what actually matters. not gently — never gently — but effectively.

and she’s always doing more than she lets on.

velma is constantly carrying the investigation. connecting threads, building the bigger picture, holding all the information in her head so the rest of them can keep moving.

dorcas does the same thing, just quieter about it.

she’ll let people think they’ve come to conclusions themselves. she’ll let evan take the lead, let regulus sit in the centre of it, let everything unfold — but behind the scenes, she’s already mapped it out. she already knows where this is going.

she just doesn’t need the credit.

also — the dynamic.

velma and daphne are a pair. not in a loud, obvious way, but in that constant, underlying alignment. they understand each other without needing to explain. velma notices when daphne’s off; daphne trusts velma’s judgment without question.

dorcas and regulus fit into that perfectly.

she’s one of the few people who actually reads him correctly. not the version he presents, not the version everyone else reacts to — him. she sees the strain, the calculation, the way he holds everything in too tightly.

and she adjusts around it.

not to fix him. just… to account for it.

and aesthetically? velma’s whole thing — practical, grounded, slightly understated but unmistakably intentional — translates so well to dorcas. there’s nothing accidental about how she exists in a space. everything is chosen, everything has purpose.

no wasted movement. no wasted thought.

velma dinkley, if you sharpened her edges and let her keep them.

-

barty crouch jr as shaggy rogers is the kind of casting that looks like a joke until you realise it’s actually the most unhinged, accurate thing in the entire lineup.

because shaggy isn’t just comic relief.

he’s avoidance.

he’s nerves and deflection and running — not because he’s incapable, but because he feels everything too loudly and too fast and doesn’t have any interest in standing still long enough for it to catch him.

and barty?

barty lives there.

he’s jittery in a different way — not soft anxiety, but something sharper, more volatile. his energy spikes instead of dips. where shaggy goes “nope” and bolts, barty goes “this is a terrible idea” and then does it anyway, laughing like it’s funny when it’s really just too much.

but the core is the same:

he doesn’t sit still with things.

he fills the space. talks, jokes, provokes, does something — anything — to keep from being alone with his own head.

and just like shaggy, people underestimate him because of it.

they see the chaos, the mess, the erratic energy and think that’s all he is. comic relief. background noise. the one who panics.

but shaggy survives everything.

he gets dragged into every nightmare scenario and still makes it out the other side. he adapts. he improvises. he thinks on his feet in a way that looks accidental but isn’t.

barty does that too — just meaner, faster, and with way less concern for whether it’s a good idea.

also, the loyalty.

this is the part that actually hurts.

shaggy is ride-or-die. not in a loud, noble way — in a messy, terrified, i’m still here anyway kind of way. he’ll complain, he’ll panic, he’ll say this is the worst idea ever, and then he’ll follow you into it regardless.

barty’s the same.

he’ll mock you while doing it. he’ll make it sound like a joke. but he doesn’t leave.

and then there’s the dynamic with fred.

shaggy and fred don’t make sense on paper — one’s chaos, one’s structure — but they work because fred keeps things moving and shaggy keeps things from becoming too rigid.

evan and barty slot into that perfectly.

evan builds the plan. barty pokes holes in it, laughs at it, stress-tests it just by existing. and somehow, between them, it becomes something that actually functions.

controlled chaos meeting weaponised unpredictability.

also — let’s be real — shaggy has that slightly dishevelled, offbeat, “is he okay?” energy that barty wears like a second skin. there’s always something a little off, a little too much, and you can’t quite tell if it’s intentional.

it usually is.

shaggy rogers, if the nervous energy bit back.

