curtaincalls | tl;dr cr meme

YEAAAAH hit me

okay

NANAMI. Okay, so Kaoru started out the game really disliking Nanami because of what boiled down to a combination of confusion and jealousy... He did not understand for a long time that Nanami wasn't faking her personality, because he didn't really understand how a person like Nanami could function as a Mastermind while simultaneously keeping up a genuinely good relationship with her DKs. This basically lead him to the (completely false as he now realizes it) assumption that she was pulling a... him.... essentially... re: manipulating the killers with a false persona and getting them to be all happy murder family with her through a really underhanded method. It seriously took him until like week 6 or something to figure out that he might be wrong AND THAT'S EVEN WITH STILES ADVOCATING FOR HER.

But Stiles's positive opinon helped, and Gundam stanning her so hard both kind of irritated him but also is what started him on thinking that he might be wrong in his assumption. He trusts both of them implicitly and if they care about her and think she's a good person, then Kaoru knew there was probably some truth to it even if he was too much of a whiny baby to say so at first. When Nanami started being super obvious about the mastermind stuff and dropped big hints that she wanted to be killed, that was basically the point when he was like "ooooh" and realized that she was totally being legit the entire time. WHOOPS...

It was a slight step back when Kazoo blew up Chizuru but that's for a lot of reasons that don't have much to do with Nanami at all. He had kind of built her up to be this unlikeable symbol in his head and he was really worn down from so many weeks of having to be away from MM1ers and bite his tongue that it all just culminated in this moment of MY SISTER IS DEAAAD and his opinion on like everyone plummeted... But he also knew that they did the right thing by tricking the game and getting Nanami retired, so after he had time to sit back and cool down, he was a little less assblasted.

THEN CAME WEEK 9 when Kaoru was legitimately concerned he'd get his dumb ass executed because of the framejob, but Nanami was not having that for even a second. She might have believed he was really the true mastermind for a bit(??), but even then she basically went "haha no", which improved his opinion of her a whole lot. It was kind of between week 8 and week 9 that he remembered Nanami and the DKs had never been his enemy, and he realized he had kind of slipped and let himself become so overwhelmed by his own struggles that he had started to stray from the people he really does want to direct his hate at (the producers). By the time they were at endgame, he didn't really consider Nanami a good friend, per se, but he definitely didn't view her as an enemy either. She's a pretty strong ally and he was genuinely glad they made it to the end with her. She's also a good friend to Chizuru, which is bonus points in his book now that he knows she isn't manipulating her. He's really started to warm up to the CCers in general so I think he'll come to view Nanami as a friend with time, too! HE DEFINITELY STILL WANTS TO SHOW HER THE FLOWERS and play vidya games with her because it was so hard acting like the dumb person from the 1860s again it was so hard.

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they're officially murdermarried now so tell me all about it

god okay you know what the other hilarious part of their murdermarriage is... how one-sided it is......

Basically from the start, Kaoru viewed Sebastian as a valuable asset to have because he couldn't really do anything. Like sure, he knew stuff, but he couldn't actually do anything about what he knew because he couldn't let even the slightest hint out that he wasn't a regular player or the producers would swoop down like vultures and carry him off into the great beyond. WHICH THEY DID EVENTUALLY TRY TO DO... So basically his hands were tied and he was under the impression that the killers were a huge threat, so he was kind of like SHIT WHAT DO I DO because no one else was catching on and he definitely couldn't have done anything to draw attention. And then Sebastian appeared like some sort of unholy force of nature WITH AN ALMOST COMPLETE LIST OF DKS... And Kaoru was just like "praise the lord we are saved". Except they were all also kind of saved too because tracking down the DKs gave Sebastian something to focus on that wasn't murdering all of them so that sure was a good thing, thank god.

