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accirax · 9 months ago

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Danganronpa: Despair Time Mastermind Ranking (Least to Most)

Yeah, I should’ve known that I needed to get around to this someday.

You see, the reason why I hadn’t made a theory about the identity of the Despair Time mastermind is that… I'm not totally convinced on any one person being the mastermind. Like, look at these clowns! They’re all so weird! I love them all for it, obviously, but none of their personality quirks or roles in the story stand out to me as particularly mastermind-y. There are a lot of characters that I believe could be the mastermind, but it’s also pretty easy to convince me out of it for one reason or another.

However, it’s not like I had any idea about who the P:EG mastermind would be, either! At least with two chapters under its belt, I can feel more comfortable that I’m not just fully mischaracterizing the Despair Time cast. And I definitely have things to say about various DRDT masterminds, just… in a way that’s kinda hard to rank.

But, that’s no reason for me to be cowardly! I’m sure that seriously scrutinizing all of the characters’ mastermind potentials and ultimately coming up with who I think the most likely candidate is will be super fun. It’s just… going to be really long, so, buckle in. And maybe prepare to take breaks in the middle.

(Spoilers for all three main canon games and DRDT.)

Why is it going to be so long? Well, it’s because, when it comes to DRDT, I think that my predictions will be at least partially based on how long I think each character will make it into the story. If I have a particularly strong inclination that a character is going to die in Chapter 3.456, no matter how unfounded, it might make me feel worse about their prospects of being the mastermind. That’s not to say that a mastermind can’t appear to die (or actually die) before Chapter 6 rolls around, of course. However, it is an uncommon additional hurdle to the story that would require some justification and a little suspension of disbelief if I’m trying to call it years before it transpires.

So, if we’re going to talk about the mastermind, I need to share my current feelings about where each character might place in the death order. Should I update the title…?

Danganronpa: Despair Time Mastermind Ranking (Least to Most) AND ALSO Death Order Predictions

These are my mastermind rankings, so my opinions on where the characters might be headed will obviously be used as the baseline. Naturally, you don’t need to believe in anything I'm about to throw out here. I’m just trying to explain my thought process so that nothing I say later on will come as a total surprise.

Also, since it’s kind of long, here’s the top of the death order section. I think it’ll provide some important context, but if you want to skip it, look for the other green, bold text.

Some of my thoughts were inspired by anderscim’s death predictions theory, as I read that pretty soon after I joined the fandom. I encourage you to go read their work as well!

The tiers are mostly pretty self explanatory– 3-4 means I think they’re at risk of dying sooner and 4-5 means I think they’re at risk of dying later. But, I’ll give everyone what I hope to be a quick rundown on each character just to explain my thinking.

Xander: Xander canonically died as the Chapter 1 victim.

Min: Min canonically died as the Chapter 1 blackened.

Arei: While I respect the concept, I personally don’t believe in the “J and Arei swapped places and Arei is actually still alive” theory, and I will be writing the rest of this post accordingly. So, to me, Arei canonically died as the Chapter 2 victim.

Eden: Pretty much anyone who’s seen my DRDT theories at this point shouldn't be surprised that I’m listing Eden as the Chapter 2 killer. The logic behind this belief has been explained by my lovely mutuals here and here.

Levi: Alright, on to the ones I don’t have any concrete evidence to support! (There is concrete evidence behind the ch2 murder, even if you believe it points elsewhere.) Levi has had a decent amount of focus already in his trainwreck of a relationship with Ace and discussions of morality with Eden and Teruko. If he does serve as an accomplice to the Chapter 2 killer (see the first link in Eden’s section), then I feel like his clock will really be ticking. He’d be trapped with the branding of a bad person, his greatest fear, and left without any relationships to lean on. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone targeted him as a victim they “believed deserved to die after what happened,” or even if Levi decided that he was doomed to be a villain from the start and decided to kill. Alternatively, he could try to redeem himself as a classic Chapter 4 buff curse sacrifice in some way. In either case (or even in the case of him just being the Chapter 2 killer), I have my doubts that he’ll be making it too much later into the game.

Arturo: To me, Arturo doesn’t feel like a character set up for incredible longevity. That doesn’t mean I’m pigeonholing him as a one-dimensional villain or pure comedic relief, just that Arturo seems like a character who might be set up to have his ideology lead to his downfall. I don’t think he’s dying in Chapter 2, as I believe the narrative would want to see how he reacts to J burning the bridges between them, but I could definitely see the story only needing one more round of daily life (or possibly a trial as well) to resolve wherever his character is going.

Charles: Look, it’s not only because he’s already been pronounced dead at 3. As I elaborated upon in Charles’ section of this post (The Jerk), Charles feels like he’s speeding towards the end of his character arc far ahead of schedule. It could just be that he needed to learn to make friends quickly before Whit makes an early exit, sending him on a secondary arc where he learns to process his current grief and fears as a parallel to regaining memories about Elliot. However, I find it much more likely that the Inevitable CharWhit Doom Scenario plays out in the opposite direction. He makes a lot of sense as a Chapter 3 victim to me.

Nico: Similar to Arei and J, I am writing all of my theories with the assumption that it really was Nico who attempted to murder Ace in Chapter 2, because I think it makes the most narrative sense. (I could keep typing out a “well, unless” every time, but I don’t really want to eat up my time writing or your time reading all of that.) Through that lens, the fact that Nico has already murdered someone and “gotten away with it,” more or less, puts them in a really weird situation. I don’t really see them killing again, as it feels like we’ve already explored the emotional and narrative implications of that happening through Chapter 2. Although, I can’t deny that it would be interesting to see the fallout of Ace being proven totally right and Hu 100% wrong. Still, if they were to be a survivor after doing something so severe so early into the game, it seems like they would have to undergo some sort of redemption for the audience to accept them as a face of hope in the end. I don’t currently see any great paths to that happening, although there’s obviously still plenty of story time for something to open up. For now, though, I feel more confident in placing them as a early/mid-game victim, likely as a consequence of choosing to harm someone else.

Hu: Given her overall lack of focus in the story thus far, I find it likely that Hu will be one of the focal characters of the Chapter 3 daily life. That could be bad news, considering how Xander and Arei fared after being focused upon in their respective daily lives, but… I dunno, I just feel like Hu would survive it, somehow? Wouldn’t be too surprised if she didn’t, but my gut instinct is that she would. I kind of see her character exiting the story in Chapter 4, no preference on killer vs victim.

Veronika: Veronika is a very weird character (an “oddball,” I’ll call it), and thus, my predictions for her are strongly based on the patterns that oddball characters normally follow. I’ll be using canon characters only, because I believe that those are the only killing games that I have the right to assume every DRDT fan has seen. But, you can apply these same kinds of patterns to many fangan characters. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for fangans breaking from typical Danganronpa norms and following their own paths. But, in the case of how oddballs are treated, I think these characters generally tend to follow these patterns because they’re sensible writing practices. I’ll try to explain why each of these conventions makes sense in the following bullet points.

Oddballs tend not to die in Chapters 1 or 2. This is because oddball characters are generally created to supply a very niche kind of comedic relief– examples from DRDT could include Arturo’s commentary on ugly people or Ace’s bizarre remarks of cowardice. Any character deemed worthy of being included in a fangan occupies one of 16 highly contested slots. So, if you include a character for the purpose of making jokes with them, you'll want to get your bang for your buck! It’s hard to fit every joke you have in mind into only a chapter or two. The best example I could come up with for a (canon) oddball who dies early is Teruteru. In his case, the writers likely anticipated that his hyper-flirtatious nature would get tiring if it continued on for too long, and thus, exhausted all of the jokes they wanted to make in Chapter 1 before his exit. An oddball who dies this early has a limited shelf life, and is likely accompanied by other oddballs who can pick up the comedic slack.

Many have pointed out that silly oddballs often die in Chapter 3 (Hifumi, Ibuki, Tenko) as a way to signify the death of fun and innocence. You also have a chance to get rid of some of the more sinister oddballs (Celeste, Kiyo) at a point where it seems unfeasible for them to have stuck around this long without… well, killing someone. In either case, it’s because Chapter 3 is a great balance of letting a character stay in a story for long enough that they achieve whatever strange effects you wanted from them, while also clearing them off the stage before you get into the really serious business. Silly oddballs especially may not be equipped to handle the often turbulent natures of Chapter 4 without breaking the serious tone too much, so it’s best to axe them at the midpoint.

Endearing oddballs (Gundham, Gonta) have a hard time making it past Chapter 4. If Chapter 4 is serious, Chapters 5 and 6 are even more so, and the Chapter 4 killer slot in particular is a viable dumping ground for characters who don’t really have a place in the finale. Their deaths are meant to pull at your heartstrings and prove how a killing game can make literally anyone– yes, even that guy– a killer. (Miu is an outlier; more like an extended Chapter 3. Unlike THH, which has its tonal shift at the end-of-Ch3-Sakura Traitor Reveal, and SDR2, which has its tonal shift at Mikan’s insanity and death, v3’s tonal shift comes at Kokichi's accusation and Kaito and Shuichi's argument, or possibly even Miu's death itself. The Chapter 4 Daily Life isn’t all that serious in and of itself. Thus, Miu dying as a Ch4 victim functions more like killing off a silly oddball before she has to deal with all the betrayal and scheming that occurs later on.)

Oddballs really only die in Chapter 5 to the extent that you can count major antagonists like Nagito and Kokichi as Weird Dudes. As the precursor to the big, showstopping, mind-bending Chapter 5 Trial, the mood is typically pretty… straightforward. Depending on the overall plot’s arc, Chapter 5 is either the point where most of the surviving students are concluding their character arcs and learning how potent a weapon teamwork is (THH, SDR2), or a “dark night of the soul” type moment where all of the slowly growing inter-character conflicts are finally coming to a head (v3). It can also be Version A for some characters and Version B for others, but, either way, hijinks are not ensuing, basically. Plot relevant things happen here, and as such, plot relevant characters are the ones who are dying. It can be hard for an oddball to find a place in the narrative relevant enough to serve as one of its final, poignant deaths without also being a major antagonist.

Despite everything I’ve said about oddballs dying, it is definitely possible for oddballs to survive. Danganronpa is, at its core, a dark comedy, and as such killing off all of your funny joke characters before the ending is probably a bad move. Hiro, Toko, Kazuichi, and Himiko are all characters I’d call oddballs that survive until the very end. The difference in their case is that part of their oddball nature is being… kind of pathetic? I think it helps them fade into the background more. It's also probably easier to give them a character arc than some others... like Veronika.

I’m sure that you can find exceptions to these “rules” I’ve laid out, especially amongst casts that have a high percentage of oddballs (which you could certainly argue fits DRDT). However, pattern recognition brain go brrrr. I don’t think that Veronika fits the description of a Chapter 1-2, Chapter 4, or survivor oddball particularly well. That leaves Chapter 3 (sinister) and Chapter 5 (bewildering antagonist). I don’t know if it’s that Veronika doesn't seem to have much of a reason to kill at this point in time or all of Veronika’s weird mastermind coding that makes me think DRDTdev might have greater plans for her. Either way, I’m leaning Chapter 5, probably victim. Jeez, that was a long section for one character. Favoritism, I guess?

J: J gets her own category because, honestly, I have no idea what to do with her. Could J make it to the end? Sure! Could J die in a Chapter 3 scheme? Sure! Could J be the Chapter 2 killer? Well, I personally believe the evidence points elsewhere, but in terms of narrative? Sure! The only real inclination I have is that I think it’s more likely that she would be a killer than a victim, mostly because Ultimate Effects Artist is a talent that could lend itself to some really creative and fun murder setups. Given that I have more characters pegged as early game deaths right now, I lean towards J late game, but… man, I don’t know!

Teruko: Teruko is the protagonist, and also is a Lucky Student who allegedly “can’t die.” Especially after she made that claim, it would be silly if she died before the ending– it’d just kinda make her look like a fool. I’m not averse to theories where Teruko is no longer the protagonist by the end, whether by her death or someone else taking up the role for whatever reason, but in the sense that “Survivor” = “Chapter 6,” I think Teruko will survive. I’m not here to predict crazy last-minute Kiibo-blowing-himself-up twists.

Rose: I think that Rose has a really nice arc of overcoming her fears and becoming less passive set up in front of her. We spent enough time establishing her relationship with Teruko that I could see her being a good potential friend/support character to Teruko in the endgame if relationships with people like Eden or Charles fall through. (And, at this point, you know what I think about Eden and Charles…) She’s also good at delivering low-key jokes that can provide some levity without totally ruining the tone. We already saw some of that in this scene. The main things that I think could be standing in her way are her photographic memory and history of debt. The photographic memory could be too annoying of an obstacle to write around for the entire game, and instead be an ongoing effect set to expire in in Chapter 3. Additionally, a money motive paralleling THH’s in Chapter 3 could be too tempting for Rose to pass up. Really, what I’m saying is, if Rose can make it through Chapter 3, I think she’s golden. We’ll just have to see how that Chapter pans out in the future.

David: Oh, David. Currently serving as Teruko’s largest antagonist, I can see why people would think that he would die in Chapter 5. However, I’m not going to beat around the bush and pretend that I’m the only person who thinks David might survive, either. As an inspirational speaker, David is established early on as a character who should be a beacon of hope, before revealing that he’s more of a hope-sucking black hole. It would make sense if, alongside Teruko, he learns to find more of a balance between blithe optimism and cynical depression and heal as a person. He has a lot of very obvious depth that I think a lot of people want to see explored, and whose exploration would be very on-brand for the themes of a typical killing game story. Plus, if Teruko ever does stop being the protagonist, David probably needs to be alive at that point to pick up the slack.

Ace: Similar to Nico, it seems like we’ve already gotten a taste of what Ace being a victim would be like, in a way where I don’t think we’re going to see it again. He could still be a killer, but would the cowardly Ace even want to attempt killing someone and throwing himself into the scrutiny of a Class Trial? Well, it is true that Ace believes that “[neither] dying young or living a long, shitty life of suffering… are as bad as this” (the killing game?). So, he could simply grow fed up with the killing game and decide that risking a Class Trial is worth it, even if he does wind up dying young. However, if that were to occur, Chapter 2 seems like the narratively best time to do it, as it’s when his emotions are most potent and probably when others would least expect him to do it due to his weakened state. Like Rose, I feel the period Ace has most to worry about is this upcoming Chapter 2 killer slot, but if he makes it through, his arc of learning to escape his fear by bravely rising above it instead of lashing out to try to knock everyone down feels very viable.

Whit: The pro of the Inevitable CharWhit Doom Scenario is that, hopefully, one of the two would manage to make it as a survivor after the other one dies. And, I’m Team Whit Surviving! Not just based on which of the two I like better (they’re my first and second favorite characters, so I’m taking a massive L either way), but because I think it makes more sense for it to be Whit that lives further on. Unlike Charles, who feels like he’s already in the final lap of the character arc race, Whit has barely left the starting line. The laundry scene in Chapter 1 and Whit’s secret in Chapter 2 have both been used to establish that Whit focuses on his and others’ bliss in hopes of remaining ignorant of everything that stresses him. The main offender, of course, being that Whit lies about his mom being alive to presumably stave off his grief. The easiest way to give him a character arc that resolves that issue is to give him something to grieve– namely, Charles– and soon. If Whit’s main character struggle is pretending that people dying doesn’t bother him, he might need an entire Chapter or more to stubbornly show off his central flaw. Now, it is possible that, if Whit can’t overcome this flaw, he could die soon after Charles and meet a tragic fate. But, those just… aren’t the vibes, to me? A post-character arc Whit who knows how to grieve fiercely but healthily might come in handy if Teruko finds herself handling her own emotions about Xander, Min, and/or anyone else at the end of the game.

And here’s the bottom of the death order section!

Finally finished writing something that nobody asked of me at all. Well, I still think it was important, and I hope you feel the same.

Now that we’ve laid all that out, I think it’s finally time to actually see who I think the Danganronpa: Despair Time mastermind might be! Although, please keep in mind that, despite the large preamble full of story predictions, I’m still pretty uncertain on who I think the mastermind is. So, my points might not be the best supported, and I might change my mind again pretty soon after I post this theory. I expect to be far better at disproving why everyone is the mastermind rather than proving why anyone would be, because that’s generally how I feel… but, onwards we go!

#17: Arei Nageishi

(Forgive me for reusing art here, I’ve drawn these bastards ENOUGH /j)

If I were writing this after Despair Time’s prologue, like I did with P:EG, there’s a pretty good chance that Arei, at the very least, wouldn’t have placed dead last. But, well, now Arei is dead. And also last.

Obviously, there are other dead characters too. But still, Arei is the one who I most struggle to see as the mastermind. Given that Arei died as a victim whose body was thoroughly investigated by several parties, it’s pretty hard for me to believe that anyone could have missed any signs of life. I don’t get the sense that DRDT is in some kind of simulation where everyone can magically be alive again at the end either, so I think Arei is, sadly, well and truly dead.

On top of all that, we know a lot about her backstory from her Chapter 2 breakdown, and none of it seems to point her towards masterminding a killing game specifically. She doesn’t have any particular ties to any big organizations that would have helped her accomplish it, either. While she is NOT just a temporary weather spell whose absence will be celebrated and then forgotten, David… I have a hard time believing that the audience would find her character relevant enough(?) to be a good twist mastermind come Chapter 6 several years down the line.

I don’t think I really need to keep elaborating on this. Arei isn’t the mastermind.

#16: Charles Cuevas

I know it’s a bit of a bold move to put a character who’s currently alive below characters who have already died, but… man, I really just don’t see how Charles could pull this off.

And it’s not (just) because I think he’s going to die in Chapter 3 as part of Whit’s character arc, or that I want to believe that he’s a good person. Really, it’s mostly because of his phobias. How is a guy who started gagging at the sight of blood splattered on the floor supposed to be the one who orchestrated an entire death game? Could he get through the process of creating a brutal execution like Min’s without freezing up and freaking out? Even if he could do it, why would he? Sure, he didn’t seem to remember the fact that he had necrophobia until Xander died, but that might be even more of a problem. Wouldn’t the mastermind, who’s certainly had to consider the others’ deaths before, remember that they were afraid of death? He would almost certainly have to be lying about at least the scale of his reaction, although that’s probably a given if he is the mastermind.

Of course, there are mastermind subcategories that could better benefit Charles. If DRDT is actually a simulation, especially one in which the participants don’t actually die, that would definitely make it easier for him to be the one behind it. We’re also meant to believe that Charles has childhood amnesia, so he could have amnesia in other areas as well and be a mastermind who forgot they were one.

However, as I said before, I don’t particularly believe that DRDT is going to be a computer simulation or that Charles is an amnesiac mastermind. I just… don’t see this one in general.

#15: Xander Matthews

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not trying to argue that Xander is actually still alive. The concept that he would be able to fool not only Min, making her believe that she dealt him a fatal blow, but also everyone else as they identified his body, seems outlandish to me. However, just because Xander is dead doesn’t mean that he couldn’t have entered this game as the mastermind.

We know for a fact that Xander wanted to kill Teruko due to his dialogue regarding the note he received, which lines up well with the popular theory that Xander is the individual speaking in the first scene with the papers and the blood. If we assume he is that guy, then it may seem a little counterintuitive to think that the person who says “I have to end the killing game” would be the one behind the killing game. However, he also says, “Even if I can’t do that… I have to kill Teruko Tawaki,” implying that killing Teruko is of a higher priority than ending “the killing game.” Thus, if, for some reason, Xander thought that orchestrating the killing game was the only way to kill Teruko, it’s possible that he would be willing to let the death game roll for as long as it takes to eliminate his bigger target.

However, I can’t deny that the Xander mastermind theory has some massive flaws to it. For one, Xander is dead. I don’t think we’ve technically seen any evidence that the mastermind has to still be alive as of Chapter 2, but a mastermind-less Chapter 6 would be… an interesting challenge to write, to say the least. Also, while Xander betraying Teruko and the others was a great surprising hook the first time, if it happened again, it would be kind of… underwhelming, in my opinion. It’s the same kind of concept I brought up in my Eden’s Garden ranking:

Then, in Chapter 6, we’d be faced with the revelation that, wow, the mildly antagonistic character was actually a really antagonistic character all along! It just doesn’t seem like enough of a dramatic hook to me, I guess?

“Wow, the guy who betrayed Teruko and became a killer actually betrayed Teruko and was the mastermind all along! And now, he’s not even around to reap the social or karmic consequences of it!” You see.

And then, there is the literal interpretation of the text that Xander (if he is bloody hands man) obviously stands against the killing games. He’s also the Ultimate Rebel, someone who stands against corrupt institutions in general.

If Xander is revealed to be evil later down the line, it would make much more sense if it was as a traitor type. As for being the one and only mastermind, I think the odds are pretty low.

#14: Ace Markey

Hey, it’s another character that’s alive! And, this one doesn’t even have a crippling fear of death. However, he is a massive coward, and that’s the main thing that’s dragging him down for me.

