just will probably not start getting to any until later tonight

me...

nods like this isn't already 1/4 of my lore plurk but this way i won't have to feel weird about focusing on it too much

wow.... datz

me also

me

me!!

points at

ok i'm actually going to start these tomorrow because i forgot i had a reading to finish tonight but i'm coming for everyone eventually!!!

rolls up sleeves

REIGEN

i am once again going to preface this with this response to siz's plurk about apping him because it's just really funny to me in light of the direction it ended up going

ok i

this was their first conversation on the intro log

which probably looked like a very weird exchange and the context here was that this was before they really knew anything about the superpowers here and stuff and they didn't know much of anything about other worlds either so

he was interpreting this as the same kind of spiritual power people have back home

which is like, exclusive to people who are born biologically female for whatever reason

so he just immediately assumed reigen was afab and because he didn't ask what secret he was talking about and acted like they were on the same page he just kept assuming that for several weeks

which he was cool with and didn't care about so it never came up again in any context!

but that sure was the way they met

anyway, he liked hanging out with him from the beginning, because they were both guys who would hang out at bars and they had like, similar situations with their teams that were at least partially comprised of cute troubled children that they felt responsible for

and they also both thought the whole premise of the hero thing was bullshit and that there was something sketchier going on

so he found him very easy to talk to and just kind of immediately trusted him lmao

tutorial trial confirmed all that for him, he was really upset about mika too and just instantly agreed to join the jailbreak plan when datz said that yeah he and ace were going to try it

and he had like, such good ideas for it that he came up with really fast and got organized really well that in another universe where this was not a murdergame tutorial case i think the jailbreak honestly would have worked

and even though it didn't datz was still just super impressed by him after that both in terms of how smart he was and just. being a good guy that would fight injustice

like, damn!!! he would love to have him as a defiant dragon!!!!

(also like they both kind of freaked out a little after the murder because they'd both curfewed at the casino and were like WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING about both that and the curfew effect so he was still like, a Relatable kind of cool and impressive lmao)

next week just kind of solidified his opinion further as the jail crew was all hanging out more, and they had a good one on one talk after chiemi died

fghjfa god i always forget that the first comment on the second jailbirds post is just datz punching a hole in the penthouse wall because he was upset about that

anyway that was a rough as hell weekend but he felt like he could be pretty open with reigen because they were just kind of on the same wavelength with the team responsibility stuff

this one was after invest and this one was after the trial once it actually seemed like she'd murdered norma

i liked the cigarette thing here too actually, i figured datz also probably smoked when he was young but basically quit a long time ago and just has maybe a couple a year socially or whatever at this point but that was kind of like? another layer of vulnerability with him saying not to let him have another one after that

next week was w2... lol

but before we got to the Bad part of the week they had this purikura thread which was really cute and he carried those stickers with him at all times for the rest of the game, except at one point it got cut down to half because he put the other half up on the wall in the penthouse

then later that week reigen and nico and will came back all fucked up from that cyoa, which was like, a really jarring and worrying thing because no one really got hurt in the ones the first week!! that was kind of the first team he was like fuck i guess we have to worry about each other dying outside of curfew too

and talking after that it was really obvious how much reigen cared about will and nico and how terrible he felt for getting them hurt, and how he was worried about hurting nimona if she found out what had happened there, so again, he was just like. he related to all of that and really respected his sense of responsibility and how much he cared about them

and was just like, this is definitely a Good Guy we can depend on

cue the yae murder happening a few hours later lmao...

this was them talking after the invest while datz was stuck making dog sounds because he curfewed at the pet shop where yae got caged, rip. and it was a good conversation, like, he didn't have any suspicion that either of these murders was him at this point, but he was purposefully being very pointed with the

