#I like him remorseless as much as I like him remorseful

[kelpiemomma]

going feral for khan @ psi and inflicting it upon my followers this good 4 am morning before I go to sleep-

Thinking of khan wanting so badly to be good for ingo and Akari that he tries to tamp down on the things he does, the fighting and killing and cruelty, but it begins to set him alight. There's no other outlet quite like battling an alpha, not even going up against Ingo can compare. The spark of joy he gets from killing someone who annoys him, someone he sees as threat in some way, that not even making Akari laugh can approach because it's _not the same_. Knowing that he _could_ torture someone and knowing that he doesn't _have_ to but now he is telling himself he _can't_ and so the only person he _can_ torture is himself, except it will be noticed if he tries to cover up his arms, tries to hide new scars, he is too well _known_ and being well known means he is easily _found,_ he can't hide like he used to, doesn't _want_ to

But he _needs_ the aggression that has become his nature, needs the pain, the feeling of power and strength that he's found in his damned actions, not like how an addict needs a fix but he needs it like the worst itch to scratch, the painful tooth that has to be touched, needs it like _breathing_ because it is no longer a part of him but _who he is_

Khan loving them as much as he's capable but _regretting_ it because he _knows_ it's only going to hurt them all in the end, wishing be could turn back time and _stop_ himself from being so pathetic, so easily swayed by the visions of his younger siblings, wishing he could save Ingo and Akari from the ache of knowing his deeds and watching him struggle to _not_ follow through on his urges, desires, _needs_

He is tearing out his own vicious teeth for the chance to get an affectionate pat on the head and he hates it as much as he doesn't

[fantasywater]

These are the reasons Stolas Horseman still gets dragged for his infidelity even though the circus was supposed to FIX THAT.

This is for Stolas's Western Entergy interpretation and for the fans who agree with it:

Stolas is an adulterer.

No one gets to change the definition of a word just because they don't like it being said about their favorite character.

He's a domestic abuse survivor and an adulterer. Both are true. 

The reason Stolas still gets criticism is because of the execution of how it was written and the Octavia factor.

We were introduced to Stolas and Stella's dynamic with her being pissed that her husband of at least seventeen years cheated on her.

That anger is empathy-inducing to a lot of people because being cheated on, or knowing someone who has, is a relatable experience. It also looks extra disgusting on the one who stepped out when a family is involved.

Even her throwing things at him could be excused because of the context in which it was happening.  

There's a reason why temporary insanity is welcome in legal circles because it gives leeway to the perpetrator in that it asks the question would they have done this awful thing if it wasn't for an extreme mental break forcing them to? 

Stolas's infidelity was that mental break.

Trying to kill him can also fall comfortably under temporary insanity. 

Plus having our protagonists kill innocents as a job also takes the bite out of it. 

It also doesn't help that both Stolas and Stella's voice actors gave their own explanations that pretty much stated what I said above.

Even our first episode was about a cheated-on woman going to extremes, but she was shown in a sympathetic light despite it. 

Yet the very next episode shows the same issue, but because Stolas is a main character we are supposed to fall in line that the adulterer is whose side we should be on. 

Octavia having a mental breakdown(twice now) because of Stolas's infidelity is also not endearing him to the audience.

What he is doing to his child is the biggest reason why his remorseless, continuous, infidelity is not a take-back-my-power move.

The inciting incident for both Stella's recurrent violent anger and death "threats", as well as Octavia's mental breaks, is Stolas's cheating. Therefore what is happening to him now is a consequence of his own actions.

The writing in the problem. We were introduced to a wife and daughter showing anger in different ways because a spouse and father betrayed their family, and yet Viv still expects us to feel sympathetic to Stolas.

In reality, Stolas is the antagonist of Stella, Octavia, and Blitz.

That role was especially blatant in Loolooland.

As for Stella Viv tried to course correct by being heavy-handed in showing her as a cartoonish monster in The Circus. 

However, because of the initial execution of writing her as a scorned wife due to her remorseless, repeatedly cheating husband for a whole season, she has forever poisoned the well for Stolas and she has no one to blame for that but herself.

