*slurps tea and looks at the discussion*
I disagree a bit. Like yeah, Fae/Yokai regularly show that they not truly get human interpersonal connection, but kitsune and other trickters do so. And Mystery is an experienced kitsune. He is old, very much so. He spawned an entire forest by feeding his blood to a plant and had his nest there for quite some time. Even if Mushi came to the forest in the last days of the samurai, which would be around the 1870s, Mystery would have around 140 years to learn close relationships with humans not by just watching them but being a part of their family.
Many tricksters use openly the ways humans act. They know their ways around it and poke at the weak points of traditions, e.g. Reineke Fuchs in the German folklore, or personal weaknesses to get their way. Even if their mountain of lies gets discovered, they often come back out on the top. Their lies can the uncovered, though, and their misdeeds can have hurtful and lethal consequences. But tricksters are fucking slippery eels that do not repent if not taken and confronted of their mistakes or misdeeds by others. They do not do it out of free will. Another repeating situation is that a lie or a misdeed of a trickster spirals out of control until the trickster is unable to avoid the consequences anymore. And this is what happens in the videos from Mystery's perspective. Karma.
Even if Mystery has problems understanding humans, he is very aware that Arthur gets fucking PTSD episodes by him (seeing by him shrugging off Arthur's freak out in video 2 with an awkward smile to Vivi and by extrapolating with him being the only one who was conscious after Lewis died to... well... bring Arthur to urgent care and thus leaving Lewis behind) and he has to be aware about what happened in the cave and keeps his silence. Why? Because no one is able to confront him about his mistakes.
But Shiromori is doing that. Shiromori is his main past mistake and she comes to confront him. She is unavoidable and it scares the fucking shit out of him. The group one... I do not see Mystery open up about that one, but that is because stuff keeps on happening in the videos and no one has time for a breather. But I hope that when the whole 'possessed by Reverb' is over, we get a scene like that. Arthur is not the type to confront Mystery. But I imagine Vivi to be livid (as soon as it is clear that Mystery is safe and sound and alive), especially since Mystery was the only one able to be there for her best friend while she was under a spell. And I can imagine Lewis also being bitter towards him, because Mystery had the ability to stop Lewis and force a talk. So being the one being able to stop him from literally throwing Arthur off a cliff in a rage. Because I do not believe that this is one thing that Lewis will let slide, for himself and Mystery.
We as the audience can see that, but it is prime time that Mystery should get a real kick in the arse. I hope Mystery does not die in video 5, but that instead he has to confront his past mistakes and keep on working to make up for it.
We know that Mystery cares for the group. But Vivi is his priority. He leaves Arthur's side to look for her and keep her safe as the poor, sleepdeprived and haunted dude crashes the car and gets... left for Lewis to collect... *coughs* I do not see Mystery thinking: Well, Lewis won't hurt Arthur. I more see Mystery having his priorities on his family, which is Vivi... and maybe Shiromori. So personally, I see his comeuppance being between those two, with Lewis and Arthur being people he can't go to for having left them. He needs consequences for his inaction. Inaction is also an action. And his actions hurt all the people around him and got some nearly killed.
Pfew, this became a big rant and I rewrote it like three times. I hope it is still coherent. If you find sentences that are halfwritten in the wall of text. Sorry, sleep deprived lizard brain bad. Have a nice day. I love shitting on Mystery(affectionally)
hmm ok vaguely in order response,
yeah, that's what i meant by "explanation, not excuse." like i hope when i say that people get that i dont mean "he should have magically overcome this inherent problem!" and more "it was tangibly, easily available for him to do better if he cared to." if that makes sense. does that make sense? like yeah, mystery does all this lying and deception because he's a supernatural creature, but he also does it bc he's a shithead who doesn't care enough to do better.
ive actually written, i think a couple different fics where vivi chews mystery out/is pissed at him in the background, generally my like, fic-canon for post-future is that vivi's Pissed at him and he is Experiencing Consequences even if it isn't the main focus. i don't remember how many of those i've posted though. i know it's at least one. i don't think i've ever done anything where lewis is the one to Get Mad though—usually bc lewis is too busy having his own "holy fuck i almost killed my best friend" guilt nightmare to even like, notice mystery existing. that's a good point, and a fun idea, though. hmm.
and lol @ mystery caring about vivi. no he does not. this is mystery who pulled a just-got-hit-over-the-head, probably-concussed vivi out of the back of the van and dropped her on the pavement in front of shiromori, and then just sat there spectating while she panic-dueled this supernatural being to protect him and only stepped in when she was seconds from getting stabbed to death. he obviously doesn't care That much.
i wouldn't hold my breath for him getting any kind of comeuppance in canon though, i feel like in canon and in the fandom at large he gets kind of a free pass/sympathy tone and people just kind of ignore all the things he's directly made worse. maybe the tide's turned on him recently tho, idk, i feel like this time when i went off on my "fuck mystery" tangent i got a lot more agreement than i used to, but maybe that's just the blog environment i've cultivated lol. i haven't been keeping up with the rest of the fandom really at all so i have no idea if people have better opinions now