Did you decide Ame was Japanese from the get go, or what? I have a few ocs that I plaued around with, one of which went from Australian to Russian, somehow.
Ame is Japanese from the get go, yes. He usually doesn't really change ethnicity even as I slam him into other games' plots or something.
I myself am not Japanese. You'd think I'd make an OC closer to my own ethnicity, but no.
How deep are you fandom wise? You seen weirdly on the surface like from vibes.
In regards to Cookie Run? I play every single game. I main Kingdoms and Ovenbreak, but I regularly play every single one.
It is a headache. Because Devsis is really upping their crossover hell recently.
In regards to lore? It is weirdly on the surface, but that is because it is really hard to remember what is currently five separate games worth of plot. Ovenbreak is especially egregious because it has multiple overlapping plots at the same time.
Is ame a new oc? Or like, an old one? Is he based on anyone?
Ame has been here for a while. He isn't really based on anyone, except maybe his hobbies, which he shares with me. (because it is one of the few ways I can show things.)
This particular OC is the one that I usually shoving into various universes that allow for a character insert.
Usually in most universes, including his base form, his name is Kagami Ame. The foster verse changed this to Kazehare Ame because I wanted to utilize the names being associated with cookies concept.
He is the character in my profile picture too. He usually is a lonely character, by various circumstances.
In his base form, he looks like this.
Artwork done by @dappersheep
I commissioned this artwork, so I have a base to work my ideas from.
Notice how extremely blue this character is. It is funny because in the fosterverse he is very green.
Update to the Update: I can now use a bow. Not well. But technically I can use a bow. I have... so many questions about this outfit.
Most notably the one being, which Wind Archer enchanted this. Actually, it is probably the one teaching me, now that I think about it. But I am not a Wind Archer and I can't exactly see the spirits to purify them though...
Hello, I am RainedMirror, usually known in online spaces as Rain, Kagami Ame or Jing Yu, whichever you prefer. It has been officially the 10th years since I joined Duck Soup and did the MIT Mystery Hunt. For the first time, I have decided to write a post about it.
It's kind of weird to think it has been 10 years, and I never wrote a post about one of my biggest hobbies. I started doing this huge event thing in 2017, and now in 2026, I have done 10 of these. It is a great experience I have met a lot of people from the puzzling community I would never have otherwise.
This year, Duck Soup has merged with Quantum Decrypters to form Quantum Duckcrypters. The quest is usually the usual, try to finish the first half of the hunt to the midpoint runaround, maybe try to finish it. We did get to the midpoint and didn't finish, of course, and the reason I only thought of doing this is because this is my 10th year and I figured I should write something. This probably isn't going to be a regular thing though. (Re: I have been told that it is actually Quarantine Decrypters. Well, it wouldn't be a post from me without mistyping something.)
Past this read more is a bunch of spoilers for the 2026 MIT Mystery Hunt.
Important Note
So, MIT is in Boston. I am not in Boston. I am a remote solver and always have been for the ten years I have been doing it. For me, Hunt is a weekend where my family knows I get holed up in my room doing nothing but thinking about puzzles. I can't speak much about the puzzles that take place in MIT, but I assume they were fun, judging from the reactions from the people that did go to Boston.
Theme
This year's theme has teams get invited to the CRYPTIC conference, a cryptid conference whose full name I can't seem to remember, but the acrostic is cool. During the conference, one of the organizers attempts to reveal an egg and explain a cover up about not letting people discover cryptids are real. This being MIT, of course this cover up is real and the egg hatches into a being that is called a Puzzmon. Oh, also a dimensional portal opened and we got recruited to help close those before the fabric of reality frays and break apart. Fun.
I always appreciate how much effort is always spent on the theme of the Hunt every year, despite it 'technically' being just an excuse to let people solve a stupid amount of puzzles.
Hunt Structure
The Hunt website usually opens 1pm MITime. Upon being let into the website for the first time. We are greeted with a video on how to Hunt, which is always appreciated, as well as a game reminiscent of Pokemon called MonQuest that you can play in your browser and a map of the island that teams have to explore. Teams have to play the game to find puzzles, as well as doing in game research tasks to get points to unlock the puzzles. It reminds me of 2021 where Galactic also made a game to let people visit MIT while everyone is under lockdown.
Later, you find even more portals that lead to other dimensions that are guarded by other keepers and have to recruit them to help you fix all the dimensional portals opening up all over the place.
