Future∞Echo Psychology & Arcs
Content warning: Suicide and attempted suicide, toxic/abusive relationships, and mild violence are all present here. Please be cautious, and let me know if there's any others I should add.
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Alright so for a bit of preramble: a big thing about F∞E is that it's "oops all unreliable narrators" and also these descriptions are going to be how they would be presented in-story, aka described from the perspective of the characters (while still encompassing what is actually going on here). Also they all kind of start as bad people (Momoka significantly less than the others) but that is a big part of the point of this unit.
Another thing is with the story structure of Tricolor Tale (official project name, woohoo!) characters from other units will play a big part in these characters' stories. The story is like pjsk-canon with each character having focus events that compile to create the story, however it's more like "one big story" as compared to "each unit has an individual story which doesn't interact with the others significantly".
To make the units still feel like units (besides designs & singing together) each unit has a unit theme under the umbrella of the main story theme (identity), and furthermore each character has a specific parallel theme with every other character of their unit. The unit theme of Future∞Echo is "change" or rather "growth". Duo themes will be discussed later, because this post is too big.
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Shiki Kikumori
*Shiki is a kinda hard character to talk about individually because his arc is very much parallel to and mostly revolves around Ayataka, who is not in F∞E. So there's a bit of missing context here.
Shiki is "a butterfly that wouldn't emerge from it's chrysalis": he's immature, rejects change, and isolates himself (refusing to see the "outside"). He's a severe maladaptive daydreamer and compulsively lies to himself, which means that all of his relationships with others are filtered through his victim mentality; regardless of how people try to connect with him or show that they really care, Shiki distances himself and lies to himself out of insecurity: the more they push (Momoka, Ayataka) the worse he depicts them in his head.
Dealing with feelings– more specifically about other people– is not something Shiki is equipped for. He has a very black-and-white worldview of people where they are either "on his side" or "against him", and he doesn't cope well with "people who care about + want to help him but also don't indulge his delusions" (like Momoka). This mainly comes from being an outsider his whole life. Since he was always pretty strange, and spoiled due to his family situation, he didn't get along well with others. He developed his maladaptive patterns pretty early on in life, but it didn't extend to "scripting" other people until after the incident in junior high:
The junior high incident REALLY fucked Shiki up, and his arc up until his third event (and the foundation of his relationship with Ayataka) is centered around it. Firstly when Takane blamed him for cheating and plagerism (a pretty big thing that could seriously affect Shiki's record and future schooling prospects) and then GOT AWAY WITH IT, he was rightfully pissed and stressed out because he was facing major consequences for something he didn't do and no one was on his side because he was the weird kid who'd probably do something like that (as opposed to Takane, who was sociable and agreeable and well-liked by teachers). This planted the seed of "everyone hates me". And then when Ayataka attacked him out of nowhere(*missing context) when he finally confronted Takane, Shiki felt even more hurt and began to think that it wasn't just "everyone hates me", but instead "everyone's out to get me". Aka, the start of his victim mindset. Getting sent to boarding school as a punishment for his actions (which, again, he didn't do anything) and being isolated from the few people he actually trusted (his parents) ramped up his maladaptive patterns and caused him to start thinking the worst of everyone: he started refusing to talk to others and even cut off his emotions towards his parents by finding reasons to hate him.
He continued doing this after he got out of boarding school (when the main story starts), and pushes away anyone he likes or wants to be close to by doing the same thing ("no I can't like X because they did this and this so I hate them actually). This pattern of directly lying to himself about his feelings and what he actually wants makes up his plot for the first half of the F∞E story, and is what causes conflict between him and the other F∞E members (as well as with Ayataka, Towa, ect).
