History Fanfic / Dominoes

** Also, Kaito to Yuusaku, especially in chapter 9. Though his methods and designated "role" is supervillainous--chaotic, destructive, and unlawful--Kaito demonstrates a core personality and motivation of empathy and fairness. One of his reasons for [[spoiler:drawing Shinichi into his plans against Yuusaku]] was because he was genuinely upset at how Shinichi was being treated by the supposed heroes, relating it to [[spoiler:the pain Kaito felt when he found out about his family's secrets the day Toichi died.]] In the very next scene Yuusaku demonstrates that, despite his supposed superheroic role, his behavior is that of a FauxAffablyEvil villain; beneath his surface facade of passable civility and kindness is a sociopathic level of cruelty and dismissal towards the value of those whom he can't "use"--one could easily lay Yuusaku's speech about the "uselessness" of his son over the visual images of countless Machiavellian-type [[BigBad Big Bads]] with family relations to the hero and change surprisingly little of the dialogue. It doesn't help that his own words imply that he looks down on people whose abilities he sees as unequal to his own, calling into question whether he is even morally capable of making just decisions involving the lives of millions if not billions of non-powered civilians. In short, the two are supervillain and superhero but their contrasting dialogue highlights that each demonstrates the personality traits usually attributed to the opposite role. [[spoiler:But in chapter 12, they flip this: their determination to get the nullifier and willingness to sacrifice others' lives for what they see as a more important priority actually makes them NotSoDifferent; ''both'' of them put the nullifier before the lives of Santa ''and'' the citizens of Tokyo. By the end of the disaster their attempts to enact their agendas are paid for with the blood of the innocent]].

* NotSoDifferent:
** Despite Aoko insisting she's the good guy and Kaitou KID the bad, both have the same motivation and about the same ethical standards when it comes to enacting that motivation, having long ago conflated revenge with justice. In fact, the major thing that differentiates them morally is that, unlike Kaito, Aoko actively represses all self-awareness of this similarity, leading her to self-righteously claim a moral high-ground she hasn't earned.
** Shinichi's narration chapter 10 heavily implies that this is now his opinion regarding Ran and Yuusaku of all people. Early in the chapter Ran is horrified to discover [[spoiler:Yuusaku's more open and obvious abuse]], but Shinichi directly compares his relationship with Ran to his relationship with his abusive father multiple times throughout the rest of the chapter. Because Ran bought into Yuusaku's BigBrotherIsWatching [[LockedOutOfTheLoop And Locking You Out Of The Loop]] [[ImplicitPrison And Into A Life You Hate]] ForTheGreaterGood ideology when it came to Shinichi, what had been a healthy and equally supportive partnership (the only healthy, open, and supportive relationship to speak of in Shinichi's life) devolved into a one-sided, oppressively restrictive, neglectful and emotionally abusive relationship whose effects are directly comparable to the abuse Shinichi gets from his father and Hakuba, with Shinichi spending the first story arc dreading Ran's presence as much if not more than Yuusaku's. [[spoiler:After Shinichi finds out the Irregulars' and Yuusaku's secret identities,]] Shinichi's frequent comparisons all but state that Ran's choices and condescending view of him transformed this sole healthy relationship into an outright mimicry of Shinichi's relationship with said abusive father, just with the abusive undertones communicated through Ran's [[CondescendingCompassion more gentle wording]]. Tragically, Ran appears so deeply oblivious to the effects and implications of her choices in the context of Shinichi's [[ParentalNeglect neglectful]] and [[ParentalAbuse abusive homelife]]--whose conditions she has ignorantly chosen to replicate and reiterate--that ''unlike'' Yuusaku, she legitimately doesn't realize she's caused any damage until she finally tries spending time with Shinichi again and realizes that, like with Yuusaku and Hakuba, he no longer wants to be around her.
** Despite each tending to look down on the immoral qualities of the other, both KID and the Irregulars overall tend to be similarly exploitative of their personal relationships (although this varies on an individual level within the Irregulars). [[spoiler:And likewise, both have their relationships with the ones they exploited fall apart in spectacularly painful fashion. Shinichi even calls KID out on it, telling him that tools can't be friends.]]

** Loved ones aren't tools or objects, and the moment you're prepared to treat them as such is the moment you should also be prepared for that loving relationship to end, because you will have compromised it.

''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/5027218/chapters/11554636 Dominoes]]'' is an AlternateUniverse SuperFic of ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' written by archiveofourown author [[https://archiveofourown.org/users/scratchienails/pseuds/scratchienails Scratchienails]] that functions as a DeconstructionFic for the superhero genre.