Similar to Charles, what would Ace stand to gain from hosting a killing game such as this? Ace doesn’t seem to have any interest in notoriety, money, the destruction of society, despair, or any other things that I can think of that would motivate a typical mastermind. We’ve seen time and time again that Ace cares most about having control over both his life and how other people see him, even though he often fails on both fronts. I guess both of those things could be solved by hosting a killing game, but… Come on, there have gotta be easier ways to do that which don’t threaten your precious life.

Furthermore, what exactly would Ace being the mastermind have to say about the story as a whole? Jockey has to be in the running for “talents that are least relevant to a potential killing game host.” How about the idea that the mastermind nearly died in Chapter 2, only to go off the rails threatening and blaming his assailant? I… always knew that Nico was… fully in the right for doing that, because it would have killed the big bad early??? Ace Mastermind is the preferred ending for those who believe that Nico can do absolutely no wrong, lol.

I can’t remember where I saw it, but I once saw a theory of writing that said that there are two major kinds of character arcs. One is the typical character arc, where the narrative pushes a character's traits to change over the course of the story for better of for worse. The other, this theory posited, was an arc on the part of the viewer, where they learn that a character that they thought was flawed was actually not as flawed as they thought all along. You could potentially apply this kind of thing to Eden: in the first chapter, some people may have seen her as a dim-witted positive girl, but in Chapter 2, we firmly establish that her kindness is not stupidity and learn how her optimism is a strength.

So, you could say that the character arc DRDTdev is going for with Ace is something more like that, where we spend the entire game learning to treat him more seriously just in time for him to be a real threat as the mastermind? It still feels like a bit of a stretch, though– I don’t know exactly what Ace would do to make us take him more seriously that wouldn’t either send him on a growth arc not super befitting of a mastermind or wind up with him being a blackened. Ace as the mastermind certainly isn’t impossible, but I obviously found it unlikely enough that I placed him below one character who is currently (presumed) dead.

#13: Arturo Giles

Arturo’s role in the story so far is not very mastermind-ish, in my mind. In the prologue, we establish him as a cold and judgmental person who puts his own opinions of how the world works over everything else, especially how other people feel. This already feels like how a mastermind would act, so if he turned out to be the mastermind, it would be more of the same.

Then, in Chapter 2, we establish that he’s a massive simp for celebrities, to the point of transforming into something adjacent to comedic relief. We’re meant to think that his over-the-top sprites and refusal to actually listen to anything J is saying is hilariously pathetic. Other characters are constantly dunking on him, such as Teruko calling him a “bigoted” “crazy person,” and even the narrative gets in on the action when highlighting how he cares less about the fact that J’s life was at risk than that she didn’t come out of it with drip. Narratively, we’ve already seen these characters get the better of Arturo. If we the audience interpret that as confirmation that the surviving cast could easily beat Arturo should he ever come to stand in their way, it could diminish the stakes upon his mastermind reveal.

However, for all of his negatives, there are some definite positives to Arturo being the mastermind, too. Despite his comedic effects, we have seen through his threats to Eden that Arturo is very capable of being very scary in a way that I don’t think we have with Ace. The horror factor of a plastic surgeon as the mastermind could be a really fun and creepy design theme to explore. And, Arturo is obviously super obsessed with celebrities. If hosting a deadly TV show is what he thought it would take to get him in with the Hollywood celebrity scene, he might be willing to go for it.

I don’t really know why he would have made his secret what it is if he was going to get that upset about it, though. I guess if there just weren’t any better options that wouldn’t tip his hand…? Also, Arturo would blend in terribly as a survivor. If you’re heading into Chapter 6 and you have to pick the evil character out of (let me spin a wheel real quick...) Teruko, Eden, Rose, Charles, and Arturo, Arturo is definitely the evil one. (Okay, that was actually a terrible randomized draw for Arturo on the innocence front, but I hope you can imagine how he would oddly stick out of most groups.) Like I said in his death predictions, I find it hard to imagine a character arc for Arturo, which is why I find it hard to believe that he would make it as far as Chapter 6.

#12: Min Jeung

Honestly, if Min weren’t (most likely) dead, she might be pretty high on my list of mastermind choices. While not as suspicious as the Spurlings, XF-Ture Tech is pretty suspicious, even more so with the introduction of that one altDRDT character. Min is related to XF-Ture Tech, so if that company has anything to do with the operation of the killing game, she could have been the one behind it. Min is also very smart, and her talent has obvious applications for how it could have been used to set up/influence the killing game. The fact that her talent is so similar to Teruko’s, Ultimate Student versus Ultimate Lucky Student, could have also set them up for some great parallels and duality down the line.

However… Min’s role as the Chapter 1 killer throws a pretty big wrench in her chances. Beyond the dying part, Min’s role as the blackened was incredibly evitable. It’s not like she was thrown into a situation where she had to kill or be killed, or even one where a motive was particularly difficult for her. If she wanted to be the mastermind and survive until the end, all she had to do was walk away from Xander stabbing Teruko and pretend she never saw it. However, if Min’s goal was the inverse of ol’ Bloody Hands (keep the killing game running, but most importantly, keep Teruko alive), her actions could line up. And then, perhaps Min could have falsified her own execution early to draw suspicion off of her, much like Junko did by killing Mukuro.

Beyond her death, though, it’s really Min’s reaction to being the blackened that makes me think she can’t be the mastermind. The stellar voice acting in Min’s breakdown scenes makes me really believe both that this was the first time she had ever hurt anyone as gravely as she did to Xander, and that she fully believed that she was about to die. Those are two things that a mastermind, especially one headed into a fake execution, would not be feeling. Maybe Min memorized how to be a great actress too amongst all those textbooks, but I doubt it. I can still see several reasons why Min would have been a good mastermind, but her actual death and her reaction to being told she was dying knock her down several pegs in my mind.

#11: Hu Jing

Hu is a bit more suspicious to me than some others just because I think she has something to hide. Between her refusal to share whose secret she received or had herself, mysterious “I want to pay for what I’ve done” hidden quote, and intense desire to be relied upon, there’s definitely something about Hu as a person that the narrative has yet to uncover. Could that something be “Hu is the mastermind”? I dunno, maybe.

Hu also has a tendency to react to things with her temper. That could be a sort of foreshadowing to how she would act as the mastermind, much like how David’s brief spell of apathy during the prologue hinted at the way he would act further down the line. Hu’s defense of Nico could act much the same way. Our overall impression of Hu at this point is that, while she is a flawed person, she’s one of the nicest and morally best people in the game, who’s always looking out for others. Defending Nico to the point of babying them might cross the line a little, but she’s only trying to help everyone…! Hu could make it to the end as a believably heroic survivor and then reveal that all of her presumed poor decisions were actually active malice, and I think she could pull that off.

All that being said… I don’t, like, actually think that’s going to happen. In fact, I’m probably overexaggerating the extent to which people think that Hu is nice and morally good. I’ve seen several people discuss the unjust amounts of hate Hu gets in this fandom, which implies that a lot of people hate her, even if I haven’t particularly seen much of it myself. At the very least, I definitely over exaggerated the extent to which people believe Hu could survive! As implied in the death order predictions, I do personally think Hu is going to die, possibly as a consequence of getting too invested in everyone else’s business when they don’t want her to be and/or wearing herself too thin. There are paths which I believe could lead to Hu being the mastermind, but they seem to be the roads less likely traveled.

#10: David Chiem

While I have no doubts that David has the fame, charisma, and worldview to pull off a killing game… I’d have to wonder about how he would see himself playing into all of it. As we saw in Chapter 2, David knows that his career has a lot of value, possibly to himself but definitely to other people, and therefore, he doesn’t want to jeopardize it. In fact, the reveal of his manipulative secret was the inciting incident behind his massive change in characterization. So, if he were the mastermind of a televised killing game… How would he think that would play out to his viewers?

Now, to be fair, there’s a lot we don’t know about the worldbuilding of DRDT. MonoTV claims that the TV show will be broadcast to a widespread audience. Perhaps that indicates that, in the world of DRDT, publicly broadcasting talented young peoples’ violent deaths is normal, or even sought after. Maybe the cast of DRDT forgot about it.

However, David seems to think that people learning that he sees everyone as manipulable would do damage to his reputation, so it’s a bit of a contradiction either way. If the world has been wracked with despair and craves intense violence on TV, then David’s reaction to his secret is either an elaborate lie or the result of the mastermind erasing his own memories regarding the situation. (Or, I guess the public could see death as fine and dandy but manipulation as a cancellable offense, which is… one of the interpretations ever.) Otherwise, in the scenario that the DRDT world is a normal one, David wouldn’t care about being revealed as a manipulator if he’d already committed to the mastermind bit. If his career was already preemptively ruined by agreeing to commit literal murder, why get so worked up about the thought that people might abandon ship over you not being 100% honest?

And then, there’s also the whole “surprise factor” thing that I keep bringing up. Admittedly, it’s been a longer hiatus between the start of Chapter 2 and the end of Chapter 2 than DRDTdev might have been hoping for, but that doesn’t change the fact that this part of David’s characterization happened in Chapter 2. DRDT fans far and wide have written thousands of words gushing over “the David reveal” or “evil David.” If David were unveiled as the mastermind, we’d have to start writing stuff about “the first David reveal” or “when David showed his true colors again.” You see how it kind of takes the hype away from such major plot points? That’s the sort of concept I’ve been trying to get across with some of my other choices too, but a bit more clear cut.

I don’t know why I sound so much like a hater in this section (in my opinion) when I’m literally putting David at #10, above seven other characters. I guess it’s because I can see why his theatricality and traits foiling Teruko could make him a good mastermind, but also have some major issues with the logistics of him getting there. A lot of good points versus a lot of bad points settle out to him winding up someone in the middle.

#9: Levi Fontana

With our first single digit number, we’ve also reached our midway point of mastermind candidates: Levi!

Levi would be a really interesting mastermind choice because of how his character centers around grappling with his morality. I think it would be really intriguing to have a mastermind outwardly struggling with their attempts and failures to be a good person throughout the entire game, only for the player and the characters to receive the full context of the debacle at the very end. I guess in this situation, it would be pretty likely that Levi would be redeemed at the end? That’s not necessarily a problem. (Honestly, I don’t know if I think the DRDT mastermind could be redeemed or not based on the fangan’s themes… that’s a post for another day, perhaps.)

Anyways, I think that what we know of Levi’s backstory could work well with him being the mastermind. If he does have the “murderer without remorse” secret, that would be in line with orchestrating a killing game. We also know that he’s “been disowned” and that he and his family were “all bad influences on each other.” We’re meant to assume that Levi was fortunate enough to escape a bad/abusive situation (and in all likelihood this IS what actually happened!!!!), but we are hearing about the situation from his point of view alone. There is a small possibility that, if Levi is actually a despair enjoyer, his family cut him out because they thought he was a danger to their lives.

I will reiterate again, though, that I don’t think this is the case. Levi seems like he’s a chill guy, or at least that he’s trying very hard to be one despite how he’s been told to react all his life. The whole “mastermind wanting to become a good person” lens also makes less sense given how channeled Levi’s development is through Ace. Like, I would imagine that, if this were the angle DRDTdev was going for, Levi would be making an effort to get along with everyone as part of his atonement. The mastermind randomly choosing to focus on just one person out of the crowd seems kind of strange, especially when that person is someone as disagreeable as Ace. That kind of plot would have big “the mafia CEO vampire prince fell head over heels in love with me, the random average girl” vibes. Repenting mastermind Levi is the preferred ending for pining lovers to enemies to lovers AceVi shippers, lol.

And then there’s the part where I think he’s going to die. I don’t think Levi is the worst mastermind choice, but I think there are better out there.

#8: Nico Hakobyan

Yay, we finally got to one of the characters that Anon thought was suspicious! It only took… 7k+ words. Oh boy.

I definitely think that the cat coding is the strongest thing that Nico has going for them. It would be pretty funny if the extent to which “Ultimate Pet Therapist” is relevant to the plot is the climactic reveal that “yeah Nico has been talking to a (robotic) animal the whole time.” That’s a joke, as Ultimate Pet Therapist is already quite relevant to Nico’s characterization as someone who prefers communicating with animals over people, but it would be funny as hell from a character designing perspective.

There are less silly reasons to believe that Nico is the mastermind too, though. While it seems like, similar to David, pulling the trigger on Nico’s change in behavior in Chapter 2 would be a bit early, I don’t think it’s as destructive to mastermind Nico as it is to mastermind David. There’s a lot more doubt in people’s minds that Nico even did anything to Ace, to the extent that a decent number of people (in the story and out of it) think that it was someone else trying to kill Ace entirely. Nico also has a stalwart defender in Hu, which adds an extra level of intrigue to the situation. Instead of confirming that everyone was right to be suspicious of David, at least some amount of focus could be placed onto Hu being wrong for trusting Nico and failing to see someone’s true colors again, which could be interesting for her characterization if she was alive at that point.

On the other hand, the biggest reason that I think Nico isn’t the mastermind is also because of the attempted Ace murder. Why would Nico, as the mastermind, try to kill Ace at this time? If Nico wins the Class Trial, then the killing game is over, which is probably counter to the mastermind’s goals. If Nico loses the Class Trial, well, we’ll say that the possibility of Nico dying isn’t an issue, as they could just fake their own death or deny entering the execution. But still, why?

It could be that Nico was trying to remove themselves from the killing game on purpose, but I don’t see why it would be necessary. No one was particularly suspicious of Nico being the mastermind, and if they were worried about their gender identity getting out, they could have simply made their secret something else. A mastermind could kill to avoid the killing game falling into a standstill, but tensions were really high at the time that Ace almost died! With a full day left to go before the motive secrets were revealed, such drastic action wasn’t yet forced. I guess the best option would be that Nico was just really angered by what Ace said, and wanted to retaliate as part of their vicious mastermind nature. Is that worth taking yourself out of the killing game and risking the show’s termination, though…?

There is also the possibility that Nico is the mastermind, but didn’t try to kill Ace. In that case, suspicion of Nico would be such a huge in-universe coincidence that I’m doubtful DRDTdev would have included it as a major plot point.

Speaking of “show’s termination,” I also don’t know why Nico would have any involvement in creating a TV show, both from a backstory/talent perspective and a personality one. Nico doesn’t like interacting with people. Therefore, I don’t know what would possess them to want to create and join a TV show for which the major draw is a big stressful discussion between a bunch of people.

I guess I had fewer reasons why I thought Nico would be the mastermind than I thought. I would love to hear more details about why you suspect Nico though, Anon! I’m definitely willing to believe that they could be the mastermind.

#7: Eden Tobisa

Make no mistake, I still think that Eden is the Chapter 2 killer. However, in the case that she isn’t… mastermind isn’t a terrible choice for her.

The biggest draw of Eden being the mastermind would definitely be the shock value. The seemingly nicest character suddenly being revealed as the mastermind would create a huge hurdle for the surviving characters to overcome. Teruko especially, given that she probably would have grown at least a tad closer to Eden if they survived five chapters together. It would be a little mean to give Teruko a trustworthy friend just to rip it away from her again, but I could see the opportunity being used to highlight Teruko’s growth. When Xander and Min betrayed Teruko, she panicked and shut everyone out, but when Eden betrays Teruko at the very end, she’s able to remain strong and rely on the other friends who she continues to trust. Or DRDT could have an unconventional feel-bad ending, I suppose.

If some kind of time loop is at play within DRDT, then Eden’s talent would obviously be thematically and perhaps practically relevant as well. I could see a lot of comparisons being made regarding a killing game being run “like clockwork.” Her secret quote “you can’t go back, no matter how hard you try” is... actually kind of anti-time loop, but at least the concept of going back in time is somewhat related…? Speaking of secret quotes, her Mai quote, “she kept calling the number, even though no one picked it up” is also really weird. That suspicious hidden evidence could point to her being the mastermind.

However, Eden’s personality is a pretty major issue when it comes to her being the mastermind. Shock value is great in the moment, but it can ring hollow in retrospect if people find that the twist doesn’t make any sense. Masterminds aren’t typically known for their kindness or optimism. So, if Eden is the mastermind, it seems like her whole “even if this world is cruel, I’ll still make the choice to be kind” speech is a complete lie. And, that would be a shame! I don’t think that having an unexpected mastermind at the end of the game is worth the cost of completely demolishing a character that we’ve come to know and love over the course of six chapters and several years. (I’m not saying that complete demolition has to be the case if Eden is the mastermind, but I think it’s a reasonable worry that many people have.)

And, I know that all this talk about how wonderful Eden is might sound rich coming from someone who strongly believes that she just killed someone who wanted to be her best friend. But, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? As someone who thinks that Eden is the killer, I know very well how a lot of people have a really hard time believing that Eden could do something as terrible as killing Arei. I can only imagine how hard it would be to accept that Eden was the one who put Arei, Min, Teruko, and everyone else in danger, and the one pulling the strings behind every execution.

Eden as the mastermind, to me, is more tempting in concept than it would be viable in execution. And also, I don’t even think she’s going to live to see the light of Chapter 3 day. However, there’s also some definite emotional power behind the accusation that makes me see how shooting for this ambitious choice could be worth it in the long run.

#6: Whit Young

Alright, it’s finally time to talk about Whit. I know that he’s a really popular mastermind choice, but… I just don’t see it, personally. Even though I put him at 6th place. (I do not enjoy putting him in 6th place.) Is that just because he’s my favorite and I’m attached to my interpretation of the character? Perhaps. But, I’d still like to explore some points that I find faulty.

Perhaps the biggest reason behind suspicion of Whit that I’ve seen is the way that he breaks the fourth wall. People connect his asking people to pause for the evidence list to MonoTV invoking similar mechanics, and lines such as “do you really think she’d be hanging out in the playground” to him knowing more than he’s letting on. However, there are a couple of ways that this accusation can be depowered, in my opinion.

Firstly, Whit isn’t the only person who says stuff like this. Veronika alludes to the killing game before it begins, Teruko also breaks the fourth wall to tell the viewer to pause (albeit only in her thoughts, not out loud), and Arei makes the same kind of “hanging” wordplay in Eden’s flashback that Whit did. I won’t say that characters addressing the fourth wall can’t be important at all, because I believe there are some moments where the other characters commentate on how weird it is that MonoTV is talking to no one. However, I also think that breaking the fourth wall may simply be part of DRDTdev’s humor, as exemplified by that “make sure to like and subscribe so that Teruko has enough mental strength to carry on” joke. Whit is a funny guy, so it just makes sense that if DRDTdev’s brain generates funny meta jokes, Whit would get some of them. Everything that Whit says reminds me more of Mia AceAttorney saying “hit tab to open the Court Record” than some sort of groundbreaking DDLC-Undertale direct communication with the viewer. However, I can see why others would think otherwise.

The second is that I think some of Whit’s comments (more so the “dead at 3” and “hanging in the playground” than the pause) are just meant to showcase his intuition. And, yeah, it could be that DRDTdev has been leaving crumbs of Whit’s intuition behind so that in Chapter 6, he can use it to exploit everyone’s insecurities and greatest despair. To me, though, Whit’s intuition has always reminded me of the myth of Cassandra.

For those who don’t know, Cassandra is a figure in Greek mythology who was blessed/cursed to receive prophecies, but for no one to ever believe them. By my interpretation, Whit is a really smart and perceptive guy who has strikingly accurate gut feelings about how things will play out down the road, even when he doesn’t realize it himself. However, the curse of his own coping mechanism– choosing to act like an eternally cheerful goofball– leads the majority of the other students, and perhaps some of the viewers, to never take his point of view seriously. He can only realize the accuracy behind what he said after the bad things have already happened, leading him to blame himself more and more for not being able to speak up and help when times were tough.

This kind of behavior would line up with two different themes we’ve seen from Whit before. The first, that when he jokes around without thinking, he can accidentally say hurtful things that he later reprimands himself for. We saw that when Charles blew up at him at the end of their shared FTE. The second is Whit’s major theme of good things hiding a darker undercurrent. Being the Ultimate Matchmaker is great until you’ve never had a successful relationship yourself. Having an awesome mom is great until the truth comes out that she’s actually dead, and you’ve been covering it up. Growing super close to someone is great until he dies. Having an amazing intuition and understanding of everyone is great until you can never actually use it to help those you care about. Joking around is great until it's all you can do. Pretending everything is fine is great until it’s not.

Like I said, very specific interpretation. I promise I was not citing classical literature to make my argument sound smarter than it actually is. I am aware that my interpretation of Whit is no less or more valid than everyone else’s. However, it’s one that I hold very close to my heart, and thus, I personally have a hard time seeing around it.

However, I’ve also seen a lot of people argue some valid points for Whit, so I can at least acknowledge that he deserves to be in the upper echelon of choices. There’s a lot of weird stuff regarding him in Literature Girl Insane, and he’s certainly an option of someone who felt so much grief that they became totally empty inside as shown in that one hidden quote. I would be appropriately surprised and heartbroken if Whit revealed himself as the mastermind in Chapter 6, so he checks the box in that regard. There isn’t anything from his backstory that opposes the notion that he set up the killing game, and, to quote what I said about our other Ultimate Matchmaker, Toshiko…

While Ultimate Matchmaker might seem like a silly talent to give the mastermind, it could also be a ruse to distract us from the fact that [Whit] has a talent that allows [him] to read people well and make choices that will impact their lives dramatically.