At this point, I will start talking about the puzzles I worked on, am interested about but didn't actually solve, both during the Hunt itself (which takes place over the weekend) as well as the post solve after, as well as a few thoughts about themes of the places we are in.
Kingdom of the Puzzmon
This is the start of the Hunt. Usually, you can expect the puzzles from this section to the mid-point to be slightly easier than the second half, although this year it feels like it is supposed to be riffled with the Dimension Puzzles. We didn't have the manpower to do that, so we strived to finish this section during the Hunt and worry about the Dimensions after doing that.
Solving puzzles here allows you to befriend the associated Puzzmon, and after you befriend enough of the Puzzmon in a region, you unlock a Capstone for the region, which used the information of the Puzzmon in your MonArch (the PokeDex equivalent), and after enough capstones? Puzzmon? you unlock the metas that actually use the answers of the puzzles in the entire region. I don't know what is up with needing that many puzzles, but oh well, I guess more puzzles.
Avaria
This section of the region is bird themed. I don't think I spent a lot of time looking at the puzzles, instead I did end up spending a lot of time playing the MonQuest instead.
Replacements: This is the only puzzle I actually looked in this region, and it was half solved already when I entered. The main gimmick was already extracted, but we had problems looking for where the cluephrase led to. When we did find it afterwards, it fell really quickly.
Bubble Cove
This section is fish themed. I liked the fishing minigames here to unlock the puzzles, it was actually really fun to race unlocking puzzles. (Although that did mean we ended up doing double work.)
Do They Have Chemistry?: I am unashamedly a person that browses AO3 a lot and even wrote a few fanfics myself. I am however more of a gen writer than a ship writer, but that means I got most of the tropes and the ship names really quickly. This fell after some prodding at it, although admittedly I didn't get the exact spelling of the tropes because I was working off my memory.
Mechanical Soft Diet: I like pi + e. I didn't do any of the ideation here, I mostly just helped with solving the clues. The programmer went and did the extraction after.
Old Bark Town
This section is dog themed. This time, I actually did the puzzles instead of the MonQuest, so I have no idea what happened there.
Balancing Act: I actually came at the end and did the final extraction. I still don't quite understand how this works, even after reading the solution, but it looks less confusing after knowing how this works.
Spilled!: I don't know how to solve a Hamle, even after looking up how to do them. I tried a few times and gave up. Somebody else came through here and solved it properly later.
Three Dog Night (Capstone): The first actual capstone I looked at. Somebody else figured out the main idea, which is that the information were based on media that have blue dogs, I mostly helped out with the leg work here.
Kitty City
This section is cat themed. Apparently, you can find hints within the game that the PuzzMon in Old Bark Town and Kitty City don't like each other, but I never actually played the MonQuest for this region either, so I have no idea.
Jumping to Conclusions: Hahaha back solve puzzle. Very funny that things are solvable without any feeders. Won't be the first time in this hunt either. This is the only puzzle I solved here.
Elder Drifts
This section is eldrich themed? I think? I woke up somewhere between the unlocking of the puzzles, so I didn't do the MonQuest here.
Data Revisualization: Won't be the last time charts screw with me this hunt. That is all.
Method to the Mathmess: I didn't do this puzzle, but this looks so silly in formatting.
Nominative Determinism: Also didn't do this puzzle, but also very funny from the bouba and kiki thing.
The Brights
This section is light themed. I did like one of the sokobans in the MonQuest and then looked at a puzzle. (And then got distracted because after this Royal Groves got unlocked)
Sound Translation: I came in here after the clues were solved, and after whoever worked on this got stuck on extraction. Being able to read Chinese, I finished off the extraction for this puzzle.
Lights Down Mode (Capstone): I was in the Discord call when the team was working on this capstone, and the discordancy of team members realizing they are not looking at the same page was funny. Well played, Cardinality.
Royal Groves
This section is plant themed. As mentioned in The Brights, this section got opened at some point, and so I got distracted doing the MonQuest for this region to unlock the puzzles. There is a maze where you have to figure out the paths to unlock a puzzle. The many ways to encode a maze path is quite cool, although some of my teammates did try to brute force the paths. (I won out in the end though, by solving all the unlock routes.)
The Physics of Linguistic Fracture: Do you know how long my team looked at the finished graph of this before submitting the root node? Too damn long.