YEAH I SURE HOPE WE ALL TRUST EACH OTHER TO BE HONEST IF ONE OF US GETS IN A SCRAPE SOMEDAY... just because of how it had kind of seemed like he'd been taking everything on himself after the cyoa that night

meanwhile i ooc then became suspicious because siz did that last tag after trial already started and i was like i see this is an important conversation

but datz continued to not be suspicious at all until the poison reading thing happened at which point he was just like uhhhhhhhh fuck

but just like especially in light of that cyoa that had just happened he had so much faith in reigen as a person that he was like, okay, if he did it there's more to the story that i don't know, and i completely trust that if he lives past this week he'll keep looking out for the kids and doing everything he can to get everyone out of here

and since he'd proven himself in a really practical way with the jailbreak planning too he was just like, even besides his personal feelings he's also just an asset that it would hurt everyone to lose

so when he did his patdown during the trial and felt the cologne bottle in his inner pocket they just kind of stared at each other for a second and then he lied and pretended he hadn't noticed it, which was like. rough to do as a part of a group whose entire thing is fighting for fair trials and stopping false convictions

like IT WASN'T THE FIRST TIME HE LIED LIKE AN ASSHOLE IN COURT AND HELPED GET AN INNOCENT PERSON A GUILTY VERDICT but this was the first time he was like. fully conscious of the fact that this person was the killer and the person he was voting for wasn't, and also he actually knew hans and had been on perfectly fine terms with him

and was just straight up making a judgment call to sacrifice someone who he trusted less and didn't think would be as much of a help to everyone even though he didn't do anything

so it put him in a weird ethical place that he really hated and he was really mad afterward like everyone else

but even before learning about the whole self defense thing he was also like, well, i'm a shitty hypocrite and this sucks, but i also don't think it was the wrong decision and i'd still do the same thing if you gave me a do over

and once he did learn it, it was like, yeah, all of that makes complete sense, and the only part he could really hold against him at all was not telling him before the trial so he could have focused harder on the other case.... not knowing that that one was hanako so it was actually a good thing they didn't lol

but he couldn't even hold that against him too much since it was just like, half not wanting to put all of them in a hard position and half being a sad dweeb so he just tried really hard to be supportive and cheer him up the next day

NEXT WEEK WAS POWER SWAP AND I LIKE. TRULY DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH HE BELIEVED THE APPLE THING

i don't think he did when it was the network thing and was just going along with it because he figured he had a reason not to say what he actually had but then after that time stop apple attack he was just like ????????????

HE THOUGHT IT WAS VERY COOL AND WAS KIND OF JEALOUS THAT HE NEVER DID ANTHING THAT BADASS WITH APPLES

anyway this week sucked for both of them to different extents, datz got the thing where he saw his whole team dead on thursday (but they came back) and then reigen had ended up with a kid on his team ACTUALLY dead on friday, so it was just a bad couple of days where they were both really able to imagine what the other was going through

and we had like, very similar conversations each day that just switched around who was talking to who

about how fucking hard it is that you really can't do anything to protect the kids on your team even though you promise to and it's really hard not to hate yourself for that and all you can really do is know that they probably still at least saw and appreciated how sincerely you wanted to help them

lmfao like TRULY AS MUCH AS WE JOKED ABOUT OLD MAN YAOIZ THIS WHOLE TIME MOST OF THEIR INTERACTIONS WERE REALLY HEAVY SHIT LIKE THIS

he'd also just like. really fucking appreciated that even while he was in all this pain over whisper reigen also went to the effort of taking the apples from the crime scene and doing the grocery store sticker thing to make it look like a frame job and told him about it because he was still trying to look out for hanako at the same time

w4 was memshare which. i guess was the first time he was totally sure that the spiritual power in his world didn't have the same rules as other places lmao but. MORE IMPORTANTLY what he took away from reigen's memory was that

actually it's pretty fucking impressive if you're willingly sticking around through all this crazy stuff that's way out of your league when you're just a guy?? most people would have abandoned ship way sooner???