She is the one who wrote one of her supposedly sympathetic main characters doing Sexual Extortion(Blitz), Adultery(Stella), Mental Break/Child Neglect(Octavia), but then seems to have an issue when a nice chunk of the fandom still thinks only his victims deserve sympathy.

Nevertheless, since the Circus is in the canon now does Stolas owe Stella loyalty and remorse? No. 

However, Stolas is not just a husband. Octavia exists.

Therefore Octavia will always be the reason why his (continuous) infidelity was a selfish and vile act. 

That's also why what's going to happen to him in the leaks is on him.

His karma warranty is up.

The problem is that the karma Viv gives is an illusion because she still wants you to feel sorry for Stolas. That's why there's always a sturdy flavor of demonization in the narrative toward anyone he's harmed to facilitate that.

However, considering the nature of his crimes his comeuppance is deserved, but she still writes like it's not and expects the audience to fall in line.

She also did the same thing with Blitz's issues with him.

So it's a pattern, and it exists because a fujoshi is writing this story. 

It's a failure in the execution when the author's intent and the audience's takeaway is this broken.

[megaderping]

Persona 5 fandom, I beg of you, please stop with the casual (and likely very unintentional) ableism. This is less about one specific person and an overall trend I see whenever people post bad takes on Akechi. Going "Akechi is a murderous psychopath" is harmful because it spreads an unfair stigma about psychopathy and mental illness in general as this "crazy" and violent thing, which has been normalized for far too long. And also, it's just not true. Anyone who thinks Akechi is this "remorseless psycho" (keeping in mind this use of the term isn't great) simply does not have more than a surface level reading of the character. His missable November texts make it abundantly clear that he is not happy with what he's doing under Shido. Which, granted, HIGHLY missable text. You have to basically delay Sae's Palace and not go in at all until mid-November. Engine room, 12/24, multiple times in third sem... his remorse is there, it's just subtle or not presented as shaking and crying and begging for forgiveness, because he's a guarded mess of a person (with deep psychological scars, make no mistake- this is not a healthy kid). But even without those texts, there are plenty of times where these feelings are conveyed. His sad reaction when Morgana explains changes of heart (if he had known sooner), his regrets in the engine room and lamentations about Joker's freedom, and I basically did a whole meta post breaking down the important visual and spoken symbolism to Akechi's character that gets boiled down to "hehehe crazy murder boy". Hate or dislike him? Cool, sure, but the normalization in fandom communities of just throwing around mental illness related terms in a derogatory fashion... really isn't good? Like even if Akechi was literally a psychopath or sociopath or had npd or other specific mental illnesses, that doesn't inherently make him evil, nor does it erase his victimhood, which is so integral to his role in the story.

He killed people, yes. That's not really up for debate, and yes he gets feral and over the top in third sem... but that's just over the top edgelord behavior directed at Shadows and focusing only on that ignores everything else he says and does in third sem, yet it happens so much (even though other Phantom Thieves, like Haru, have fun fighting Shadows too). Are we just gonna ignore all the times he's cool, collected, and reasonable in third sem to throw around this antiquated and hurtful idea of what the word "psychopath" means? ._. Just... blarg. I've made many Akechi rambles/rants, but the normalization of ableism surrounding him is not great? I think it's mostly down to ignorance and lack of media literacy, but yeah. Plus it's kinda fucked up how little weight is placed on Shido for teaching him how to do shutdowns (his own admission), the fact that the moment Akechi revealed himself to Shido, he was screwed, because this is a man who took a bump on the head as a reason to ruin Joker's life.

Idk. I think it's not just a P5 fandom trend, even, because it's so normalized the same way people think OCD is this funny quirky mental condition because of shows like Monk when it's an actual disability that can deeply affect people in horrible ways... Mental health awareness is good is all I'm saying.