** A bit of metatextual irony: [[spoiler:In chapter 10, when Ran steps away from the group to talk to Shinichi alone for a short while, her words lead Shinichi to the conclusion that Ran stood aside and let this abuse happen--and even somewhat contributed to it without thinking it was wrong--because she's adopted Yuusaku's condescending perspective of Shinichi as a "weak little fool" and burden, whether she's willing to acknowledge that or not. Her words convince Shinichi that she felt she couldn't trust him with his own agency. In other words, in Shinichi's mind, Ran was treating him ''like a [[Manga/DetectiveConan child.]]'']]

* AnAesop: Loved ones aren't tools or objects, and the moment you're prepared to treat them as such is the moment you should also be prepared for that loving relationship to end, because you will have compromised it.

* ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming: The story borrows super aliases from a variety of mythological and scientific sources, but when it mentions names from GreekMythology in particular, perk your ears up--it's probably important.

*** With particular focus on Yuusaku and Hakuba. [[spoiler: The two ''desperately'' want the Nullifier, to the point where they were willing to gamble the survival of a city of nine million people for the chance to get it. The reason they don't? They did their best to write off every investigative effort that Shinichi made as worthless... ''[[IgnoredExpert and he's the one who was investigating the case surrounding it.]]'' If they had treated him with respect and listened to him earlier, the three of them collectively probably would have been able to realize the connections between the kidnapped children, the Red Siamese Cats, and Professor Hirota much sooner and made better plans to handle the Nullifier and the experimented children; perhaps, for example, working with Professor Hirota to acquire further production of the Nullifier in exchange for his protection and support for his research. Because Yuusaku and Hakuba were more focused on invalidating the credibility of everything Shinichi was trying to tell them, they missed the opportunity for the Nullifier until there was almost no time to manuver for options and the opportunities for most of the wiser solutions had already passed. Thus, instead of having time to calmly decide how to manage the situation with the Nullifier and the children who needed it, Hakuba and Yuusaku had to choose between them and almost every conflict introduced in part 1 broke into crossfires, during which the Nullifier was lost. If Yuusaku and Hakuba wanted the Nullifier for use on Shinichi--as is heavily implied and many readers suspect--then how they lose the chance to acquire it is painfully, tragically ironic; as a consequence of their own poor decisions and ill-chosen priorities, the city whose survival they were willing to gamble was saved at the cost of Yuusaku and Hakuba ultimately losing almost everything they'd gambled and compromised it and their own morals for: the victim who'd unintentionally caused the black holes, the Nullifier, and, it appears, Shinichi himself. "Won the battle, lost the war" seems quite apt; it'd almost be LaserGuidedKarma if the consequences for others weren't so much greater.]]
*** This becomes ''worse'' with the confirmation that [[spoiler:Hakuba believes, and was told by Yuusaku, that Shinichi is the cause of the Pandora Effect. Shinichi had been carrying the nullifier around for two hours. Shinichi had hypothesized about the existence of a nullifier for far longer. By Hakuba's perspective, Yuusaku and Hakuba were so convinced that they alone had to be the ones to solve the problems that they didn't just make Shinichi's life miserable, they deprived Shinichi of the ability to save himself. Their refusal to be honest meant Shinichi was unaware to whom they attributed the Pandora Effect and unable to even consider the problem even when he had a prospective solution and they didn't. They succeeded in keeping Shinichi ignorant and ruined everything they sought to gain by doing so.]]

** [[spoiler:The entirety of Part 1 seems to be this for every character involved: Shinichi knows the truth, Tokyo has been saved, and Kaito got the nullifying agent, but only at an immense cost.]]

* {{Inversion}}: ''Dominoes'''s initial plot runs on this, inverting the basic premise of the franchise from which it spawned. Instead of the protagonist Shinichi going to great lengths to keep secrets from everyone out of a belief that it will protect them, it's everyone else in the cast cooperating with each other to keep secrets from Shinichi for the same reason. The cooperative mass effort by ''everyone'' in Shinichi's life highlights and exacerbate the negative side effects of such secrets through the control this mass effort allows those keeping secrets to enact over Shinichi and the lengths to which they rationalize taking this control if they believe they are in the right. Inevitably this ends up [[{{Deconstruction}} showcasing one of the moral quagmires that ''Detective Conan'' doesn't touch on]] by pushing the morally ambiguous "protective" secrecy of canon to extremes and [[RealityEnsues revealing its potential for corruption and abuse]].