Past here, I think a dimension got unlocked, and then I got distracted looking at that. I am not exactly sure when, but the remaining regions and the meta, I don't really have much to say on.
Eland Islands
This section is deer themed. The method to unlock the puzzles, the race game in the center-ish of the island is quite fun, I got into a call with a bunch of people and we did that together.
Gerrymandering: I did the extraction for this puzzle. I am not sure how I did it, but trial and error, I guess?
Serpentine Hills
This section is snake themed. I got distracted by the new dimension and did not do anything here.
Da' Bomb: Looking at this, why? It feels like a masochist puzzle. Tasting unidentified hot sauces sure takes balls.
Minute Minute Cryptic: Not the biggest cryptic fan, but this looks cool. The clues apparently change every minute, which is also cool because it means people can not see the same puzzle and figure out the mechanic from there.
Kingdom of the Puzzmon (redux)
This was where the metas of this location was located. Didn't do any of them, although I did get called to do the interaction with the others. This is the mid-hunt interaction, but by the one this happened, it was Sunday MITime and I am pretty sure the coin got found or something. We did do the goal of getting to the mid hunt interaction though.
The Night Swatch: Making art out of post it notes. Also people racing to type in the words for the puzzle.
Dimensions
As mentioned above, this is the second half of the hunt. Find the keepers and then try to recruit them to help prevent dimension collapse. This is also where the more 'gimmicky' metas exist, and puzzles here are usually harder. Most of this was done during the post solve, so there is probably a bunch to say.
Land of No Name
The main gimmick of this dimension is that you start out by not seeing any letters and you have to solve puzzles to unlock letters. There are some puzzles written specifically to be solvable without any letters, and then from there you solve the ones that are solvable with a few letters, and then finally eventually you get the meta and all the letters.
Recombination: This is the B puzzle. We got around to it near the end of the alphabet. I unsuccessfully attempt to decode, because the main idea of the puzzle is pretty obvious, but halfway through I somehow messed up somewhere and had to scrap all my progress. Somebody else came in here later and successfully did the work properly though.
Bars of Music: This is the H puzzle. While I did not work on this puzzle, apparently this puzzle had tormented my fellow team members, in particularly the music inclined ones. Unfortunately, my entire music taste is Vocaloid music, so...
HidAtoZ: This is the V puzzle. Unlike the Hamle from earlier, I was more successful with this set of logic puzzles. The only problem was unlocking enough letters to solve them. On the other hand, once enough letters were solved, the puzzle fell pretty quickly.
Oops! All Tsumo: This is the Z puzzle, and also one of the ones that was intended to be solved without any letters. To be honest, I had letters here, but that is only because I didn't realize this existed for a while. I also play a stupid amount of Riichi Mahjong, so the moment I saw it, I solved it straight away and quickly.
The Alphabet (Meta): I noped out of here pretty quickly. I did point out the string of numbers was actually the extraction order though, because a bunch of my team members were convinced that they had done something wrong because they thought it was alphabetical order. Other than that, I left the puzzle to the more programming inclined members of the team. I do think the shock might be better if the meta was unlocked immediately.
Hyperbolic Space
The main gimmick of this round is very obvious when you first lay eyes on it. There are twelve puzzles in the centre, without no puzzle data, and twelve puzzles on the outside with puzzle data. I'll talk about the meta later, because I did a majority of the work for this dimension's meta.
Acquisitions: It turns out that being greedy for the minimal amount of increase in price actually gives you the optimal order for the auction. I can only assume this was intentional. In any case, I left to do something else after I noted down the auction order. I returned to somebody having half-solved some of the clues from the title of the items, from there I figured out enough of the extraction to call in the answer.
Combative Felines: This is a Warriors Cats puzzle, which I have the unfortunate task of knowing but haven't actually read the books for a very long time and thus didn't remember anything. At least the wiki was helpful, although that also just spoiled me on everything again.
Stray Child: Before my main gacha rhythm game became Project Sekai featuring Hatsune Miku, it was Bang Dream! Girls' Band Party. I recognize the title referencing MyGO!!! immediately, although I came in late to the crossword fill. In the end I did partial extraction, then returned with another person to fully extract and solve the puzzle.