and then reigen told datz he'd always respected him since mika's case which in context was kind of like comparing the way he saw him to the way datz saw dhurke since he'd just been talking about how dhurke had really inspired him to jump into the revolution

which was cute... and kind of gay......... but datz was just kind of like. huh! because dhurke is the Inspiration Guy and he's just the guy that stands next to him usually so the idea that he could have a similar effect on anyone himself was kind of a novel thing and it was weird but also kind of meant a lot to him

god this is so fucking long but there were seriously multiple important moments like every week lmao

this was also the week datz had his octopath cyoa where nimona almost murdered him at the end, and i think reigen was the only person he was straightforward with about what happened, even though he kind of vaguely hinted at it with tama while dancing around it

because reigen had ALSO seen some rough nimona stuff on a cyoa and been afraid of hurting her afterward so he was like even if the situations were different since nimona was there herself this time and remembers it, you definitely understand the position i'm in better than anyone

and also deserve to know about it since you're close to her too

and then reigen got murdered that night!!!! after a miserable curfew in mouse dorm with a bunch of injured people and i went back later and backdated a pc for that night because i was like this cannot have been their last night together this was terrible

though that was just more heavy discussion about being powerless to do anything so IT WASN'T REALLY BETTER but at least they talked more........

so that just. fucking sucked. and he was just really sad about it because it had felt like reigen had really been opening up to all of them and finally accepting that they all loved him!! so damn!!!! but he knew he wouldn't want him to just get stuck being depressed over him so he kept trying his best and tried to keep spirits up as much as he could...

he was very touched by the letter he left him but was also kind of like "why" at the stuff about how much reigen trusted his judgment lmfao like yeah i guess i've got a pretty ok moral compass that i try to follow but i'm also the guy who got arrested in a doghouse after laughing in a cop's face and set a furniture store on fire a week ago

but it still felt nice that he thought so highly of him...

then he got danny thrown at him after trial which just. lmao.

then he was like, okay, well, i guess i kind of get what you were saying now because i probably am one of the only people in our group who wouldn't just immediately attack him after getting this confession right now

and like, it was immensely clear to him that he'd sent danny to him because he wanted him to have another shot and have someone to help him through it even though he'd been about to get fucking murdered by him, so he appreciated that and also really wanted to carry out that wish for him and not disappoint him

though it was also like. any time danny copped an attitude with him he was just like buddy you just ripped my best friend's heart out and i'm still doing you a fucking favor here so maybe check yourself

anyway getting confirmation that the dead still existed after that was a huge relief that made it a lot easier to deal with things, and it was very obvious how much reigen was still trying to help them all from that side, so he was still just like damn.... you're great and i really hope i don't fuck this all up on my end...

datz's dead texts to him were so gay tbh even though he wasn't thinking of it that way

and he was EXTREMELY HAPPY TO SEE HIM AGAIN after the dead came back and just embraced him in front of god and everyone on emotionshare week... that was such a good effect to have during that week lmao because they were just kind of radiating fond feelings at each other for so much of it

and reigen getting so emotional about datz calling him his best friend in his angry rant to tiger was just so cute hjdsksf

help

took advantage of my baby curse to have him actually express attraction for the first time all game because i'm just like. i feel like at this point in his life he's so both preoccupied with revolution (and now mg) stuff and so accustomed to being the dad/uncle figure that it truly never even crossed his mind

even though he was being gay as hell about stuff for half of this game he was just like! you know, best friends!!! because dhurke's his best friend back home and he's gay for him too and though he's at least extremely aware of it in that case i think the feelings have kind of blended together to some extent in his mind over the past 20 years lmao

and he really didn't consider that reigen would be into him that way because, you know, he's kind of old

so anyway while i had him being 21 for this curse i was like THIS IS MY ONE TIME TO ESTABLISH THAT HE WOULD IN FACT THINK HE WAS HOT IF HE EVER CONSCIOUSLY LOOKED AT HIM THAT WAY AND IT'S EMOTIONSHARE SO EVERYONE CAN SENSE IT