I don’t like it, but I can see the argument… kind of. To me, most mastermind Whit interpretations feel like mischaracterization, but as a theorist, I always try to keep in mind that I’m the one who could be twisting the text to my whims as well. In this my-opinions-based list, though, he’s not getting any higher than 6th.

#5: Veronika Grebenshchikova

Ooh, what spooky art for a spooky mastermind. Let’s be real, though, Veronika is way too obvious of a mastermind candidate to actually be the mastermind. Unless… she’s so obvious that she loops back around to not being obvious, and thus, is the perfect mastermind candidate?!

Veronika is in a really weird place. I obviously have no doubts that she would have any moral qualms about hosting a killing game, because she’s told us herself that she doesn’t. She knows what Monokuma is in immense detail, but claims to have no idea what a killing game is. She’s dressed really similarly to Junko, though. Is that just a coincidence? Are giant pigtails also a symbol of fear in the DRDTverse? I need ANSWERS, LADY!!!

The biggest problem I see with Veronika is the potential for obviousness. Similar to Arturo, if she actually made it to Chapter 6, I feel like it would be pretty obvious what’s going on. An oddball like Veronika is not the typical survivor type (although she could break the mold). Because Teruko’s character arc is all about trusting people, it would make sense if the reveal of the mastermind was someone who challenged her trust to some degree. With Veronika being obviously unhinged the whole time, I don’t think that Teruko would have any particular difficulties with kicking her to the curb.

However, Veronika clearly has the motive to start a killing game, and potentially to spread despair. DRDT has taken inspiration from Trigger Happy Havoc in the past, so it could make sense if DRDT’s mastermind was also inspired by THH’s. Having a so-obvious-it’s-not-obvious mastermind could also be another way to mess with theorists like me, as DRDTdev did with the comments section portion of Literature Girl Insane. “bro Veronika being the mastermind would be WAY too obvious” sounds EXACTLY like “I just hope XXXXXX doesn’t go crazy and kill in chapter 3. That would be way too predictable” or “XXXXX will obviously die in ch5”. If part of the point of DRDT is to make know-it-all analysts rethink the rules they believe to be set in stone, I could see Veronika as a subversive choice.

Veronika definitely seems to be building up to something, but I don’t know if being the mastermind is exactly it. I think that Veronika could make it pretty late into the game, but I still struggle to see her making it all the way to Chapter 6. I would absolutely love to see what DRDTdev does with her writing if that is the case, though.

#4: Mai Akasaki

(Well, now I feel bad that I’ve never made a colored portrait of Mai.)

As you may have noticed back at our first entry, Arei, I started the countdown off at seventeen, not sixteen. (If you didn’t remember that, I don’t blame you– it was a WHILE ago.) That’s because I thought it was only fair to include DRDT’s best kept(?) secret, the lovely Unnamed Student herself, Mai Akasaki, as an option! Because, man, is she mysterious in some suspicious ways.

“But, didn’t MonoTV tell the students that the mastermind was one of them? Mai isn’t one of the students in the killing game (unless prosopagnosia is REALLY going crazy), so she can’t be the mastermind, right?” Well, yes and no. The scene where MonoTV confirms the existence of the mastermind is SUPER weird. Let’s take a look at it.

On one hand, MonoTV is still in the Movie Screening Room, where it was JUST talking to the student body, so it would only stand to reason that it’s a continuation of the scene we just saw. However, the setting also seems to be doing everything in its power to tell us that this is NOT the same scene we just saw. The lights have been turned off, even though they were on in the scene just before this. They return to being on in the first scene of Chapter 1, which the students treat as being directly after the scene during which the lights were on before. The widget denoting the time, chapter, and episode has completely disappeared, placing this at an even more unknown time than “Time Unknown.” The text indicating that the speaker is MonoTV has even disappeared! I mean, I assume that MonoTV is still the one saying it, considering that it’s on screen and the speech bubble is pointing right at it, but we don’t even know that for sure!

Additionally, MonoTV refers to the viewers directly (“dear viewers”) two speech bubbles after this one, which makes it seem more like MonoTV is talking to us the audience rather than the students in the room. But then, if the mastermind is “one of you,” and MonoTV is talking to us, wouldn’t that mean the mastermind is someone in the audience? That could lead in to some really meta interpretations of the text (i.e. “DRDTdev is the mastermind of DRDT because he’s the one who created the killing game”) or it could indicate that I’ve gone fully off the rails.

A midpoint between those two ideas is that the mastermind is part of the in-universe audience watching the killing game, as in, a fictional character who is watching the real-to-them TV show that is Danganronpa: Despair Time. That could include Mai, a very notable character who is not one of the sixteen participants in the killing game.

Side note, I’ve seen some people fight back against the concept that Mai could be the mastermind with the idea that making the mysterious character the mastermind would be too obvious. While I sort of agree, I feel like we’re somewhat overestimating the extent to which Mai is obvious. It’s not like no casual viewers would know who she is, because her image was shown pretty obviously in Chapter 1. However, the name “Mai Akasaki” is only accessible by finding the hidden quotes on the optional associated website’s character profiles. To learn anything about her beyond that, you have to have the thought to type the name into the website URL, and then solve another puzzle just to see the bare bones of what’s there.

I’m not trying to assert any sort of dominance or superiority over DRDT fans on YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, or anything else, but from what I’ve gathered, Tumblr is the place you want to go for deep analysis and theories on DRDT (possibly because of Tumblr’s longer word count). Therefore, anything about DRDT that may seem like common knowledge on Tumblr may only be common knowledge to the fans who specifically bothered to come to the deep lore and crack theories website to find deep lore and crack theories. Essentially, this:

Sort of similar to what Gravity Falls did with the reveal of Bill Cipher back in 2012 (at least I think, I wasn’t actually in the Gravity Falls fandom at that time), I think it would be reasonable to plant clues about an overarching villain that people who want to analyze can analyze ahead of time, such that the villain’s arrival can come as a victory to the puzzle solvers and an exciting new development to the more casual viewers.

However, while I believe that Mai has an awesome setup that she could use to become the mastermind, whether she would actually fit the role is another question entirely. As I alluded to back in the first Mai paragraph, I’m rolling with the widely held (among theorizers) belief that the Unnamed Student in Xander and Min’s bonus episodes is supposed to be Mai. In those episodes, Mai seems to be incredibly caring, peppy, and sweet. She knows a ton of little heartwarming details about Min and Xander, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same is shown to be true with Arei and whoever else’s bonus episodes in the future. Those hidden quotes on Mai’s profile also give off the impression that everyone in the cast really loves Mai– one could call them a “portrait of a person dearly loved,” perhaps.

While it’s possible that these scenes are supposed to highlight Mai’s social prowess and how much she can get people to fall in love with her, they… don’t really seem to be giving off those vibes. We see her thoughts in those bonus videos, and she really does seem to be dedicated to helping Min and Xander out. Mai’s change from someone who wanted nothing more than to help out her friends to someone who was willing to throw all of them into the killing game is something that would have to be explained, and it could be difficult to communicate that shift within the confines of bonus material, if Mai’s content is mostly kept there. There is the concept that Mai could have put her friends into a killing game to protect them somehow, which could be a way to avoid Mai’s character seemingly doing a total 180, but that rationale would need a lot of explanation too.

Otherwise, there’s also the problem that Mai is almost certainly dead. I won’t get super into it myself, because the amazing @1moreff-creator has already done a great job explaining why here (starts in the XI. God is Dead section). I don’t think I need to elaborate on why Mai being dead potentially before the killing game even began would be detrimental to the idea of her being the mastermind.

To be honest, I don’t know how much this idea actually makes sense. I think I’m personally more inclined to believe that Mai could be the mastermind just because I really don’t get mastermind vibes from pretty much anybody in the cast. If the mastermind simply wasn’t one of the members of the main cast, that could solve that issue, right…? Mai is very likely involved in the inception of the killing game somehow, so extending that role to one of being the mastermind isn’t the biggest stretch. However, her personality and living status do throw in some pretty big question marks, so I don’t think she should go any higher.

#3: Teruko Tawaki

Teruko was definitely the first character who I believed could be the mastermind after I watched the series for the first time. However, over time, I’ve sort of fallen off of the idea that she would be. Is that because I’m forgetting key details of the plot, or because I’m drifting closer to the truth…? Honestly, I have no idea.

Let’s start with the strongest “evidence” we have against Teruko, her motive secret: “How could I even select which secret to make your motive? Just about everything you’ve done in your life is worth killing for. The killing game is all your fault.” Although “the killing game [being] all [Teruko’s] fault” sounds pretty damning, there’s the obvious counterargument to be made that this isn’t even Teruko’s motive. In fact, the board currently shows it assigned to Xander. However, the majority of people (including myself) seem to believe that David was lying, and this secret is Teruko’s. So, let’s analyze under that assumption.

Teruko did admit to Veronika that she doesn’t know what secret could be used as her motive because there were so many. Even if that motive secret isn’t hers, that still means that Teruko has done a lot of shady stuff. Teruko’s decision to live on set forever could line up with the mastermind's goal of wanting to keep the cameras rolling as well. The very first scene of DRDT shows that someone who wants the killing game to end also wants Teruko dead, which implies that Teruko and the killing games are on the same side.

Teruko also has a prior history of concealing things about herself from us, the viewing audience. We knew basically nothing about her past or trust issues before Xander stabbed her, causing her sudden change in attitude to come as a blindside. Teruko apparently has a “risky” killing game-ending plan in mind for the end of the second Class Trial that she’s told us absolutely nothing about. And, most notably, Teruko clearly knows things about Mai that she’s decided not to share with viewers at home. (I do believe that Teruko genuinely can’t remember Mai’s name, but she does remember that Mai is similar to Xander and wanted to help, which is more than anything we would have known from the main text on our own).

Point is, DRDT is written in a way where we don’t hear a ton of Teruko’s thoughts. That would make it much easier for her to scheme something behind the scenes, as opposed to someone who we get a lot of emotional reactions or logical theorizing from. It’s actually kind of similar to the difference between Kaede and Shuichi’s styles of narration, as pointed out by ShortOneGaming in their impeccable v3 playthrough! I recommend watching their entire letsplay if you're in the mood for v3, but I found one time where they talked about this concept here. I’ll transcribe it for anyone who doesn’t want to open YouTube right now:

Gina: I do want to call– as my final sort of note– what’s interesting is that you called out immediately that Kaede’s narration was weird. That, it was always, like– dictation? Allison: Yes! Gina: It’s always, like, speaking directly to a person– Allison: Yes! Yes, I did say– It never really felt like actual internal monologue. Like, she never was expressing her thoughts or anything to us. I mean, yes, she was, but then there were those weird moments where she was, like… y’know, hiding it from the player, and… probably from herself, too, to some extent. Like, she was just like, “and then I had to go do this thing.” Um, and like, “we won’t really address how I’m feeling about this.” Gina: Yep. Allison: And at the same time, it hides it from the– the player. And that was very clever. Really good. I mean, her– yeah, her narration was always kind of weird. But, she did have moments where she had internal reflection.

Hopefully, you can see the comparison. By putting a greater emphasis on actions as opposed to what Teruko is feeling (“I kneeled down and touched his neck” after finding Ace’s presumed-dead body; “Everyone else started filtering in” when people walk into the Playground and find Arei’s corpse), it becomes much easier to have Teruko hide exactly what she knows or exactly how she feels about certain events. It’s actually the opposite of the kind of narration that Damon had (“I’m trapped in a killing game… with people who despise me. How… how did this happen? I just wanted to help… I wanted to make sure we didn’t trust each other too easily… and now I’m being treated like the bad guy” after the 0th Class Trial) that made me believe he wasn’t the mastermind!

So, do I think that Teruko would be a mastermind who remembers, or a mastermind who forgot? Well, I could kind of see it either way. Personally, I think that Teruko being a mastermind whose memories are intact is the more interesting version, and I do believe it’s possible. I also don’t understand why someone with as many trust issues as Teruko has would want to remove her own memories if it weren’t necessary. Then again, Teruko being an amnesiac mastermind could make up for some of the… issues that arise with her as a mastermind candidate.

What? She’s in third place, not first. Despite how long I’ve already talked about Teruko, there’s still more to say!

First, the problems if Teruko did retain her memories: why would she ask MonoTV about the mastermind’s identity when the two were alone? Why would she be creating a plan to end the killing game? Why would she pretend to not know who Mariabella Rosales was even though everyone else clearly knew?

And then, the problems that persist even if Teruko did lose her memories: where would Teruko have gotten the resources to plan a killing game of this caliber? Even if she had them, why would she use it on this? Assuming that secret is hers, why would she write that about herself in a plausibly public place (beyond the swapping, Arei looked over Whit’s shoulder)?

Oh yeah, back to that secret. Just because “the killing game is all [Teruko’s] fault” doesn’t mean that she’s the one who planned it. In fact, the wording sounds very accusatory and hostile for something that Teruko would have theoretically written to herself. From the first scene, we already know that there is a person or group of people somewhere who are out to get Teruko. It could make more sense if that entity is the mastermind, and wrote the secret to blame Teruko for whatever she did that got her on their bad side.

There’s probably more to be said, but hopefully you can see why I have so many mixed feelings about Teruko. I definitely think she’s one of the more likely mastermind candidates out there, but I still don’t know exactly how likely that is, y’know?

#2: Rose Lacroix

Once upon a time, a wise and powerful theory alchemist known only by the epithet @1moreff-creator postulated that Rose could be the mastermind of Despair Time, and then never elaborated on the idea at all. For centuries (a couple of weeks) the townsfolk (me) were baffled by these dark and mysterious ramblings. However, as seasons passed by, as travelers came and went, as the tide advanced to kiss the land before slinking back to its home once more– the idea… started making more and more sense?

Rose is a really smart character who has already shown her proficiency in Class Trials. In the first, she utilized her ability to perfectly capture the scene and her knowledge of chromatography. Although her talents haven’t been as useful so far in the second, she’s still managed to keep up with the conversation despite never looking at the scene of the crime. Thus, I can see why, from a writing perspective, DRDTdev would choose to make his mastermind the Ultimate Art Forger.

There’s also the angle that Rose is a criminal, and therefore could be willing to do illegal or immoral things. However, she does seem to be pretty remorseful about it, and she’s already been caught for her criminal behavior before. Unfortunately for her, her relationship with her saviors the Spurlings only makes her all the more suspicious. Even if Rose didn’t want to be the mastermind of a killing game, if the Spurlings forced her to do it, she might have not had a choice. (Xander is very against the Spurlings… Xander is bloody hands guy → stop the killing game → stop the Spurlings?)

I also like the angle of “the Spurlings forced her to do it” because of what I talked about back in Mai’s section– the concept of the mastermind not being among the students. In Rose’s case, you can get the best of both worlds. The entity behind the killing game, the Spurling Foundation, would be a group outside of the killing game for MonoTV to contact, but there would still be a student among the cast’s ranks to suspect and accuse come Chapter 6.

What’s the argument against Rose? Well, I would ask why Rose would want to put herself in this kind of situation, but if it was the Spurlings’ choice, then that explains that. You could say Rose has been too helpful to be a bad guy, but everything she’s done so far has been to help the students win a Class Trial. That keeps the killing game running, which keeps the show on. The biggest problem I’m thinking of at the moment is the notion that the Spurling Foundation would have chosen to make Rose’s secret about how her backstory led her into their clutches. However, the secret doesn’t actually acknowledge the Spurlings by name, and it also frames Rose’s crimes in a way that makes her look like a good person– the opposite of what someone would think of as a mastermind. The secret was also only intended for Rose’s eyes, so it could have functioned as more of a low-key threat to remind her why she needs to stay in line.

Shouldn’t all of this talk of Rose lacking agency make her a bad mastermind candidate, though? If a villain doesn’t even believe in their villainous motivations, the story could end on a really flat note, with the good guys steamrolling an evildoer who doesn’t really care. How are we supposed to reach a satisfying conclusion if the mastermind hardly has anything to be held accountable for?

Those are normally things I would argue, but as many have pointed out, Teruko isn’t a normal protagonist. Actually, I think that this kind of mastermind setup for Rose could be a great way to end Teruko’s arc about learning to trust other people. Rose is the mastermind, somebody who shouldn’t be trusted…! It would be so easy for Teruko to just crush this person who betrayed her into dust– Rose isn’t even putting up much of a fight. But in the end, Teruko will choose to be patient, and see that Rose never wanted to betray Teruko. Even if her actions wound up hurting Teruko and many others, she still deserves a second chance, or at least a second evaluation.

As you saw in the death predictions, I obviously believe that Rose has the potential to make a late game run, whether as a survivor or something else. Writing all of this out, I can see even more clearly why Rose just might be the DRDT mastermind. However, despite all that I wrote, the idea still feels kinda more like a fun AU than the actual truth to me…? So, I still think there’s one person whose chances I like slightly better.

#1: J Rosales

Whaddya know, J’s personal ??? tier catapulted her into the lead. It is probably true that my uncertainty about where she might land is contributing to me deeming her the mastermind– it’s a really weird space in the kill order, as someone who survives long enough to theoretically have a positive character arc while sometimes not being counted among the survivors at the end.

Part of why I put J this high is that I really like the theory of J being the mastermind along with her brother, Ryan. Sadly, I cannot find any of the original theories that postulated this idea to link to, so I’ll try my best to explain what I remember myself. Basically, some people found the scene in c1e4 where Rose doesn’t remember who J is suspicious. They combined this scene with J’s younger brother, Ryan, and J’s talent, the Ultimate Effects Artist, to suggest that J could be using her FX talents to disguise Ryan as herself and have them occasionally trade places. From this Q&A, one of the few things we know about Ryan is that he enjoys crossdressing, which furthers the idea that he could enjoy pretending to be J. Ryan is also (to my memory) the only DRDT character’s sibling whose name we have seen in the main text, which could indicate that he’s more important than Arei’s sisters, Levi’s brothers, or other potential siblings.

I think it’s a really fun idea that I would at the very least want to see come to fruition, regardless of how likely it is. If J was working with Ryan, you can once again repeat the argument that there’s both a mastermind for MonoTV to talk to outside the game and one to be accused within the game. The biggest issue with it is that I don’t know how Arturo wouldn’t see the differences between the two, even if Rose may have. Maybe if J and Ryan haven’t swapped since the Rosales secret got out, and won’t swap again until Arturo dies…? I don’t know, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The thing is, other than just being a unique and interesting concept, I’m not really sure what the point of having J and Ryan swap would be, in universe or out of it. (This is why I wish I could’ve found a link to the original theorist... :,( ) My best argument for in universe would be that there are some things that only J has the skill to do, her being the Ultimate Effects Artist while Ryan is not. However, they couldn’t just have Ryan be the one in the killing game full-time, because he’s too young and therefore wouldn’t have been part of the original Hope’s Peak class. Thus, there are some points in time where J needs to be working behind the scenes (like on the executions or something), and during those intervals, Ryan subs in. Metatextually, I guess it could show how every person in the entertainment industry can be cutthroat, or that every child of a celebrity is bound to get messed up about it somehow…?

Regardless, even if Ryan isn’t involved at all, there are plenty of reasons to suspect J on her own. Ultimate Effects Artist is a highly suspicious talent when it comes to the deception of a killing game (just check out how many people think J already used it to kill Arei), and in connecting her to Hollywood. J may claim to specialize in theater as opposed to television, but 1) she could have been lying, or 2) that could be true, but she’s making an exception this time. Even if she normally works in live theater, if you were a TV executive approached by the daughter of Mariabella Rosales who is also a Hope’s Peak Ultimate student in her own right, would you really turn her away…?

J’s custom weapon is also pretty suspicious. Even if it doesn’t seem to be able to trigger traps like the one used on Levi (though that could be another lie), I could still see it being pretty helpful for subtly operating MonoTV, turning on a monitor, starting an execution, or stuff like that. Charles essentially confirms that the custom weapons were in the students’ rooms since they all woke up, which means that J could have had this remote on her the entire time.

J’s relationships also seem potentially mastermind-y. Thus far, the two characters with which she’s been associated most are Arei and Arturo. Those two (at least, prior to Arei’s change of heart) have been so clearly villainous and hateful that J would obviously look like a nice person in comparison. Why is this helpful? It means that J can get away with doing more objectionable things without raising any huge red flags. If J is the mastermind, we can look back on her demolition of Arturo in the Chapter 2 Trial as a brief early glimpse into how cruel she can really be. But, for the moment, although it’s definitely memorable, many people (including myself) can react to it with a, “yeah, but based on what Arturo was doing to her, it’s kinda justified…” (Not saying it isn’t somewhat justified either way, just that it could also be something more.)

J could also have a range of motivations related to her hatred for her mom. Maybe she’s trying to turn people against the Rosales name to ruin Mariabella’s reputation. Maybe this killing game is a plan to finally have a big artistic success all on her own (or with Ryan) to prove her mom wrong. Maybe she thinks that a world so enamored with fame and glamor deserves to rot in a pit of despair. I don’t know which of these options would be the most likely, but I could see how any of them could be possible explanations for how J got to this point.