[fadelbison]

no but seriously I miss their pre-jojo shows dynamic 😭 this feels kind of artificial at times HDHDZ

HELP don't send me these asks because I open my mouth to say stuff that have people come at me for being an anti asldkjdfldjhg BUT OF COURSE it feels staged they have been blissfully cosplaying whatever character they play on screen and ever since "did not have to audition for" Akk and Ayan Firstkhao's characters have kept diverging further and further from their base personalities and First seems to be at the BRINK of how much play acting he can keep engaged in 24/7 as this occasionally macho butch lesbian. The thing is if you compare their approach to fanservice pre-FK then they had completely different philosophies. First - despite his threeway kiss - was never a big fanservice guy??? Even though Toew Laew brought out the very worst of his anxious people pleasing personality his interactions with the guys were quite regular and bro-ey. He was pretty bro-ey with Gawin too. You wouldn't think it but First does cool pretty effortlessly with a partner when he's not trying to project anything at all. In fact, he spent most of The Shipper "fan-servicing" with Khaotung bless his soul.

But Khaotung is remorseless about fanservice, Khaotung when he was promoting Tonhon Chonlatee was an entirely different human being. Like when you witnessed it happen (like I did) the switch to Ayan was IMMEDIATE like it happened overnight while we weren't looking. And Khaotung just has that personality so gentle and easy going that everything feels very natural. I called him remorseless earlier and I think that was underselling him. It's almost like he does away with any concept of remorse, he's doing his job after all and he's on good terms with everybody. But he did drop Podd FAST. His mom came on that OffGun cooking show and called Podd her son in law and yet I'm not even sure that they were even very good friends hahahahahahahaha But even when Firstkhao are so obviously staged they are each other's exception and that is why I am hooked onto this pair. They are so so so unnormal about each other. Khaotung genuinely lives in First's mind rent-free and he is trying so hard to do this Khaotung's way (because Khaotung's way is the most professional and beneficial to the show and company).

But Khaotung doesn't actually want to (???) This time it feels like Khaotung who is resisting playing into it. And just pointing to my delulu hat for emphasis but I think Khaotung breaks more often now than First. Khaotung revealed that they know we like the size difference. they have been suspiciously playing into it lately even though Khaotung hated to before. It was Khaotung that said "First is resisting his own cuteness" pointing out quite clearly that their dynamic is pre-planned. These aren't huge faux pas since I think it's understood widely that discussion and staging will be involved in branded pairs but I find these delusion-dispelling comments slightly un-Khaotung like. Anyway sorry for rambling for 10 thousand years but GOD I have so many feelings about how fascinating First and Khaotung are just as creatures doing the most confusing mating dance on the planet.

[riverssongs13]

It was already established that Agatha is NOT a morally good character. We've been fed the information that she traded her son's life for the Darkhold, that she is a coven killer, and that she's Jolene, among other things. The Nicky for the Darkhold part may have been false, but that does not diminish the fact that Agatha is an atrocious, terrible person who killed countless people.

Given the knowledge that its presumable she did it to keep Rio busy does not excuse the fact that she did kill them witches. And of course she will have zero remorse over that, because again we're presuming she did it for Nicky.

So why are we suddenly finding issues with how remorseless Agatha is? Did we not spend 8 episodes fawning over the hot lesbian MILF who is unapologetically chaotic and murderous and whose ex is literally Death? Sorry but I don't see where the disconnect is.

"difficult to root for a character who takes advantage of people’s kindness or desperation, and shows zero remorse for it" Uhm again, Agatha is not a good person. She does not need some redemption arc that would cleanse her of centuries scamming and killing all those witches. She's written perfectly as she is.

The montage of Agatha's time with Nicky was not some form of penitence for all the horrible things Agatha has done throughout the centuries. It was just showing how her story started, and how it connects to the events of "now". It even has the "time lapse" of Agatha singing The Ballad with her false covens, which ultimately leads to the basement version. It was not "Agatha is actually not a bad person, see? She loved her son."

"Agatha is a horrible coven killer scammer grifter conman" AND "Agatha loved Nicky so much she pleaded with Death to not take him" are not mutually exclusive statements. They can be and are true at the same time.

Can we please appreciate "bad" characters for who they are? Not everyone needs to be "good". It's okay to like bad characters and its okay for them to be the protagonists. Loving Agatha for being the murderous, remorseless cunt that she is, is okay. Let villains be villains.