i was always going to have him poof back to normal age as soon as he went out on the deck and immediately throw his cigarettes away afterward but reigen following him out there made that kind of a good scene, idk, all their smoking interactions have felt kind of symbolic of where their cr is at the moment in different ways and i've enjoyed it

anyway then we kicked the moon's ass and they finally kissed and it was adorable

and thank god we have world hopping

i do feel like this is probably just straight up a good thing for his relationship with dhurke actually rather than like, a conflict with it, because he's extremely aware that dhurke's not interested in ever moving on from his wife, so now he'll kind of be able to just, like, keep being his friend and comrade without feeling sad over the awkward pining part

and i look forward to them just getting to meet up and do cute stupid fun shit together after how miserable mg life was!!

🥺 cute........

i knew i was going to ramble forever but that was still more than i expected lmfao. stops talking and just. puts a bow on that one. it's done.

tama

i said this back at the start of the game but as i was staring at the reserves list trying to decide between ibara and datz, tama was like, a big factor in me choosing datz actually lmfao

because they both love bad jokes that any normal person would be embarrassed by and lose their shit laughing and the idea of them doing that together was so endearing to me jhksddfk

UNFORTUNATELY THEY WERE BOTH SO STRESSED OUT ALL GAME THAT THEY DIDN'T GET A LOT OF OPPORTUNITIES FOR THAT but it will absolutely happen when they visit each other post game, i decree it

anyway obviously their cr was shaped almost entirely by ryuki being on datz's team, like, i have no idea how this would have gone if that hadn't been the case

but it was really obvious from the first time they talked that she was completely committed to ryuki, which just like, made him trust her completely almost immediately, because she was clearly never going to do anything to hurt ryuki's team, and back at the beginning before we really knew how the teams thing would play out that also seemed like a valuable

thing, because he wasn't really sure how much inter-team cooperation there would be

and he was more concerned with finding out what was really going on here and getting everyone home than winning

he was kind of intimidated at first because her DO NOT HURT HIM vibes were so intense lmfao but he really appreciated that she cared about him that much and he had no intention of hurting him so it was fine

and i think we finally got to do a little bad punning during the w1 minievent together so even if we didn't get to do many threads like that i think the affection meter probably shot way up at that lmao so he did also just really enjoy and like her for herself independently of ryuki too

i linked this in my lore plurk too but i just really liked this thread after the w2 trial a lot for a lot of reasons

he was super concerned about ryuki during that trial and was just like. so thankful for her being there, because even if she didn't feel like she could tell him a lot, she was still someone he could go to for advice, and like, if there was something he really NEEDED to know she'd tell him, so it was just reassuring to have a resource like that

and obviously he was just super glad ryuki had her there to support him directly since she could do a way better job of it than he could

but i really like how much they both tried to work together and do their best for him from what they were able to do in their respective positions

also there were very few people he would have actually told about the reigen thing, but he trusted her judgment and just like. her as a person enough that even though that WASN'T really about ryuki he still felt like he could have a reasonable and productive conversation with her about it

and he was impressed by how spot on her theory was lmao

he'd actually like

kind of tried to tentatively bring it up with ryuki too, when he'd asked him if he'd voted for reigen, and if he'd said yes he would have told him he was right, but he said he just voted for someone unrelated that no one else would vote for and then he kind of went on a tangent a little and just felt weird so he never finished saying it

and he had no idea if tama would tell him or not but trusted her judgment on whether that would be a good idea better than he trusted his own

it was very cute how she kind of mommed him when he came back from cyoa and forced him to go to the hospital lmao which he deserved after getting on ace's case about going there to get his eye taken care of the week before... mamagotchi...