Hyperbolic Space (Meta): At some point, one of my teammates suggested we should be building a hyperbolic plane and then linked to the Wikipedia page for Heptagonal Tiling. A quick scan of the Wikipedia page led me to suggest we are building the Klein quartic. At this point, we had about seven answers total, and a few pieces of knowing how the tiling is supposed to be constructed, so I just... built the entire quartic by myself in voice chat. As it turns out, with the right set of seven answers, you can backsolve the entire round (sorry). Ours were Acquisitions, Combative Felines, Had, Invitation, Partners in Crime, Setting Boundaries and Stray Child. I finished building the quartic, and then started backsolving like a madman, only to be greeted with a metapuzzle page halfway through. To be honest, I feel like the meta should have been based more on the number of actual puzzles solved, because it feels a little bit weird to be halfway building the meta structure before having the meta unlocked. In any case, I did extraction, couldn't get the clues, grabbed somebody's else help and from there we finished this puzzle.
Atlas of Mosaics
The main gimmick of this round is that you have to place a bunch of hexagonal tiles on a plane to solve puzzles. There is even a checker for you to check if you have placed the hexagonal tiles correctly. I wasn't around for the meta solves, and have no idea about those, but I did work on select puzzles.
Bite-sized Logic: I worked on the Ham Sandwich and Takoyaki subpuzzles. I enjoyed them, they were really smooth solves. Not really much to say here though, other than these logic puzzles were great even in hexagonal grids.
Inconsequential Chase: I... no. I don't know how my teammates did this, because this looks like a mess.
Lifecycle: Apparently, if you play enough brain training games, you can catch which tiles the dots are moving to one by one. Built this really fast with the help of some others, but I didn't do the final extraction.
Underwater Hunt: A nice minihunt, I personally worked on the Imaginary Architecture, Lost Princess and TechCASH Windfall subpuzzles. Also didn't do any extraction, but they were nice to do.
The Hexagon (Meta): ... What possessed the writers to do this insanity?
Fate's Thread Casino
The gimmick of this round is that all the puzzle pieces are locked behind gachas, and you have to earn currency doing dailies and quests in order to get enough currency to pull enough pieces in order to solve the puzzles. Cardinality, please stop fuelling my gacha addiction.
Art: Meme Scenes: Eh...? You'd think being a chronically online young adult would make me know these, but it turns out I do in fact curate my online nonsense a lot.
Art: Common Scenes: I am not good at art either.
Words: charfactor: You know, this idea would have been cool. Except I think nobody got it even after the post solved finished.
Words: As the Fly Crows: Nope, didn't figure out this wonder either. They both look like lovely puzzles, but to be honest, nobody figured out anything.
Cells: Building Blocks: I did the nets, and then instead of printing them out like a normal person, made mock ups in a drawing program, and painfully drawn all eight nets and combined them together in my head. I am amazed I didn't get this wrong.
Cells: Easy as 1-22-333: Actually the earlier puzzle we solved in this region, I built the Fillomino as indicated by the title, and then left the second half Sudoku solving to somebody who wanted to do it more. The extract came very quickly after.
Charts: Plots: My only contribution to this is Sherlock Holmes and noticing the red graphs are meta graphs for this puzzle. It also turns out I am very bad at pop culture. Although that one is obvious by now...
Charts: Graphs: We never did solve the radar graph part. I did a big chunk of the work, doing the bar graphs, the contour graphs and most of the pie charts. I had to get somebody else to navigate the stock market for me because I have no idea how to. Also, I had to be bashed over the head by other people that the line graphs were US Presidents. I still have no idea about them.
Characters: Hear Me Out: You'd think that if I know Project Sekai and Vocaloid music, I'd know anime. I don't.
Characters: Goku: See above.
To Pull or Not to Pull? (Meta): Obviously, the answer is pull. Actually earlier, one of my teammates had already worked out that the puzzles corresponded to 0s and 1s as per the landing page for this dimension, and so actually worked out the ones for Charts long before this meta was opened. Knowing this, we worked through the other four areas that we solved (as mentioned earlier, nobody figured out how the Words region worked) and from there we got stuck. Somebody else figured out the words can be made by swapping letters between the words, and then the meta fell quickly after that realization.
Terminus
The gimmick of this round is that you have to figure out how to unlock the puzzles from the control panel. I didn't do very much here; to be honest, I was off working on the Fate's Thread Casino dimension when most of the puzzles here was solved.
Layers: Rounded: Hehehe, round objects go brrrrrrr.
Layers: Colored: Food objects go brrrrrrr.