* RealityEnsues:
** The superheroic tendency towards secret identities and the subsequent dishonesty about their lives destroys the vigilantes' relationships, moral standing, and integrity in the eyes of those they aren't honest with.
** The Superheroes' constant "Greater Good" mentality at the expense of the same individual over and over again causes this person to distrust them due to how willing they are to abuse him. Their impeding his investigation into the kidnapping of fourty+ children causes him to see them as unjust and begin to sincerely regard them as antagonists.
** Yuusaku tells the Irregulars that revealing their secret identities to Shinichi would put Shinichi in danger. Of ''course'' this backfires. The stupidity of this is somewhat justified by the implication that Yuusaku is only saying this as an excuse to get the Irregulars to cooperate while hiding his real reasons for [[LockedOutOfTheLoop locking Shinichi out of the loop]]. Given that this is so supremely stupid that it never works out even in non-deconstruction superhero stories, it's unsurprising that the story [[PlayingWithATrope plays with the fallout of this choice]] by initially [[NeutralFemale leaning into the cliche]] of the ignorant person getting kidnapped to target the heroes and then [[SubvertedTrope subverting]] this when it's revealed [[spoiler:Shinichi plotted his own "kidnapping" [[TheDogBitesBack as a trap to draw out the superheroes]] and [[MistreatmentInducedBetrayal confirm the truth behind their manipulative lies.]]]]
** The openly manipulative but ultimately more respectful KID gains an alliance with Shinichi that the manipulative and abusive Irregulars lost. [[SarcasmMode Who knew that simply respecting another's inherent worth and capabilities would make them more willing to cooperate with you?]]

* KudzuPlot: There's FourlinesAllWaiting and at least two new questions arise when one is answered. Appears to have a bit of this in how it reads, according to some readers's comments. Its limited third person narrative perspective and naturalistic yet dense blink-and-you'll-miss method of delivering exposition and worldbuilding means that it's very easy to miss [[ChekhovsArmoury important early clues]] regarding the world, characters, and chronology. Sometimes one of those minor details may later become either a major character, plot mechanism, or set piece, and thus will be brought back into focus, but the story rarely points directly back at those returning concepts' obscure early introductions into the narrative, so connecting details to figure out basic aspects of the world becomes part of the story's puzzle as the narrative goes on.

* KudzuPlot: There's FourlinesAllWaiting and at least two new questions arise when one is answered. Appears to have a bit of this in how it reads, according to some readers's comments. Its limited third person narrative perspective and naturalistic yet dense blink-and-you'll-miss method of delivering exposition and worldbuilding means that it's very easy to miss [[ChekovsArmoury important early clues]] regarding the world, characters, and chronology. Sometimes one of those minor details may later become either a major character, plot mechanism, or set piece, and thus will be brought back into focus, but the story rarely points directly back at those returning concepts' obscure early introductions into the narrative, so connecting details to figure out basic aspects of the world becomes part of the story's puzzle as the narrative goes on.

* KudzuPlot: There's FourlinesAllWaiting and at least two new questions arise when one is answered. Appears to have a bit of this in how it reads, according to some readers's comments. Its limited third person narrative perspective and naturalistic yet dense blink-and-you'll-miss method of delivering exposition and worldbuilding means that it's very easy to miss important clues and [[ChekovsGunman Chekov's Gunmen]] regarding the world, characters, and chronology. Sometimes one of those minor details may later become either a major character, plot mechanism, or set piece, and thus will be brought back into focus, but the story rarely points directly back at those returning concepts' obscure early introductions into the narrative, so connecting details to figure out basic aspects of the world becomes part of the story's puzzle as the narrative goes on.

* ChekhovsArmory: The work is full of [[CrypticBackgroundReference CrypticBackgroundReferences]] that, as the narrative goes on, seems to run on LawOfConservationOfDetail. Rarely do things come completely out of nowhere; almost every player or set piece is set up before it becomes seriously involved in the story. A small example woud be that [[spoiler:the structral damage Ran causes to the building in response to KID's taunting during the False Kidnapping Incident ends up ruining KID's and Shinichi's plan later when the building collapses seconds away from KID achieving his goal]]. A theme of the story appears to be actions/choices and their inevitable reactions/consequences, so it makes sense thematically for the story to have this.

** The complicated morality of the very ''existence'' of different types of power is also a major theme, as characters stand their ground on stances about the morality of everything from political power to media influencers to actual superpowers, and a huge portion of the plot hinges on various sides preventing usage of various types of power by other parties. Is it ethical for those who cannot or will not conform to an authority's view of correct behavior to be depowered--of agency, of voice, of literal superpowers? Should individuals be allowed to release information at their own disgression, or is it irresponsible to take information control out of the hands of crisis management authorities? In a world where weapons of mass destruction can also be thinking and feeling human beings, can such people be allowed to live if their mere existence threatens countless others' lives? These ethical questions are at the very heart of the conflicts and divisions between the cast.