-

pandora rosier as scooby doo — but specifically if scooby were human — is the kind of casting choice that makes the entire group suddenly make sense.

because scooby isn’t just “the dog.”

he’s the emotional gravity of the group.

he’s instinct, chaos, loyalty, and that weird, almost supernatural intuition that always ends up being right, even when it makes no sense at the time.

and pandora fits that in the most unnerving way.

she doesn’t think like the others.

where dorcas analyses and evan plans and regulus calculates, pandora just… knows. she’ll say something completely offhand, something that sounds like nonsense or a joke or a tangent, and then three scenes later it’s the key to everything.

not because she worked it out step by step.

but because her brain moves sideways instead of forward.

and scooby does that too.

he stumbles into clues. he reacts to things no one else notices. he’s driven by instinct — food, fear, affection — but underneath that is this constant, quiet awareness of what’s wrong in a situation.

pandora has that same awareness, just dressed up in curiosity and chaos instead of nerves.

also — the loyalty.

scooby stays.

even when he’s scared, even when he doesn’t understand what’s happening, even when everything in him is saying run — he stays because his people are there.

pandora’s like that, but softer about it. less obvious. she doesn’t cling, doesn’t make a show of it — she just… is there. always somewhere nearby, always orbiting, always returning.

and if something threatens the group?

that’s when it gets interesting.

because scooby can be brave when it counts.

pandora can be dangerous when it counts.

and then there’s the dynamic with shaggy.

scooby and shaggy are inseparable. they feed off each other — fear, humour, comfort, chaos — constantly in sync, constantly pulling each other along.

pandora and barty slot into that perfectly.

they’re on the same wavelength in a way that makes everyone else a little uneasy. the jokes that go too far, the ideas that spiral, the shared look before they do something that’s either going to be brilliant or a complete disaster.

probably both.

and aesthetically? making scooby human doesn’t take away the essence — it just translates it.

the big, expressive reactions. the physicality. the way emotion moves through them so visibly, so immediately. pandora has that same openness, that same lack of restraint in how she exists.

nothing is half-felt. nothing is muted.

everything is alive.

scooby doo, if you gave the instinct a human mind and let it wander wherever it wanted.

-

mystery inc. (but it’s them) — dynamic breakdown

—

shaggy & daphne (barty & regulus) this is teeth and tension and something unsaid sitting between them at all times.

because barty pokes. constantly. he circles regulus like he’s trying to get a reaction out of something carved from marble. jokes that go a little too far, comments that land a little too sharp — always testing, always prodding.

and regulus?

regulus doesn’t rise to it.

which only makes barty worse.

there’s something about the way regulus refuses to give him what he wants that hooks him in deeper. like he’s trying to crack something open just to prove he can.

but here’s the thing — regulus sees him.

not the noise, not the performance — him.

and sometimes, very rarely, he’ll respond. dry, cutting, precise enough to stop barty mid-sentence.

and those are the moments barty lives for.

because underneath all of it, there’s a weird, fragile understanding there. not soft, never soft — but real.

—

fred & daphne (evan & regulus) this is control meeting control and pretending it’s not a power struggle.

evan moves the group forward. regulus decides whether that movement holds.

they don’t clash loudly — they align, and that’s worse.

because when they agree, everything snaps into place. plans sharpen, decisions stick, the whole group falls into orbit around them without even realising it.

but when they don’t?

it’s quiet. tense. deliberate.

a look across the room. a pause before action. the smallest shift in tone that tells everyone something is off.

evan builds the plan.

regulus decides if it’s worth following.

and evan cares about that judgment more than he’ll ever admit.

—

velma & daphne (dorcas & regulus) this is the most stable relationship in the entire group and somehow also the most dangerous.

because dorcas understands regulus completely.

no guesswork. no misreads. she sees the strain, the calculation, the way he holds everything too tightly — and she adjusts without making a thing of it.

she doesn’t push him.

she doesn’t try to fix him.

she just… accounts for him.

and regulus trusts her in a way he doesn’t trust anyone else.

not loudly. not openly. but it’s there — in the way he listens when she speaks, in the way he doesn’t argue certain points, in the way he lets her stand just slightly closer than anyone else.

they don’t need to say it.

that’s what makes it unshakeable.