Sebastian realizing that Kaoru utilized him well as a tool is basically what was happening there. That's why he didn't press Sebastian into killing anyone; because he came to the realization that Sebastian would be more useful alive than dead. Also because he did like having someone to talk to in the game itself that kind of knew he wasn't a timid pushover... He had gone two years without any sort of facade at all so it was actually pretty hard for him to maintain one so consistently in CC and he was grateful for the breaks barfstains provided, basically. ANYWAY he just kind of let him do his thing, talk to the lawyers, whatever. He was really content with their arrangement where Seabass put himself out and Kaoru hung back since that suited his purposes perfectly, and after a while he kind of got over his initial fear that barfstains was going to end up stabbing him in the back. Mostly because he got so invested in his other, slightly less murderous goals...

The one thing he was vaguely worried about was the fact that Sebastian seemed like he might have tried to kill Nanami either way, which Kaoru absolutely didn't want because he knew a Mastermind death of any sort would trigger the sort of ending that they couldn't have done anything with. But Sebastian pulled through!! And then they were on the Team Fuck The Producers boat together even more than they had been before. He spent a lot of the game being worried that barfstains would be an issue because of his weird adherence to rules but then he turned out to be just as adverse to them in the end as Kaoru is, so the ending of the game just kind of worked out like... perfectly... Sebastian was alive and around to help them all out and keep them safe and the final battle was something they all survived and now they have a magic combat butler to add to the team!! So he's excited about that.

As far as things go on a personal level, Kaoru really does like Sebastian a lot because their personalities mesh and a lot of their ideologies are, from what he's seen, pretty similar or at least not in conflict with each other. He's also vaguely worried for the same reason Stiles is though, like, man he already crawled out of the shitheaded murder demon trap he doesn't want to fall back in. He has enough faith in himself to believe that he'll be able to resist it but sometimes it is tempting... He totally has no idea what to think of the random loyalty that Sebastian has spawned out of seemingly nowhere, has no idea that his interest runs so deep, and is vaguely concerned about the fact that hE THINKS HIS SOUL IS TASTY... Like he is already getting the big gay vulture vibes. That said, he's not gonna turn down the chance to have such a powerful and loyal ally, so... yeah... basically he's stuck with murderhusband for the long haul and he doesn't really mind that. Kaoru can teach Sebastian all about cat memes and the internet and garage sale thrifting and Sebastian can make Kaoru nicer windowboxes for his flowers, it will be a great and beautiful murdermance.

do you liek me cowru

cowru liek u maya

NO HE REALLY DOES... Maya was another person he actually liked from the start. I'M LAUGHING REALLY HARD because I thought he liked a lot less but ?!? no that was just him being cranky, he liked most people from pretty early on. Maya was definitely one of them! He noticed quickly that even though she wasn't really taken seriously by a lot of people or listened to early on, she was extremely intuitive and pretty dang smart. Considering he developed this idea early that the DKs were going to be this huge dangerous obstacle to overcome, he wanted to have as many people ready to form a countermeasure if necessary which is why he approached her about Feferi in the first place with the whole daisychain info thing! AND THEN THAT EXPLODED but Maya had nothing to do with that part so he doesn't blame her at all.

His opinion never really soured toward her throughout the entirety of the game but he did come to a point where he kind of had to back off and stop talking to her for a while. She's a really high-energy person and since he had so much to deal with and had to focus so hard on not breaking his facade, he didn't want to expend the extra energy that would be necessary to interact with some of the members of the house. So basically he still liked Maya but her personality is one of the personalities he can only deal with in small doses and he backed off for a couple of weeks there. Though he really did appreciate that she got the burnt charm from Chizuru's room for him! He's progressed to the point where he can appreciate things like that, even if it didn't exactly help to calm him down.

Maya in endgame actually made him nervous because he had kind of pegged her at that point as the sort of person who wanted badly to be helpful, but he could tell that she felt she hadn't been. So he was worried that she'd do something really reckless that would get her killed and launch them into a trial, which is part of why he was kind of harsh with her (like pointing out that she'd be putting everyone's lives in jeopardy). So he does actually feel kind of bad for dragging her away from Yuyuko like he did, because he understands what it feels like to want to protect someone and just be unable to do that, but at the same time he doesn't regret it. AND NOW THEY ARE STUCK TOGETHER... I feel like Kaoru will probably become pretty fond of her over time since he already kind of is. Maya is his favorite lawyerboss and he's glad she's around to keep the other crazy lawyers in line since they're probably really gonna need that with Apollo around.

