DRDT cast with schizospec and or psychotic disorders!!
notes:
- this is using a loose definition of both terms. disorders that present with psychotic features, or those that are considered schizospec for their relation to negative symptoms (ie. schizoid personality disorder and related terms), will be included.
- these are all just headcanons for fun, and not all of them will be based in canon content!
- spoilers for drdt backstories, and content warning for topics contained in those, but i try to keep it to a minimum
- below the read more will contain explicit references to delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and other symptoms of these disorders. please proceed past that point with caution! everything before the section break will only be the list of disorders for each character
list:
Teruko Tawaki: Schizotypal Personality Disorder
Xander Matthews: PTSD with psychotic features
Charles Cuevas: PTSD with psychotic features
Ace Markey: Brief Psychotic Disorder
Arei Nageishi: Unspecified Personality Disorder with psychotic features
In-depth headcanons below (read the notes section before continuing):
Teruko Tawaki: Schizotypal Personality Disorder
- obsession with luck is magical thinking
- distrustful of everyone due to paranoia
- mistakes normal things for signs of danger
- (honestly schizotypal is very fitting for her outside of the purposes of this post but you didnt hear that from me)
Xander Matthews: PTSD with psychotic features
- primarily tactile and visual hallucinations, bodies on the ground grabbing at him (from his chariton trauma)
- went on adhd meds after seeing a therapist for his trauma, psychotic symptoms got worse so he went off of them and stopped therapy
- knows what he was experiencing now but is still nervous to go back
- would advocate for mental health resources either way but it's definitely more personal to him
Charles Cuevas: PTSD with psychotic features
- tactile and visual hallucinations that he offhands as normal bc he 1. was sheltered 2. doesnt like being vulnerable and 3. doesnt remember the trauma
- feels pain randomly, sees figures, lots of reminders of his trauma that he doesnt understand
Ace Markey: Brief Psychotic Disorder
- always been paranoid but only reached diagnosable criteria in the killing game
- persecutory delusions and auditory hallucinations to go along with it
- walks so quietly because he thinks someone will kill him if they hear him
Arei Nageishi: Unspecified Personality Disorder with psychotic traits
- developed a mix of personality disorder traits in childhood due to her sisters
- hallucinates under high stress, mostly auditory
- usually hears noises but sometimes laughing or indiscernable words
Rose Lacroix: Schizophrenia
- disorganized speech in the way of alogia
- often stops speaking midsentence, cant come up with the words for anything
- when she does manage to speak she has major derailment and tangentiality
- some catatonia as well
Hu Jing: Depression with psychotic features
- somatic delusions of pain and hears whispers saying her name
- thinks everyone hates her and wants her dead even when presented with obvious friendliness and care
Eden Tobisa: Schizophrenia
- doesnt take her symptoms seriously, thinks its all in her head
- hallucinations make her doubt herself all the time
- mostly auditory and olfactory, but experiences all types
- religious delusions, thinks she was sent by a higher power to do good in the world
- has lots of non-scary hallucinations, finds them fascinating
J Moreno: Schizophrenia
- runs in the family but everyone refuses to acknowledge it
- taught to keep it under wraps and even though she rejects everything else her mom tells her, she still feels internalized shame and hides it
- mainly has persecutory delusions and auditory / visual hallucinations
- not always scary but freaks out regardless if it happens in public
Whit Young: PTSD with psychotic features
- used to think his mom was still alive in delusional episodes until he went to therapy and got medication
- now he just pretends to cope with it and avoid the awkwardness. or to make jokes
- he doesnt talk about anything in therapy, only still goes to get his medication prescribed
- mostly symptom free now as far as the psychosis goes
Nico Hakobyan: Schizoaffective Disorder
- depressive type
- tried to be open to others about their diagnosis, did not go well
- medicated but still has episodes due to extreme stress
- constantly gets told that theyre confused / accidentially lying despite being self-aware of their symptoms and knowing for a fact that what theyre saying is true
considering the whole "good person" theme of chapter 2 and drdt as a whole i dont get why i have seen a few instances of ppl saying "i hope they dont make us sympathize with a stalker/i hope he doesnt get redeemed bc itd be weird to force us to sympathize with a stalker" abt arturo
like. omg. grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you. have you seen these characters. stalking is not the worst thing that has been done. there are murderers here. what about nico, who tried to kill ace? why not say that abt them instead? its kinda obvious that its just personal bias bleeding into ur understanding of the character, and im not saying ppl cant dislike arturo but to treat his character unfairly bc of that is kinda ??? imo
and no i actually dont think that should be said abt nico, or abt anyone at all. like thats the point. no one is fully a good person or irredeemably evil. arturo is not just a one-note comic relief character, why would everyone be morally nuanced except for this one guy whos is just a Creepy stalker for no reason with zero positive or sympathetic traits™? it reads to me as "hes bad and im not so i hate him, and since he has done bad things, if hes not fully horrible that will be really weird like why are they saying stalking is okay??" which is not it at all
i just dont get why an author expanding on their own character would be "weird"—whatever that means—, and the idea that them doing so is "forcing us to sympathize with the character" is quite baffling to me. you dont have to like or even sympathize with a character because they have a tragic past, or regret their wrongdoings, or even get redeemed etc. showing a character's vulnerabilities and explaining why they act the way they do, which yes, lots of the times will be because of trauma, is simply necessary to build a good complex and nuanced character. its not the author saying "look! they had a horrible past, please feel bad for them and excuse their wrongdoings!". that hasnt happened in the show, and not even arei, for example, who decided to redeem herself, uses her trauma as an excuse for her actions, so why would that be the author's intention with any of the characters? :>
theres other charas i think ppl are more open to understanding, like arei and ace, and the reason is exactly bc we have seen their vulnerabilities, we have seen them break down and voice their insecurities, and in areis case try to change and better herself... with arturo we havent seen that yet, which is exactly why, imho, think that "i hope they dont show his sympathetic side cuz hes a weirdo and that would be weird" isnt a very good approach yk. we have yet to see his full character. and as i said u wont have to be looking forward to it, or like him at all, or anything but yeah :P idk thats just what i think.
tldr: idgaf if u disike arturo but i think him being so greatly hated makes him less talked abt and understood which makes me sad. if we can understand that arei, ace, david, everyone is morally nuanced, we can put aside our personal biases and understand that arturo is just as complex too, which is not a bad thing or "weird" on the author's part
i had such a vivid picture of terukos expression in my head and it was honestly the main driving force for me to finish this bc the idea kept cracking me up
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