[pythagoras180]

Why I Hate Adrien

So a few people have asked me why I hate Adrien so much. I've given it some thought, and I've realized that my hatred comes from 3 sources:

1. Adrien is a passive, useless character and a waste of screentime.

Adrien is a very passive character. He doesn't really have goals that he works towards outside of romance. He doesn't feel like a real person with a real life. He's just an object for the actual main characters to fight over. And to be clear, not every character needs to be active or well developed, but thei screentime should correspond to this. Adrien takes up a massive amount of screentime in the show. And since he ended up being worthless, I feel like he personally wasted my time by appearing so much. His screentime could have instead been used to develop the other characters.

2. Adrien is a creator's pet.

While Adrien doesn't really do anything in the show, I think I still may have felt bad for the character if I felt like this was because the writers didn't like him or something. Thing is, Adrien is the complete opposite, as the writers are clearly biases *for* him at every turn. He's almost always portrayed as right, even in situations where he clearly isn't. "Chameleon" clearly portrayed his "advice" about Lila as good, even though anyone with basic respect for their peers wouldn't be okay with letting them be lied to. There's episodes like "Kuro Neko", where Adrien is very clearly in the wrong amd being unreasonable, yet he's still clearly framed like we're supposed to feel bad for him. Part of the reason he has so much screentime is because the writers love to insert him in every situation they can. Even his status as a passive character can be considered as the writers favoring him. They think he shouldn't have to do anything because he's such a precious boy, so everyone should just do everything for him. I'm not inclined to like a character that I feel is getting special treatment just because of who they are.

3. Adrien does horrible things.

Those last 2 points definitely provide potential for me to dislike a character, but I don't think it's possible for me to actually do so if that character hasn't done anything wrong. Well, despite what the writers want you to believe, Adrien has absolutely done a lot of horrendous things. There's the fact that he continued being friends with Chloé despite her remorseless bullying of Adrien's "friends". He keeps trying to date Ladybug despite her repeatedly rejecting him, to the point where it's straight up harassment. This culminates in "Kuro Neko", where he quits his job of protecting the city because he keeps getting rejected (again, this is portrayed as sympathetic). Like I mentioned before, he tells Marinette to let Lila continue lying to everyone else. And why does he do this? I honestly don't know, and neither does anybody else. There's no rationalization for this moment. But the point is, Adrien put Lila above everyone else for some reason. He also emotionally cheated on Kagami, hurt her feelings, and barely cared afterward. He didn't have to do anything to make up with her, that just worked out on its own. He tried to Cataclysm multiple people despite knowing that it can be fatal, and the only time he displays real remorse over it is when Monarch is on the receiving end. Oh, but he only feels bad for like a minute, then he's fine (I believe that that was just to make Ladybug's exposition about not being able to fix it fee more natural, he wouldn't have shown any remorse if that wasn't necessary). Oh, and then there's that one moment in "Passion" where he pretends not to know what the consequences of making a wish is and tried to convince Ladybug to let him make one. If she said yes, he would have sacrificed somebody else to heal Nathalie. The show has made it clear that this is morally wrong. To me, this is the moment where Adrien became irredeemable. Also, in the Paris Special we find out that Adrien became a mass murdering supervillain in an alternate universe because he's sad that his mom died. He didn't have any grander plan, not scheme to bring her back like Gabriel did. Nope, he just killed people because he was sad, that's how they presented it. I know that this is technically a different person, but the alternate characters from tbe special are meant to be pretty close to the originals, just with different circumstances. So I think this shows who Adrien really is deep down. So yeah, I think Adrien is one of the most despicable "good guy" characters ever.

So that's the reason I hate Adrien, in 3 parts. I wouldn't hate him nearly as much if it wasn't for all 3 components. Kind of a perfect storm really, and I don't think I'll ever hate another character this much, for this reason.

[accirax]

DRDT Secret Swap AU: For Better and Worse

The following is an ask sent to me that, while numerically present in my inbox, is invisible and inaccessible, and thus, I was only able to read it through its corresponding notification email. Tumblr be a functional website challenge; level impossible.