I think my biggest argument against J once again comes back to the “why”. I think that J has a lot of potential to be a good mastermind, but I don’t know if that carries over to being a good mastermind for Teruko. Unlike with Rose, I don’t have a good sense of how J being the mastermind would tie into a satisfying ending to Teruko’s trust arc.

@venus-is-thinking and I sometimes like to run randomized killing games as a fun writing exercise (randomize the cast, motives, and mastermind; see where it takes you), and we’ve generally found that the most compelling protagonist-mastermind duos either have the protagonist sharing the same worldview with the mastermind, or being the only person who believes the opposite.

If the protagonist starts with the same beliefs as the mastermind, then defeating the mastermind is a showcase of the protagonist’s development. Hajime and Izuru work as protagonist and mastermind because Izuru is the manifestation of Hajime’s belief that only talented people are important and can make an impact on the world. By renouncing Izuru, Hajime proves that he’s learned that anyone has the chance to change their future if they put in the effort.

If the protagonist has the opposite opinions from the mastermind, then it proves how crucial the protagonist is to the narrative because they are the only one who could deliver the critical message. A great example of this is Shuichi and Tsumugi. When Tsumugi tries to set up the conflict of “hope good, despair bad” that will keep the killing games going, all of the other surviving students fall for it. Shuichi being the only character who has spent the entire game learning the importance of balancing two extremes makes his callout of Tsumugi incredibly satisfying, and justifies the protagonist swap by proving that Shuichi is the only hero who could have saved this day.

That’s why I think that J would be a great mastermind for a protagonist who has issues with family or stardom, but might not be the best choice for a story with Teruko at the helm. Those are only my observations, though, so I’d understand if DRDTdev planned things differently.

And that is finally the end! Here’s the final tierlist I wound up working off of, which I fiddled with a TON while writing:

(It’s based off of Ocean Unknown’s tierlist!)

Since this has already gone on so long, I’ll try to keep the conclusion brief. Please take all of this with a grain of salt, as I wound up making a lot of claims about writing that don’t necessarily have the strongest foundation. I didn’t write anything that I think is blatantly false, obviously, but whether it’s good advice or not doesn’t necessarily mean that DRDTdev considered it. We may have different priorities in telling a compelling story. And, we’re less than two chapters in! Even the end of the Chapter 2 trial could throw a positive or negative wrench in any of these profiles.

Thank you so much for reading through this whole thing, and if you got through it and still have anything you want me to elaborate on further (a specific character, a specific theory, a specific aspect of fangan writing, etc), I would be happy to do so. I, uh, really hope that this answered the question that Anon asked, haha. Until next time… stay wary. There could be masterminds lurking about...!

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gold-rhine · 1 year ago

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Inazuma Rewrite part one

This is bullet points rewrite for Inazuma general plot structure, bc I think it had so much potential, but was horrifically scuffed in game. If I keep something from canon unchanged, I’ll just say so without retelling the entire thing to keep the length down, bc it’s gonna be A LOT already.

Some disclaimers: I’m not trying to fix every single problem, just what I see as major structural failures. I will reference my problems, but you can read my explanations on them more in depth in my “inazuma ranting” tag.

This is also not envisioned as free for all fanfic where I can write whatever I want, but aimed to be actually feasible to see in game, bc it’d be unfair and I want to show that Inazuma could be improved in the same constraints that hoyo writers had. So please don’t ask why I didn’t do wildly inconsistent thing that would be cool, but genshin would never actually do.

I’m aiming to retain all relevant lore and achieve basically same worldstate in the end, including character arcs, for the most part, because I presume them to be integral to the larger strategic plotline of the game. Which means I can’t drastically change characterization and major plot beats like the decrees, rebellion, Raiden has to be a sympathetic ally in the end, etc. I’m also trying to keep genshin’s general tone and modus operandi, bc like, target audience includes 13 yolds and I can’t just “make Inazuma good” by turning it into like, a gruesome and complex power struggle of political factions like Fallout New Vegas.

List of main issues I want to address: pacing in general, rebellion pacing especially, lack of impact and continuity of effects of vision loss on people, lack of setup for the stasis vs transience aka ei vs makoto conflict, character arcs: raiden, ayaka, kazuha, kokomi, yoimiya, kujou sara. And more!

Initially I wanted to make a single post, but it’s already 3k and I’m only up to Raiden’s first duel and I plan to cover post-archon quest content too, like Raiden and Yoi story quests, so I decided to split it up instead of posting like 20k monstrosity. So remember, this is for now mostly a setup.

EDIT: Part 2

Raiden’s motivations\Reasons for vision hunt

Ok, so one of the biggest principal changes is that vision hunt and sakoku decree are active Raiden’s decisions, instead of Fatui’s plot that she’s just passively allowing to happen. Raiden closed the country, but she’s ok with Fatui starting a civil war and selling delusions, bc it doesn’t “affect eternity”, like??? I honestly think that the current plot of her people dying in a civil war meant nothing to her is much worse than her starting vision hunt decree out of misguided plan to ultimately do better for people.

I mean ok, we have to have closed borders to reference Japan’s history, sure, but like, the whole point of isolationist policies like this is to prevent the outsiders’ influence on the country. So she should not be ok with Fatui schemes at any point.

I mean, if it was fallout new vegas AU, I’d keep it to show that dictator doesn’t not care about foreign powers exploiting it’s people as long as it profits the empire and helps to keep people subjugated, but like. Then raiden can’t be uwu waifu. So we gonna give her good intentions and integrity, but misunderstanding of humanity due to closing herself off instead.

Now to why would she close the country and institute sakoku decree. I want to tie this in with another plotline that is just. Kinda floating at sidelines at the moment, but I think could work nicely in tandem. The Scaramouche destroying Raiden Gokaden, the five schools of weapon smithing, which were canonically highly valued by Raiden.

I’m not gonna recount Scara’s entire plotline, but basically he went on a misguided crusade against Raiden Gokaden and managed to cause fall of 4 out of 5 weapon-smith schools.

Game says that he like, tampered with the schools and covertly led to their ruin, which like?? They never found anyone guilty, like the most prized weapon art smiths of your country fall apart and you’re like oh well, I guess Yashiro commission is just bad at it’s job?

There is a plot point in this story where Isshin weapon smiths, unable to replicate a faulty design that was Raiden’s commission tampered by Scara, were scared of Raiden’s wrath and decided to flee to Snezhnaya. I want to change it to be that there is an event, where ALL weapon schools receive same commission at the same time, and Scara tampers with it.

Just as in canon, scared smiths, but now from 4 schools, not one, are manipulated by Fatui to flee to Snezhnaya, But we add a new NPC, the most talented blade smith who had a vision. Fatui frame him as the ring leader, as if they were running not to save their lives because of the tampered design, impossible to fulfil, but that this was a betrayal because of his ambitions.

After this, Raiden has legitimate cause to feel like her eternity is threatened. She sees weapon art schools, one of the most prized country’s traditions being ruined in a moment because of what she thinks is ambitious hubris of one vision holder, who colluded with outsiders. So she closes Inazuma and declares a vision hunt, to prevent this from ever happening again.

But ironically, in truth it was the fault of not just Fatui, but specifically a puppet without a vision that she herself created and failed to supervise. This brings the main idea of the plotline from “Fatui evil, Raiden passive” to “Solipsist goddess who doesn’t understand humanity tries to protect her people by locking them in stasis and taking their ambitions, but the real case of tragedy was her negligence and lack of empathy all along, and this is what needs to be changed.”

Interlude and plot setup

We start with similar plotline. Traveler tries to go to Inazuma, learns that it’s closed, talks to Inazuman NPC to learn more. Here we’re introduced to the general idea that Inazuma was closed off due to one traitor blade smith with a vision who sold off Raiden Gokaden to Fatui.

We go to Beidou’s tournament, which goes basically the same, we meet Kazuha and watch a beautiful cutscene about his dead friend who challenged Raiden to a duel, and now Kazuha tries to find someone who can reignite his vision. I will actually add changes to Kazuha’s storyline, but it be will later.

then we arrive to Inazuma, go through the same bureaucracy loops with Thoma on Ritou, to show the barriers to outsiders and also to illustrate how Thoma is the best fixer when he manages to drop a fee from 1 mil to like 10 gold by promising to have a dinner with government official.

But we’re cutting the second part of Ritou, with the boring plot about like merchant from Mond scamming people with the local police and then Traveler delivering love letter or whatever. I mean, we can keep this as an optional side quest, if like hoyo thinks the lore about love letter is essential for the Ayato’s quest or smth, but not as an Archon quest.

Instead, we put a part of Yoimiya’s quest there. I think Yoi’s quest is relevant enough to stay in the Archon quest, unlike Ayaka’s, but it’s slapped into a place where it ruins pacing. So instead, we’re cutting it up in parts and inserting it into main storyline.

On Ritou, while doing bureaucracy bullshit, we meet Yoimiya, and play the part of her quest about her helping a guy with a vision to escape from his former best friend, who is now a guard hunting him. It helps to show the rift that vision hunt brings not only with the outsiders, but with inside of the country as well.

Ghost of Makoto\Transience setup

another key point that I think is integral to fixing Inazuma is planting seeds for Makoto’s reveal from the start. I really like the Stasis vs Transience conflict from raiden’s second story quest, where raiden believed in eternity as lack of change, a perfect state maintained until the rest of time, while her twin Makoto believed in eternity as never-ending change, where people’s dreams constantly evolve, nature of them chasing these dreams never changes.

but it feels like it came out of nowhere and raiden just speedruns character development in like an hour, so a lot of people ended up feeling like it was just about Raiden mourning her sister, instead of raiden coming to understand makoto’s belief system and through that unlocking makoto’s final connection and then being able to let go.

so we need to first of all, introduce makoto’s ideas of transience from the start, and also empathize the conflict of them with raiden’s stasis.

and it doesn’t mean we’ll spoil the reveal about the second raiden shogun! we don’t have to ever use makoto’s name, just her title as a raiden and sprinkle her ideas throughout the land. We know hoyo area designers can do that stuff really well (guizhong’s relics being scattered all over liyue, rukkhadevata’s shadow in the aranara quest).

like, it’s strange that Makoto primarily ruled and shaped country by herself while Ei was just a warrior, yet we do not have Makoto’s influence visible. We need to add ideas of transience into fundamentals of Inazuma,

“Transience is the dream of the nation of thunder. We find the greatest joys in mortal life in fleeting dreams, for is life itself not like the shadow of the thunder? Pursue your dreams into the clouds if you wish, and enjoy the unexpected silence of the dim lamp-lit nights.” - Guide to Transience talent book.

add these ideas all over the place, esp near sakura. And let’s draw player’s attention a couple of times specifically to the internal contradiction of these ideas of transience being integral to inazuma and raiden’s current hatred of change.

like, we need even 13 yolds and twitch streamers to remember this, so lets make paimon say like

“Huh, this shrine to raiden shogun says that eternity is the pursuit of fleeting dreams, but doesn’t raiden shogun fucking hates dreams?? I wonder, what made her change her mind about them to the total opposite!“

this and more subtle puzzles\locations with focus on transience for people who pay more attention will add the much needed setup for makoto’s reveal

Kamisato siblings

ok, first things first, Ayato being absent without any explanation while his little sister is plotting treason and his malewife Thoma is about to be executed on the streets is unacceptable.

like I know it’s marketing or whatever and he’s not being released but we need his model, hoyo. If we 200% CAN’T have his model, we need to come up with solid excuse why he’s not here. Like idk, he’s helping the war refugees or smth

And we need hints at his presence\influence throughout the story. Like oh, here’s group of refugees who were helped by Yashiro commissioner, they are relocating to new homes, I guess Ayato is really busy. Oh, here is Fatui’s camp where everyone is slaughtered and boba tea cups are littered around, I wonder what is up with that.

and also, Ayaka is organizing resistance behind his back, and we never meet him bc Ayaka actively tries to hide traveler from him.

bc like, Ayaka doesn’t have a development arc in archon quest. She’s just kind of there, being perfect. Like in her story quest that hoyo makes you do at gun point, you like, go on a date, learn that she’s lonely and has trouble connecting with people due to the pressure of having to project an image of perfection and societal distance, do an investigation to uncover her late mother’s fox fursona roleplay diary which she used to cope her with own societal pressure. Which like. Ok, sure, but but this wet socks quest is not an archon quest material. It should be just a normal story quest.

no, Ayaka’s real conflict is wanting to prove herself to her brother, bring real difference to the world. This is her ambition, she literally gained her vision while fighting Ayato in a training, she wanted to show him that she’s strong enough to handle responsibility, he named her Shirasagi Himegimi after she won that fight

but during a civil war, watching people suffer, her role as a cultural figurehead is not enough. She wants to help, but she’s afraid to act, because this will undermine Yashiro Commission and her brother worked so hard to build it back up after Raiden Gokaden fall. so she organizes resistance behind her brother’s back in secret, to help, but without compromising Kamisato name

this basically tracks with what happens in game, but we spell it out and expand on this later.

Getting Traveler to help

next, let’s throw out the weird edging introduction where traveler is not allowed to see Ayaka the first time. like??? bro, we’re friends with 2 archons and heads of their governments, you’re not that important. and it can’t be to protect her identity, bc like. You go to Kamisato estate! You’re told who she is! If you wanted to betray her, that would be enough already.

another awkward thing is that Traveler, who agrees to do every stupid quest they meet, suddenly refuses to help the resistance.

I think we should reframe their convo a little, like Traveler says hey I’d love to help, but my primary goal is to get info about my sibling from an Archon, so I don’t want to go against her.

To which Ayaka says oh, I totally get you, you see, I am myself a culture figurehead and a nominal princess and I can’t speak up against the decree, bc that will hurt Yashiro Commission. But I’m not asking you to fight Raiden Shogun in a duel or smth, I’m just asking you to help people with the resistance, which we do totally in secret. No one will know! Also, how are you going to see Raiden? She’s locked up and doesn’t appear in public. But my big brother is a head of the Commission, if anyone can get you an audience, it’s him. So help me help people and I will ask him to help you see Shogun!

she secretly believes that after traveler sees ppl suffering, they will change their mind and help willingly, same as in canon, but she’s more subtle about it

Rebellion connection

my other problem with vision hunt is that the 3 quests they force you to do about meeting people who lost their visions are like. not good. The concept is interesting, but they are just kinda boring and meandering. They lack dramatic impact. They could do better. So we’re not doing these 3 quests rn, but don’t worry about it, we will get to the effects of vision loss

Instead, ayaka sends us to help Yoimiya and we do the same quest we do in archon quest - help her to free someone from prison dungeon. It goes the same, we get to the dude being mistreated by cops, Kujou Sara steps up and lets us go

But then it’s like, we need to get this dude out of Inazuma city. Cops know he escaped! They will just come for him again! There is only one place that will take him and it’s the watatsumi rebels.

Common complaint about Inazuma is that other countries feel like found families and Inazuma doesn’t, bc characters from resistance and rebellion basically don’t interact, and it’s true. And like, we can get them together! Thoma knows Kazuha, Kazuha knows Gorou, Gorou in canon went to recoinsanse missions to Narukami island.

So, Gorou visits the tea house to pick up the Vision Dude, and the gang has the hotpot meet up. Everyone is there (except Kokomi bc ok hoyo, we’re saving up for dramatic battle reveal, and i think her reveal would fuck up banner schedule). Ayaka, Thoma, Yoimiya, Kazuha, Gorou. and Teppei! Who is here bc he was recruited by Gorou. He’s actually from Narukami island, not Watatsumi, and he had nothing to do with visions, but he’s an idealist, he believes in freedom, so he joined rebellion. fun times are had, Ayaka tries to play srs bsns lady host, but breaks into giggling at The Shenanigans, Gorou is overly polite but adorable and apologizes to Ayaka about The Shenanigans in which everyone but him participates, Yoi is a life of party and the Shenanigans and later has to be bodily stopped by Kazuha from organizing fireworks right here, right now, Thoma and Teppei both get sick from eating Ayaka’s nasty cakes that she threw into soup, bc Thoma is just into oral stuff and Teppei is so earnest and eager to prove himself and impress ppl, haha comic relief, look how sweet and funny this guy is and all characters get along so great with him

bc like, I think Teppei has a problem of a) not having enough screen time b)not having any interesting characterization moments to make him stand out 3)not having other playable and already likeable characters interact with him

so this scene can serve not only to bring that “unlikely bunch of people becoming friends and working together” connection to life, but also to endear Teppei to the players

Vision Loss Effects\ Yoimiya and Thoma

ok, next Ayaka asks Traveler to do that one quest about martial arts master losing their vision. I think it’s the one quest from 3 about vision loss with most drama, but the real reason is that it introduces Yae Miko and we need to do this before leaving for the rebellion. Like, in theory, it could be switched to another, better quest that lets us meet Yae Miko, but honestly, this is not one of Inazuma archon quest problems so I can’t be arsed. Feel free to imagine a cooler intro instead.

when we go back to tea house, we learn that Yoimya’s vision has been taken away. She has been recognized in that last prison raid and the guards came for her later, and she didn’t fight bc there were kids and her old father around.

She’s completely changed. Her innate optimism, her belief in people and their dreams has been drained from her like a sunshine from a dark cellar. But she’s still Yoimiya!! She came here to warn you bc she still cares even if she had her own joy taken from her. She tries to smile and reassure you that it’s ok, she’s fine, but her smile is visibly strained, she’s never had to fake it before so she doesn’t know how. She wears a vision, but it’s a fake one, because her pops said that maybe having it here would help and she agreed, tried to pretend for him that it does help, bu. It very obviously doesn’t.

Ayaka is horrified. She apologizes to Yoimiya, tries to think of ways to help her, but Yoi just laughs humorlessly. “It won’t ever touch you, princess.”

She’s immediately disgusted at herself and apologizes, tries to take it back, this isn’t her, she would never say this, and not to her friend! But also, it’s so hard to care now and she can’t remember why it’s so important to care at all.

Ayaka is shaken. Bc it’s true! She is a privileged noble, vision hunt will not come for her! She is playing at the resistance from the safety of anonymity, while people like Yoimiya actually risk themselves and pay the price!

And this is when the news that Thoma was arrested and about to be 100th vision taken at the feet of the statue comes. Tenryou commission truly strikes back.

Ayaka is in uproar. She’s ready to go herself and fight for Thoma, especially after Yoi’s words. She’s sick and tired of being a perfect princess, she can’t allow any more of her friends, her family come to harm because they don’t have her protection. Clearly Thoma being a theatrical execution is a blow specifically against Yashiro commission and Kamisato family in particular, and if Shogun has beef with her, well, she can settle it with HER instead of going after her friends!

Traveler stops her. This is what they want. If Ayaka openly moves against the Shogun, the entire Yashiro commission falls. Even if Ayaka is in the right! No, it’s the Traveler who will go to save Thoma

But traveler needs raiden’s good will for the info, they can’t confront raiden openly, it was the deal from the start!

But at this point traveler has seen too much, the divide in the country, the change and suffering of their own friends, and they can’t allow all of Yashiro commission take the fall.

This is when the Traveler decides to take a stand.

ACT 2

#rhine talks #inazuma ranting #genshin impact #rhine lore study #rhine writes

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ourflagmeansgayrights · 1 year ago

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ok so like objectively yes ed did things wrong but not only do i personally feel no negative emotions about any of that, i swear it would make more sense tonally with the rest of the show to NOT make a huge chunk of s2 be about ed facing the consequences for and redeeming himself from the marooning/pushing lucius overboard/izzy toe thing. like if im wrong i’m wrong and it’s whatever but i really really think the focus will be more on ed’s internal emotional state and how his choices were informed by trauma and how he’s going to learn to heal more than it’s gonna be like, Ed Learns It’s Wrong To Maroon People And Force Feed People Their Own Toes. like if anything i think it’ll be Ed Learns That He Deserves To Be Happy And He Also Realizes That Marooning People And Force Feeding People Their Own Toes Is An Unhealthy Coping Skill That Negatively Affects His Mental Health And He Learns New, Healthier Coping Strategies. like i think the focus of coming out of the kraken era is going to be almost entirely on ed’s feelings, and any mention of how his actions harmed the rest of the cast will be brief and/or it’ll primarily be played for comedy

which yes irl this would kinda suck to have some guy respond to getting his heart broken (and other stuff) by killing and maiming people and then have his whole journey of self-discovery be solely abt him and not any of the people he’s hurt. HOWEVER a biiiiiig part of the humor of the show is that the characters are experiencing some very real and very relatable self-esteem issues and insecurities and vulnerabilities, and all of that is placed on a backdrop of comedically gratuitous pirate violence. like this is a romcom and ed is basically going through the classic emotional beats of the romcom heroine getting her heart broken and eating a whole tub of ice cream and crying in her room for days before becoming cold and distant and “love is dead” edgy, only the joke is that bc he’s a pirate his “love is dead” romcom era includes some people actually literally dying. izzy and the crew all just happen to be in the blast radius for this joke, and while we as fans might love and care abt those characters too, the plain fact is that ed and stede are the main characters and the other characters’s feelings or storylines or internal motivations simply do not matter nearly as much to the show as theirs (with the exception of maybe jim, and also maybe olu depending on how s2 goes). and that’s literally just how romcoms work. this sort of “protagonist bias” is like, a core part of this kind of story.

and there’s nothing wrong with not vibing with the story because of that. if season two comes and goes and you aren’t happy with how the show handled the consequences of ed’s actions in e10 that’s fine, nobody has to feel any specific way about this show. but if i’m right and this is how s2 plays out and some of y’all don’t like this, the problem is not that ofmd is bad. the problem is just that this is not the story you wanted or expected to be told.

i DO think, tho, that there’s something very powerful abt a character like this being a queer indigenous man. he’s a gay romcom protagonist and narratively speaking his feelings trump all. this is a queer romcom that uses gratuitous slapstick violence as a punchline and where the queer main characters are allowed to get violent and unhinged about their feelings, and at the end of the day they ultimately get a pass bc it’s a gay romcom and the show is about them. like literally that description itself is more than i could’ve ever dreamed of from any tv show ever, and THEN you’re telling me that one of the main characters is indigenous???? it’s been a year and a half and s2 is right around the corner and i swear to god i still can’t believe this show actually exists. we don’t GET shows like this, we don’t GET characters like this. ed teach is such a fucking blessing of a character and i love him with all my heart.