** The complicated morality of the very ''existence'' of different types of power is also a major theme, as characters stand their ground on stances about the morality of everything from political power to media influencers to actual superpowers, and a huge portion of the plot hinges on various sides preventing usage of various types of power by other parties. Is it ethical for those who cannot or will not conform to an authority's view of correct behavior to be depowered--of agency, of voice, of literal superpowers? Should individuals be allowed to release information at their own digression, or is it irresponsible to take information control out of the hands of crisis management authorities? In a world where weapons of mass destruction can also be thinking and feeling human beings, can such people be allowed to live if their mere existence threatens countless others' lives? These ethical questions are at the very heart of the conflicts and divisions between the cast.

Not to be confused with ''Fanfic/DominoesStarWarsTheCloneWars''.

* {{Mundanger}}: In a world of superheroes and supervillains where tiny black holes can literally upturn gravity and giants made of fire can stomp downtown Tokyo, the biggest and most malevolent threats to the cast so far are crime syndicates, institutional opacity and corruption, the difficulties of law enforcement accountability, systemic socio-political injustice, abusive relationships, and child groomers.

* {{Mundanger}}: In a world of superheroes and supervillains where tiny black holes can literally upturn gravity and giants made of fire can stomp downtown Tokyo, the biggest and most malevolent threats to the cast so far are crime syndicates, institutional opacity and corruption, systemic socio-political injustice, abusive relationships, and child groomers.

* [[Mundanger}}: In a world of superheroes and supervillains where tiny black holes can literally upturn gravity and giants made of fire can stomp downtown Tokyo, the biggest and most malevolent threats to the cast so far are crime syndicates, institutional opacity and corruption, systemic socio-political injustice, abusive relationships, and child groomers.

* AbusiveParents: After eight chapters of having all the warning signs, [[spoiler:Yuusaku openly proves he is this to Shinichi in chapter 9, rationalizing his years of power abuse over Shinichi by matter-of-factly explaining that he deems all his son is and cares about to be "useless" and inferior to everyone else in the room--except for his skills at soccer, something that Shinichi has long ago lost emotional investment in. He then puts on a faux fatherly act and verbally coerces Shinichi to retreat from who he is now back to the soccer player he no longer wants to be. It's heavily implied Yuusaku was using his powers on Shinichi while doing this to forcibly subdue Shinichi's mind. He does this all in front of the Irregulars, who are so shocked at Yuusaku's cruelty that they appear unable to fully process what they've just witnessed]].

* BigBrotherIsWatching: The amount of surveillance and control Yuusaku puts towards his son is heavily implied to be at this level, judging by Shinichi's reaction to Hattori's attempts at friendship. [[spoiler:In chapter 6, Yuusaku [[ProperlyParanoid proves Shinichi's fears absolutely right]]: having failed to capture the Kaitou KID or gain evidence that would be admissible in court against him without compromising Yuusaku himself in some way, Yuusaku ups Shinichi's surveillance in an attempt to prevent KID from following through on his threat to expose them all to Shinichi. This includes getting Shinichi's own girlfriend to prioritize spending time with Shinichi for the first time in what's implied to be months, entirely for the purposes of spying on him for them. When Hakuba sees the toll this has already taken on Ran's and Shinichi's relationship, he briefly considers getting Hattori to spy for them ''again'' instead, but Hattori's bungled attempt at friendship exposed his allegiances already and Shinichi's pulled away from him too.]]

* ConflictingLoyalty: Though Agasa and Yuusaku are usually great friends, it's clear that Agasa does not entirely agree with Yuusaku's policies on dealing with Shinichi, whom he also views as family, [[spoiler:as evidenced by the fact that he's continued to build an armory's worth of gadgets and tools over the years for Shinichi's investigations despite Yuusaku never allowing Agasa to actually give to Shinichi]]. In previous instances where his attachments conflict Agasa has acquiesced to Yuusaku's decisions--[[spoiler:but now that Shinichi's found out Yuusaku's identity and asked for help on his own terms in a major crisis which in no uncertain terms demands action, Agasa decides to give him access to the tools anyways, while expressing discomfort with the fallout this will involve regarding Yuusaku.]] Agasa clearly shows himself to be of two minds, wanting to be honest and work well with Yuusaku while also wanting to support Shinichi in his ambitions, which Yuusaku forbids.

