YMMV / Soul Tide

• Harsher in Hindsight: Many of the Dolls have quirky personalities that are played for laughs throughout the main story as well as their "Present" and "Date" storylines. Unlocking their "Past" storylines (which is significantly harder and costlier to unlock than the "Present" and "Date" storylines) will often reveal traumatic, dark, or tragic reasons why a Doll acts the way she does. To name a few examples:
  • Alisa's title might be "Brilliant Writer", but a lot of the humor around her is about how bad or weird her writing is, as well as her social awkwardness with the crazy excuses she makes up to try to justify it (like claiming her many spelling errors were an artistic choice). In the past, her dream was to be a famous writer like her father, and she became president of the writing club at her school. One day, when she tried to get all the club members to actually write something for once for a festival, they angrily told her that her writing was terrible and they were only in the club to have a place to slack off. Alisa's manuscripts also continued to be rejected by all publishing companies. Eventually she just gave up and withdrew from society. Thus she continued to be socially awkward even after she became a Doll. At least she managed to get her books published in her new life, albeit categorized as childrens' stories, much to her chagrin.
  • Asuna pretends to be an ordinary high school girl (a Joshikousei, with her in-game title being "Ordinary JK") despite her combat abilities showing that's obviously not the case, and she acts out anime school girl stereotypes such as constantly calling the Evoker a pervert no matter how out of place it'd be (her calm facial expression indicating that she's just teasing and pretending). In the past, she was originally an ordinary high school girl, but after a precognitive nightmare, she left her normal life in order to lead a rebellion and overthrow the nation's oppressive ruler. After leading the rebellion for a long time, she eventually had a vision where she was back in her highschool clubroom, where she proceeded to break down crying. Asuna's "Ordinary JK" act is presumably an expression of her desire to return to a normal life.
  • Mako is a Kami that's rather overeager to get worshippers in a world where the only religion is worshipping Shera. She'll do things like offer double prayer points for rainy days and wish exchanges, and a lot of the humor is how she comes off as a Snake Oil Salesman and often gets her comeuppance via fines for breaking solicitation laws. In the past, she was a genuinely beloved Kami with a prosperous cult, and she really did give blessings and absorb bad luck in exchange for offerings. Unfortunately, she was sabotaged by a rival and lost everything. Her rival slandered her so badly that she ended up hated by everyone (twice!) and was eventually reduced to a sobbing wreck. Her overzealous attempts to get more worshippers is presumably her trying to get back what she lost as well as to be loved again.