Psychology: Emotion: I was walking around outside and then I noticed a bunch of Inside Out figures. It didn't take me long to connect the dots and solve this puzzle. Also, goddamn it.
The Glitch
The gimmick of this round is that parts of the puzzles are glitched, and you have to figure out how the glitches affect the solve of the puzzle. Again, didn't do much here, was off in the Fate's Thread Casino.
These Questions Are Not Clever: No, I insist you write more things about MIT Mystery Hunt. It is great. Getting that aha was a great feeling. Although admittedly, I should brush up on hunt history. Again. I do this every year and still forget.
Final Thoughts
I had fun! I could criticize things, like how the hunt somehow keeps getting bigger but every year the team running promises to make the hunt smaller and stuff, but... I feel like it is important to remember that the Hunt is a MIT thing that happens to allow other people not a part of MIT to join up and solve. MIT graciously allows the Hunt to happen on their campus. Many people spend a year to write, test solve, draw, program so many things for this once-a-year event. For free. Over 100, sometimes 200 puzzles for free for teams and people to go at. Thank you to all the writing teams that has nicely ran Hunt for so many years. Thank you to Cardinality for hosting this year's! And thank you to Providence for nicely deciding to write the next Hunt.
Look how happy Malleus is! Everyone was there. Even Idia was kidnapped decided to join in! And nobody got into a fight.
Yes, Leona could have escaped whenever he wanted. No, he wasn't all that invested in escaping. And, honestly, Little Silver can be scary when he actually uses his power efficiently. Well, not scary-scary. But scary enough. Nobody expected him to actually succeed in tying up Leona.
"Stop saying 15 year olds with weird interests are cringe, they're 15" this is true however you should also stop saying adults with weird interests are cringe because who gives a shit
I want to share some wisdom from my high school art teacher.
In my AP Art class, there was a girl who was just starting to experiment with mixed media. At this point she was still playing around, trying to decide what direction she wanted to go with her portfolio. So one critique day, she brought in an abstract canvas with some rhinestone highlights and painted and real peacock feathers. She loved sparkles and peacock feathers so she thought she’d try introducing them a *little*. And after everyone had given some input, the teacher gave her his advice, VERY roughly paraphrased here:
“So here’s the thing… I do not like this style. These are just elements that do not speak to me personally, but I see that you like them, and you’re doing interesting things with them.
“My biggest critique is, I only merely *dislike* this piece. I want you to make me HATE it. Go crazy with the things that you like. Don’t hold back trying to make it palatable to people like me. Because I am NEVER going to like it. And if the audience does not like it, it should drive them crazy seeing how much YOU love it.”
Her portfolio was chock full of neon colors and glitter and rhinestones and splashes of peacock feathers and it was a delight. Our teacher despised every piece lol, but she got great marks and I think even won some awards. And more importantly, she was happy and proud of the results. Because she didn’t limit herself by trying to appeal to people who were never going to enjoy what she enjoyed.
Takeaway here: be as cringe as you want. Don’t limit yourself based on other ppl’s tastes. They’re not you, and you are incredible 💕
Ok but like. What the fuck is there to do on the internet anymore?
Idk when I was younger, you could just go and go and find exciting new websites full of whatever cool things you wanted to explore. An overabundance of ways to occupy your time online.
Now, it's just... Social media. That's it. Social media and news sites. And I'm tired of social media and I'm tired of the news.
Am I just like completely inept at finding new things or has the internet just fallen apart that much with the problems of SEO and web 3.0 turning everything into a same-site prison?
You're right that the internet is smaller than it used to be, but there's still some cool stuff left in the corners. I'd recommend checking checking out Neocities if you haven't--it's an independent web hosting platform like Geocities of the old web, and there are hundreds of interesting and active pages discoverable both through their search function and through web buttons (links attached to small pictures with the title of a website) within the websites themselves. Here are three examples of web buttons you may find in link pages:
Most Neocities websites have link pages or button collections with anywhere from tens to hundreds of these. Don't be afraid to explore!
If you're looking for something more like a search engine, I can point you towards Marginalia. It's not a particularly smart engine, but it's perfectly usable if you've ever been taught to use search engines back when they were mostly run through keywords instead of full sentence comprehension. There's also an "about" and "tips" section on the front page with more information. The algorithm of Marginalia can be filtered by the user to allow, disallow, or require JavaScript depending on your needs, plus there are filters designed specifically to prioritize web 1.0 sites or mostly text-based ones. It is possible to search for modern websites with it, but it can return websites from just about any decade (since the invention of the web, obviously) so long as they contain the information you're looking for. For example, here are some random interesting sites I've found using Marginalia:
Native Languages of the Americas: Native American Cultures
BASIC HTML COMPETENCY IS THE NEW PUNK FOLK EXPLOSION!