** The absurdity of this is possibly deconstructed by Shinichi's nature as an UnreliableNarrator. Shinichi's issues with Hattori and his distancing from Agasa demonstrate that one of the unstated but very clear scars Shinichi bears from his father's abuse is that he seems to expect ''everyone'' to view him as lesser, unworthy, and unimportant, something unfortunately repeatedly reinforced by the fact that the contesting loyalties his father set up drive the people Shinichi loves to choose between them, and they've pretty much always chose obedience to Yuusaku over Shinichi's wellbeing, with Yuusaku thereafter even inciting those close to Shinichi to spy on him. Throughout the story Shinichi seems confused by and distrustful of the idea that people would want to be around him because they actually like him, [[AmbiguousSituation so it's unclear how accurate Shinichi's assessment of his CoolLoser status actually is]].

* DeathOfAChild: [[spoiler:Shinichi concludes in chapter 10 that the fireball monster that attacked the city in chapter 1 was likely one of the kidnapped children he's searching for, having been subjected to illegal experiments. This means that the Irregulars killed a terrified child without knowing it and implies that it may not be the first time they have done so, since Tokyo is noted to have had an sudden increase in "monster" attacks in the last year or so and there is suspected to have been dozens of children kidnapped for these illegal experiments in that time. Shinichi doesn't tell the Irregulars because he assumes they know, as Yuusaku made his superior intellect, resources, and intelligence-gather capabilities a major theme of his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to Shinichi in chapter 9. But if Yuusaku ''does'' know of this, then he's been using the teenage Irregulars as an extrajudicial DeathSquad and having them execute terrified children for the security of the city, and it's one of the many things he hasn't been honest about.]]

* EvilHero: Played with and discussed. The Irregulars genuinely believe they are doing good, genuinely do save civilian lives, and most genuinely seem to have good intentions, but they also are unquestioningly complacent in a very flawed system that inherently breeds power abuse due to the powerful rarely facing consistent accountability, often resulting in them using morally questionable solutions for problems whose consequences they don't believe they'll ever have to personally face. Kaito, at least, positions superheroes as distopian authorities enforcing double standards onto the rest of society and enabled to do so because those same authorities control nearly all the information the public is given, and thus almost never have to answer to anyone except each other.

* {{Foil}}: Shinichi to his father, Yuusaku. Both are intellectually brilliant, highly perceptive, more than a little manipulative, utterly ruthless, and very, ''very'' good at what they do. Both have some kind of mind-manipulating superpower. The difference is that Shinichi is, in practice, a much kinder, more earnest person: his abuse at his family's and friends' hands has killed his over-confidence and replaced it with a frustrated desperation to help people. While Yuusaku appears to look at the world like a spectator's novelty, too focused on monsters, international incidents, saving the world, and "protecting" his son to fully realize how awful his actions towards the people around him are (or if he does, he sees their issues as too small-picture to prioritize them), Shinichi is focused on the more everyday tragedies that create the big problems from the ground-up. Even the way they use their powers is different: Shinichi's centers around emotional sensitivity - he perceives the emotions and memories of others, and is implied by Hakuba and Yuusaku to be able to manipulate their emotions, though he doesn't seem to do this consciously. Yuusaku, on the other hand, only has two scenes so far in which he uses his power, [[spoiler:and in both he uses it to outright [[MindRape mentally attack and control his son's mind.]]]]

* FourLinesAllWaiting: There are ''many'' plot threads interwoven throughout, some more noticably than others, all cycling into and out of focus: Hattori's and Agasa's ConflictingLoyalty, the clear beginnings of Hakuba's trust in Yuusaku wavering, the breakdown of Ran's and Shinichi's relationship and Ran's attempts to come to terms with that, Aoko's hot mess of a relationship with Kaito and major personal issues with her father and her hero worship of ISHA, Kaito's long and complicated plans to get revenge on the Night Baron, the Red Siamese Cats' plans with Miyano Shiho's research, and of course, the two in most focus: Shinichi's attempts to locate the kidnapped homeless children and Shinichi's attempts to escape his father's manipulations and control.