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd meta #ofmd s2 #ofmd speculation #ofmd s2 speculation #edward teach #ed teach #edward teach born on a beach #s2 predictions #txt #meta #mine #og #this is why im unironically on team “ed did nothing wrong”#the show gives us very realistic depictions of emotional trauma #and slapstick looney toons depictions of physical trauma

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aesthetic-bbyg · 1 year ago

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hey, can i request a tom x puerto rican female reader? Kinda similar to the chola one but it's in new york instead of la🤭omgggg. It can be any era idm sjensjsj

AY, BENDITO ~ TOM K.

Tom Kaulitz x reader

In which a determined Tom won’t stop till you accept his offer to take you out.

Nattie speaks: Yayayaya!! Im excited to write this bc I literally love Puerto Ricans sm like y’all are real ones ong🙏. Keep the request coming in bc I def wanna start writing more on here!

YOU NEARLY GROANED AS you saw the boy approach, your friend, Daniela, giggled from beside you just watching in amusement. Nearly everyday, Tom Kaulitz managed to find you and ask you the same question.

“You free tonight?” His German accent so alluring yet you knew you couldn’t, and you wouldn’t. Yes, you will admit that Tom was a very attractive boy, you liked him a lot, but you also knew the type of person he was. It seemed as though every girl you talked to had at least one interaction with the Kaulitz boy that ended in sex. “Come on, just one date and it’ll be worth it.”

You glared, turning back to the line and waiting for your lime flavored piragua, choosing to ignore him. You weren’t sure why he decided that picking you as the main victim of his pestering was good idea but each day it annoyed you more. There we’re even some where you nearly gave in and excepted his offer but ultimately walked away before the words could leave your mouth. Was the piragua guy purposely taking long to shave the ice or was it just you? The mix between the heat of New York and Tom’s blabbing in your ear made the tone feel slow.

“Enough!” You snapped, turning to face the boy who was listing off reasons as to why taking you to Señor Guzman’s pizza place would be the perfect first date for the two of you. “I already told you that I’m not interested in going out with you.”

You could hear your friend snickering beside you, “Ay bendito.” She was just observing and sipping the cool cherry flavored syrup from her cup. (Poor boy)

Tom only smirked, adjusting his hat and backing away with his hands up in defense. “Okay, okay, I hear you, I will come back tomorrow.”

You sighed heavily as he walked away, “Don’t come back at all!” You yelled, but he didn’t turn around or do anything to acknowledge your words, based on his past actions you knew he would be back.

“Aquí está.” The tan man gave you the piragua in a small plastic cup, the shaved ice soaked in a lime-flavored syrup. Your demeanor immediately changed, a frustrated scowl turning into a soft grin with just one sip. You dig through your shorts, handing some bills before walking off. (Here you go)

“At this point, it’d be better to accept his date then reject it, Amiga.” Daniela spoke up, giving you a knowing look as she shoved some of the ice in her mouth, letting it melt on her tongue.

“No quiero, Dani, to give him the satisfaction of taking out another girl would be like hell to me.” You argued back, “He just doesn’t take a hint, and everyday he comes and bothers me about something.” (I don’t want to)

“If you really about it.” Daniela began making you roll your eyes. “I’m starting to think that he really likes you and isn’t just playing around to get in your pants.”

You turned to her with furrowed brows, “What do you mean, it Tom fucking Kaulitz, of course he’s gon’ something involving.”

“When’s the last time you heard of him hooking up with someone?” Daniela asked, watching a a you shrugged your shoulders. “Exactly, and don’t you think that it’s strange how Tom is constantly flirting with you, only you.”

“I think it’s very strange, and annoying, ya me tiene esta los cielos, Dani.” You huffed, stopping as you arrived in front of her apartment building. (he has me up to the sky)

“Just take a moment and think, he totally got a thing for you because he’s putting in actual effort, not just shooting out some lame pick up lines.” Your friend tossed her cup into a nearby garbage bin before climbing up the steps. “He likes you, and I know you like him.”

You processed her words as you made it back to your own home, the refreshing snack cleared up your mind from its previous annoyed state. It made you frustrated, how could it be that a player was suddenly wanting to get with you of all people. For as long as you could remember, Tom would always flirt with you, it gave you a string of hope before he ended up in another girls room that same day. If the reason why you became so cold, more brutal with your rejections then before.

Walking into the house, your auntie and mom were in the kitchen, they could already sense the annoyance radiating off you. “Nena, que tú tiene?” Your auntie questioned, raising her thinly drawn eyebrow at you. “And don’t bullshit me.” (Girl, what is wrong?)

“María!” Your mother scolded towards her sister, “Don’t be using those groserías in front of my daughter.” You walked into the kitchen, jumping onto the counter as you watched your mother cut up some chicken. (Bad words)

“You know Tom K, el aleman te la esquina?” You began, getting the attention of both of the woman. (The German from the corner)

“El que tiene un hermano emo?” You auntie asked, placing a hand on her hip. (the one that has an emo brother?)

“Titi.” You warned as she threw her hands up in defense, “Bueno, pues, he’s been asking me out for the past five months.”

Your mother let out a dramatic gasp, stopping her motions and looking at you, “Cinco meses? Y qué carajo todavía haces aquí?” (five months? And what the hell are you still doing here?)

You groaned, throwing your head back, “No salir con el, mama, he’s a player, I’ve been sayin’ no each time.” Your tía grinned, clapping your hands. (I don’t want to go out with him)

“Mira, no mas!” She squealed, shaking your shoulders proudly, “Mi nenita ya tiene todo los hombres a sus pies.” (Well, well, my little girl already had all the men at her feet)

“Ay, no titi, no quiero salir con el, qué pasa si no mas me trata como otra.” You frowned, feeling your mom place a comforting hand on your shoulder. (I don’t want to go out with him, what happens if he just treats my like any other?)

“If he does anything.” She threateningly raised the knife that she was chopping up vegetables with. “You just come to me.”

“Mhmm.” You tía hummed in agreement, “Just gimme that address and you won’t have to worry about it.” Her serious face was then replaced by a bright smile. “Pero, you should totally go out with him.” (But)

“Dani was sayin something about how he might be interested since he’s been trying to hard, and just earlier when I was getting Piragua from Señor Rodríguez he came up to me.” The two woman listened intently, “He asked me out again and I said no, and when he said he’ll come back tomorrow I said he should never.”

The woman in front of you winced, “Ay, bendito.” They said in unison, making your frown even deeper. Maybe you were too harsh. (Poor boy)

“But since he’s so adamant on me, saying yes then he probably does have some interest. Well, that’s what Dani thinks.”

“Mira, nena.” Your tía placed her tan hands on your shoulders, “Back in my day, yo traía todos los hombres, tu mama era una virgencita.” (Listen, girl. I had all the men, your mom was a virgen)

“Ey!” Your mother slapped your tias arm angrily, making your scrunch your face up. “I was just waiting to find the right hombre.” (Man)

“Pero esperaste unos mil años.” The woman turned back to you, “As I was sayin’, no matter how much a man tried to be all playa’ by sleeping around with women and shit, the thing that’s gonna touch his heart is when a woman cares. So the next time he comes up to you and ask you out, you say yes when you go on your first date, show him that you’re interested.” (But you waited some thousand years)

You sighed heavily, “I’m nervous.”

“Why? Because you’ve been crushing on him since you were a kid?” Your mother questioned, tossing all the ingredients she’d been cutting up into a boiling pot of water. You eyes widened, mouth opening to say something before shutting itself up. “No crees que no te visto, te gusta, and I know it.” (Don’t think I haven’t seen you, you like him)

You hop of the counter and head into your room, you pick up the small phone that was sitting on your bed, clicking in Daniela’s phone number. In just a few rings the girl picked up with her usual chirpy voice. “Wassup, Amiga?”

“Dani, I’m gonna say yes the next time Tom asks me out.” You spit out quickly, not wasting a second to pause in between words. It was nearly inaudible but Dani still registered every syllable instantly.

“No way!” She squealed, “No me chingas amiga!” (Don’t fuck with me, bestie!)

“I’m bein’ for real.” You smiled slightly at her excitement, fiddling with the gold necklace nervously. “The next time he comes up to me, I’ll say yes.”

“WHERE THE HELL IS HE?” You asked anxiously, eyes looking around to see if he’d magically pop up. The day had nearly reached an end, the sun beginning to lower itself into the horizon while you and Dani had walked around the area multiples times. By this time, Tom would’ve already walked up to you, gripping his baggy pants, a shit eating grin on his face, German-laced accent speaking the same words that you usually rejected, it almost became a routine.

But today you hadn’t seen him, it begun to make you nervous and ask the sun disappeared and the street lights flickered on, you sighed sadly. Never did you think you’d be so sad about not being pestered by Tom, in fact, you wished for a day like this. Now that you have it, you realize how boring the day has been, not hearing him or his corny pickup lines made it feel like a puzzle piece was missing.

“It’s okay.” Daniela rubbed a soothing hand up and down your back, “Maybe tomorrow, he could be busy with his band.”

“But he said he’d be back.” You frowned deeply, shoulders slumping, feet dragging on the pavement as you walked back home. You did the usual, dropped of Daniela first, her right hug lingering longer then usual before you walked the next few blocks to your own home. Just as you stepped on the steps that lead up to your front door a repetitive shuffle caught your attention.

“Hey, gorgeous.” Tom held flowers in one hand, the other one timidly waving at you. You’d never that you’d be so happy to see him, a smile would’ve taken over your features but you held back. Keeping a straight face as he held out the roses. “I got these..for you.”

Your eyes widened, taking the flowers and blushing. “Thank you, how’d you know these were my favorite?”

“You told me.” He smiled softly, it made your heart flutter and stomach twist into knots. “And, uh..I wanted to ask you, again, if you’d wanna go out with me?” He fiddled with the bands around his wrist, expecting the usual words of no and a slammed door in his face, but you have a warm smile instead.

“Yeah, I’m free on Friday.” You tried to hold the eye contact but his eyes practically hypnotized you, you stared down the roses, a shy smile on your lips. “I’m sorry for being mean on the past times.”

Tom chuckled, demeanor shifting from an laid back player to a timid lover boy who was stupidly excited that his crush finally said yes. “It’s okay gorgeous.”

An awkward beat of silence engulfed the air before you leaned forward, pecking his cheek and watching as the red blush creeped up onto his face. “I’ll see you Friday then.” You mumbled, hand gripping the door handle and pushing it open. You looked towards the boy one last time, “Bye Tom.”

“Bye, gorgeous.”

I hate using y/n if y’all couldn’t alr tell by the amount of pet-names I have in all my fics. 😭 I tried my best to capture the Puerto Rican culture but as someone who isn’t really familiar, I don’t really know if I did all that good. Apologies if there was some errors in some areas!! either way I enjoyed writing this fic and loved the idea!! Ik it got corny at the end but pls ignore that.

hehehe

#tokio hotel #tom kaulitz #tokio hotel imagine #2000s #puerto rican #puerto Rican reader #Tom Kaulitz x reader #Latina #boricua #tom kaulitz x you #tom Kaulitz imagine #fanfic #fluff #tom Kaulitz fic

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cripplecharacters · 4 months ago

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Hello! Your blog has been incredibly helpful for me, thank you for doing what you do

Disability is a core theme of the stories I make, so accessibility is one of my most important goals. For reference, I write books but my main project is a show that’s sometimes semi-animated and sometimes similar to visual novel style dialog.

Some of the things I’m doing now are subtitles and narration that’s baked into the show itself, sticking to a simpler style of writing, and making it free to watch. It’s one part practicality and one part frustration at being told these things “ruin the experience” for others. Now they’re a core part of the experience.

But those are just the things I find personally helpful, I only have my own viewpoint. My question is what are other things I can do to make my story more accessible?

Specific things I’ve been struggling with are showing nonverbal communication (The narration covers a lot of this, but not enough) and conflicting needs. I know some things will help some people but hurt other’s experiences (ie, subtitles) which is a really hard thing to navigate! So advice on that would be helpful

Thank you!

- @interroblog

Hello lovely asker!

So I'm gonna throw out some ideas here at the start and these are in no way me saying "You have to do this". No, just me tossing some ideas out and maybe they hopefully help! 😁 Let's try this.

First off you also mentioned that it's part of your style in the way you're animating as well. I think if it's your style that you shouldn't have to change that either. It's both something that is unique to how you choose to do things and it also aids in accessibility. You shouldn't feel pressured to change it because some people find subtitles or Narration annoying. It ultimately comes down to how you want to do it, so again here are some things I could think of.

So if the site you're hosting your show on allows you to have toggle on subtitles and audio descriptions I would do that. If not what you can do is when you put your animation through you can have multiple. Kinda like with certain shows or movies you have a version in its original language and a version that's Voiced over with another language. If you want to accommodate your audience perhaps you can have a version:

Without any subtitles or audio descriptions

With subtitles

With audio descriptions

With both the subtitle and the audio description

Granted going this route may be more work than just doing it all together (I'm not 100% sure, I don't know animation very well) but it's certainly an option. I think the process of rendering and saving it at the end (having to do it multiple times) and in regards to space may be an issue.

Another thing you can do is write up a description transcript for each episode so that people can look at it for reference. Some people use screen readers or braille displays that read over this information for them if you're worried about the text itself. Here's a good example of one done from a DeafBlind film done in the 60's at Perkins [Warning for typical 60's language regarding disability]. It usually includes what an audio description would just typed out.

Another thing you can do is see and look around for anyone who is fluent in the local Sign language that your show is in and see if anyone could record and interpret it for you too, if you want to have that option for people as well.

You could also do kinda like comics and Manga do where they mark the sounds/actions on the panel/animation it self.

[Manga panel from the Manga "Shino-chan can't say her name"]

For instance in this manga panel there's no dialogue but the author gives us multiple cues which the translator also translates as well. There's the foot steps with the text getting bigger and bigger letting us know that the sound is getting closer and the direction, then in the next panel we have two exclamation points letting us know she's alarmed and aware. The text of the foot steps is now darker and bold and we see the streaks around the characters hands letting us know that she hurriedly wrapped up her box. Then we have the word "Sneak" in bold lettering against the wall where the character is pearing over.

Now I'm not sure what type of nonverbal communication your using so I'm gonna go over things a little vague.

Sign Language [Mostly in ASL because that's the sign language I'm most familiar with and can understand the most]

Here's two animations by @scoliwings and they're both in ASL and the way the person made them is with captions into the animation (also they're very cute and lovely). The show ThisClose also does this with their entire Pilot episode but then only does it with their ASL scenes moving forward in the series. The people who wrote and produced the show note that while they made the show surrounding the deaf community and about the deaf community they wanted the show to reach their hearing audience.

This scene that is with a translator has no captions whatsoever. While this scene between the two main characters using ASL does have captions. Then this one does have captions that go away when the characters communicate verbally.

This is a constant thing of multiple different medias is they kinda choose between which audience they want to pertain to. And whoever they choose, it usually ends up leaving the other out or not 100% involved usually at the fault of accessibility on streaming services/wherever the media is being hosted.

If someone Deaf/Hoh wanted to watch this show and there's no captions available on whatever platform is hosting it then it wouldn't be accessible to them. And if they are fluent in ASL, those parts have captions all the way through. For instance those videos on YouTube, not all of them are accessible because they don't have the toggle on Closed Captions. So the moments where there's characters who speak English and don't sign ASL, especially if the camera isn't on them when they're talking, it's just not accessible.

In the episode "Into the Mystic" on Supernatural, they introduce Eileen's character. This is the only episode that she uses ASL by itself, every other episode she is in uses SimCom and she code switches or uses English. Again captions are in the episode Everytime ASL is used except for scenes where she's signing in the background for instance this scene. From This Gifsets by @winchestergifs

[Gif of Eileen from Supernatural. She's sitting across from an older woman on a couch and she signs in American Sign Language "You" while pointing at the older woman, then she forms her fists into a 'S' shape one on top of another and moves them to the right, she then finger spells "Bait".]

It's never translated, not even in the script or the transcript. Even while this show is targeting their hearing audience they still gloss over things like this. (I also want to note that me and Mod Rock spent a while trying to figure out the second sign and came up empty handed as well 😅)

Now when it comes to Audio Descriptions, it's usually "[Character name] signs [dialogue in Verbal Language]". If it's the first time introducing the character or the character is switching languages, then specify what Sign language off the bat, ASL, BSL, ISL (SEE, SSE,) etc. It's the same as in writing that you write the character dialogue followed by "[pronoun/character name] signed". The shows that I know of that have characters using Sign language and have Audio Descriptions is The Boys (kimiko's scenes), ThisClose also has them, Bridgerton (episode 1 scene in s3, it's one scene in BSL but it's there!), and I'm pretty sure Echo does too (it should, I'm looking at you streaming service) but I've yet to watch that last one. Listening to them might help you with getting a grasp of writing them if you have any signing characters.

Ex. Eileen signs in ASL "You sure you don't want both?"

Another thing with Sign language though is body language and expressions and even things like story telling are there also. So describing an action can give a lot of context of feeling and what is going on in the scene. Here's another ASL animation that is in the works and they go more in detail of how they are animating body motion, face expressions and such. Craig of the creek is an animated kids show that also has BASL and ASL in it (and I love how they go about the characters dialogue, the signs are so well animated, and the friend translating and the others learning for him too.)

There's also Pro-tactile & Tactile Sign language. Granted I've never seen or do I know of a show/movie/short with pro-tactile in it or Tactical Sign Language but if anyone were to do that the audio description would probably be like "[Character A] puts their hands over [Character B]. [Character B] signs [dialogue]". That would be for the Hand over method which is Tactile Sign Language.

For Pro-tactile, this involves other forms of communication such as back channeling, mapping, haptics. It should be translated much the same I believe because these certain elements of the language are used to portray emotional tone, contact/interaction, as well as directions.

Here's some examples of pro-tactile and tactile sign language since I know it's not largely known: (all ASL)

Pro-tactile: Video 1 (Captions & No Voice Over), Video 2 (Captions & Voice Over) and it goes further into specifics of Hand placement, Back channeling while Standing & Sitting, Video 3 (Voice over & Captions). Here's five vlogs in PTASL also, no captions or voice over so Fluency in ASL is needed.

Tactile Sign Language: I was having a hard time finding videos (for some reason) but Here is a segment in a video where they show it. Here is another short video too!

Of course you don't want to describe every movement when it comes to Sign language but you want to describe the base movement. If someones Tracking, (this is where a person holds the wrist area of the other person who is signing so that it's in their field of vision) you might describe that before the dialogue. "[Character] puts their hands over [characters] wrist" and so on and so forth.

Haptics/Mapping may also be very similar but they're mostly used in describing the layout of an area someone is in, directions to somewhere, how to navigate the surrounding area. This is gonna be just explaining how they are moving. The same can be said with Visual Vernacular. It's movement to describe something or to tell a story it's not Sign language but a movement of general understanding. Here is a video where an interpreter details Visual Vernacular alongside ASL. Here's the one without the voice over as well.

AAC

The movie Come Play is a horror movie centered around a non-verbal boy with autism who uses an AAC app on his phone. His device is the one where speech is generated from the different buttons that correlate with the words he clicks. I couldn't find an example of an audio Description for this movie anywhere but it might be similar to the next example.

The Boys again also has scenes with Kimiko where she uses her phone to communicate and such. And the audio description usually sounds like "Kimiko types on her phone, it reads [dialogue]". The only difference in Come Play would be that the Dialogue wouldn't be narrated because it's already done so by the AAC device in the movie, but subtitles would be needed.

