★
IORI YANO0/10
“… I guess it’d be pretty nasty of me to, like, not wish you well after everything, yeah? Good… luck with things, I guess.”
This actually ended up being a pretty insightful star!! I apologize if you don’t… really want a giant massive blurb about Rover’s thoughts about himself…. BUT.. but Iori and Rover first met on the chandelier, when Iori jumped up to join Miko and him right after Shoko had yelled at them to get down. Rover wasn’t really sure if they were trying to stop them, but they were laughing and hollering so… You get good points in Rover’s book for going against ~the rules~, lmao. They fell, Rover thought it was hilarious and wondered if their plan the entire time was to have the chandelier fall. Iori was instantly up there in his book of rad people I should hang out with again, and he bolted off to avoid getting in trouble.
… That train of thought didn’t last too much longer than that.
The next time they interacted Iori was approaching him right after he’d seen someone drop dead in front of him, asking for questions and chiming far too lightly for Rover’s taste. He was pretty stressed out at the time, so Rover snapped at them and told them to buzz off. A bit later, when he was in a more clear state of mind, he actually felt bad about that? Like, when Rover snaps at people, he’s basically learnt that he won’t be talking to that person again? Basically he thinks messed things up with Iori before he could even try and form a friendship with them, so for the rest of the time he was alive, Rover didn’t interact with them. They were the one that took down PK’s body, which Rover was really grateful for, and he kept going back to thinking they could have been friends, they could of maybe been a support for one another if they’d maybe hung out, if Rover hadn’t snapped at him that one time.
(Like… okay, he probably didn’t actually mess it all up; his emotions were justified based on the situation and Iori doesn’t seem like they’d keep something like that to heart for too long, but Rover has it built up in his mind that if he acts out once, then he’s ruined it? So even if Iori doesn’t even think about that? He is. Maybe had this been in pre-despair he’d actually go up to them an apologize and try and make it better, but in despair he’s almost… scared.)
There was a small bump in this when Iori went up and started yelling at Shigeru… but Rover dies and he stops paying attention to Iori and the living kids as much as he used to, so he doesn’t think about the Shigeru thing again until later. If they say something or do something that stands out, then Rover’s obviously paying attention, but other than that… Iori kinda disappeared? They were there to comfort Cerys when she was acting out, and Rover was pretty grateful for that, but then trial five and…
… To be fair, this was the trial directly after Rover fucked things up for himself. So he was paranoid and scared of everyone, and Cerys is stationed right next to Rover, so when Iori comes over to comfort Cerys they’re right next to him. They’re talking and Iori is getting kinda like? A bit shaky, a bit off, and Rover is high-strung, and then Iori snaps Hirashi’s tablet in half and Rover FLIPS OUT. He gets SO SCARED at the sound and he’s playing with his baseball bat and he SWINGS THAT BABY RIGHT AT THE TWO OF THEM…
Rover swings a bat at them with enough force to probably give both Cerys and Iori a concussion. And then things started to… go downhill. On top of that incident, he’s starting to remember the Shigeru thing, and Iori starts acting… flighty. They start raising their voice and they start doing unpredictable things and they’re all over the place when they’re upset and who knows what they’re going to do. Maybe he’s dead and Iori can’t do anything, but just the unpredictability of them terrifies him.
Though the biggest thing is that Iori reminds him of himself. AND BOY OH BOY, THE FACT THAT IORI REMINDS HIM OF HIMSELF AND HE’S SCARED OF IORI IS GETTING INTO SOME DEEP, WELL BUIRED SHIT.
SO LET’S TALK ABOUT IT…
So!! Rover and Iori both have ADHD. I’m not sure of Iori’s diagnosis exactly, but the disorder is still present (or I! I remember lon you telling me that but I could be wrong?), and I can’t believe I had no idea about it when I was writing about Rover’s thoughts about them… Like, Rover’s opinion of his ADHD is… wishy-washy. On one had, it’s him. It’s who he is and he wouldn’t be who he was without it. It helps him when he excels in things he’s interested in, in that he has the ability to ultra-focus because of it. And he really loves that! As much as Rover’s opinion on himself is kind of everywhere, he really does like who he is as a person right now, and he wouldn’t be that way without ADHD. On the other hand, when he was younger, it was really, really bad and couldn’t control it it made him act out, it made him hurt people because he couldn’t understand normal social cues. Give him a joking nudge?? Rover’s thinking you want to be violent. He’ll push you over. And this got really bad when he got in school fights, because he was ruthless when he didn’t understand what was going on exactly, and fucking brutal when he did. When he found out aggression and misunderstanding was a normal thing for ADHD kids, he started getting scared of what it might make him do? Which is a reason why Rover is actually!! Scared of himself!! He’s scared that if he gets upset enough he won’t be able to control his thoughts and emotions and he’ll hurt people with his words or with his fist and he really doesn’t like doing that because he!! really loves people!!
And now he’s looking at Iori and he’s scared, and he’s seeing himself in Iori and… Yeah. Near the later parts of the game, and at the end of the game especially, Iori is the embodiment of who he’s terrified he’ll become? That he’ll let his emotions take control and put other people in risk and be so impulsive that nobody would really know if Rover’d pull that trigger or not — Rover himself wouldn’t even know if he’s going to pull that trigger or not.
Iori managed to get into some really deep personal stuff!! nice. And I won’t say Rover hates Iori, because he’s seeing himself in them, so there’s always going to be something that Rover relates to in them, that he understands. It’s like… he can’t completely hate himself, right? And he knows Iori is a fun person, and he personally knows what stressful and emotionally demanding situations can do to someone, so even if Rover’s very uncertain with them… he still can’t totally?? Dislike them?? A faith!! The same that he sees in himself!! And I mean that lighter opinion is kind of buried behind a fear right now, but it’s definitely there!