i truly don't know why we never just made a group catchall for us and ryuki i'm just a fucking idiot lmao if i could go back in time i'd do that

there were all these pcs where logically they would both be there with ryuki at the same time but i'd be like I GUESS TAMA'S BRIEFLY OFFSCREEN

because i REALLY SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT AFTER THE MAD SCIENTIST SHOOTING INCIDENT

god her freaking out at him for hanging around in a burning building and then jumping off the roof or out a window or whatever it was was so good too lmao THEY JUST HAD A REALLY GOOD DYNAMIC lowe is so right about how good an AA/AI crossover would be

anyway i'm sorry i was stupid and tired and didn't thread as much as i wanted to but he appreciates and trusts and respects her and thinks she's a lot of fun so she really was one of his favorite people here

and i hope she texts him with ryuki updates and bad jokes all the time

i think i'm going to stop there for tonight and go to bed at a reasonable hour since i have a work thing tomorrow evening but i will keep picking at these over the course of the week!!

YELLLLLSSS honestly i think most of the game for me was ‘this would’ve been good IF NOT FOR TIRED SLEEPY’ because that truly was the vibe.

I ALWAYS FORGOT TO DO LIKE GROUP PCS like my brain just erases the idea of them happening like a total fool. tama and nimona bursting into gold mouse was really the first one i even thought of

and yeah I wish they’d been able to joke more i felt bad because i was like oh no they’d make so many jokes but the vibes are rancid right now aaaaaaa lifts datz though. he was so good

she’s gonna send him every photo she gets of ryuki doing something dumb and embarrassing

YEAH I LIKE. somehow despite the jail crew always having an ongoing catchall it just did not really occur to me until you did that one with nimona and then i was just like

wait— wait we could have been doing this for so long why don't i have a brain

honks our clown noses

honk...

ok!!

RITA

god i feel like on paper you would not even expect them to have cr because datz would just be annoying and rita would want to punch him for being annoying and that would be it

so this was a case where them both being in the jailbreak crew made a huge difference because it had them interacting a lot more than it otherwise would have, even if it was in a group and not necessarily a lot of one-on-one

i feel like she probably reminded datz of nahyuta a little bit, who was one of dhurke's kids that he helped raise, because he was also kind of a book nerd with strong convictions who despite having a lot of talent and being a big success as a prosecutor also ended up as kind of an outcast (because of family and political shit in his case)

and he also grew up to be like, really bristly and independent and kind of cut everyone off

so i think rita being kind of similar in those ways like... he felt like he kind of knew how to deal with her okay and all the insults and stuff would kind of roll off his back because he was like, yeah, i'm used to kids like this!

and it also just made him a little more fond of her than he otherwise might have been, and like... seeing her actually getting closer to jail crew and letting them in some and quietly acknowledging that they were friends also made him happy because it's very clear that nahyuta is fucking miserable and lonely as an adult and seeing things go better for her

was like... encouraging... because she probably wouldn't actually turn out the same if she had a bunch of people she could trust and didn't feel like she had to take everything on herself

aside from that he also just always respected her and thought she was cool, it was cool of her to join in the jailbreak even though she was clearly more of an "i work alone" type, she made awesome explosives and was just generally really smart and capable, and she didn't take shit from anyone and didn't listen to authority figures

so even if she didn't like him that much he was like, yeah, rock on kid

when they actually did talk one on one a lot of it was like, post trial stuff, where it was easier to see that she really did care about people and was just really scared of being betrayed, and like, both of them were hurt specifically by what happened with chiemi and with adlet to different extents, so even if he approached his interactions way differently

than she did he could also get what she was feeling a little in those cases

pazu also linked this but i also liked this thread after the w1 trial

and i think it was kind of funny then that after coming off as so open to trusting people in that conversation the first memshare i gave her was of him almost murdering phoenix because he didn't initially trust him not to rat the rebels out to the government jgksgjkl

but also it was kind of like, it's not necessarily trusting no one vs. being a dumbass who trusts everyone, like, you can be skeptical and wary about important things but you can also make a conscious decision to open to people and trust them on an individual basis when they give you a reason to

then the w6 cyoa happened... gazes

i think the fact that she freaked out so bad and was genuinely terrified when she woke up there shook him worse than anything else would have