/hits

GLINDA Kaoru actually likes Glinda and pretty much always has! From the start she had kind of earned the Poland Award in his head, which is mentally the award that he gives to players who are really intelligent and intuitive but often overlooked by others just because of a personality trait or whatever else. He was pretty convinced from the start of the game that even if she couldn't make a dang sandwich for herself, she was a lot smarter than people seemed to be giving her credit for.

She's a little too intense for him on an emotional and energetic level, but he's long since grown adapted to the idea of liking someone despite their personality, basically. HE CAN APPRECIATE HER INTELLIGENCE FROM AFAR and just limit the amount of time that he spends actually in her presence listening to her talk about things he does not understand or sing about how he and Chizuru are obviously siblings. He was trying so hard to avoid that all game okay, he didn't want Chizuru to actually figure it out!!

THAT SAID he's kind of admires Glinda for being able to hold on to her original optimism and belief in the good of others through the whole of the game, since that's something that a lot of the people in his own round lacked, and he thinks that's part of the reason they could pull off a no-kill week at all here. She obviously had her ups and downs and stumbled sometimes but he thinks that she was able to grow some without sacrificing anything that was integral to who she was as a person, like still being able to feel concern for both the victims and the killers, and trying to understand the situation on a larger level. But again, this is something he will probably admire her for from afar... He just does not have the energy for Glinda in large doses, as much as he likes her.

yeaaaaaaaaah pick me pick me

KAORU ALSO LIKES PEKO. Even though he didn't get a chance to talk to her much, she made it clear that she was a very pragmatic and intelligent individual who was willing to do whatever necessary to protect what was close to her. Basically, she was the kind of killer that Kaoru could relate to on a pretty personal level. He was genuinely mad about her using fire in his wing because he has a Tragic Anime Past involving his village being burnt down in a massacre, but he got over that one pretty quickly. As she said, the castle is stone and the chances of the fire spreading were very minimal. Since she was an early-week killer that he knew would be forgotten in the wake of new tragedies, he tried to help keep her memory alive by eating rice and egg for breakfast fairly often, since he couldn't really do more for her than that at the time. It was kinda a dumb nerd tribute.

She's one of the people he'll be going out of his way to get to know more, because he finds her philosophy (or what little of it he saw) pretty fascinating! He needs to thank her for the book too, since it was neat gesture. Also she is a badass sword-swinging hitwoman so of course he's gonna take the opportunity to get to know her better, since they always need more people on the frontlines and he will never turn down the opportunity to get a new sparring partner. They share a similar love for animals too, even though he's better at dealing with them than Peko "Why Is Your Face Doing That" Pekoyama.....

So yes he will chat with her about swords or animals or the meaning of being a samurai and other ridiculous theoretic discussion. All equally viable topics at any given point tbh...

yo

Iceland is yet another person Kaoru has more or less liked from the start! Who was also kind of a nonentity for him for a lot of the game because he was so busy trying to pinpoint who would be a threat and who he had to keep an eye out on. While he knows that nations in general can be a bit of a wild card and have A Lot More Issues than they let on, he never really particularly thought that Iceland would be one of the people to snap and kill anyone and probably wouldn't fight for any of the incentives either, since a lot of them aren't quite geared toward the vastness of incentives that a nation crowd would go for. So he was pretty content to just putter around playing chess with him in the meantime, which he did actually appreciate a lot more than he's said yet, because it kind of gave him this link to normalcy that helped to keep him grounded.