What a great question! Up to this point, I’ve been more of an AU enjoyer than an AU creator (other than the BNHA thing), so this will be an exciting foray into the realm of possibility! The task of creating both the best and worst outcome also provides a lot to think about when it comes to characterization. I’m excited to get talking about this! But first, some rules.

(And the usual CW for DRDT spoilers, as well as mentions of murder, suicide, self harm, eating disorders, and implied homo/transphobia. You know, standard business for DRDT secret discussion.)

To keep things simple, I’m going to be assuming that the true owners of the secrets are as follows:

While I’m by no means asserting that this interpretation of whose secret is whose is 100% accurate, it’s what I see widely agreed upon by the fandom, and what I currently believe myself. Having to factor in a bunch of different permutations of secret distribution seemed terribly complicated, so I decided to avoid it. If anybody disagrees with where I’ve placed any of the secrets, please just consider it as another facet of the alternate universe.

Additionally, I’ve kept up the “rule” that no one is allowed to receive their own secret. I’m also assuming that everything is the same up until when MonoTV hands out the motives, such that Xander and Min are still dead. However, a different distribution of secrets could have changed the details of the Chapter 2 murder, so I kinda have to speak about it in hypotheticals. I was just talking about how I didn’t want to make things needlessly complicated, so I’m not throwing in a bunch of speculation about how the secrets may have factored into the AU killer’s motives when I can’t even say for certain who the canonical killer was.

I also decided to interpret the prompt as “what’s the best/worst overall shuffle” as opposed to “who is the best/worst recipient for each individual secret.” The latter seemed like it might repeat characters too many times, and “the ch2 secrets [getting] swapped in a different way” implied to me that each character was still limited to receiving one secret. Hopefully that’s what you were going for with your ask!

Okay, I think that’s it. Let’s get started with the best case scenario, given that I think that’ll be easier. I’ll go through the characters’ secrets in the order they’re listed in on the board, so that it’ll hopefully be easier to follow along.

The Good Timeline

Eden receives Levi’s secret

If someone was going to have remorse for the remorseless killer, I think it would be Eden. Even if the concept of someone killing in cold blood might frighten Eden, the pair is already off to a good start with the conversation they shared at the beginning of Chapter 2. Eden knows a bit more about Levi’s family situation (which may have been the cause of his callous killing) and how he is trying to be a good person, even if he feels like he might be failing. Compared to others in the cast, I feel like Eden might be more willing to hear Levi out.

Specifically, we know from canon that (under David’s encouragement, at least) Eden planned to share her secret– which was a pretty severe one already– in a closed environment with just her and the secret’s owner. Of course, we haven’t yet seen from canon how Levi would react to getting assigned this secret, so it’s possible he could flip out in a similar manner to how Arturo did when Eden confronted him. However, I think there’s a good chance that he would be more resigned or neutral, which might also give Eden hope that he isn’t a lost cause… again, under the assumption that he isn't. This secret does have a chance of backfiring, but I’m making the choice to have faith in Levi– much like I think Eden would if she saw his secret!

Nico receives David’s secret

Now this is kind of an unconventional one, but, hear me out.

I don’t know if there really is a “good option” for David’s secret in the sense that I think anyone who would choose to reveal the information to the group would be the type to do so in an accusatory, non-constructive way. Similarly, a lot of people who wouldn’t reveal the secret might face problems if it caused them to quietly simmer in their distrust. That suppression of emotions could lead to a big blow up in the future.

Because of that, you might be wondering why I didn’t assign this secret to one of my throwaway slots– namely, Xander, Min, or Rose. Well, it’s because I also wanted to consider what would happen if, even in this good universe, some number of students still needed to attend a Class Trial where the secrets are unknown. Certain secrets, if left unassigned, would lead to paranoia and distrust amongst the students. And, by throwing this secret away, this secret could basically never be confirmed as David’s other than by process of elimination or (highly unlikely) self-assignment. Therefore, all of the students would have to assume that anyone whose secret isn't known has a decent chance of believing that everyone exists to be manipulated. In my opinion, that would make productively discussing a murder really difficult.