Earthbound Text Labs by Bill Eager
The possibilities for discovery are truly endless.
Now you might want to know about directories. These make browsing for websites easier, but require you to read through and judge which ones to visit, as there aren't algorithms ranking the sites besides the whim of whoever coded the directory. Some of them have themes, others don't. Here are two that I've used:
Yesterlinks Directory
Ichigo Directory
Directories can be harder to come by just by surfing the net, but they aren't impossible to find. Many personal websites have their own directories of interesting sites hidden within them.
Webrings are similar to directories, but are actually more community-based. You have to register your website to be a part of a webring, usually by sending an email to whoever runs it and meeting some kind of entry criteria. For example, my personal website used to be a part of a webring called Sweet Dreams, which was for websites that heavily utilize color palettes and images of cute things, particularly sweets. Webrings will give you access to a widget upon entry that allow visitors and other members to browse between the registered websites in a massive ring, ergo, where the term gets its name. Webrings can have any theme or criteria for entry. If you can make a website about it, you can find a webring for it.
Now, you might be wondering about social media alternatives. I can't offer much, but I can nudge you towards the idea of forums. Here's one I found that could really use some traffic. I also browse a bit on MelonLand forum, which is actually closed right now--it's currently closed on Mondays--but on any other day of the week, you can find a fun community there dedicated to web revival. You can find it through MelonLand's main page. I'd also recommend checking out SpaceHey, which is a MySpace clone that's customizable and easy to use.
I hope this is of some help to you. The internet may feel less magical than it used to be, but that doesn't mean that the spark has completely died out. These types of indie websites need more attention if we ever hope to reverse the damage done to the internet by centralization and corporate interest. People are trying to make the web a cooler place to be, but we're going to have to do the work of finding and interacting with these projects in order to get them off the ground someday.
ALSO you should consider browsing Virtual Pet List and seeing if there are any pet sites you might be interested in playing. There is a whole genre of browser games right under your nose
Here’s a bunch of silly, small websites, some games & some useful things.
The Useless Web takes you to a random useless website.
Wolvden & Lioden are fantastic “virtual pet” games that are actually rpg sims, very in-depth & time-consuming.
Here’s a shitton of websites that you can play free games on: Addictinggames, Silvergames, Newgrounds, Armorgames, Gamaverse, & if you go to itch.io you can narrow your search to “free” & “online” for more. The powder game still exists as well!
There’s also both Picrew & Meiker for dress-up games, and a personal favorite of mine Charat, and old classic websites like Azaleasdolls are still around!
There’s all sorts of weird little sites all around like this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one that I use to play mad libs w/my friends. Or make custom jigsaw puzzles here.
There’s websites that emulate old DOS games like this and this and this. (sorry these are links to specific games, i’m pulling all the links out of my personal archives)
And of course, there’s a metric shitton of webcomics - not just on popular hosting sites, but old comics w/their own hosting like this one or these ones. I’m not sure how to come by them unless someone who already knows about them sends you one, though.
If you want specific game recs feel free to DM me!
One thing I wish was understood a bit better about Twisted Wonderland.
Everyone in this game has trauma or personal struggles and it's NOT a competition of who has it worse. Honestly, sometimes I wish everyone's traumas were discussed more in depth in the game like we get with each person who Overblots, but we don't have time for it. With the Overblot boys, their trauma is shoved directly into the spotlight and we hear exactly how their situations make them feel. But the rest of the cast, ALL of them, have personal struggles and/or trauma. This is just a small list of some of the issues each non Overblot student has.
Ace masks the fear he feels in a lot of situations, and he's got an inferiority complex on some level. Notice how he bullied the player and Grim in our first interaction? That is a sign of someone who is looking to feel better by pushing someone else down because they don't feel good about themselves.
Deuce grew up with a single mother who had to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, which causes him to worry about her, and he was a delinquent in middle school, which made his mom, the one person he worries over, cry. He lives with those regrets, but he's still got those old habits and he agonizes over the fact he's not academically where he'd like to be and his behavior regresses when in heated situations.