When he comes to Asakura and sees not just Takane, living consequence free and having a wonderful time(*missing context) despite fucking over Shiki, but Ayataka that eye-stabbing bastard free and running around, he withdraws EVEN MORE. Because, although he won't admit any "flaws" that aren't either caused by others or make him a victim, he is very traumatized by what happened and still held a grudge against both of them at the start of the story. And then as even more of a shock to him, when Ayataka APOLOGIZES of all things and promises to try and repent for what he did to Shiki, Shiki's mindframe starts to crumble a little. Shiki has spent the past two years seething and plotting revenge as his only form of entertainment during boarding school and the guy he's spent the last two years seething against just casually apologizes. So obviously, Shiki hates him even more and that rejected apology causes even more contention!
...Except that's not what happens (despite how much Shiki is trying to force himself to do just that). Even after Shiki flatly rejects and insults Ayataka, Ayataka is insistant and promises to do whatever he can. Shiki humors him (with encouragement from F∞E), and things actually go somewhat well. Shiki continues treating Ayataka like shit in hopes he'll convince himself that he actually does hate Ayataka, but that never happens and instead he starts feeling an emotion he's never felt before: shame.
A similar thing happens with his relationships with the other F∞E members: he genuinely cares about them and views them as his friends, but he's too prideful and insecure to admit that to even himself (god forbid another person). This is most prevelant with Momoka, who is the most emotionally volatile but also the most honest with her emotions. Momoka is ACTUALLY trying to use the main point of the group (self-improvement and group support) but it isn't working because she doesn't even no where to start and there's no one really helping her start. Shiki is jealous of her, but also sympathetic and kind of resentful: she's been through some very similar experiences but isn't hiding and isn't blaming anyone but herself(*missing context; this isn't very healthy for her). He wants to be able to live honestly too, and to lean on others for help, but he can't bring himself to trust others no matter how low he gets. He can't write a script for or categorise Momoka or his relationship with her, which he hates.
Ultimately the changing point for his character and when he actually starts trying to change + accepting his emotions starts at Iku3. He's harsh on Ikuro, who's having a severe depressive meltdown and panic attack. The more he talks to Ikuro then the worse he feels (especially when Ikuro won't stop apologising), and so the harsher Shiki gets in order to try and supress those emotions of care (becoming cruel and starting to panic). Seeing Momoka comforting Ikuro sets off Shiki more, because again, that's something Momoka can do that he can't. Momoka obviously tells him off and to cut the shit, but because he's having a mild episode and Momoka is otherwise the person he'd feel safest around, he goes to Ayataka instead as the next most comforting person. This revelation really disturbs Shiki, who switches to lashing out at Ayatka. When Ayataka then goes missing(*context missing), F∞E breaks apart, and the next time he sees Momoka is her lashing out and physically attacking him and blaming him for Ayataka's suicide attempt(*context missing), he's unable to supress the negative emotions he feels about himself. To try and soothe himself, he says to Momoka "that's what I wanted." (a blatant lie, as he's about to throw up). This phrase becomes pretty important to him going forward.
The shame from before eats at him even more, which leads us to Shiki3. Shiki mentally cannot keep lying to himself or repressing his emotions anymore. He is physically reacting to how awful he feels and his maladaptive daydreams have turned into full blown hallucinations that are constantly insulting and antagonizing him: he doesn't know anything about what happend to Ayataka (and can't learn due to Momoka's threat) but he constantly sees images of Ayataka's death, Momoka berating him, Ikuro's broken state, and Meguru's absence (among other things). He turns to Sekai, but Sekai has warped alongside his mind and is unstable.
And finally, finally, Shiki turns to someone else (Towa) for help because he can't tell himself "this is what I wanted" or "I don't care" anymore. He spills ALL of his emotions to first Ayataka, then Momoka, Ikuro, and finally Meguru (though that comes later). Momoka is most crucial because she very much does NOT forgive him, and there's probably no way she can do back to thinking about him the same way as before. But she still cares, and she still wants to see Shiki get better. Reforming F∞E is very much a journey he has to take alone, because his prior passivity won't fly anymore. The main term of Momoka coming back (aside from making it up to the others too), is that Shiki needs to try. If he tries to pull any of that angsty chuunibyo bullshit, she's either going to kick his ass or leave. A similar thing happens with Ayataka, as a part of starting over means "let's be ourselves around eachother".