* FriendshipMoment: Subverted. Hattori wants to be friends and offers his complete trust to Shinichi, but a pained Shinichi rejects the offer, because he can't bring himself to trust Hattori in return--Hattori already put Yuusaku's bidding before Shinichi's trust or wishes, having called Ran, Hakuba, and Yuusaku during the incident at the warehouse [[GiveMeLibertyOrGiveMeDeath without understanding the reason Shinichi would view that as a betrayal]], and worse, the fact that Hattori continues to hide information in accordance with Yuusaku's wishes proves that he will continue to, at least passively, support their control. Shinichi can't look at him and ''not'' see an agent of his father's manipulations, one who has consciously made a decision to side against him, and therefore Shinichi can't trust him. It's rendered tragic by the fact that both Hattori and Shinichi sincerely do want to be friends and Hattori is at least partially aware that Yuusaku's treatment towards his son is abusive; it is a sincere belief that Yuusaku and the Irregulars are ultimately doing the right thing even if they must use unkind tactics, rather than outright malevolence, that keeps Hattori siding with Shinichi's abusers. When Hattori tries to communicate his best intentions, sooth open wounds, and get Shinichi to understand his perspective by convincing Shinichi they're not actually on separate sides and not ''trying'' to hurt him, Hattori isn't believed and ''knows'' he isn't believed, because of the undeniable fact that, at this point, Hattori can't actually think of a single reason for Shinichi to trust ''any'' of them: regardless of Hattori's belief of intent, they ''are'' acting against Shinichi, and they ''are'' hurting him.
** It's notable to compare and contrast Shinichi's relationship with Kaitou KID, who is a distant other rather than semi-permanent houseguest, the enemy of all of Shinichi's loved ones, and the giver of a far less friendly overture of proposed "partnership" with Shinichi... but ultimately is more respectful, [[spoiler:and thus more successful. Though not publicly considered good like the Irregulars, KID validating Shinichi's talents and providing an outlet (the ONLY major outlet) for Shinichi to actually work to save the kidnapped homeless children is what earns him Shinichi's tentative alliance while Shinichi pulls away from everyone else.]]

* IRejectYourReality: Aoko's BlackAndWhiteInsanity is beginning to descend into this territory. By chapter 10 the story has completely illegitimized the "good" reasons Aoko has used throughout the earlier chapters to justify her moral judgement towards others, and she does ''not'' react well. Her supposed motivations of "justice for Kaito's father and protecting other children from loss of family" is challenged by the revelation that she's joined the side that [[spoiler:not only killed Kaito's father and left Kaito to suffer but also lied about it and denied his family closure]]. As Aoko had previously snidely referred to the forty-some injuries and four deaths that occurred during the Night Baron and KID conflict as "numerous counts of manslaughter" and used this to help justify her [[TheScapegoat scapegoating]] KID for all of her problems, Aoko struggles to even handle this new information, as by that logic [[spoiler: the Overseers she's idolized and joined are a culpable party in those charges now, a culpable party that also deliberately framed one of the victims for the deaths and got away with it]]. On top of this revelation, Yuusaku simultaneously demonstrates his FauxAffablyEvil AbusiveParent status ''right in front of the Irregulars,'' [[MindControl Mind Controlling]] Shinichi [[AllForNothing to hand over his evidence]] and give up his autonomy while telling Shinichi that he's functionally useless and doesn't deserve the respect or care Yuusaku gives to others in the room. By chapter 10, Aoko's left pinwheeling desperately for reasons why Shinichi (and, by his proxy, Kaito) are the bad guys but unwilling to abandon or reflect on her reasons for feeling this way, deliberately dodging valid criticisms against her stance on the issue by firing off barely-related redirections and ad hominems. On the whole, Aoko so far demonstrates a tendency to seek refuge in a deliberately simplistic view of the world around her and [[TheScapegoat scapegoating]] and [[StrawmanFallacy strawmaning]] the antagonists in her life that may upset this view, with the implication being that this is because she doesn't want to face the more complicated and emotionally challenging reality. The resulting rejection of the reality of moral nuance appears to be her way of protecting herself from painful self-reflection.

** A bit of {{Fridge}} Irony, if such a thing exists: [[spoiler:In chapter 10, when Ran steps away from the group to talk to Shinichi alone for a short while, her words lead Shinichi to the conclusion that Ran stood aside and let this abuse happen--and even somewhat contributed to it without thinking it was wrong--because she's adopted Yuusaku's condescending perspective of Shinichi as a "weak little fool" and burden, whether she's willing to acknowledge that or not. Her words convince Shinichi that she felt she couldn't trust him with his own agency. In other words, in Shinichi's mind, Ran was treating him ''like a [[Manga/DetectiveConan child.]]'']]