because she was always so intent on showing no vulnerability to anyone that it clearly meant this was really bad

so like, helping her through that quickly became his first priority, he offered her his arm to hang out onto so they could at least get out of that first room without her having to open her eyes, and then he just kind of hovered around her for a while as she pulled herself together while jolyne was looking at other stuff

he'd been calling her by her initials up until that point because it's just like, one of the default nicknames he gives to people he likes, but he switched to calling her by her actual name at that point because she never seemed to like that and he figured hearing her actual name would be more grounding in a disorienting situation so he just stuck with that

for the rest of the game

i don't think he knew how close she was to escaping through that air vent but he'd be touched to know that she chose to come back to help him and jolyne instead of abandoning them to save herself

the last part of it was kind of whiplash because like, during that fight, while he was like, REALLY DISMAYED TO SEE HER TAKING BULLETS, he also just thought she was fucking awesome for still fighting back with whatever she had even after she was shot and bleeding in this nightmare world, he was just really proud of her and respected that a lot

but then they got the you were the monsters all along twist and got their perception fixed and she took that so much worse than anyone else

in part because she'd been the unlucky one who'd actually eaten something lmao but

datz said to reigen when he was telling him about that cyoa that he thought it was especially hard on her because thinking and observing are her big skills that she always relies on and can do anything with, and fucking up her perception like that made her unable to trust how she was seeing things and the conclusions she drew from them

so it probably kind of fucked with how she saw herself a little

during that beach curfew he gave her one of his apples even if she didn't feel like eating it at the time because he was like

this is at least something you can 100% trust is what it looks like, because his entire power is just Apples, so if it's something he's pulled out of the air in front of you, it is an apple, full stop

and he figured maybe that could kind of ease her back into food

and then i was so fucking tired by the end of that week that i didn't follow up as much as i should have ghfjkds but he was proud of her for pulling through everything and was glad to see how close she'd gotten to nimona

and he hopes that she came out of this feeling more open to having friends in spite of everything!!

blastia i forgot to ping on my earlier ones

JUST NOTING THAT I STILL INTEND TO COME BACK AND FINISH THESE i've just been busy and i can't get away with doing stuff at the office anymore since we moved because now everyone there can see my computer screens

comes back...

ACE

ace was the first person he clicked with immediately on the intro in terms of like -- having similar values and worldviews

he just gave him the whole khura'in situation right off the bat to explain why the plumed punisher sucks lmao and was just totally there for the anti-government pro-revolution vibes

they're also both just generally pretty friendly and chill guys in spite of that and have their respective crews with their leaders that they think are great so it was just very. handshake emoji, and he enjoyed talking to him

then the w0 trial happened and this was where the jailbreak began, which... i love how they're just like fuck this place let's get some guys together and do this!!! with so little discussion, which i think says a lot about both of them lmao

both their tendency to just fucking jump into things without thinking too much and also just how important saving people from shitty governments is to them, because i'm pretty sure they would have still immediately gone to this even if they WERE more thoughtful planning types

so anyway ace was just cemented as 100% trustworthy bro in his mind at this point

w1 they had that cute little thread at the memorial where datz showed him how to make apple rabbits to put in front of mika's picture since he hadn't had a chance to make her any before... and lmao the jailbird threads that week where ace got one of those black dragon usb keys and datz was just like DRAGON and made him 32 apples to trade him for it

so hung could make them all pies

wipes a tear for those early happy days before we started dying

that week's case was... oof... they were each particularly fucked up about one of the victims, ace over norma and datz over chiemi, which then lol got a little tense once it became pretty clear that chiemi had killed norma!! and datz was never willing to flat out say she'd done it because he felt like he needed to still have a little faith in his teammate

even though he also was pretty convinced she had, which felt REALLY bad because he'd been the one to invite chiemi to the jailbreak in the first place and had trusted her so he felt like it was his fault both for not realizing something was wrong with chiemi and for bringing her into this group where norma would have been led to feel safe with her