Anyways that's all of his psychology that I have so far (goes up to a little past the F∞E Worldlink), but the main gist is he keeps trying to trust and be normal friends with everyone, as well as works on his maladaptive daydreaming. It's still present even after everything, but it's getting better and he's consciously trying to stop himself. Something of note is that Towa actually cuts Shiki's hair, so if you ever see short-hair Shiki in art, that is during/post redemption arc; long hair is pre.
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Momoka Kakuno
Ok so this is where the main suicide warning come into play: Momoka's arc is centered around her severe depression and her battle against suicidal thoughts. She starts the story off as actively suicidal (a fact that is widely know by the other characters), and it takes a long time for her to get stable. That being said, certain events (such as what happened in Iku3, Aya3, and Shiki3) do cause her to relapse into her depression.
Momoka is a bit of an outlier when it comes to F∞E because she's actually completely honest with and about her feelings from the start: the unreliable narrator part comes from the fact that she genuinely hates and believes the worst of herself. And the difficulty comes from the fact that yes, she has these feelings, but she doesn't know what to do about them. She's a very sensitive and emotionally in-tuned person which has almost exclusively worked against her in her life: she was teased and bullied relentlessly by others just because she reacted so much. As a result, whenever she gets overwhelmed, she lashes out violently (both physically and verbally, though she's not very strong).
Momoka developed an aggressive demeanor and defensive personality as a response to the bullying: it takes a long time and a lot of trust for her to open up to others, and when that trust is shaken, it's hard for her to recover (like with Shiki). She despises liars and people who break promises, which causes friction between her and the other members of F∞E: however, she doesn't actually call out Ikuro until he breaks down, doesn't call out Shiki until it has consequences for someone she loves, and doesn't call out Meguru until prompted by Shiki. To Momoka, she doesn't see a problem with any of their lies (because it is only affecting her, seemingly) until it starts affecting them or those she cares about: because for Momoka, her own happiness and comfort does not matter as long as her loved ones are happy. This is reflective of her poor self esteem, as she never makes moves to comfort herself unless prompted.
Meguru ignoring her at school for reputation reasons and acting like a totally different person in Sekai vs school hurts her. Ikuro attaching himself to Meguru and Takane and lying to Momoka's face about how he feels hurts her. Shiki constantly pushing everyone away and randomly acting like she's done something to hurt him everytime she gets close hurts her. But she never says anything about it because she doesn't want to be abandoned for "making a fuss". It's a similar situation with her father, where she wants to spend more time with him but feels like she's a burden to him: but with some intervention she gets to talk about how she feels, thereby helping her relationship with him and realising she isn't going to be berated or called immature for feeling that way (btw Dad Kakuno is the GOAT, you're gonna see that later). In that way, her second event is kind of like a subtle foreshadowing to what she needs to do more going forwards.
Her main passion in life is fashion design, though it's something she initially doesn't get to do much of (again, due to poor self esteem and believing it won't go anywhere). As her events go on she gets to grow more with support from her club advisor, Anzu, Ayataka, and Rikoto. It helps her gain more confidence and allows her to express herself and how she feels about others (like in Momo3 where she designs outfits for Ayataka and Anzu). She also starts taking care of herself more as time goes on, starting to take care of her hair better after Rikoto gifts her a hair ribbon ("a cute accessory for a cute girl"), and caring more about what she wears day-to-day. During her major relapse in Momo4 (post F∞E WL), she pushes herself into her hobby to a severe degree in a way of "doing the only thing that brings you joy in hopes of finding a reason to go on": of course this is not healthy as she's essentially killing her passion by forcing it so hard.