Speechless gives a lot of examples between low-tech and high-tech examples. This scene in particular where all the characters are in one scene. The main character (JJ) uses a laser pointer and a word/alphabet board with the assistance of an aid. In this instance the aid reads aloud everything that JJ communicates. If you're one on one though, much like with sign language, you wouldn't really read aloud everything they say especially if it's a private conversation. Instead the pov would probably show the characters AAC method they use whenever they communicate. For the audio description it might be something along the lines of "[Character] points and says [dialogue]".

I've never seen other types of AAC in media so it would probably be the same when it comes to Audio Description when describing another method like print on palm. it might be something like "[character] grabs their hand and writes [dialogue]".

In the show In The Dark the scenes with braille are described as "[character] runs their fingers over the braille, it's read [dialogue/text]". And on that topic, In the show All The Light We Can Not See, it has a really (really really really) good basis of what an Audio Description should be like. It also has multiple featurettes and an audio introduction with it that goes more in depth to explain the costumes, settings, the characters, and other visual information that is often important but left out in the audio descriptions due to the pacing of the show/film.

Immersion was the goal, much like with the production of Romeo and Juliet in PTASL that was performed. Introducing your characters and settings in a little short animation before hand or at the begining as a little segment may be something you can do/consider.

This video details some other forms of communication that I may or may not have left out (Auslan & Voice over). Finger Braille (Video of one handed with translator), Lorm Method, Touch Glove alphabet Method, and some other methods I think can all be described relatively the same. You want to describe the base action of what they're doing (writing, pointing, typing, grabbing, lifting, touching etc) and then focus on their dialogue.

Also I don't use any form of AAC to communicate so if anyone who does finds error, please correct it. Or even if there has been a discussion on this before among the community please reiterate or link to it so we have first hand experience and voices as well.

Known problems with audio Descriptions

Here's a Small history and more in depth article written by someone who needs audio descriptions. They primarily talk about its lack of rush to be used in cinema and primarily the UK.

Describing everything but the characters race: I've heard that this is an issue specifically for Netflix that the audio descriptions are good but they never mentioned the race of the character which some people have made note about. (I don't know much about this I will say just I've heard it around here and there)

Here is a post that goes more into detail about Audio descriptions as well by @accessibleaesthetics. And here is an all around really Good source as well called The Audio Description Project.

Forgetting character entrances & exits: This is important because people need to know what characters are in the scenes. Much like in a play with stage directions you need to know who comes in and when they exit.

Over describing/under describing: I read a debate about the use of over describing and under describing when it comes to AD's. The example given was when describing facial expressions. Option one is to just say "[Character] is surprised". Option two is to describe the facial expression in all its little details "[Character] opens their mouth, their eyebrows raised and eyes wide". Under describing in general seems to be a issue but when it comes to things like body/facial expressions it's best to keep it simple and to the point for another reason that I list down below.

Forgetting small details: the audio descriptions of All The Light We Can Not See, and The Boys do a fantastic job of small details. For others some things are glossed over but then don't make sense later on in the scene. For instance, if the character picks up a knife and this isn't narrated but then the part of them stabbing another person is then, it's kinda like "Oh well I guess the character picked up a knife at some point" but the exact moment isn't specified. In this article, the person who makes Audio Descriptions tells that he had described someone as Smoking a cigarette when he was in fact smoking Weed. He says the reason he realized the difference is because these are two separate substances that change the perception of the character. The little details matter because of the implications and importance to who is doing it and why, when gathering all the information and understanding a character.

Misnaming/mixing up characters: The same article I listed right before also says how mixing up characters is an issue sometimes too.

For audio descriptions in general I think listening to a few different ones might help with getting a grasp on how to do them/better do them. AudioVault is one place that if you can't find audio descriptions of your shows or movies, they might have it there. In this instance, maybe listening to your favorite movies or shows with the audio descriptions on might help you. Most shows/movies that are original to Netflix have them, the same with other streaming services like Peacock and Amazon Prime.

I don't use audio descriptions a lot because my tinnitus makes it difficult but I sometimes turn them on (when available) to understand scenes that are confusing to me. Certain actions and how the cameras frame them don't make sense to me sometimes, or even I can't see because of the lighting of the show or movie and so I need to know what's going on. This brings us to that beside people who are low vision or blind, many other people use Audio Descriptions for different reasons too. The same points can all be made for people who use Subtitles/closed captions as well.

Issues with captions/Things that need to be more common with captions

Names: Some captions have the names of the characters next to their dialogue. A lot don't do this. I think it should be done because of many reasons but mainly it makes it easier to follow along for everyone who uses captions.

Tonal Cues: As I mentioned before Tonal Cues in Captions would be so very helpful for a lot of people.

Don't censor: Don't censor swear words, slurs, anything, write it as it's said. Unless it's actually censored in the audio (which is usually done for comedic reasons) then do that.

Lyrics/music/background sounds: So not only making sure to include the songs that are playing over certain scenes but also making sure to include the soundtrack and background music that is playing. Almost every movie and show uses music as an indication for tone, often times characters or certain situations have their own theme too. These are all important to note when writing captions. The caption writers of Stranger Things did amazing when it came to background noises, writing every creak and bang is important especially if it's being heard and reacted to by either the characters or the audience.

Include language changes: This has long been an issue when you're watching something in one language and then when they switch languages it just says "Speaking in [language]". Instead write out what they said in that language. So instead of "Speaking in Spanish", actually write out "Sana sana colita de rana". If the character knows what they're saying because they speak the language you can also put another set of subtitles under it translating it. If you're doing a sorta comedic scene where the audience needs to know what is said but the character doesn't, then do the same, write it out in the language "Ay dios mio!" And then under/above it put the translation "Oh my God!".

Include different speech patterns: If the character has a stutter write it, if they're slurring their words together write it.

Auditory/Visual Learners: Some people just do better retaining and understanding information when it's in an auditory form. For some people, they're able to retain information more by reading it rather than hearing it as well.

People Who Have Trouble With Social Cues: Okay so a continuation to the "Over Describing/Under describing" bullet points above. For people who have trouble reading body/facial cues, the audio descriptions help by describing it as The character is happy, scared, shocked, surprised etc. This is part of the reason why it's best to use those words instead of describing every movement that goes into a person's expression/body language. Like wise Closed Captions with Tonal Cues would also help and serve much of the same purpose but those are rarely ever seen (in my experience).

Help People Learn The Connection Of Words And Actions: a lot of people are always learning new languages and being able to connect the word to the action helps with the understanding of new languages. Again the same for closed captions, being able to look at how words are spelt while listening to them helps grasp a better understanding.

Overstimulation: For some people looking and listening to something at the same time can be too much and it becomes overwhelming. I know I often turn off the sound to a lot of movies I watch and just use subtitles because sometimes commotion/yelling especially in like action movies is a lot. For some people, a lot of visual movement and constant rapid actions can be overwhelming as well.

Dark Screens: As I mention, especially more recently in the media industry, things are a lot harder to see nowadays. The same can be said with dialogue and why a lot of people may opt-in for subtitles and captions because things are just so hard to hear now.

The Busy Bees: Some people just like to multi-task and much like an audio book, you can do something (chores, crafting, homework etc) while listening to the show and not miss any visual information. Multi-tasking also helps some people concentrate better on what they're working on too much like music helps some people.

People With Other Medical Conditions That Make Viewing Screens Inaccessible: If your having a migraine or headaches, a screen is the last thing you want to look at, and for some people, noise is a trigger for them. They're also a known trigger for many people with epilepsy/seizure disorders. People who have photophobia also may AD due to the light sensitivity. People with ADHD, autism, Prosopagnosia, Processing Disorders, and many many other things that I can't possibly list them all, all may use Subtitles or AD's for multiple different reasons.

Okay, that was a lot, got a bit long, but hopefully I covered everything! Things could be more organized but it works so hopefully this helps! I'm not very familiar with animation so anyone who is, please feel free to add on in a reblog to share a few tips and tricks!

~ Mod Virus 🌸

#mod virus #and a very thank you to mod rock with the translating and helping with describing the AD on PTASL #writing descriptions #interroblog #writing audio descriptions #nonverbal representation

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forestfiresandfics · 2 months ago

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Dual Protagonists vs Deuteragonist

This is the first in the series because in order to discuss any of the literary techniques or structure present in third life, I have to establish the main characters. It’s going to help me further along. I want to do two things here, establish my protagonists, antagonists, and determine between the two obvious answers, in what way our two main characters are split along a literary line—are they equal or is one more important?

When it comes to the question of ‘who’s the main character of 3rd life’ I think it’s not a stretch to say Grian and Scar. And that is the answer I’m ultimately aiming for. But I want to explain why, and basically justify the fact that well, these are all real people, and they all have interesting POVs, so why am I ignoring everyone else? Because they are all worth watching! No POV is more important than the others! However, again, I am establishing narrative structure, and the narrative is only structured if you view it from a certain POV.

The reason Grian and Scar are the obvious main characters is because they last the longest. The final two, the final battle, if you want to see the actual end of the series, they are the only ones who have it. And that is also about 60% of the reason I agree. Their POVs are the only ones that have the whole story. But the other reason is because, as I alluded to before, theirs are the only ones that structure the narrative properly. For example, where is the climax of 3rd life? Is it the battle of dogwarts? Or is it the betrayal and the fight in the pond? Is it the cactus ring? Does the story end with the death of the king, or does it end with the resolution to the death game? While its possible to end it at the battle of dogwarts, it is a better rounded story if the rest is also included.

Scar and Grian are our main characters, but who’s the protagonist? Are they both dual protagonists, equal in the story? Or is one of the protagonist and the other a deuteragonist? Before I get into that, let me first preface. A protagonist is the main character, where the bulk of the story comes from. This is not the same as a hero—a morally good character. Similarly, an antagonist is someone who works against the protagonist, and is different from a villain. So when I say that Scar and Grian are the protagonists, the main characters, I don’t necessarily mean they are the good guys. By this definition, it’s safe to call renchanting the antagonists, they are the ones in direct opposition to the desert duo, and the war on the server is about the conflict between these two groups. That does not mean that renchanting are the bad guys. Personally, I see the conflict as grey vs grey—Scar does steal and threaten a lot, and Ren does bully and threaten during the expanding of the empire. But the great thing about 3rd life is that it can be seen either way, either group could be the heroes, or neither.

A deuteragonist is the second most important character in the story. They drive the plot just as much as the protagonist, but they get a touch less screentime. Where the protag is the most important, and the antag acts against that important person, the deuterag is the next most important, either on the same level as the antag or slightly lower. If we think about the understanding of a deuteragonist based on the protag’s relationship to the antag, then it’s logical to suggest that Scar is the protagonist, and Grian the deuteragonist. Because the war is between Scar and Ren, with Grian in a role of helping.

However, that presupposes that the way between the factions is the main plot, which it is not. The death game is. And within that framework, Grian is the logical protagonist, since he was the winner. His is the only POV that includes the true ending of third life, the suicide. Scar is simply the deuteragonist, leading the plot when they were dealing with the war, and providing an equal in the final fight. It kinda comes down to vibes at a certain point. Scar is the leader, but Grian is the winner. Scar’s storyline involves him becoming worse, burning more things, going from scams to outright threats, then turning on his closest ally and realizing how far he’d fallen. Grian’s involves him making a mistake and dedicating his series to redeeming that mistake, and finding true companionship even after his redemption was complete, only for that companion to betray him and then be forced to kill that companion himself. It’s an opinion, but I think Grian is the protagonist there. (And it’s Martyn, not Ren that is his primary antagonist—but that’s a discussion for another day).

This is all hypothetical though, because I haven’t eliminated the possibility of dual protagonists. One of the big draws of third life is the doubling and the character foils. Two green lives end up in debt to two red lives, three red-green partnerships dominate the server, two businessmen end up at the centre of server-wide alliances, in opposition. With all the doubling present in the story, it may be thematically appropriate that there is a doubling of the protagonists, too. They do both work towards the same goal, and when they split, both sides are compelling for the tragedy of their situation.

In conclusion, I don’t know! It’s hard to decide between dual protagonists or deuteragonist which is a more compelling reading of third life. If this were a proper essay, I’d pick one at random and stick to it, but ultimately, I think it works both ways. If you only watched Grian’s POV, you would understand the story. If you watched both Grian and Scar’s POV, you would understand the story about the same, but understand Scar more. So I think it may be unfair to decide between two protagonists or one and a very important second.

*****

Masterpost

#traffic life #3rd life #3rd life literary analysis #grian #gtws

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mydastouch · 6 months ago

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Signs I was Trans Growing Up and Now:

Wanting an adams Apple | man’s throat | prominent neck bones

Wanting a V taper but in a man way

Wanting to pee standing up

(Kinda NSFW Pt. 1) Wanted a dick

Wanted to be muscular but like… in a man way

Wanted boys toys, esp happy meal

Wanted boys clothes (way cuter and fun imo)

WANTING BOXERS (ULTIMATE GENDER EUPHORIA)

(Kinda NSFW Pt. 2) Wanting a bulge in pants -> non sexual mostly but also horny

Wanting to wear khakis and a button up for school uniform [but like in the athletic stud / masculine physique way]

WANTING TO BE SQUARE

WANTING TO BE SCQUARE AND FIT LIKE THE GUYS IN MIDDLE SCHOOLZ. Yes I would look bc they’re hot but also because I wanted to look like them so bad (still think about some of those guys to this day.. it’s been years)

(Kinda NSFW Pt. 3) Wanting to grow a d*ck / be a futa (don’t judge I was on the internet at a VERY young age)

Speaking of, wanting to be like those case where i switch gender as a kid with puberty hitting

Curious of boys bathrooms / urinals

Wanting to be in there sooooo bad

YALL… Like I rlly wanted to PEE STANDING UP

I learned how to do girl peeing standing up (like desperate white people do in nature when there’s no bathroom ig)

Spent literal days hyper fixated on learning that

Got so happy and giddy when I learned how

(Kinda NSFW Pt. 4) Wanting to wear strap on in pants

(NSFW) Aroused at the thought of being a guy / doing guy things

(Kinda NSFW Pt. 5) Wanting a boner sooooo bad

Jealous of girls who’s parents let them dress and cut their hat like a boy

Realllly Wanting my voice to crack , so much so that I would purposely make my voice crack

Wanting a raspier voice. Wanting a gruff husky voice (not necessarily trans related but it does align) (like Catra’s voice but… masculine)

Wanting to be the main guy in the Le Disko video. I’m black but I wanted to be that lil androgynous guy so so bad

(Here’s the video for reference: https://youtu.be/OBDwYaZKfnM)

youtube

Wanting to both kiss and be Princeton and Roc Royal from Mindless Behavior my man my man my man

Wanting to dress, dance, and be like the two dancer guys from Camp Rock

(NSFW Pt. 6) Wanting a pr0state so I can have @nal org@sms

And many many others

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annabelle--cane · 4 months ago

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Sorry if this is weird but I’m working on this book that feels like my first substantial foray into literature, and I’m really proud of it. But it’s also a lot of work and my life is…life, so I get into motivational slumps a lot.

Lately I’ve been like “But think of the random thoughtful tumblr posts (by people like you) where they realize something I was trying to say, or reveal some new way to read the text entirely!” and it gets me through the slumps.

If you published a work with a lot of hidden messages and metaphors, would you want to tell people what you meant? Would you correct people if they got it wrong?

I used to think I would tell everyone EXACTLY what things meant. It has always been frustrating to me when authors are vague as hell about their meanings behind things. But now writing this story, I kinda want to see how much people catch on to. If I write it well enough, they’ll get all the main ones. But maybe some of them will only get one or two! And there’s like a puzzle network of understanding in your audience!

I think I’d correct them if their interpretations were somehow harmful, but that would also mostly be about figuring out how those messages came out of the text so it doesn’t happen again.

saur. my answer to these questions are layered, and I'm going to answer them kind of out of order.

as an audience member, about 70% of the time I really enjoy hearing what authors have to say about their work. it can often point me to areas of consideration that I hadn't really been focusing on before, and creators usually care a lot about their text and have paid great attention to it and so their opinions are often well-informed and consider all angles. and then that other 30% of the time I hear what an author has to say about their work and it's like we're discussing completely different things, and I'm sure they meant to write their work to come off a certain way, but something appears to have gotten hideously lost in translation because that is Not what I read. and I sit there like 😬 you don't know him (this story you wrote) like I do 😬 .

as an english lit student, I could not care less what authors have to say about their work. the text is the text, the book is in my hand, and sure, I might look into what commentary an author has made, but that is ultimately superfluous to my analysis and I'll treat it with exactly the same weight as any other interpretation I come across. if I can back up my argument with evidence and criticism then no one can tell me I'm wrong, including the author. overall I don't think someone can actually be "wrong" about their interpretation of an art work as long as they have sufficient supporting evidence. if a meaning has been successfully put into the text then it's there and I will be able to find it, and if it hasn't then no amount of creator commentary will insert it post hoc.

as a creative writer, this is one of the main things that I think peer review and workshopping is really useful for. as a little story time, I took a creative writing class last year and submitted a piece for workshop that I thought was truly just an embarrassingly unsubtle fairytale-esque allegory for addiction, where the protagonist is in a toxic but thrilling relationship with a tricksy fairy named poppy who will bring them to intoxicating magical ballrooms out in the woods, but only at the cost of all their human relationships and, eventually, their own physical wellbeing. only one person in the class got the metaphor, and this told me that a) wow my experiences are not universal, and b) during revisions I should focus on making the story substantial enough on its own that readers can enjoy it even if they don't twig anything about the fairy literally being named poppy.

a lot of other people in that class got feedback on their work about interpretations they didn't intend, and depending on how wildly a reading varied from their intention they would then try and remove whatever made that reading possible in subsequent edits and emphasize what they actually meant. of course, you can't write for your hypothetical worst audience who will actively disinterpret your work as much as possible, but if you've got a workshop group or just a few friends that you think are reasonable readers then I'd recommend sharing what you've got with them and hearing what they're getting from it.

as a person in fandom, oh my god do I not want to touch anything with a ten foot pole if the author goes around correcting audience interpretation, because that makes for an absolutely insufferable fan environment. even when authors are aware of fan culture and try to phrase their gripes with their work's reception as inoffensively as possible, it can still shut down a lot of creative spirit and galvanize fandom hall monitors into taking matters into their own hands. and most authors aren't even that nice about it.

to sum up what I would do (might eventually do? depending on how my life works out?) were I to publish something for wide release, I think I would want to do fairly regular peer review to double check that what I'm writing isn't completely out of alignment with what I want it to be, and I'd probably write some of my own interpretation of my work but keep it out of the way enough that it's clearly not meant to be taken as part of the work itself, and be very clear that my relation and reaction to the text is based on my own mind and life experiences and may not line up with others', and that's fine.

#eatingrosescollab #answered

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monstersholygrail · 4 months ago

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Do you have any monster OCs? or any OCs at all? :o

You are opening Pandora’s box with this question, my love. Goodness gracious, I’m gonna put it all under the cut because the answer is yes, I have many OCs both monster, cyborg, and otherwise!

Thank you so much for asking btw, it was super sweet of you <33

If anyone would like to send in any asks about these then I’d be more than happy to talk about them 👉🏼👈🏼

Tumblr OCs

So, starting off with on my blog, I have 2 OCs! I have Demon Prist, my special boy. His story is that he is a fallen angel who is desperately trying to get back into Heaven and God’s good graces when you come into his life. He’s convinced you’re a gift from God for his devotion all these millennia as you take his pain away.

I also have Ghost bf whose name is yet to be revealed although I do have one! His story (lore drop!) is that when moving to a new city, you’re looking for an apartment and you find him! The two of you talk for weeks before agreeing to a sort of trial run. But before you can get there, Ghost bf dies and you show up to an empty apartment and you expect him to be back soon. When he reveals himself to you the two of you contact each other in weird ways and fall in love along the way.

More to come too!

Book OCs

Then I also have Monster OCs that I would like to introduce here and later possibly turn into books! The first being Wren and Emery. Wren is a bigender Eldritch monster whose favorite show is a monster hunter show where they find monsters and study them. Not actual hunting. Emery was the host of this show with her bf Jonah when a bad werewolf accident happens and Jonah kind of takes over the show. Wren decides to invite the show to his manor to essentially… catch him. All in order to help Emery. It’s very rom-com vibes. Wren and Emery are the main couple (Jonah is bad)

I have Delilah and Augustine with their friends Ivory and Sivan. I want to write their story through an anthology. It’s basically flustered vampire x bimbo human. Delilah is insanely smart, she’s a mortician ironically. But she misses a lot of things right in front of her, hence the bimbo type personality. So it’s a collection of like Augustine constantly getting caught being a vampire bc he’s not smooth or sneaky (anymore) and it just doesn’t click for Delilah. Which makes Ivory, her best friend that’s also a secret vampire, insane. She’s a hypocrite but her and Auggie have a fun dynamic.

Thirdly, I also have Zella and Senén. Sen is a hybrid wolf who ran his own mafia when his men thinks he betrayed them and the cops are on his tail. So hides as a puppy hybrid in England with an American woman named Zella who’s there looking after her sick grandmother. He has to maintain his facade even as he finds it all super demeaning. But he falls for Zella and starts getting comfortable in this new life when trouble turns its head back around on him.