—

scooby & daphne (pandora & regulus) this is instinct meeting restraint.

pandora drifts — curious, chaotic, following whatever thread catches her attention — and somehow she always ends up back at regulus.

like orbit. like gravity.

and regulus lets her.

which is saying something.

he doesn’t try to contain her, doesn’t try to direct her — he just watches, adjusts, allows. because he knows she sees things the rest of them don’t.

and pandora, in turn, treats him like something precious.

not fragile — never that — but important.

she’ll say strange, sideways things that land a little too close to the truth, and regulus will go still for half a second before moving on like it didn’t hit.

they understand each other in a way that doesn’t translate to anyone else.

—

fred & velma (evan & dorcas) this is structure and precision.

evan drives. dorcas refines.

he throws out ideas, plans, directions — and she cuts them down to what actually works. removes the excess, sharpens the edges, makes it real.

they don’t argue much.

not because they always agree, but because they don’t need to.

dorcas will let him run with something if it’s functional. evan will adjust the second she points out a flaw.

it’s efficient. almost seamless.

and slightly terrifying because of it.

—

fred & shaggy (evan & barty) this is chaos being weaponised.

evan builds the plan.

barty stress-tests it just by existing.

he’ll poke holes, derail things, laugh at the structure of it — but in doing that, he forces evan to make it better.

stronger. tighter. harder to break.

and evan lets him.

complains about it, sure. snaps back, pushes, matches the energy — but he never shuts it down completely.

because he knows barty’s chaos is useful.

and barty knows exactly how far he can push before it stops being a game.

—

fred & scooby (evan & pandora) this is control meeting unpredictability and deciding to trust it anyway.

pandora doesn’t follow plans.

she follows threads.

things that feel right, look interesting, call to her — and half the time, it leads somewhere evan didn’t account for.

and instead of shutting it down?

he adapts.

he watches where she goes and builds around it, folding her instincts into the structure of the plan like it was always meant to be there.

it shouldn’t work.

it does.

—

shaggy & velma (barty & dorcas) this is irritation layered over something that looks a lot like care.

dorcas finds barty exhausting.

barty finds that hilarious.

he’ll talk just to fill the silence she prefers. she’ll cut him off the second he crosses into nonsense. it’s a constant back-and-forth of push and shut-down, noise and precision.

but.

she pays attention to him.

not indulgently, not gently — but she notices when something’s off, when the chaos tips into something less controlled.

and he notices that she notices.

neither of them says anything about it.

—

shaggy & scooby (barty & pandora) this is synced chaos.

shared looks. half-finished thoughts. ideas that spiral into something unhinged and somehow work.

they feed off each other — energy, humour, curiosity — constantly pulling each other further than either of them would go alone.

it’s unpredictable. volatile. occasionally a complete disaster.

and absolutely essential to the group.

—

velma & scooby (dorcas & pandora) this is logic trying to map instinct.

dorcas doesn’t always understand how pandora gets to her conclusions.

pandora doesn’t always understand how to explain them.

but they meet in the middle.

dorcas translates the instinct into something usable. pandora pulls dorcas out of rigid thinking just enough to see other possibilities.

it’s not neat.

it’s not clean.

but it works in a way nothing else does.

—

and that’s the thing about this version of mystery inc.:

they don’t balance each other by being opposites.

they balance each other by sharpening each other.

every edge is made sharper by the person standing next to it.

-

oh this? this is where it gets mean. because the canon scooby dynamics are already messy, and now you’ve mapped them onto people who are worse about it.

i’m gonna keep it tight to those canon vibes — especially mystery incorporated (because that’s where everything is most dysfunctional) and the films where the relationships actually get explored — and then translate it cleanly onto them.

romance in mystery inc. (but it’s them, and it’s worse)

—

fred & daphne (evan & regulus) this is obsession disguised as structure colliding with devotion disguised as distance.

because in canon?

fred and daphne are terrible at being in a relationship.

fred is so locked into his thing — traps, plans, the mission — that he doesn’t know how to prioritise daphne in a way that actually feels like love. and daphne, who feels everything loudly and fully, keeps trying to pull more out of him than he knows how to give.

it’s misalignment.

it’s wanting in different languages.