She's ultimately the emotional rock of F∞E (at least up to / slightly past the WL before Ikuro takes that role), which is both ironic and sad due to the fact that she's actually the youngest member (Momoka is 16, Shiki and Meguru are 17, and Ikuro is 18) and definitely not in a position to take care of others. Thankfully, Ikuro does realize this and starts gently trying to take some of the responsibility from her, with Shiki also turning Momoka's own words against her ("we need to have fun and support eachother, not try to fix eachother").
Somewhat out of order, but I wanted to talk about Momoka during Aya3 and Shiki3 (more specifically her outburst). Over the course of the story, Momoka began to see Ayataka as a brother figure and someone she deeply loved (a mutual sentiment): he was like her (a "scary person") who also seemed to understand the finer details of her depression, and supported her in Momo2&3. So when Ayataka went missing, Momoka felt completely powerless. She did eventually manage to find him, however the reunion was not happy as Ayataka was at his breaking point: she was alone when she convinced him to come home and it was a deeply scary and traumatic experience for her because not only did she almost lose her "brother", she felt partially responsible for not noticing sooner. And much like almost every other character (minus the other CxC members who all blamed themselves), she blamed Shiki for it. Obviously she wanted to believe it could've been some accident based off Shiki's prickly personality, but when he coldly said "That's what I wanted" she's disgusted and outraged. So she did what she does when she's scared: lash out. It hurt her not just to hear that Shiki didn't care about "what he did" to Ayataka, but also made her feel like Shiki didn't or wouldn't care if the same happened to her. It was a betrayal on a lot of levels and something that Momoka can't forget or forgive.
Post-Worldlink Momoka is able to take care of herself slightly better, and is able to start leaning on others much more: as previously mentioned Ikuro steps up, Shiki starts trying, and Shiki persuades her to talk to Meguru about her behavior.
As a last note, Anzu and Rikoto both have a pretty big affect on Momoka too (with her viewing Anzu as her sister, forming the Scary Siblings with Ayataka). Anzu is also in the variety arts club encouraging her there (in her Anzu way), provides a listening ear having also dealt with Meguru's two-facedness, and is blunt enough to rile up Momoka so she doesn't back out of saying something. Rikoto is a very energetic contrast to that, being a major cheerleader for Momoka and constantly complimenting her which helps her self-esteem. Rikoto also gifts Momoka her hair ribbon, which ends up being so special to her it stays on her in Sekai and helps encourage her in Momo4.
I'll go deeper into her dynamics in a different post, but for now this is everything I've written about Momoka.
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Ikuro Suzui
I'm gonna say this now but I think that Ikuro is #1 in terms of "larger fandom would NOT get this guy" not because he's necessarily that complicated, but because his arc is primarily centered around other people and the dichotomy of romantic vs platonic love. I also desperately need you to go into this knowing that IkuAnzu was MUTUALLY TOXIC and it crashed and burned because neither of them were compatible. Also, shipping is NOT the point of his character: I love talking about the Nightmare Polycule (KotoIkuMegu) but canonically Ikuro's story does not end that way.
Alright so with the above things you might be able to guess that Ikuro is very much a "falls in love with literally anyone who's nice to him" type of guy which is exactly correct. As is a running theme, Ikuro was an outsider who was bullied for his appearance specifically: Ikuro is albino (note: red eyes aren't scientifically accurate but they're cool so idc) which caused both vision and skin issues that caused him to not be able to play in the same way as other kids. In addition to the bullying of his peers, his parents didn't really want him in the first place nor did they want to deal with his slightly-more-than-average needs nor were they really interested in him. Ikuro knew exactly why people didn't like him, so from a young age he started people pleasing in hopes of making friends and getting attention from his family: this didn't really work, as most people just treated him like a doormat. However this also sparked a terrible revelation in Ikuro that, even if people hated him, if he were useful, they'd let him hang around.