Next I also have this idea for a futuristic serial fiction that would span over at least 100 chapters. It’s sci-fi fantasy. Think Nimona-ish but darker. It’s ultimately kinda cyberpunk but from the opposite perspective of it for the most part. It follows Nora or Noor and she’s in the II (Iridium Imperium) also known as the eyes. It’s a guild that protects the city like law enforcement and they’re all cyborgs with special magical gifts. Their whole city runs on guilds it’s a requirement to be in one within city limits. Only those with magical gifts can join The II. The story covers the climatic and intense downfall of The II and ultimately Nora herself as everything she’s ever known is destroyed and she’s the last to accept it if she ever really does. She has at least 3 romantic partners over the course of the series but I’m unsure if I want her to end up Ren, her enemies to lovers man from outside the city limits who understands her far too well, her ex Gio who abandoned her in order to join the resistance but always comes back for her whenever she needs him, end up with them both in a throuple, or if she should end up alone! It’s a huge world and many OCs within this world.

The working title of this next one is called Grimoire Gargoyles! It features Giselle who’s a librarian working in France at a super old library. She finds herself in the restricted section and reads out loud from a book. Accidentally releasing two French Revolution Gargoyles from their prison stuck on top of the library. Now that Francois and Bastien are free they try and leave but find themselves drawn back to Giselle. Revealing themselves to her she isn’t afraid given that monsters are a normal sight in their world. Though Gargoyles have been extinct since the Revolution. Together they work together to try and finish the spell to release them from their curse and fall in love along the way.

More include a heist trilogy with a Dragon jeweler for the King and a thief, a dryad who accidentally performs a mating ritual with an ancient dragon at a festival celebrating his supposed vanquishing, a vampire stalker who stalks a human after tasting her blood for the first time but then stops and she starts stalking him bc she’s upset he stopped stalking her, a dragon hybrid and a griffin hybrid who exchange mating symbols as kids and basically betroth themselves to each other but he’s meant to marry her sister and years later they go through the marriage trials together not knowing it’s impossible for him to marry someone else.

Other Book OCs

My oldest OCs are from last November and it’s called Crafting Constellations. It’s an elf world and all high fantasy. The first book follows Soleil and Peracles. Peracles is the heir to a Kingdom that’s only ever had female rulers and Soleil is his general. They have a forbidden romance going on and have to work together to figure out the evil plot against the crown by an unknown force. See art of them here. Its sequel features Cane, Peracles’ royal advisor and Soleil’s ex, in his heartbreak when he saves Pera from being poisoned. He gets into an enemies to lovers with Pera’s assassin named Astraea. Then the third book features the antagonist as the main character Nova and she kidnaps Viyan, a co-worker of sorts with Astraea in order to get revenge. Then I have a secondary series featuring all 4 of Peracles’ brothers with love interests. Also a prequel that’s a sapphic tragedy with Peracles mother and her own general.

Then my second oldest OCs named Prudence and Narada. It’s another sci-fi fantasy series. Prudence is a part of a faction that has the power to get into another persons mind and read it and control it. A long time ago her faction was deemed too dangerous to stay alive so they made them extinct. And for over 100 years they’ve been living in secret and pulling the strings of their entire world Janeus. Her coven sees into the future and ensures fate stays on course. So they kill the emperor of one of the empires so that his son takes over: Narada. Prue goes there, hiding her eyes as their powers are revealed through eye color. And she successfully manipulates him but they fall for each other along the way and she ends up betraying her coven and revealing herself and their plan for the young emperor. Prue is convinced that she can fix things and manipulate fate all on her own but their world slowly begins to perish and she realizes her mistake. When she gets a “chosen one” prophecy with herself as the one to defeat, she learns to accept fate and that you can’t control it as she thought.

More include a fae hunter x fae lord that’s kinda similar to Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride lol, two demons and a human working at a casino and underground fighting ring that helps them hide from the world when their pasts catch up to them, and a biblical apocalypse where the world is split into the seven deadly sins and the Lord of Greed and a man working for the Lord of Lust inadvertently work to bring the second coming of Christ.

And I’m sure there’s even more that I’ve forgotten or that have slipped my mind!! I have so many plots in my head that it’s hard to focus on any of them lol.

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gremoria411 · 4 days ago

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*The following contains spoilers for Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance*

This is a follow-up post to my earlier one covering the first two episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance. I’ll link it here but I’ll probably be covering a lot of the same points

I’m also going to completely give the game away right now: I don’t find Requiem for Vengeance to be a good show. Probably the nicest thing I could say is that that the designs are nice. It has some good ideas, it just really mangles the execution.

A lot of these are notes I made as I was watching the episodes, and I specifically rewatched episodes 4 and 6, because I’ve got a lot to say about them relative to everything else.

Characters

Is the only reason they made Iria a mother so they could justify her empathy towards the enemy pilot!? Like motherhood isn’t a necessary component of caring about other humans. You can just do that.

Follow-up: Iria doesn’t really express much affection towards her actual flesh-and-blood child during the show. He’s presumably in Zeon somewhere, but he never appears except in photograph. But her actions at the end of the show….. really don’t help.

Major Ronnay’s odd. Because he kinda feels like the only sensible character/the only character who’s aware of the wider situation - the war’s starting to turn against Zeon, and shifting to shepherding his resources to compensate for disrupted supply lines feels like a good decision at this point, not picking fights with the Earth federation’s newest prototype. Ronnay also marshalls the group’s evacuation from Earth. Yeah, he’s mean to the protagonists, but he’s under a lot of stress and he’s in charge of a worsening was situation. It’s just quite odd to see the only character who indicates a wider understanding of the conflict presented so negatively. That said, it’s not like he’s really immune to the bad acting and dialogue. When talking about dead civilians in episode 4, he sounds more bothered that they died for something so measly, as opposed to the fact that they were innocent people caught up in a war that had nothing to do with them.

I really don’t like Captain Zydoss. He kinda just exists to verbally explain other characters backstories, or to tell other characters that they’re in the right. There’s no real character here. Man straight-up says: “Those soldiers? They were just doing their jobs.” That is not a line I’m really enthused about hearing in a show like this, because it makes me question what the fuck the writers were trying to say here.

I kinda already made a post about this, but I really don’t like Yuri Kellerne in this. The design’s awful, he only shows up to say to the viewers “Yeah, Iria was right, also she’s a cool dude who doesn’t afraid of anything”. He doesn’t really do anything, and it just feels like a “see 08th MS team fans, it’s that character you like!”.

To be honest, I didn’t really have strong opinions on the other characters. There just isn’t a lot there to care about honestly.

Story

Okay, so “War is Hell” just isn’t a theme here. That’s kinda the main problem. There’s no real attempt to humanise the Earth Federation or present them as anything other than largely faceless. I’ve noted before that “War is Hell” is kinda the main thing that makes Gundam work in my opinion, because it’s really noticeable if it isn’t there. It’s just a very by-the-numbers military series. There’s no real “hook” or idea that it’s putting forward. It might’ve helped if Iria’s squad mates had been better characterised, so there’d be a sense of them having actual plans beyond the war. But, ultimately, they die because of the federation’s new mobile suit - not because war is an ultimately horrifying and tragic thing. The presentation just doesn’t line up for me at all.

I do think the emphasis on the watch is good, because it emphasises that time is running out for Zeon. But it never really comes up again after the first two episodes.

The voice work really brings it down, because there’s just no way for the scenes to have any real gravitas or impact when the voices are this poor.

I think another problem is that the opening episode(s) with the Gundam sell it as a threat too well - it effortlessly wiped out Iria’s entire team, as well as numerous other Zaku’s that challenge it while Iria’s scrambling around in recovery. It shrugs off machineguns, bazooka’s, a fuel tanker…… so any attempts by Iria to bring the fight to it just feels utterly stupid, because there’s no real reason it shouldn’t just wipe out another two Zaku’s. The fight in episode 4 is particularly obvious - the Gundam just slowly approaches, it’s doesn’t exhibit any of its trademark speed and never presses the advantage. There’s never a sense that any damage dealt to it is “earned”, it just takes a hit because the plot demands it.

Okay, the dress turning to blood thing was ambitious, and if it had worked would’ve been really cool. But fabric and liquid are hard to animate at the best of times, so one to the other in a show like this was never going to pan out.

You can really tell this was made by former transformers alumni. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, just some of the shots are very transformers-esque.

Wait, doesn’t Iria’s comment about not shooting disembarking pilots directly contradict the actions of the federation forces earlier in the show? Also didn’t she just tell her squadmate to kill him? Oh, getting out of his mobile suit and trying to escape in order to come back in a fresh suit? Oh well, it just wouldn’t be sporting to kill him now, better let him go.

“I wasn’t aiming to take out the pilot! This is our best chance to take out the Gundam!” “At what price, lieutenant?” I dunno, two enemy combatants that were just trying to kill you? And have killed your allies? In a warzone? Seems like an odd time to develop a conscience, Iria. It’s not necessarily off-brand for Gundam, but it’s just so hackneyed. Iria recognises the Gm pilot and later the Gundam pilot as human exclusively, but the infantry and tank gunners were apparently fair game.

Follow-up: Iria also randomly spares a Guntank in episode 6. A Guntank that could very easily shoot down Zeon HLV’s that Iria is currently defending. I feel like that was unwise.

To be clear here, I’m not criticising the decision to have Iria spare characters, I’m criticising the decision to present it in this way - it causes Iria to come off as hypocritical and careless to ignore active threats, and the rationale of why she’s sparing them never comes up.

The URMC guy helps the cast attack the enemy (such as in episode 4). Doesn’t that kinda spit in the face of his neutrality?

Oh hey, I was so busy talking about the poor character writing that I almost forgot to mention the false flag operation. Y’know, that thing that is illegal under wartime law? That the characters commit when they dress up as Federation forces in order to steal the GMs? Yeah, that. Like, I know it’s par for the course in shows like this (like 0080), but it still feels odd to see it presented in such a heroic fashion. It just would’ve felt better if the characters had acknowledged that it was a sketchy/desperate thing to do (like 0080), rather than playing it completely straight.

It kinda feels like they came up with the title first, and then introduced elements to fit with it - Iria being a violinist just feels very vestigial, and vengeance…… either isn’t a theme or it’s badly executed enough that I didn’t notice it (characters talk about it a lot, but not to any real purpose).

Okay, the combination of character animation, voice work dialogue and the fact that Iria probably has a concussion makes the fact that Iria decides to pilot her Zaku in episode 6 (unintentionally) really funny. Because she’s giving this big dramatic speech with swelling music, but it genuinely just feels like this is the shock and concussion talking, so I just expect her to step on to the truck and fall flat on her face.

We can swear now, great, good for us. That isn’t an excuse for the dialogue to be as bad as it is.

Alright, I fully fell off on episode 6. I’m sorry, it crosses the line from plain old regular bad to hilariously bad for me. It’s like the hyper-realistic faces coupled with the absolutely terrible animation and voice acting just blends together into something completely farcical.

“Machineguns are not effective, aim for the treads” *continues firing*. Also, did they just forget that guntanks have missile launchers?

There’s kind of no real sense of flow to the fights either. Everything moves as fast as it needs to. Stopping stock-still in the middle of a combat zone is a death sentence, so it’s really noticeable how frequently Requiem for Vengeance stops fights so its characters can have dramatic conversations. This is very, very noticeable in episode 6.

Wait hang on. Iria: “The Earth Federation’s Won, We’re just trying to retreat, please let us go” Gundam Pilot: “Then surrender, if we let you terrorists go you’ll just attack us again later” Iria then proceeds to not surrender. Furthermore, Zeon is withdrawing military personnel and war material like mobile suits, which they will use against the Earth Federation in the last months of the war. Isn’t the Gundam pilot completely in the right here? But the presentation of the scene seems to be trying to put Iria in the right. But what the Gundam pilot’s saying is correct. Zeon did start the war, and will continue attacking the Earth. So it feels like the narrative is presenting the Gundam pilot as being in the wrong simply by their nature as a child soldier thrust into this war. They didn’t have a choice, they need Iria (who’s a mother, by the way) to tell them they have a choice. The narrative places the fact that they’re a mother and child over the fact that they share a common humanity. It’s such a stupid choice.

“Zeon forces were driven completely out of Europe and Asia” that’s a funny way of saying “we were driven off the entire Earth”.

Other stuff (mostly Setting and Visuals)

I do like the little Zaku ears, they’re nice.

So why is the character covered in highly identifiable Zeon tattoos considered for an infiltration? Just a note.

The mobile suits are pretty dang gorgeous.

The Gundam pilot has a Nintendo switch.

Sooooo…… no mention of why they’re going to Odessa? No reason that might be relevant to anything?

I will probably do a small post on Loum. Because this is gonna annoy me.

Can the Gouf’s fly in this? It’s really throwing me. Because they shouldn’t be able to, but it looks really cool? Maybe they just didn’t want to model Gouf flight types.

Yes, Requiem for Vengeance, I enjoyed the Gouf Custom in 08th MS team as well. Can I please have literally any other mobile suit. (Yeah, it’s cool, but it’s not cool enough to carry your entire show).

Follow-up: it feels like the writers wanted to emphasise that the Gouf Custom in 08th ms team could totally have beaten the Gundam if it had needed to. Like yeah, but that’s not important. The point of that scene (in 08th Ms Team) isn’t some kind of dick-measuring of mobile suits, it’s to emphasise Norris Packard’s character and skill, that he made those decisions in service to the wider objective (and to iterate on Ramba Ral and Amuro’s relationship from 0079). It’s not there to demonstrate how strong the Gouf is. I mean, yeah they want you to buy the models, but come on.

In case the ratio of criticism-to-praise above didn’t give it away, I really didn’t like Requiem for Vengeance. It just fails to engage with the theme I consider central to Gundam: “War is hell”. It also doesn’t really humanise any of the opposing side, which while not a deal-breaker, certainly doesn’t help its position. There just really isn’t a lot of character on display here, so there’s little to distract from the bad dialogue, stiff animation and near-comedically poor line deliveries. The human animation and writing really kill the series for me, since they just cripple the shows ability to deliver any kind of impact on its points. Then again, when its points are “The Earth Federation is just SO MEAN you guys”, it’s probably best the delivery’s as poor as it is. I don’t really know what the shows trying to say but it certainly doesn’t seem to be “War is bad”.

It feels like the writers were able to grasp gundam’s thesis of “child soldiers are bad”, but took that to be “people who use child soldiers are bad”, not “the circumstances that war creates will eventually cause children to take up arms for a cause they don’t fully understand, leaving them to have short miserable live of perpetuating the harm they have suffered upon others, as just one part of the horror that war visits upon its victims”. This is emphasised by the ending, which is pretty shit. Despite the opportunity to return home and retire, like multiple other Zeon aces did. Iria instead fucks off and joins the Zeon remnant in Africa, while stating that many of the other soldiers there “don’t have a home to return to, are consumed by hatred or yearning only for a glorious death on the battlefeild”. THEN WHY ARE YOU THERE. Why are you perpetuating the conflict by throwing in with remnant groups? How the hell is this supposed to prevent child soldiers from happening? Go home.

Plus, the way Zeon’s presented here seems kind of…… dishonest. Like it’s not incorrect or canon-breaking, it just seems to skirt around a lot of details in order to paint Zeon as, for want of a better term, “less evil”. So, we have characters mention The Battle of Loum, without mentioning what Loum was. We have characters note the worsening war situation, without engaging with why Zeon’s on the back foot. The characters retreat back up into space, but it isn’t stated what they’re retreating from. You’d expect someone to mention the actual wider war situation. I know they’re soldiers, and they’re likely fed a steady diet of Zeon propaganda - but then why not let us see that propaganda, note how the characters engage with it. Do they agree, disagree? Do they take it as gospel, accept that the principality is covering up some things or rage that it’s blatant lies? How does Zeon, the nation, its leaders and its governance affect these characters? The choice to completely ignore it seems wrongheaded and, as above, dishonest. There’s no hint of Zeon’s fractious command structure here, that the upper brass are too consumed by infighting to heed the wider war situation. There’s no mention of Garma Zabi, late commander of the Earth Attack Force, who presumably the characters would have a lot of opinions on. Requiem for Vengeance doesn’t exactly paper over Zeon’s failings, it just doesn’t mention them. I find it interesting that of the “big three” Zeon Earth Commanders (Garma Zabi, Yuri Kellerne, and M’Quve) we only see Yuri, who’s arguably the softest of the three. Like, M’Quve is right there, you guys. There’s even a Tony Takezaki illustration that could be used as a basis to adapt his design to the new style:

And M’Quve would have been the perfect opportunity to showcase Zeon’s fractious upper command. So his omission just feels glaring (much like the illustration). Major Ronnay’s perhaps the closest to being a member of Zeon High Command, but he’s essentially the stock “Commander whose orders the protagonist disregards” archetype. I *could* describe him as the most humanised out of the cast, but that feels like I’m reaching. There is Joshua Stein (the commander in the first episode, who originally calls the Red Wolves in), but he feels more genuinely incompetent, rather than saying anything meaningful about Zeon as a whole - his failings are more personal, rather than symptoms of a wider problem with Zeon Command (and in any case he’s only got around three scenes, so it’s difficult to glean anything from him).

Slight follow-up, but we’re also not told anything about the Battle of Odessa. I noted in my posts in the run-up to the release of Requiem for Vengeance that it takes place shortly before the Battle of Odessa, which was the big turnaround for Zeon’s fortunes on Earth, leading to a mass retreat back up into space. This is a *big thing* in the wider war, because it is where the Federation finally gets its momentum (and mobile suits) going and essentially forces Zeon into the back foot, a position they never really recover from. For all the series loves to bang on about Loum, it never mentions Odessa. Part of this is excusable - Zeon would likely downplay its loss as Odessa to keep morale high, and the characters may not have received accurate reports yet, but I’d just like someone to mention it - “seems Odessa didn’t go to plan” or just something like that. Because it’s the whole reason they’re retreating in the last few episodes and no-one says anything.

I’d ordinarily be pretty easy on the whole “Zeon’s War for Independence” thing, since it’s an example of how the populace of Zeon was motivated to fight, but it’s a lie. It’s a lie told to justify the One Year War (and subsequent acts of spacenoid aggression). Like, there’s no problem with the characters believing the lie, but presenting it completely straight feels off. Like, if there was just one instance where it was acknowledged that maybe we shouldn’t trust the motivation of the guys who declared war and dress like space nazi’s, then cool, but the series doubles down on this impression by Iria’s statement at the end that the war didn’t really end as far as she’s concerned. Again, no problem with Iria believing that, by all accounts that’s how a lot of Zeon Remnant Groups saw the situation but it just reads oddly when talking about the One Year War. It kinda makes the series feel like in-universe propaganda or revisionist history, because at no point does it acknowledge that maybe Iria isn’t that reliable of a narrator.

Iria: “and so, to prevent more children from becoming child soldiers, I became a deadbeat mom.”

So yeah, Mobile Suit Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance - the mechanical design and opening’s pretty nice, but they really can’t carry the rest of the show and over time the dull plot, uninteresting characters and awful voice acting really just sap away any initial goodwill I possessed. The fact that it seems utterly unwilling to engage with *why* the war happened and *why* Zeon lost is particularly irritating, since (by its nature as a Zeon-focused show) it’s in the perfect position to talk about those questions.

#kicking this out the door because I’ve been working on it way too long #Wanted to do a comparison with Gundam IGLOO but I didn’t want it to take any longer than it has #Its one of those topics where I’m consistently like - and another thing -#gundam #ramblings #long post #Mobile Suit Gundam Requiem for Vengeance #gundam requiem for vengeance #requiem for vengeance #iria solari #mobile suit gundam #One Year War #Shout-out to that one article I saw that suggested requiem for vengeance might be better than Igloo

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theobsidianempress · 5 months ago

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JJK AU Idea

So I had this idea for band au. Don’t get me wrong, I know everybody’s done a band au. Maybe I’m the same. Maybe I’m different but just hear me out. So I was thinking a punk rock/alt band Au with Nanami, Choso, Satoru and Suguru. Maybe one other person but I can’t think who to add. Maybe that’s where the Oc or reader comes in- depending on how I write it. Like a member of their band quits and now they need a new (insert person here) they pick pc/reader but there there’s shipping.

Who does she go for? Should I write it an otome game? Different choices lead to different outcomes? Or should I just pick someone and go with it? Because I think writing it like an ultimate game would be fun and like after chapter 3 or 4 that’s kind of the person you would pick and go from there. I also think this would be really fun opportunity to collaborate with other writers like people who specialize with not writing for Nanami or people who specialize in writing for Gojo that kind of thing so that way they could write the route the right way you know what I’m talking about?

Anyway, this was just a random thought. I had let me know what you guys think. I should do. I kinda like the idea of collaborating with other writers for like an otome type story. I think writing just a regular OC story would be fun too.