but ace was still cool and kind of helped kick him out of his depression that weekend so he could refocus his energy on beating up whoever was behind all of this instead of himself, so he appreciated that a lot even though he also kind of felt like a jerk for being sad about chiemi in front of him

and i think there was always at least a little bit of guilt about that after that point

when they all talked about the quota thing and were trying to decide what to do and ace said he was already dead in his world that was kind of a punch in the gut, i don't think he'd realized before then that bringing someone dead (who wasn't already a ghost) there was something that could even happen? so hearing that sucked!! and though they're both the

jump headfirst into danger self sacrificing types after that he was just like, please don't, actually, you have more reason than most to NOT die here since this is actually kind of a second chance even if this place sucks

and it probably also hit a little harder because he was worried the whole time he was here about dhurke getting executed too and ace was someone who he thought of as a fellow revolutionary like them who was also kind of a central figure of the group who was important to a lot of people

also the missing eye didn't do anything to lessen that comparison lmfao

w4............. datz liked sigrun a lot but she was also someone who he knew was willing to sacrifice herself for her team if she needed to, and everything about her death seemed like, very deliberately Not Cruel and like they'd probably had an okay time together first and had a fair fight since both their teams needed a kill

so he was just kind of like, well, this fucking sucks, but it was bound to happen... except it was SO FRUSTRATING because the other case was SO MUCH MORE HORRIFYING and not being able to find the killer of that one fucking sucked because ace so clearly did not deserve execution for this and so many people were going to be hurt so bad by losing him

and he was torn between like, voting for him because they didn't have an answer to the other one and he didn't think ace would want anyone innocent to die in his place when he'd already offered himself as a sacrifice, and not because he just Really Didn't Want To

and it ended up being the latter because i couldn't decide if i wanted to edit my vote comment before time was up lmfao

but man. datz couldn't actually see nimona's ace hallucination during their cyoa so i don't think he realized exactly HOW fucking terrible it was for her that she was going to lose him at the end of the week right after that but it was still clearly fucking bad and it hurt so much seeing all these kids losing him and reigen in the same weekend

and that sucked a lot for him personally too, actually, because they really were some of the people he trusted and respected the most, and they were both such pillars of the jail crew and that group had ended up being so important to him that it was just like. damn. and seeing ace in jail that night before execution was just such a weird feeling too

because if one of them was behind bars they all should have been there, it just felt wrong being on opposite sides

i liked my little apple rabbits callback in that thread both because that was something datz had shown ace how to do before and because he'd wanted to bring some to mika when she was in jail

which he could now do because jolyne had taught him how to keep apple slices from going brown too fast!!

jail thread... man

anyway it was rough and the execution was fucking painful but everyone in the group holding up their friendship bracelets felt really nice at least so he was glad they could do that

and then he was dead........ i think at the time it was happening datz was like aaaaah at his messages to danny and to nimona about the treehouse but in retrospect he's kind of grateful because that was also what made it enough of an emergency that they could finally push danny's stupid ass to confess

lmao their thread when he came back where they were just like boat!! and gave it a cute name and then ace dropped the tiger thing and the mood did a 180

and then he was just pissed at tiger for the rest of the game but he appreciated the info

and as always appreciated that they were on the same page about what fucking bullshit that was lol

anyway. he's very glad that he gets to go home and NOT die and that nimona's going to be with him, he's so happy and relieved for both of them

and probably visits once in a while... if you're gonna kick the world government's ass please text him so he can come join you

rainbowlasers

i'm just doing one of these per weekday i guess lmao

WE'RE CHUGGING ALONG...