This was slightly mended when he became friends with Anzu. Anzu is a take-no-shit person, and people who degrade themselves generally annoy her, so she would often chase away Ikuro's bullies and let him hang around her. From 14-15 Anzu and Ikuro started dating, lasting about a year until the relationship completely fell apart. (*From Ikuro's side only) Anzu was very cold and distant, always shunning Ikuro's romantic acts and desire to spend time together. Despite this, she also wanted Ikuro to be more romantic and Ikuro suspected her of talking to / planning to leave him for other guys: so Ikuro tried even harder to appease her. Eventually Anzu completely snapped at him, calling him a creep and saying the whole relationship was miserable. Ikuro took it VERY hard, and completely blamed it on him not being good enough. So at 16 when he entered highschool, he started dyeing his hair, wearing darker foundation, and stopped wearing his glasses. This is also around the time his parents moved abroad for work, leaving him alone. This double whamy abandonment caused Ikuro to internalize that "he wasn't enough to earn their love", which begins his severe attachment issues and by extension his unhealthy romantic/platonic patterns.
Ikuro remains largely the same (ie; getting worse) up until the main story starts. When F∞E forms, Ikuro is mostly just ecstatic about forming a "close-knit" group and having a second home that's always filled with people (Manor Sekai and the Vocaloids). Because he's reliant on other people and their opinions of him for his sense of self-value and purpose, he naturally doesn't cope well with loneliness (despite being so lonely) and likes to put himself in a caretaker sort of role (despite his true desire to be taken care of). This is reflected in his part-time job in childcare, and being in the School Community Committee (a club for taking care of the school and it's students). Additionally he doesn't really let himself feel negative emotions or even think about the things that stress him out (essentially bottling it all up) and puts on a very cheerful and optimistic facade to be as likeable as possible. He additionally "sanitizes" himself for this, showing as little of his true interests and wants as possible.
All of which factor into his big breakdown in Iku3. For the bare minimum of context: Meguru and Kotora are dating which he finds out about and gets jealous of (due to him starting to rely on and develop his usual "fall in love with anyone nice" thing due to perceived special treatment [Meguru is willing to hang out with him publicly and not the others]), Kotora is following him around and being a dick for no reason deliberately trying to piss him off and it's getting even more intense(*missing context), and Takane who he was getting codependent with and developing false-feelings for starts pulling away more due to getting more confidence and spending more time with Towa (which again activates the unchecked jealousy issue). All of this culminates with The Anti-Social Club's school mini-concert in which Ikuro's jealousy over Takane for "abandoning him" and the imbalance in how much Ikuro needs Takane vs Takane needs Ikuro leads to Ikuro making the impulsive and destructive decision to sabotage a stage light to drop on Takane. Obviously Ikuro immediately realizes that's an awful thing to do and it is NOT going to solve his problems whatsoever so he does end up saving Takane from the situation he caused, but the damage has pretty squarely been done.
As a small sidenote, Iku3 is just about the most important event in the story because it either directly or indirectly has an affect on literally everyone. This is the shit that leads to both the F∞E and c//m divorces and all the insanity in CxC. It will come up a lot and for that reason I'm soon going to make a post solely dedicated to it.
Takane is largely unharmed only having a broken ankle and some scratches, but at this point Ikuro is fully breaking down and feels absolutely atrocious. He is still mostly unwilling to talk about why he broke down so much, but Momoka isn't really giving him any other option. So with support and assistance from Momoka and Takane, he finally starts therapy.
Shortly after that Ikuro meets with Kotora in holding(*a LOT of missing context) and decides to offer him a place to stay, due to Kotora now being just a little bit homeless and also expelled due to being blamed for the stagelight incident and also cut off from his best friend and girlfriend. Kotora finally explains his actions which Ikuro appreciates the thought of, but did not appreciate the execution (*this will be explained more in Kotora's lore since it's more relevant to him). And after hearing him out, Ikuro does agree that they're decently similar and probably could help eachother out (or rather could've), but he does firmly assert that if Kotora ever pulls anymore bullshit he's out.
