#ds!otto

[sufferu]

Honestly, I feel like Starless will have a pretty different tone straight from the jump. Like, Subaru thinking that he needs to do everything he can to cling to his connection to Emilia got a wince and a "that explains a lot" before they just sorta concluded it was good they he ran into Emilia of all people. They're a year removed from his outburst at the start of the royal selection by that point. In Starless, when that just happened I feel like there is a good chance that'll reinforce some of their more negative assessments of his personality, even if they feel more sympathetic upon learning he was ripped from his home.

On an unrelated note, love that Otto is in Starless at all despite not having any connection to the Emilia camp yet. Blud is just there to watch himself try to feed Subaru to the whale. That's not till near the end of the viewing, and he's just confused and wondering why he's even there till then. 10/10 bit.

Insanely different, even at the start. Remember when Ferris and Ricardo were playfully making fun of Subaru as a way to try and lighten the mood? Now Ricardo doesn’t know him and Ferris thinks nothing but bad things about him, and everyone else is either too hurt, too worried, or too apathetic to look at him fumbling around with anything more than indifference or distaste. Y’all are about to see firsthand why I’ve been so insistent that the teasing in regular!Dogshow is a sign of friendliness and camaraderie.

And yeah Otto is just There. Nobody really knows why he’s there. He’s like half-certain he’s passed out from drinking and is now having the most bizarre dreams imaginable.

[sufferu]

I find it interesting how the cast is treating Rem for what she did to Subaru, but what about about Otto and Garfiel? How are they being treated by the cast for what they did?

Otto is the one person in the Emilia Camp who legitimately gets a pass, because everyone ultimately agrees — with the combined factors of Subaru openly declaring that the White Whale chasing them both down was definitely after him, specifically, of them being aware that Otto was getting driven insane due to being exposed to the literal voice of the White Whale due to his Divine Protection, and of them realizing that Otto almost certainly sent Frufoo back to go and help Subaru once he came to his senses — that Otto literally did, at worst, what any reasonable person would do in that situation. (And honestly, he probably did a whole lot better than that…) Wilhelm has some very messy feelings about this still, due to Otto’s actions immediately preceding him having to watch Subaru crawl away crying for help from the scourge of the past 14 years of his life (aka. the single most traumatizing thing that this man, specifically, could have been forced to witness), but even he is largely aware that he’s not being fair. —Otto himself probably isn’t anywhere near this forgiving, noteworthy.

Garfiel is a lot more uncomfortable, but he has one advantage that Rem does not: he remembers being an actively antagonistic force in Subaru’s life. And everyone else remembers this, too. This might seem like it should make it worse for him, but it actually means that everyone has largely brought up and settled these underlying issues properly already, and so rehashing them is — uncomfortable, but not nearly as nasty a surprise as watching Rem actively torture Subaru onscreen for several hours. But of course, it differs from person to person. Some members of the audience brush it off as a settled matter, others are a little less forgiving, still others are resolute in their opinion that this is One More Person who can never be allowed near Subaru again, and that’s kinda just how it goes.

(It is also important to note that the quality of their relationships with Subaru AFTER their respective incidents are very influential here. Garfiel and Otto both became honest and genuine friends looking out for Subaru’s well-being in honest and genuine ways. Rem, meanwhile, pulled shit like repeatedly sneaking into his room to watch him sleep, enabling almost every one of his bad behaviors, and monologuing about how she wanted to take his gibbering, shock-stricken form and kidnap him far away from everyone else so that she could have him all to herself forever. This is a very important factor in how these characters are received.)

[sufferu]

Interpretations of Subaru sneaking into the Royal Selection Ceremony, dueling Julius, and fighting with Emilia get WILD in Dogshow lmao.

Some highlights:

Anastasia: All of this was Emilia’s fault. Subaru was traumatized by the maids she failed to keep in line, conditioned to view her as his singular pillar of goodness and safety, allowed to run wild without any proper discipline despite working as her servant for at least a month — Subaru isn’t really BLAMELESS or anything, he’s still got issues, but a lot of those issues specifically stemmed from circumstances that she caused either directly or through her failure as his liege. Also Subaru — might actually have a mental disability, because holy shit he really wasn’t able to read the room AT ALL was he??

Julius: Torn between guilt at having beaten Subaru to a pulp when he apparently didn’t even really know what a duel was and horror at the realization that, had he not stepped in, there was a good chance that Subaru would have ended up in a death loop at the hands of his fellow knights. He hates this.

Emilia: She’s crying in the corner. She doesn’t even entirely disagree with him now that she understands what he was referencing during their fight. Her poor knight.

Garfiel: Nearly breaks Julius’ nose on the spot. If Otto hadn’t jumped in, Julius would have let him.

Otto: Horrified. Julius doing that legitimately saved Subaru’s life. He can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if Subaru had died for that slight. And then died again, and again, and again…

Ricardo: This isn’t nearly as funny or cute as he thought it was going to be. This is just…sad.

[sufferu]

Garfiel and Otto can bond over their almost-killing Subaru. But seeing how Rachins reacted in Chapter 3, it’s probably not going to go well regardless the fact they didn’t succeed.

Rachins didn’t even like the guy lmao. They’re all SO screwed, because that is legitimately their baseline for how they’re all gonna react to…all this. Pour one out for the two other idiots, everybody, because I’m not going easy on ANYONE—