and that maps onto evan and regulus perfectly, just sharpened.

evan doesn’t neglect regulus.

he just… focuses elsewhere.

on the plan, the movement, the next step — always forward, always building something. and he assumes regulus will follow, will understand, will be there without needing to be asked.

and regulus?

regulus does follow.

but not blindly.

he watches. measures. waits.

because he needs something evan doesn’t naturally give — acknowledgment, attention that isn’t incidental, something that says you matter outside of the function you serve.

and evan thinks he’s already showing that.

that’s the problem.

so you get that same push-pull as canon — daphne wanting to be chosen, fred not realising he’s failing to choose her properly — except here it’s quieter, more controlled, more dangerous.

regulus won’t beg for it.

he’ll just… withdraw.

slightly. subtly. enough that evan feels it without being able to name it.

and that’s when it flips.

because once evan notices, it becomes a fixation.

suddenly the attention is there — sharp, intense, almost overwhelming — like he’s correcting an error in real time.

like he’s making up for something he didn’t realise he’d done wrong.

and regulus?

regulus lets him.

but he never forgets that it had to be noticed first.

it’s not soft.

it’s not easy.

it’s that same canon dynamic — just stripped of its innocence and left with all the edges exposed.

—

velma & shaggy (dorcas & barty) and this is where you take canon and let it break.

because velma and shaggy in mystery incorporated?

they don’t work.

not because they don’t care about each other — but because they want different things from the relationship.

velma wants clarity. consistency. something defined.

shaggy avoids.

he deflects, jokes, prioritises comfort (and scooby) over confrontation, and ends up hurting her by never fully choosing the relationship in the way she needs.

it’s miscommunication. it’s incompatibility.

and dorcas and barty would be that dynamic turned up to eleven.

because dorcas doesn’t do ambiguity.

she wants things to make sense. to be named. to be understood.

and barty?

barty lives in refusal.

refusal to sit still, to define things, to let anything pin him down long enough to be examined.

so if they ever tried?

it would go exactly like canon — just faster, sharper, and with less room for pretending it might work.

dorcas would push for clarity.

barty would dodge, joke, twist it into something unserious.

she’d get frustrated — not loudly, but coldly, precisely — because to her, this is a problem to solve, and he’s refusing to engage with it properly.

and he’d feel that shift.

and instead of meeting her there?

he’d push back harder.

make it more chaotic, more unserious, more impossible to pin down.

until eventually, it snaps.

not dramatically.

just… cleanly.

because dorcas knows when something isn’t functional.

and barty was never going to let it be.

so they don’t date.

not really.

they orbit. they clash. they almost.

and that’s worse.

—

and the thing about both of these relationships?

is that they fail or falter for the same core reason:

misalignment in how they give and receive attention.

fred/evan loves through action, through movement, through building something around the person.

daphne/regulus loves through awareness, through being seen, through deliberate attention.

velma/dorcas loves through understanding, through clarity, through naming things as they are.

shaggy/barty loves through presence, through staying, through being there even when everything else is a mess.

none of those are inherently wrong.

they just don’t line up cleanly.

and when they don’t?

that’s where things start to crack.

-

also just to be very clear before anyone starts getting ideas — dorcas and barty are not, have never been, and will never be a thing romantically.

like yes, that whole velma/shaggy comparison works on a structural level, but that’s just me mapping canon dynamics for the sake of analysis, not actual relationship endgame.

because dorcas is a lesbian.

full stop.

and barty is… barty.

which already cancels out anything remotely romantic before it even gets off the ground.

so what they actually are is friends — in that specific, slightly combative way where they spend half their time bickering and the other half existing in a weird, unspoken understanding.

she finds him irritating.

he finds that entertaining.

she keeps him grounded (whether he admits it or not).

he keeps her from becoming too rigid.

there’s no tension there in a romantic sense — no almost, no what-if — just a very functional, very sharp friendship that works because it doesn’t try to be anything else.

the velma/shaggy thing is just for the parallel, not the outcome.

-