Kotora also does manage to (sorta) execute his plan of getting Anzu and Ikuro to talk about their breakup (information Ikuro is not happy that Kotora knows about, but he's not ever going to get mad at Meguru for telling him) which finally gives Ikuro closure that is incredibly rough: it wasn't that Ikuro wasn't "happy" or "loving" enough, or just not enough in general, but the fact that he was clingy, obsessive, and super jealous: none of which worked for Anzu, who doesn't have patience for people like that. This is a harsh blow for Ikuro, but he is able to accept that and start trying to work towards fixing.
With therapy, closure, his friend group un-divorcing, and no longer living alone (freeloader Kotora and temporary freeloader Meguru) Ikuro's mental health starts taking a turn for the best, allowing him to start supporting Momoka and Meguru much more heavily. He's also able to start kicking his habit of jealousy and his misunderstanding of platonic and romantic feelings. Before wrapping up his section I do want to explain his relationship with Meguru more (since Meguru plays a big part in Ikuro's mindset), but I think that'd be best saved for the dynamics post.
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Meguru Tsuchiko
Meguru is messy: she's on par with Shiki in terms of unreliable narratoring due to a lot of her story being misleadingly framed, and as of the story I've written so far she hasn't overcome her main issue (due to staying in the same arc throughout the whole story).
Meguru lives off of expectations: those real, and those imagined. She wants to be exactly what people expect of her, and doesn't have a true personality as a result. Her main struggle comes in the form of constantly creating personas: at first it was something she did intentionally and could turn off, but now she does it even when she's trying to be herself: as a consequence, she has no true sense of self and can never "act like herself".
She values reputation more than anything in a sort of "well I've been putting myself through so much for this facade, so I better fully commit" situation, which ends up poorly for her and everyone around her: Anzu is still bitter Meguru cut her off when Anzu arguably needed her most, Momoka's rejection issue is worsened by Meguru getting so hot-and-cold with her, and Kotora ends up feeling lonely and like a point of shame in their relationship. Rikoto is affected most by this pattern having been Meguru's closest friend for a long time, as she genuinely doesn't understand why Meguru starts flipping around so much around the WLs.
All this to say that Meguru is a character who can't really be talked about without talking about her relationships with others because she acts like a different person in front of different people, often times mirroring them specifically. She's gotten to the point that there is no "real her" for her to even discover, but she still fixates on the ideal of having a "true self" that she can easily switch to in private for the sake of stress relief. And that's the crux of the issue: she doesn't actually want to get better, she wants to make her unhealthy behaviors easier to execute. Furthermore she doesn't actually see her behavior as a problem, because she refuses to acknowledge that she's capable of making mistakes or being imperfect. Meguru is reluctant to feel any "negative emotions", except for the ones she allows, and only allows certain ones for certain personas (she's more willing to be aggressive with Kotora, pessimistic with Momoka, ect). She also dislikes acknowledging anything that makes her uncomfortable or that would cause her to feel more complex emotions, such as her conditional friendship with Momoka, Ikuro's discomfort around Kotora early story + obviously cracking mental state, past with Anzu, and of course her relationship with Kotora.
She's a strongly passive person: she doesn't like commiting to things or taking sides because that could close off a route in the future. Kind of like "having your cake and eating it too"; she wants everything without having to make hard choices to get it. Although not quite "impressionable" as she's very strong-willed, she does tend to intentionally copy the things about people she admires, especially when around them: to Shiki she is cold and dignified, to Ikuro she is compassionate and dutiful, and to Momoka she is outspoken and stubborn; obviously since none of these traits are really "hers", these are all performative "knockoffs" (for lack of a better word). They also come from how she perceives people, meaning they aren't the most reliable.
