History Repeats Itself

history repeats itself

Confirmed

it always shocks me that people still to this very day think Komaeda is a selfish, delusional, crazy liar like this kid:

- Waited for a kid who had a panic attack and blacked out upon being thrust into a stressful situation, when no one else did, and offered to lead him around to make sure he was accustomed and okay.

- Has the whole liar disease when his personalty is reversed to show us he’s not a liar, which I’m like, 65% sure why the despair disease was even conceived of by the writers in the first place.

- Has an entire section where you play as him (which is unprecedented in DR) just to show you that no, he is definitely not a liar and fully believes in the righteousness of what he’s doing.

- Decided to sacrifice himself for his classmates and risked his life when going into the FDR, without even telling anyone what he was doing so no one would stop him.

- Even after literally sacrificing his life for hope, still left behind enough critical evidence purposefully so that his classmates could maybe find out the truth, just in case they were worthy of it after all and to maybe save their lives even after, again, he had tortured himself and resigned himself to a slow, painful death.

- In Island Mode in general is mostly a considerate sweetheart, warning Hinata to stay away from dangerous things and trying to keep him safe whenever they’re together. (In the manga he even takes care of Hinata after Hinata gets sick thanks to his luck.)

- When he dreams of an ideal world, it is one where he has horrible, bad things happen to him, but good things happen to those he admires and cares for, that’s his heart’s literal truest desire.

- Tried to warn his classmates about going back to fight Kamukura and Enoshima without help, and yeah I know he said he was ‘just testing them.’ But that was clearly just him going along with what they had suggested, like he often says he’ll do in SDR2, because he doesn’t think his opinions and observations are worth much compared to Ultimates.

- Was so happy to see Kuzuryuu and Souda alive after his dream that he hugged them, even knowing that it was only dream because he cared about them so much.

- Komaeda Nagito is a naturally sweet boy who gets set off by stressful and strenuous situations, likely thanks to his  FTD and quite honestly likely thanks to some form of PTSD for all the death he’s seen and believes himself guilty of, when there’s no tragedy or conflict to set him off, he’s harmless and only viewed as strange or weird by his classmates, rather then dangerous. (Exempting Hinata of course.) 

- Literally he fell in love with the first person who tried to understand him wtf this boy is not evil or a psychopath.

Hajime Headcanon

I think Hajime was neglected as a child and that made him desperate for friends.

People that come from absent parents can often get too attached to people because they want someone that’ll love them like their parents should have. He got pretty attached to Nagito quickly in Chapter 1 and even after he realized that Nagito is batshit crazy he could still choose to talk to him and even form a bond that Hajime said he couldn’t explain. And he’s like this for everyone, even Teruteru in Island Mode (despite getting drugged).

He never mentions his parents. Ever. You would think if one or both were dead, he would at least mention it in his inner thoughts. Plus, if they were abusive, he would mention that. And he’s in high school so how did he sign off on the Izuru Project? Most likely his parents did, which is neglectful since, even if you consider that they were lied to, they signed their son to partake in a surgery that was never done before. That’s very neglectful of their (possibly) only child’s wellbeing.  

This makes me think that they’re alive but just not a part of Hajime’s life. It would also explain Hajime’s obsession with being important; if a child is ignored for most of their life, they make grow up feeling unloved or unimportant. This was probably doubled by the confirmed bullying that Hajime had been throughout middle school.

Absent parents could also make a child more reckless because they’re desperate to get someone to care about them and/or no one was there to tell them how bad some actions can be. You see that desperation in Hajime when he tries so hard to be special and you see the recklessness when he blindly trusts Hope’s Peak (the only ones that paid attention to him) with his life. You can also see that recklessness fade a little when he finally made a friend which caused him to question this was the right thing to do (Until Juzo screwed everything up, I will never forgive him for that).

Having Absent Parents can also mess with your self-esteem as you are denied any form of comfort and start to question whether you’re selfish for even asking for comfort. This could make neglected children much more giving than taking. You can see that with Hajime since he’s more than willing to comfort others while never asking for comfort himself.

I mean even Makoto (the least developed protag imo) has a backstory with confirmed parents and Shuichi has his uncle, but Hajime doesn’t mention anyone. Seems like neglect to me.