Dead Plate Private Setting
Some thoughts and sorting out my personal headcanons (still a bit messy though)
Alt timeline / survival route private setting. OOC warning — I’m still not sure about some parts!
Mostly just rambling. If you have any thoughts, feel free to share — I’d really appreciate it.
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⚠️ Important:
All of the following is based on the premise that in this private setting, Vince, as a revenant, finds Rody and makes him even more irritable.
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Revenant Rules
· Revived for unknown reasons. Feels no pain. Reduced senses. Wounds heal quickly.
· Fatal wounds cannot be healed.
· Appears human, but how "human" they look depends on their mental state.
· If they remain under high pressure / guilt / conflict / negative emotions for a prolonged period, they begin to decay — and eventually revert to a corpse.
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About the Private Setting Ending
What I can say for certain is that Rody and Vince still don’t fully understand each other.
But after Rody has prepared himself for a new life, he’ll look back — and reach out to Vince, who is still standing on the dividing line between past and present.
This outcome isn’t set in stone. It’s just another one of Rody’s emotionally-driven decisions. He hasn’t forgiven Vince, and he still resents him — but the resentment has faded. Partly because he’s now moving toward the life he wanted and is more at ease, and partly because during his time with Vince, he’s come to feel like he can almost understand why Vince did what he did — and he pities him.
But that wasn’t how it was at first.
When he first saw Vince appear in front of him, it was like the countless moments of unsettling perception and hallucinations he’d had over and over finally became reality. The fact that Vince wasn’t even human anymore nearly broke him.
But after the chaos of emotions, what followed was resignation.
At the same time, Vince kept showing up at random moments, and Rody couldn’t escape him — so he ended up silently accepting that Vince was living with him. And oddly, that brought him some relief — it let him escape from the immense self-imposed pressure and guilt, temporarily shifting that weight onto Vince instead.
The turning point also came from Vince.
Rody realized that even though he could try to ignore Vince lingering around him, Vince’s unique condition meant Rody could never truly escape his line of sight. That realization amplified his fear and disgust under the pressure. And that, in turn, pushed him to start trying to actually step out of the shadow of the past — to leave Vince behind for good.
The reason he could stop being so harsh on himself was still because of what Manon had genuinely wished for him.
And in the end, that step toward change also helped him let go of some of his hatred. Enough to turn his attention toward Vince — and accept him. Like they used to be friends.
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As for Vince — he’s still Vince.
Even after all these bizarre things happened, he still acts on his desires — but for the first time, he’s faced with a kind of emotional feedback that’s serious and inescapable. He doesn’t know how to deal with it, and he can’t escape it — he has no experience handling something like this.
He’s lost almost everything, and quite naturally, he still blames Rody. But it’s his emotions that are holding his thoughts back — he doesn’t have the courage to truly take revenge.
He keeps causing trouble for Rody, slowly wearing down Rody’s patience and the life he’s barely managed to piece together. There’s no real reason for it — Vince doesn’t think about why he does it. It’s just an attempt to hold onto something, some kind of control over Rody — a fragile, meaningless shred of pride. And Rody never asks him why.
His situation and life seem to have plummeted from a high point straight to rock bottom. That dealt a heavy blow to him. Most of his arrogance was snuffed out, leaving behind that familiar emptiness once again. He struggles to fill it — but emotional issues leave him with no motivation to even try.
And on top of that, his physical condition constantly reminds him that he’s no longer human. He’s afraid of himself too, and feels disgust toward his own existence.
But just like how he chooses to keep bothering Rody, he shoves all of this into a corner of his heart and ignores it.
Yet just as he tries to take revenge on Rody, Rody does the same to him — shoving everything Vince doesn’t want to face right in his face, forcing him to deal with things without any preparation, forcing him to learn, to admit he was wrong. That further chips away at his arrogance.
These were things the old Vince wouldn’t have even thought worth his time. The only reason he’s trying to think about them now is because the most solid protective shell he had — his status and identity — has been torn away, exposing his fragile nerves directly.
It’s not entirely a bad thing. Even though he still stubbornly tries to reject and fight it, it gives him a chance to begin understanding emotions — to develop a real sense of what they mean. A vague, tentative first step toward something "normal."
As Rody’s process moves forward, Vince finds himself subconsciously accepting Rody’s help.
It’s strange, but it’s also a kind of "nothing left to lose" approach. After suffering a second physical trauma, his passions and dreams have been pushed even further out of reach. He still needs time to plant the seeds of ambition again. But now, stripped of everything and caught completely off guard — with hardly any abilities left — the olive branch Rody extends to him is, without a doubt, a new beginning.
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About Manon
Her role has always been a bit unclear.
She did stay because she was worried about Rody. But after thinking more about it, her "wish" was already fulfilled after Ending 3. So now, Manon’s role feels more like whatever part of her Rody still needs. (Which is why her face is usually hard to make out.)
She stayed by Rody for a long time — even though Rody never knew, and she never even appeared in his dreams. But the wish she left behind became a thorn in his heart. And so, the "ghost" of Manon keeps haunting Vince, trying to get back at him.