Meguru is bound by duty first and foremost: she wants to impress people and be better than others, a drive that led her to her current predicament. From a young age she's always been the apple of her parents eyes, favoured by her teachers, and the go-to person if any of her classmates ever had a question or a problem. And she thrives off of it! Or at least she DID, before she started burning out in late junior high-early highschool: but she won't acknowledge that fact. The burnout is obviously due to her persona-making, but it's also caused by the fact that she was never special in the first place: she's always been an average girl, but she wants to be more than that. If her score of 90% becomes expected and no longer "special", she'll force herself to start getting 95% so it'll amaze people again. If her grades, or extracurriculars, or social relationships drop it's a MAJOR ISSUE that she has to correct immediately. Which brings us to the biggest tragedy of Meguru's character, which is that all of these expectations are in her head. Her parents would still love her if she dropped from an A+ to just an A. Her teachers would still think she's smart if she got a question wrong. Her friends and classmates would probably see her as more approachable if she weren't so "untouchable". But because Meguru has spent so long under these self-imposed expectations, any variation is impossible.
This brings us to Kotora. With the bare minimum of context: Kotora has the pysche-lock ability from the Ace Attorney series where he can sense bullshit from a mile away, ESPECIALLY in cases where someone is hiding their "true self", and he is a man possessed when it comes to trying to get people to start being their true selves by ragebaiting the shit out of them. He is also a complete failure by choice and hasn't given a fuck since age 6. So in theory, he's the perfect person to help Meguru break down her anxiety about expectations and start to feel more comfortable being herself. And for a bit, it does kind of work! But the issue comes from that, Kotora can break down Meguru's facade all he wants, but if there's nothing under it she's just going to make a new one. Kotora also presents a unique dillema for Meguru: she does love him, but nobody can know about it because he is (as previously mentioned) "a failure by choice" who skips all of his classes and frequently breaks rules. And when she trusts someone enough to let them know, Ikuro has a bad reaction to that information (for reasons we know and she doesn't): it reinforces her perceived need to be ashamed of him, which hurts them both.
Then we come to Meguru's reaction to Iku3. Because Meguru knew IMMEDIATELY that Ikuro did it and was collapsing, but she didn't do anything to prevent it (something that was her responsibility, according to her). This presents another dillema where she either has to punish Ikuro for his actions (as the student council president) which is the correct thing to do (in case anyone finds out she knew), or she can ignore what happened and go to comfort her friend; facing "her negligence" and acknowledging his feelings. And in the end, she does neither. She can't make the choice because either way she loses something. So, she does nothing: she watches Momoka comfort Ikuro, Shiki being cruel, Ikuro breaking down (and revealing the stuff about Kotora's involvement), and eventually, she leaves.
Which directly cycles into Kotora's arrest, which was caused by none other than Anzu(*missing context, Kotora being responsible for the stagelight makes the most sense logically), which causes Meguru and Kotora's relationship to get revealed, which again forces Meguru to feel complicated emotions. She's mad at Kotora for pushing Ikuro but she still loves him but she's scared to be involved with him anymore because now everyone knows and that's bad for her reputation but she doesn't want to abandon him. So again she has a choice. And again, she chooses nothing. But now she can't choose nothing: the rumors are about HER, F∞E is cracking at the seems, her friends NEED HER. So, because it's the easiest option that comes with the least amount of complicated feelings, she doubles down and cuts everyone off. She erases everything but "the untouchable perfect student council president" and tries to pretend that nothing from the past months happened. A decision which gets her criticism from Anzu, who has always been her longest-standing "critic": someone impossible to please, no matter how Meguru acted.
And she's able to stay "doubled-down" until F∞E reforms and starts trying to get her back. She is able to let them and her other friend back into her life, but this just causes her to double down in the opposite direction: once again copying Kotora's example by dropping out of the student council and moving in with Ikuro on a whim, because she thinks this is the "healthy" option. But again, this is still isn't any more authentic to Meguru than what she was doing before. And she finally realises this, and gets disappointed in herself because something that is so SIMPLE for everyone else is so impossible for her.
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That's about it I think? I definitely missed some things probably, but for the most part I got all the main important stuff down! c//m is next, but at some point (possibly between now and c//m) I'll explain the worldbuilding changes and some important things that get referred to a lot (the incident two years ago, Iku3, ect)
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