Trey has severe trauma at being screamed at for FIVE HOURS over giving Riddle ONE slice of tart, so much that his vitals are severely affected at the thought of Mrs. Rosehearts and he's heavily conflict avoidant.
Cater has had to move all the time and as a defense mechanism, refuses to be honest or get close to people because he doesn't want to get attached only to be ripped away from them.
Ruggie lives in EXTREME poverty when not at school. He struggles to make ends meet and he has to work so hard in a system that is DESIGNED to keep him in poverty, because many beastmen still prefer segregation in the Sunset Savannah.
Jack has one of the healthier mindsets, but he still struggles with being open and honest about his feelings, which makes it hard to have friends, and he struggled with watching Leona, someone he's idolized, fall short of what he believed of Leona.
Jade and Floyd are implied to have grown up in some form of crime family and both seem to have handled the fact their lives could be in constant danger differently. Both like things being interesting, but Jade seems to prefer seclusion and control, while Floyd enjoys scaring people off and having as much fun as he can before he goes.
Kalim is someone who has had multiple assassination attempts on his life, even from his own family. He masks behind a smile, but he's afraid to trust people, and when he DOES TRY to talk about it, it gets brushed off because he has money. Also, he has to deal with the fact Jamil has been undermining his ability to progress by not treating him as if he's capable at all.
Epel has been teased and bullied on how he looked to the point where he started instigating fights to ensure he wouldn't be teased. He also has to fall in line with what Vil wants because he made the error of picking a fight with Vil and getting his butt HANDED to him. To further add, Vil is NOT NICE about it when Epel resists, with one example being Vil grabbing him by the ear and pulling hard as a form of punishment.
Rook has deal with the fact that for being someone who is super perceptive and can notice details, he didn't realize Vil's feelings around Neige, likely because he was blinded by his own admiration for both of them and that's a bitter pill to swallow.
Ortho has to deal with being basically created as a replacement for dead Ortho Shroud, trying to figure out if he's just really a robot made by Idia with really good AI or more than that, and dealing with the fact he loves his brother so much, but his brother doesn't take care of himself and it's disheartening to watch Idia's self-destruction.
Lilia has so much war trauma, losing his loved ones, having been exiled, and so much other crap. Even so, he forced himself to put the war and his trauma about it in the past, where it belonged for the sake of his two sons who both lost so much to war, which is something Baur/Baul could NOT do which was to Sebek's detriment.
Silver has had to live with the idea that his adoptive father would likely outlive him, then is faced with the fact that his father is basically abandoning everything about their life in Briar Valley before he learns that his biological parents were the enemies of the person he serves and cares about, Malleus, and the only father he's ever known.
Sebek has grown up with internalized racism/speciesism against humans thanks to his upbringing and he basically rejects half of his heritage with how he treats his father. He does not even realize how hurtful his comments are until he's faced with those remarks being directed at him by a younger version of his grandfather.
And this isn't everything each student has to face. This is just broad strokes. Yana Toboso wrote a story about flawed people who all have gone through really hard and difficult things because that's the point. As Toboso said in a 2023 interview:
“Happy endings in Disney works come from righteous actions and love, but I believe that the villains are characters who do not get saved during the story. That is why, through this game, I want to portray the message that even if you get beat up all the way to a bad ending, you can grow from it and live your life without feeling discouraged.
Acting lame, obstinate, without hesitation, being open and honest—it’s not as bad as it sounds.
I would like to paint a positive picture of living honestly with yourself and not worrying about others.
In today’s society there are so many people who live in fear of failure and are always walking on eggshells, but nobody’s flawless. It is exhausting to try to live your life so that no one will hate you.”
Everyone, even people you don't know or do not like, have gone through things that shaped who they are. Sometimes, how we've adapted to handle the bad things that happen will force us to hit rock bottom. But you don't have to die when you hit rock bottom.
You can have terrible things happen to you and have maladaptive strategies to handle your experiences, but you aren't stuck that way forever. You can learn how to change your habits, learn to be okay with yourself, and work at being better than you were the day before.
Human growth is not linear. It's a bunch of taking steps forward and backsliding and learning and making mistakes over and over again and accepting failure, not as a testament to your character, but as part of the process of growth... and that's something all the students have to learn, not just the Overblot boys. Because all of them, every single one, are handling their own personal issues, even if it isn't shoved right in our faces.