During Austria's trial his heart really did go out to Iceland there because ouch, calling out for your sibling, he knows that feeling. He honestly wasn't expecting Austria to confess either since he didn't understand what her plan was, so he was like 100% sure Iceland was a deadman BUT THEN HE WASN'T. And then a lot of shit kept hitting the fan so Kaoru didn't really notice just how far into a bad place Iceland was slipping until he had a tiny meltdown after the w9 trial, which was the point where he was like "I SHOULD PROBABLY SAY SOMETHING". It also gave him something else to focus on which he really honestly needed at the time because he was such a wreck, so he was basically like, "if I'm gonna be a wreck I can at least help out this other dude who's a wreck". That's what inspired the whole you're worth more than what makes you thing came from, since that was one of those personally apt pieces of advice.

He was a little worried about Iceland in the finale too, but he also absolutely trusted that Iceland would be able to make it through in the end. He didn't know Iceland specializes in starvation and fishing and survival BUT HE WAS GOOD AT IT. He and Sebastian were basically the herders when it came to danger, which Kaoru was grateful for. He's glad that Iceland made it through and that his crazy puffin is a-okay and that he was able to reunite with Norway! He is slightly concerned about there being so many crazy nations in one spot now, but he will try to have faith that they won't be Apollo and blow things up, at least. Now that they're back at the base he'll probably start striking up chess matches again and ask more about that book from the conversation that the acid rain SO RUDELY INTERRUPTED.

Yes cowru give me gundam and athena

Athena!! Athena is also kind of a nonentity for him, but his opinion is pretty positive-neutral. He appreciated her ridiculous attempts to comfort him during the fireweek fiasco and he also approved of her GONNA DO WHAT I WANT attitude. On the other hand, there were some things she did that he was really baffled or irritated by, and her personality in general is also closer to the Mayas and Glindas of the group where he doesn't really mind it but he'd have difficulty tolerating it for any long period of time.

But that aside, he does think that she's a very smart and clever person and he's glad she lasted on as long as she did. He also was genuinely offended on her behalf that the producers would have tried to frame him in a way that painted Athena in such a negative light. He doesn't know that she really does carry that much baggage, or at least has in the past, but based on what he came to know about her in the time they had together, he was like "wow this letter is honestly insulting". Granted he also had the advantage of being really certain it was probably faked after the clues pointing to him started to pop up, but even if he wasn't the one being framed he would have called BS on the letter.

He probably won't know what to do with Athena once she regains her BS memories honestly HAHA. He was from a later canon point in BS too, so a lot of the things that he had done there he actually hasn't done yet in MMverse. Plus the whole not remembering killing three people thing... IT'S GONNA BE AWKWARD I am looking forward to it.

Gundam!! He's grown to respect Gundam a hell of a lot over the last three years and that really skyrocketed over the last couple of months. They may butt heads over things sometimes and not necessarily see eye to eye on every matter, but he trusts Gundam to have his back in rough situations and will return the favor without hesitation.

During the majority of the game, Kaoru didn't really spend a huge deal of time worrying about Gundam since he was primarily just sort of dodging around in the rafters and whatever else it is that Gundams do when they're unsupervised. He brought animals occasionally as a token and to help keep him company, though he knew Stiles and Gundam were stuck in the same area often and could keep each other company, too. It was after Stiles was recaptured that Kaoru really started to lean on Gundam again, which he probably isn't super unused to because they're probably stuck together on TACKLE THIS RIDICULOUS SHIT missions all the time. But knowing that Gundam didn't abandon the mission and take the opportunity to bail, even though he by all means could have, meant a lot to Kaoru. He knew Gundam wouldn't, but it was still nice reaffirmation.

When Gundam took over the role as host during week 9, Kaoru's gratefulness grew exponentially. He didn't really understand from the start that the producers were trying to kill him, but he did know that if they had captured Stiles, he had probably been revealed too. So he basically went into the trial expecting Bad Things to happen, since he knew the producers wouldn't be content to just let him skip through unscathed. Knowing that he didn't have to face that trial with RoboDoris at the helm helped a lot, and even though Gundam was being a dang weirdo the entire trial, he never once stopped feeling gratitude for him being there. Even if it turned out they didn't need much of his help until the very end, when it came to deciding what to do when everyone mass abstained. He was also grateful for Gundam to take over explanations and do his best to make sure no one else died. TEAM EFFORT WEEK 10 SURVIVAL he is honestly still kind of surprised they managed but so pleased that it happened.