** Hakuba is the leader of his trainee team, the Irregulars. Unfortunately, he's not a very good one as of yet. He's smart and tactical, but horrible at emotional and moral leadership or support, very bad at managing his own mistakes, and outright terrible at handling or resolving conflicts within his team in a healthy or honest manner. The two examples of major emotional upsets in his team that we see have him either staying silent to the side while his teammates cry and/or rage, or just sending everyone away to fume separately. He also doesn't have an accepted, unquestionable integrity to ground the team's trust when things go awry, or an ability to inspire much loyalty. When in a pinch he doesn't know how else to handle, he often relies on the abusive tactics he learned from Yuusaku, which often get the immediate result he desired but have long-lasting negative consequences. In essence, Hakuba's character is attempting to fill the role Shinichi does in ''Detective Conan'' that is vacant in this story and be the great prodigy detective, upcoming leader of crime-fighting operations, and unifying force around which his team and friend group rally, but while he can meet the challenge of the role in a pinch, he's just not a natural leader.
*** This is demonstrated pretty clearly by [[spoiler:Hakuba's choosing between whether to follow Shinichi or Yuusaku on the Black Hole Crisis. On one level, it's presented as a choice between Shinichi's refusal to compromise over the worth of human life vs. Yuusaku's idea of [[ForTheGreaterGood The Greater Good]]. On a more subtle level, however, the fact that Hakuba chose a side to follow rather than taking the primary leadership position himself gives away how ineffective Hakuba is as a leader in the overarching story of Part 1; for all his supposed insider knowledge, he ultimately knew the least about the situation at hand and how to handle it, let alone lead others through it. Shinichi, despite everything against him, is still able to completely re-route the Irregulars' mission to fall in line with his plan based solely on his word that his solution to the situation is possible and preferable, but he's only able to do so because, rather than leading the Irregulars' plans himself, the Irregulars' leader, Hakuba, chose between Yuusaku and Shinichi taking charge.]] When given the opportunity to choose between taking the leadership role in a group or following another, Hakuba is a ChildSoldier at heart, not a general: despite knowing that he's supposed to be in charge of his team, he still tends to default to following orders and replicates the behavior of whoever is leading ''him'' when he ''does'' have to try to lead. Which makes sense, because Hakuba ''is'' a ChildSoldier, and has been raised to trust his superiors and follow orders since he was in elementary school. All of this is not to say that it was wrong to follow Shinichi's lead, because Shinichi actually had a plan and the confidence and integrity to unify support through the conviction of its validity, but it is to say that it puts in sharp contrast that Hakuba ''didn't'' have a plan and is, in this moment, less adequate for the role than an untrained [[LockedOutOfTheLoop outsider.]]

* LikesClarkKentHatesSuperman: Aoko is romantically interested in Kaito [[spoiler:until chapter 5]] but ''intensely'' hates the Kaitou KID. [[spoiler:Now that she's found out they are one and the same, her feelings are more confused, but she's so far fervently sided with ISHA against him and is currently desperately clinging to any reason she can find to maintain that he's the bad guy to ISHA's good, [[IRejectYourReality even though those reasons keep]] [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity collapsing into irrationality]].]]

* MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: Shinichi doesn't ''see'' it as betrayal--he sees it as using the options he has available to help rescue missing children--but he ends up [[spoiler:cooperating with Kaitou KID, a supervillain, one of his father's and his friends' major enemies, and someone who had stolen key evidence on the missing kids case from Shinichi personally, against Shinichi's own friends--because despite Shinichi knowing next to nothing about him, he still sees KID as more reliable than his father, the boy who was raised along side him like his brother, his girlfriend, and all of their acquaintances]]. If that doesn't get across how horribly they've treated Shinichi, nothing will.
** [[spoiler:A clearer example comes ''after'' their temporary alliance. Shinichi has one of Kaito's robots with him, and he ''could'' have chosen not to do as Kaito asked since the time span of their temporary alliance is basically over, but Shinichi still chooses to drop one of Kaito's robots into Yuusaku's office in the aftermath of the false kidnapping incident anyways, with an implied motive that basically adds up to "why not, at this point?" Which really demonstrates how little allegiance Shinichi has to his own father after everything.]]

* NecessarilyEvil: It's implied this is how Yuusaku and Hakuba see their attempts to contain Shinichi in the abusive environment they've turned his life into, as Hakuba at least clearly still sees himself as a hero. We have yet to see their reasoning, but whatever the goal is, it's probably not going to be achieved through this strategy because, predictably, Shinichi now sees them as the enemy and is in open rebellion.