I was also thinking about maybe having like a whole rival we going on with like the main band they would call themselves a sorcerer and then like Sukuna would show up with his own band and then it’s like they called themselves the King of curses because of course he wouldn’t need the band after himself. Maybe there’s some “I’m gonna steal your girl” action or something. Idk… anyway thank you all for reading this if you got this far.

Also, I almost forgot happy #Pride! Love you all; as a fellow, bisexual and part of the LGBTQIA+ community - you are valid, you are loved ,you are worthy. Be safe and stay blessed.

#jjk #jjk manga #jujutsu kaisen #story writing #writer mood #gojo satoru #geto suguru #nanami kento #choso kamo #oc x canon #jjk au #writers on tumblr #fanfic #ideas #collaboration #otome game #otome story #punk rock #band

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accirax · 1 year ago

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DRDT New Character Talent Analysis

WHO ARE THESE GUYS???? GOING CRAZY GOING STUPID

Ahem.

As likely everyone has now seen at this point, DRDTdev made a very exciting announcement on Twitter– namely, that he’s been working on another fangan alongside DRDT! (Very relatable, once you make one fangan it’s kinda hard to stop.) Understandably, assuming this fangan is ever developed in full, it will be several years down the road, given that it would only be published after DRDT is complete.

However, we have these designs now, and I wanna know what their talents are, dammit! The blurb says that they are students trapped in a killing game, so I assume that they have been given Ultimate abilities. Thus, here’s my best shot and first look analysis. I tried not to look at anyone else’s work too much before presenting my opinions in order to get them out as fast as possible, so, sorry if I missed any major details that people have uncovered!

Notably, when I downloaded the images to my computer (so I could look at them without waiting for the website’s load time), all of them saved with weird number/letter codes. These probably mean nothing, although they do all end with “_o”, which could indicate that they were put through a code scramble of some kind. At the very least, the codes are a kind of convenient way to refer to the characters, so I’ll use the first three letters as a name. Also, I’ll be using they/them pronouns for all characters, since we don’t know how they identify.

We’ll start with the Protagonist, and go alphabetically by code from there. I’m so excited!!! Here we go:

I’m glad that this guy is basically confirmed as the Ultimate Teacher, because I honestly have no clue what I’d call them otherwise.

The main thing I noticed throughout their design was the repetition of red undertones everywhere. You can see them in two places: on the jacket, and in their hair. We know from the July 31st Q&A that characters in the Despair Time Fanganronpa Universe (DTFU) see blood as red, and that Monokuma’s color palette is black, white, and red. It’s kind of a suspicious color– the children’s hospital color theory of it all. O-or, maybe it’s just their favorite color…!

The bows in n9Z’s hair kind of remind me of the one on Peko’s sword case (sorry I didn’t put in a picture), although I doubt there’s a connection there. The gloves make me think of something fancy, the trenchcoat makes me think of a detective, the ID makes me think it’s something top secret… dude, what are you doing?

I guess there is the question of what exactly this person teaches. If we assume they’re the teacher Min mentions in A History of Hope’s Peak, it seems like the answer would be, “Ultimates.” If you want to teach Ultimates, you need to know and be able to do a lot of stuff, so that could explain the utilitarian design. They could have also initially had a background as something else, such as a government agent or employee of XF-ture Tech, before winding up as a teacher.

The fact that their eyes are always closed is also notable. Given DRDTdev’s penchant for putting important stuff in the eye designs, it’s possible there’s some important info in there that he's not ready to release yet. Like, if n9Z had black/red heterochromia or something, that would send us spinning. (Personally, I’m kinda hoping there’s an apple in there…) I also had the thought that n9Z might just permanently have both of their eyes closed, kind of like how Setsuka Chiebukuro of SDRA2 always keeps one eye closed. That would be a cute parallel to Min, whose eyes are always obstructed.

So, yeah. Ultimate Teacher, probably. Despite the fact that we more or less have their Ulimate talent, I somehow feel like we know the least about them…

My first impression of this person is that they’re definitely athletic in some regard. The ponytail that ends in a braid would be keeping the hair out of their eyes, and the athletic shoes would be helpful for running around.

About the marks under the eyes... While the comparison to my superhero design for Arturo is still a lighthearted jest, the reason for them being there may be fueled by the same reasoning. The superpower that @1moreff-creator gave Arturo was a skill that involved his vision, so I put those marks under his eyes as a natural mark that would mimic eye black. If you don’t want to read the entire link, eye black is those lines of paint (or sometimes stickers) that baseball or American football players wear under their eyes. While it’s not entirely scientifically proven, the point of the marks is supposed to be absorbing the rays of sun around the eyes to reduce the glare you would see. Thus, 0a6 may have these marks under their eyes to make it easier to see in a fast-paced situation (even though they're not particularly dark in color).

Additionally, if we didn’t already know who the protagonist was, I would guess it was 0a6. They have an ahoge in very much the same way that Teruko does, and they share an eye design with Hajime Hinata. The styling of their belt buckle also reminded me of how truth bullets are designed. However, 0a6 is NOT the protagonist, which must mean that these things mean something else. I don’t have much to say about the ahoge, but the eye design might instead imply that this person’s talent has to do with rejecting, opposing, or ending something. The bullet could be a regular bullet, and therefore imply that this person’s talent has something to do with guns.

For whatever reason, the hairstyle already made me think Ultimate Archer at first glance, so with the gun thing, I’m going to submit my guess as Ultimate Sharpshooter. This talent (and other slight variations of it) shows up pretty commonly in fangans (Kiyoka Maki of DRA, Desmond Hall of P:EG), and for good reason. It’s a talent that gives off a cool vibe, a potentially level headed yet aggressive personality, and can obviously be involved in many cool murder tricks.

My other guesses besides Ultimate Sharpshooter are in a similar ballpark– aforementioned Archer, Ultimate Bounty Hunter, Ultimate Spy, etc– but I could be way off track. I don’t see any weapons on 0a6, which would be weird for any of those talents. It could be more of a Debater type talent (with the eye symbol and truth bullet), or the blue gloves could hint at something more scientific (a la Charles and Arturo), although I don’t see the benefit to the sporty under-eye mark in either of those cases.

3Km is interesting, because they’ve got a lot going on. Hexagons, fire, zebra print– put it all together, and what does it mean? One interpretation is that their personality, too, is a lot.

I was immediately drawn to the markings on the left side of 3Km’s face, because I don’t know what they are. They could be angry veins, but… I don’t think veins really work like that in the shoulder. It’s far more than the typical anime stylization, not in the same place, and they don’t look particularly angry, so that's probably wrong. In that case, it’s probably a scar. But, what kind? Acid? An animal? Fire, like the symbol on their shirt?

Let’s move on for now and take a look at their pants. There’s a zebra pattern, which could imply a connection to animals/zoos or travel/Africa. The kind of pants they’re wearing are called chaps, which, hey, are typically ridden by horse riders! They’re meant to protect the rider’s legs from “thorny vegetation, extreme temperatures, and the animals they work with.” That definitely makes it seem like the zebra is important, as an equine animal.

Thus, my guess for this character is Ultimate Wild Animal Tamer. They wear chaps and gloves to protect them from the untamed animals they work with, yet they may have gotten a scar from a taming gone wrong. They’re strong so that they can get the upper hand, and the fire and piercings could speak to their rebellious, similarly wild personality. @venus-is-thinking also suggested that, as a Wild Animal Tamer, this character could work in the circus, which could further explain the flamboyant clothing and fire motif. They definitely seem like a character who could be putting on a show.

As for the other character pictured… that person is almost certainly 3Km’s sibling, likely a twin. However, as a fellow member of the killing game cast, we’ll get to them later! For now, let’s check out somebody else.

This character is one of the ones that I’m the most baffled about. They don’t wear a lot of symbols or field-specific clothing, so, it’s kind of a shot in the dark.

They definitely seem kind of fancy, what with the super swirly hair. Square scarves also typically seem to be worn in professional circumstances for stylish people. They’re wearing a lot of layers (including said scarf and a sweater), so it’s possible they work in a cold environment? Or maybe they just naturally run cold. There’s a lot of draping elements in their clothing, between the folded jacket and two-layered skirt, but that doesn’t really correlate to a specific location or profession.

The eyes patterns are also weird. They’re very spiky and not perfectly circular. What they reminded me of first were either an explosion, a loud noise, or a circular blade distorted while spinning quickly. Glasses are typically associated with nerdy or smart characters (like Eden and Charles), but anyone can wear glasses, so I wouldn’t use that as a huge selling point.

Anyways, the combination of fanciness, loudness, and potential nerdiness made me think some kind of talent incorporating a voice and art. I had ideas ranging from Ultimate Opera Singer to Ultimate Art Critic. In the end, I settled on Ultimate Stage Director, mostly as a vibe check. I could imagine this character ordering writers, actors, and set designers around with the goal of following their vision. A person like that who’s used to being in charge could be an interesting figure in a killing game. Again, though, I don’t have super strong feelings about this, so I’m extra looking forward to learning more.

I was going to slam dunk this one as the Ultimate Shepherd until @fuji-iri pointed out to me that there’s actually a sewing needle pattern in their eye! I’m kind of glad, because it gives me more to talk about and might explain some of the weird things I noticed if this character were the Ultimate Shepherd.

Besides the sewing needle, the eyes are definitely reminiscent of a sheep. Same with the braids in their hair– they’re arranged in a spiral reminiscent of a sheep’s horns. The cloud-like pattern on their cloak, as well as the soft-looking trim, seem fluffy and wool-like. 9lt definitely has a sheep motif, but that doesn’t mean it’s the talent exactly.

9lt’s bell hints at that concept. Although sheep often wear bells, according to google images, they’re more often regular bells than the circular bell depicted in their outfit. It seems like sheep can wear these bells, but they’re more commonly seen on cats.

There’s also a strong focus on pastel colors in the design, particularly pink. The design is very fun and childlike, it’s silhouette appearing smaller due to the large bow and lack of visible arms. (They’re also just pretty short.) The cloak, which obscures most of their body, kind of reminds me of Toshiko Kayura of P:EG. Small, cute, and childish, yet kind of mysterious and strange: that’s the vibes this design is giving me.

Given the sewing needle, it’s tempting to give this character a talent in fashion design. They do have a very specific style, which could play into their designs. However, with the strong connections to animals and fluffiness makes me think that they actually might be something along the lines of the Ultimate Plush Maker. It’s cozy and cuddly while also involving the sharp eye (of the needle) that a creator needs to have.

Now, this is a character with a lot going on. They’ve got symbols all over and a really fun hairstyle, so, let’s see how it could all fit together.

One of the aspects that first caught my eye was the flower in hwR’s hair. I’m pretty sure it’s a dandelion, which could be read in a couple of ways. The first is that a dandelion is a weed. hwR could be a character who often isn’t wanted, but manages to persist regardless. Secondly, dandelions have a lot of medicinal benefits if you consume them. So, hwR could be a character focused on health, especially in alternative ways. Thirdly, there’s the superstition that blowing on a dandelion will grant you a wish. I’d lean against this one because the dandelion isn’t… ripe(???) enough to be blown on yet, but the interpretation is still there.

The bunny symbol also has a lot of interpretations. As I listed out in the image, some options are good luck, longevity, opportunity, and adventure. The white rabbit is also a main character in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, which DRDTdev is clearly familiar with if the LGI MV is anything to go by. Generally, rabbits are also fast, cute, and known for multiplying. White rabbits seem to have generally positive connotations, which is a good sign for this character.

Other symbols include the crescent moon and sparkle type shapes, which seem to indicate nighttime or mystery. The symbol in hwR’s eyes is a spiral, which is also mysterious and could have to do with hypnosis. Apparently they also represent the circle of life, which could be suspicious…? Dying and living, killing games, and the like.

Anyways, with all this supernatural and superstitious imagery, I feel like the talent has to deal with something similar. I’m not exactly sure what to call it, or what the specific niche is. The one I wrote down in my notes was the Ultimate Alternative Medicine Practicioner, tying in the medicinal uses of dandelions and therapeutic uses of hypnotism. However, that title is a mouthful, and there are definitely other options. I sort of wanted the talent to just be someone who believes in spiritual practices, but given that a spiritualist is apparently someone who believes in talking to ghosts, the best name I could come up with for that was Ultimate Believer. hwR could also be something like an Ultimate Fortune Teller or a straight up Hypnotist, or a Lucky Student who really leans into the title. There are plenty of options, but I think it’s something in this genre.

This guy is fun! The fashion is pretty plain so there’s not a lot to work with, but I’ll give it my best shot.

As compared to 8CT (the one with the curly hair), Jfl at least has the very obvious symbol on their shirt to point us in the right direction. I’m pretty sure those are audio levels, which means that their talent probably combines something with sound with something with technology. I don’t know why they would need a lot of pockets or a hat with a visor for that, but hey, always good to be prepared.

The hat is pretty plain, but there is that green square on it. It may just be a large tab, as appears on many baseball caps to show off a logo. This one is blank, though, so it could be something else. It kind of looks like the press marker that appears on stereotypical reporter hats in, like, the 1920s, but those weren’t typically lime green, either (unless the black and white movies are fooling me hard).

The overall color scheme plus the fingerless gloves sort of make this character look like an Ultimate Hacker to me, but then I’m not sure what the connection to the audio levels are. They could also be something more like an Ultimate DJ, but the hat, jacket, and cargo pants make me feel like it’s something a little more active/outdoorsy. Thus, I’m going to go with the kinda-compromise that this character is the Ultimate Podcaster. In my mind, they would do some field reporting first (hence something that looks kind of like a reporter hat), and then come back to their home office and talk about it to publish in a podcast.

With my argument about the clothes feeling more outdoorsy, I have a few ideas for what the podcast could be about. The first is something along the lines of hunting cryptids. Jfl goes into the woods, looks around, and then reports their findings in, like, a ghost log. A little more in the realm of realism, Jfl could tail important figures around, either as a paparazzi-type person or someone who’s unraveling a conspiracy, and then release a report on them. That could also get Jfl involved in some kind of scuffle with XF-ture tech, which makes me lean more in that direction.

With the fish scales, knA is pretty obviously nautically coded. Their talent probably has something to do with water, but, in what way? Let’s look at the other details.

Just like Nico, knA has slit eyes. In Nico’s design, it was meant to make them look catlike, due to their profession as the Ultimate Pet Therapist. Similarly, 9lt has horizontal slit eyes, which are meant to make them look like a sheep. It seems like these elongated pupils are meant to make us think of animals, so knA’s talent probably heads in that direction. They also have a catlike mouth ( :3 ) and wear a collar, which (like Nico) makes them lean feline. Maybe it’s a catfish? Or maybe that’s more of a personality beat.

On the other hand, knA’s eye pattern has two circles in it, a larger one that goes around the long pupil and a smaller one that’s sort of hidden behind it. In context, this most reminded me of a sonar/radar system, which sailors use at sea to make sure they aren’t running into anything. Through that lens, the belt(?) that wraps around their leg reminded me of an anchor wrapped around a post. That’s kinda confirmation bias with the water thing, but it may have been intentional.

To be honest, I was really back and forth on whether to call this character the Ultimate Angler or the Ultimate Diver, but by the bolding, you can tell I settled on the former. I liked Ultimate Diver because it would place the character more among the fish (why they’re coded as an animal) as opposed to someone who catches them. But also, cats are known for catching fish, right? Plus, my interpretations of a sonar and an anchor would connect the character to a boat, which is less important for diving and more important for fishing.

Now this is the character that seems to be the talk of the town! And for good reason, too: they have a lot more recognizable imagery that specifically ties them to DRDT than anybody else.

First off, there’s the obvious XF-ture Tech logo, shaped like a hexagon, which appears on u1l’s jacket. That certainly connects them to the company in some way, whether they’re an employee or just someone who received some merch. This is extra interesting given that u1l wears the same pin that Min has on her design. In A History of Hope’s Peak, Min says she was sponsored by XF-Ture Tech, so maybe this guy was, too? It could be a kind of alternate company logo. Or it could have some kind of bug to listen in with. That’d be fun.

Otherwise, it’s pretty nondescript. They have regular eyes, a regular shirt, and a regular ol’ pink tie (other than the connection it may have to the Sleepy MV). The jacket is tied really weirdly at the bottom, kind of looking like a fish tail, but I think it’s a normal jacket. The boot design kind of reminded me of Xander’s, which could indicate that this character has to be prepared to run around.

Pinning down u1l’s talent is kinda hard because… honestly, I kinda feel like they’re just “Ultimate XF-Ture Tech Guy.” Like, they’re clearly connected to the company, and may be here as their representative. Thus, in my notes, I called this guy the Ultimate Technician.

A technician is “a worker in a field of technology who is proficient in the relevant field and technique, with a relatively practical understanding of the theoretical principles.” Is that vaguely tech-ish as hell? Yeah. Is XF-Ture a tech company that also does vague other things? Yeah. Ultimate Technician lets this u1l have a lot of skills yet not have to elaborate on it at all, which is something that I feel like they would enjoy. Just like how they might enjoy how all of us are chomping at the bit to learn more about them, and yet, we probably won’t hear anything for a while…

A very pretty addition to the cast! I love their vibes. Time to figure out what they mean.

There’s a lot here that signifies wealth. The crown hairpin is very obvious in that regard, as is the cape. Purple is often thought of as a color of royalty, and uBg is wearing a lot of it. Same with the cape– it’s an article of clothing often worn by kings. Their eye pattern contains a diamond within a circle. Diamonds are a jewel; wealth, royalty, etc.

This character also has some elements of promiscuity to them. Garter socks (which is what I think is what they’re wearing on their left leg?) are typically thought of as a sexually-charged thing to wear, and their other leg is fully exposed (oh my!). You can also see their bra peeking out from under their shirt, as well as some cleavage. Is this related to talent, or just to personality? I’m not sure.

While it’s tempting to go with something more along the lines of Ultimate Celebrity or Ultimate Heiress, I’m actually kind of partial to my interpretation of Ultimate Treasure Hunter. They wear a crown because it’s the treasure they’ve won, and there are diamonds in their eyes because that’s what they’re looking for! The cape could read as more of a heroic/adventurer thing, and the gloves also feel like ones belonging to someone more active. I’m aware this has nothing to do with the promiscuous aspects, but… like I said, that could just relate to personality! Plus, if you’re traveling the world searching for treasure, you might want a chance to tour the people, too.

Finally, we’ve returned to the probable sibling of 3Km, the potential Ultimate Wild Animal Tamer! If the similar color schemes and eye designs weren’t enough, the fact that their little chibis were obviously paired together makes it pretty obvious that they’re related. Assuming that everyone in this cast is the same age (18+), they would be twins.

However, I also want to propose that 3Km isn’t the only character XWu is “related” to. Remember how I mentioned that the XF-Ture logo was a hexagon? Well, the pattern in 3Km and XWu’s eyes is a hexagon. Could they also have a connection to XF-Ture tech, and thus, u1l? Maybe they’re part of the family who founded the company. It’s a big stretch, but it��s possible. Just wanted to bring it up.

Back to XWu, it’s interesting that they’re probably the twin of 3Km, ‘cause their designs are pretty opposite. While 3Km seems wild, XWu is very fancy. They have a chain, much like uBg; some boots that look sort of princely; and a very fancily-patterned vest. I didn’t notice while I was making my visual, but I think that the vest has snowflakes on it to mirror 3Km’s fire. Honestly, I don’t know if that means it’s more likely that it has something to do with their talents, or less…

I feel like XWu might have some kind of managerial talent. It could be something more business-y, related to XF-Ture Tech, or if 3Km is part of the circus, XWu could be, like, the Ultimate Ringleader. Leaning on the former, I settled for the Ultimate Business Consultant. I was thinking about 3Km going around the world taming animals or whatever, and XWu tagging along, making business connections and deals along the way. The “X” in their bangs makes me think that they might have a talent or personality that revolves around rejecting things. That could lean business leadership, so… yay?

And that’s that! To summarize, the cast of talents as I determined them were Ultimate Teacher, Ultimate Sharpshooter, Ultimate Wild Animal Tamer, Ultimate Stage Director, Ultimate Plush Maker, Ultimate Alternative Medicine Practicioner, Ultimate Podcaster, Ultimate Angler, Ultimate Technician, Ultimate Treasure Hunter, and Ultimate Business Consultant.

Obviously none of this is concrete, and I’m speculating based on very few details. I won’t be disappointed no matter what the talents are because, hey! We get more fangan content from DRDTdev either way! I feel like the Ultimate Winner with that fact.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this, and, if you have alternate interpretations or design elements I missed, I'd love to hear about them! I might make an update if we get any additional information any time soon.

#danganronpa despair time #drdt #drdt mystery fangan #what are people calling it #anyways IT IS DONE #sorry that it took so long everyone i was kinda busy today so i had to keep jumping in and out of it #like i said i really haven't looked at what other people have said yet so i have no idea if i'm #A) repeating what everyone has said already #B) totally off the mark with others' beliefs #or C) the only person who's attempted this at all so far #and that's not even counting websites that aren't tumblr. gosh #this was fun though! ultimate designs are always so creative :)#my theories #every day there is more drdt content to analyze /pos

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