DATZ....BUDDY

Plurk I'm on a plane be nice to me

They truly went revolution

THEY DID AND I'M SO GLAD FOR IT FOREVER

comes back to this a month later while i'm waiting at the airport

my slowpokes are truer than ever

temenos

i think it's hilarious that sisi and i went from minimal cr to strong in week 4 two games in a row though this time was for completely different reasons than simon and fei du

datz didn't have strong feelings about tem one way or another at first, he like... fell into the category a lot of people did where he was like yeah this a cool guy i could hang out with! in w0 but then after murder started happening he got warier even if he didn't really act like it outwardly

and also i think all the rabbits got a disadvantage in his evaluation of them because they were the only team that didn't have anyone in the jailbreak crew

he kind of thought all of them had the potential to be pretty sneaky and he didn't have any trusted allies to vouch for them at first so he was like hm

oh my reception is so bad in this airport

oh going back to w0 lmao their first thread was just running into each other in the convenience store and i just had datz get a bag of jerky because that seemed like the closest thing to lizard skewers and he shared that with tem

and i did not realize until my w4 cyoa that jerky was actually a Thing in octopath so that was hilarious in retrospect

anyway tem DID get some points the rest of the rabbits didn't for how he treated mika during the execution, he was really good to her and he appreciated that

so i think he thought he was a decent guy but also good people can do bad shit in bad situations so he didn't trust that he wouldn't

w3 was when the quota info came out, where tem was the first person to get it and he'd shared it with reigen and then reigen pulled datz in and they all talked about it together

lmfao i remember in that conversation he saw tem looking at him at some point after saying he'd probably be the one to do it for his team and was just like hm are you thinking about murdering me

but anyway that whole situation made him trust him a whole lot more, because he was clearly seriously deliberating what would be the best course of action and getting input so it convinced him he had everyone's best interests at heart

and also the fact that he was keeping this a secret just between the three of them until they decided to share it, he was like, ok, this guy is very thoughtful about who he shares information with! which became very important later lmao!!!

w4 datz was on the octopath cyoa so he like, learned some stuff but didn't have a lot of context and also was like well this isn't my business! so he just gave tem the notes he'd gotten from that and didn't ask, though in retrospect i wish we'd gotten to do more with that!! they never shared any memories either which like

makes the contrast with simon and fei du hilarious since their w4 turbo was based entirely on memshare

datz and tem were also briefly love arrowed at the end of the week so like. lmao. that also helped because it planted fond feelings there so even after it was over he was just more inclined to like him i think

reigen's death also had like... multiple ways in which it affected things, first because they'd lost the third member of their trusted adult triangle who'd kind of been the main point of relation for both of them so now it was just the two of them

and then because of FUCKING DAN

dan confessed to datz after the trial and he was just like ohhhh god because he knows he's really bad lying and this is something people would probably be actively talking to him about so he wouldn't be able to just keep quiet like with the quota thing

and he'd been talking about the case with tem before the trial and knew he'd be trying to find the truth afterward, so he was like ok well. he's going to figure it out anyway and i really need to not be the only person handling this situation because I Know My Limits

so he pulled him in as the one other person who knew and they took on the roles as dan's tired uncles lmao and they like??? worked extremely well together in that capacity actually, they had the good cop bad cop routine down pat

and they both really cared about helping this shitty fake teen!!

and also tem was part of the second wave of the jail crew so he had him in those meetings too at that point, so they were like, almost completely on the same page about things knowledge-wise in a way they weren't with anyone else and would just exchange Looks about things all the time it was great

dan getting murdered after they thought they were in the clear just fucking sucked lmfao and they both felt like they'd failed there

and after that trial when they were talking about the likely possibility of it being hanako was just. oof. that was like, the thread where he was emotionally at his lowest i think, and definitely the most open about it

it honestly hurt his feelings a lot that hanako ended up admitting it to tem first lmao but he was very thankful to him for telling him when he found out and also for guilting hanako into finally telling him himself

anyway post game they have their group chat with dan doing his begrudging weekly check-ins with his weird uncles and i'm so glad for that

their shitty water bottle for life

and now i'm boarding the plane so this worked out perfectly!! xianle

HOLDS THEM

i loved!!!! our parenting!!!!!! and i'm 100% with you on the external factors thing it really was so funny