* SuperSupremacist: It's downplayed, but the way ISHA functions has a lot of inherent tendencies towards this. ISHA's policies regarding the general population subtly encourages its heroes to regard civilians, not ''explicitly'' as beneath them, but as people who have no place in the conflicts and power structures that supers deal with other than as potential victims to be saved. The inherent condescension seems to be a side effect of selecting individuals for community leadership roles based solely on genetic traits and drilling into their heads that the general populace can't be trusted with the information their members are given, leading to their members gradually socially secluding themselves from those not associated with ISHA due to the challenges of maintaining relationships without intellectual or emotional honesty. A lot of the Irregulars' biggest mistakes with Shinichi are implied to come from their ignorantly condescending view towards non-supers, the group to which most believed Shinichi belongs. Only Hakuba and Hattori show much awareness of this; though Ran is horrified by Yuusaku's more blatant condescension (refering to Shinichi as "useless to [him]"), she still repeats the more polite version to Shinichi as justification for her own actions, seemingly without realizing it.

* TakeAThirdOption: Preteen Shinichi wasn't allowed to be a detective but refused to do what his father commanded and give up his desires to investigate... so he secretly began a career in investigative journalism, and by the time Yuusaku found out, Shinichi was so successful and entrenched in the newsmedia that Yuusaku either couldn't bring himself to, or just simply couldn't, forcibly shut his site down.

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: [[spoiler:Instead of planning an elaborate fake kidnapping]], why doesn't Shinichi just use his platform as a news reporter to publicly out Kudo Yuusaku as a metahuman using his powers to abuse Shinichi and others? Yes there would be pushback, but the move would certainly bring things to a head within the cast: Yuusaku would have to make a do-or-die decision while unable to hide his actions from the Irregulars, and the Irregulars would have to pick a side with relatively full knowledge of the moral implications of that choice ''and'' the knowledge that, no matter what, [[HumblePie they will have to face Shinichi afterwards]]--either a Shinichi that knows exactly how they've wronged him or, worse, a Shinichi who ''[[LaserGuidedAmnesia doesn't]]'' anymore, [[MyGreatestFailure and they'll have to live with that.]] And there are contingencies against memory loss, like records, to prevent losing the actual information if Yuusaku should try anything--with the added bonus that any attempt would be more fuel for public outcry should Shinichi release that information too.
** Alternatively, if Kaito has such thorough power over technology, [[spoiler:why not just release the secret identities of every super? Or, combining the above, prevent Shinichi's posts from being interfered with and let him be the face of the public reveal? Several commenters have pointed out that the lack of accountability inherent in secret identities is the heart of most of the cases of power abuse in the story, and Kaito's already made clear that he knows Night Baron's secrecy is his greatest vulnerability.]]
** Chapter 10 explains that Shinichi isn't willing to out everyone around him and put them through such intense public scrutiny and hardship--implying that as long as superheroes are put on a pedestal as mysterious spectacles rather than ordinary public servants, outing them is too much of a hardship on the individual and their family. Perhaps he still could have outed Yuusaku as an abusive metahuman rather than as Night Baron, but it's all but stated that part of his reasons for not exposing anyone at all are because he fears ISHA will lock him away for the rest of his life in retaliation. [[spoiler:The Interlude after Part 1 shows that Shinichi did do this part way: instead of outing individual people, he outed the cover-up the police and ISHA had been attempting regarding the missing children's case. And because he did so right before he went missing and asked Kaito to prevent the post from being taken down, ISHA hasn't been able to do anything about it.]]

* WillfulBlindness: All but stated to be Hakuba's strategy for surviving the Kudo family with his emotional stability in tact. He supports and is one of the biggest contributors to Yuusaku's and the Irregulars' treatment of Shinichi because he feels these tactics are necessary, but he still can't actually handle the guilt when forced to look at the full reality of the effect on Shinichi's quality of life, and so he's minimized his exposure to it, only willingly interacting with Shinichi in small groups or one-on-one when he feels in control--to the extent that he chose to attend a different school explicitly to avoid seeing or interacting with Shinichi, and placed the burden of being Shinichi's sole emotional support onto Ran... who, due to her involvement with ISHA, quickly became just as emotionally unavailable as Hakuba. [[spoiler: This leads to them, and the Irregulars in general, missing or ignoring warning signs indicating that the entire situation is, for lack of a better term, fast approaching critical mass, because Shinichi can't and won't bear the emotional load for them anymore.]]

*** In one instance, Shinichi absorbs muscle memory from a door lock key pad in order to get inside a building, implying he can also absorb physical skills from people and the objects they interact with, as long as his body is physically capable of reperforming them--which would further imply that he can absorb information and skills from just about anyone.