In the end, things went a lot better than he had expected. He's proud of everyone and that includes Gundam for being able to work so well under such pressure. Like, he already knows Gundam is capable of it but considering this is their biggest mission to date with the highest stakes riding on it, he found it all pretty impressive. He doesn't feel the need to comfort Gundam or give him open praise like he does with some of the other members, so he's content to just kind of share this quiet satisfied moment of "holy shit we did it" with him and then go back to their usual day-to-day way of functioning. Nerd friend bonding over all of their new animals...

/punches

GROUNDPLANES god. Honestly he doesn't dislike Phoenix a huge deal because he doesn't really have the same moral misgivings about his kill that other people did. He was kind of baffled by the fact that a lot of people seemed willing to overlook what he did in favor of focusing on Maya's retirement, and he didn't like Phoenix on principal of developing this kind of mentality where he started to view the DKs as a real threat, but the dude was pretty all right on a personal level. He never got to know him well but Phoenix will probably be one of the CCers that Kaoru gets along with well when they actually do get to know each other better. He's a clever guy who knows how to manipulate things so that they work out in his favor or the way that he wants, which is a skill that he generally appreciates in others because it's basically how he operates, too.

Also he totally knew about cars and batman and butlers but he had to play along anyway and that was honestly the biggest success of Mission Annoy Kaoru. He was annoyed... also embarrassed... Mostly embarrassed tbh BUT HE'LL GET OVER IT because it isn't the first time people have poked fun at him over the fish out of water thing and he learned to adapt a long time ago. He will probably be one of the first people on board to start calling cars groundplanes for real... just because he knows it's a dang inevitability...

ANYWAY he thinks Phoenix will be a really good asset on the smarts front and he'll probably offer to help train him up a little re: combat-type things, because now that the CCers and the hostages have joined the fray, he's got a much bigger group to make sure doesn't waltz into the arms of death. Tragically squishy humans are among the first to go so he will totally be like "I'll trade you shanking lessons if you teach me a card trick" or something.

I already read your CR chart but GIVE ME KAORU ON KLAVIER AND STILES ANYWAY (so sad that he would have no opinion on Kouha tbh)

OKAY KLAVIER FIRST... since it's really easy... he never formed much of an opinion on Klavier HAHA. The one thing he's walking away with from this mess re: lawyers is like "wow they all have issues, god help them". Klavier is someone that he thinks is very intelligent and will probably do what he thinks is right regardless of the situation, which really worked out in their favor this time since Team Shonen survived to the end and ruined all of the productions attempts to take them down. He also doesn't fault Klavier for offering his brother up for tribute because he understands that sibling relationships can be Complicated™, so that whole situation just kind of made him step back for a second and go "woah Klavier". He didn't really bother him much after that, primarily because Sebastian was the one dealing with the lawyers and he was content to just not be a part of that madness. LAWYERS... You're all too much for him...!

He'll probably also be vaguely confused whenever he ends up talking to Klavier again and Klavier is like "YOU'RE THE LITTLE SHIT FROM THAT CAT CABINET PLACE", since Yuyuko's talked to him about it a little bit but she never mentioned that he murdered anyone... She just said that he found a way to help break the game, so he was like "okay cool!" and that's gonna be a very fun conversation I'M SURE. I honestly don't know how Kaoru and Klavier will get on after that... Kaoru's chilled out a whole hell of a lot though and is very dedicated to only murdering enemies to the cause so hopefully that will... help........ He is slightly worried that the general lawyer aversion to murder may stop him from being a huge asset if any battles happen again but that is totally why they have people on their team to just toss the lawyers into a cabinet.