I know it’s stupid to get so meta about yhs but like. I love being meta about yhs.
Anyway, I often think back on how the credits in the description of the first yhs video label the characters by their archetypes, like tropes in movies or TV shows, and it just makes me think of how far each character has come.
Even for characters that didn’t move over to Tokyo Soul, I could go on all day about how Sam’s character developed, characters like Sookie-who was just meant to be shy- or Yuki-who seems to have been planned as just a token weeaboo girl character-changed.
These characters don’t have full, satisfying arcs, but the subversion of them growing out of the tropes of their archetypes feels really fucking cool, and that’s not really what yhs was about, but it very well could have been about how teeanagers hide behind their labels, how they use it to protect the parts of themselves they don’t want people to see.
And we see examples of this! Dom hides the fact that he’s gay, and that he and his dad have a toxic relationship, by being a bully and getting into fights. Taurtis was smarter than he let on, using his status as a popular idiot to avoid any of his feelings or grief, no one ever asked him how he was feeling after Salex died, because he hid the fact that he had feelings. Even Okami, a grown adult, avoids showing emotion, repressing it so she can present as perfectly bubbly.
This repression is somewhat of a catalyst for the action in yhs, the expectations forced onto these teenagers is what makes them all so fucked up, all on the verge of exploding.
But not every Minecraft roleplay can be a John Hughes film, sadly.