So, I decided that the best course of action would be to give this secret to the person who would make the smallest deal out of it, and that turned out to be Nico. Nico already believes that socially interacting with other humans is a complicated and confusing process, the rules of which force you into expressing yourself in a specific, “acceptable” way. Basically, I think that Nico might already see a lot of conversation as manipulation, and themselves as the manipulee. The secret says that David is really good at interpreting those rules and acing the bullet points of “acceptable” conversation? No shit, he’s the Ultimate Inspirational Speaker.

I’m not trying to say that Nico is “dumb” enough to not realize that this secret is generally threatening, but I think that, if word of it were to come out, Nico would present it in a subdued enough manner that it wouldn’t make things worse than they need to be.

Hu receives Ace’s secret

Oh boy, this is a dangerous choice given Ace and Hu’s tumultuous relationship. Although, to be fair, I don’t remember exactly how established that rivalry was prior to the distribution of the canonical secrets. To the extent that they didn’t already hate each other to the point of no return, I chose this one because I think that Hu having the context of Ace’s secret might actually help to mend their relationship.

As I said up top, this AU is predicated on Hu having the “hopeless child” secret. Thus, in this AU, we can say for certain that Hu has a prior history of self harm/self destructive tendencies. If hopeless child Hu does turn out to be canon, it would support the theory that part of the reason why Hu won’t share the “harm yourself for fun” secret is because she knows that mental health is a sensitive subject, and doesn’t want to force someone to open up about it. Given that eating disorders are a form of self harm, we can rest assured that this isn’t a secret Hu would share, no matter how much David suggests that she does.

Given Hu’s history, she might be one of the people in this cast who could best understand Ace’s plight. With this additional context, his quest for power over something in his life might feel more sympathetic, and Hu might be able to muster more concern for him. And, I’m not gonna lie, part of this assignment was granted in the slim hope that the Ultimate Mom Friend Hu would be able to make a big grandma-style meal for Ace to enjoy. They could be an improbably wholesome duo if not for… The Circumstances.

Those circumstances won’t fade anytime soon in canon, but exploring hypotheticals like this are the whole reason why AUs exist!

J receives Eden’s secret

Compared to everyone else, Eden’s secret is a pretty nonthreatening one that, especially among this pretty queer cast, shouldn’t raise a whole lot of issues. The biggest problem I can see arising from it is if someone decided to out Eden, sort of like what happened to Nico. Therefore, I wanted to give Eden’s secret to someone who would be unlikely to share it without Eden giving the okay. And, J seemed to fit that description pretty well.

Obviously, some of J’s canon behavior was spurred on by the fact that Arturo non-consensually revealed her secret (which, spoilers, will not be happening in the blessed half of this AU). But, given J’s preference for privacy, I don’t think J would jump to sharing even a “harmless” secret. We directly saw that J only revealed Charles’ secret once he gave express permission for her to do so, which is what I would ideally want for Eden. Eden’s secret being given to a girl who would presumably be cool with her lesbianism is an added bonus to assuage her fears that (straight) girls who know she’s gay wouldn’t want to be her friend.

Unless, of course, J is also a girlkisser… then maybe the motive secrets could turn into a meet-cute…….. (/j)

Rose receives J’s secret

Finally, our first throwaway slot. After what J’s been through, I think she deserves to have her secret not be a topic of discussion at all– or at least not until all of them are listed out on the board.

There is also some logic behind which secret I gave to Rose as opposed to Xander or Min. We didn’t really see this in canon, but if Whit had let his secret go unclaimed, I could see some people being mad at Rose for inadvertently throwing away valuable information. This sentiment would only increase if Rose’s secret was something more relevant to the case at hand. Like, could you imagine how mad Teruko would have been if Rose had received the “murderer without remorse” secret? They could have had the answer to which person among them was a murderer without remorse, but Rose just carelessly threw it away because she was worried about people’s privacy?!

Therefore, I think the best case scenario for Rose is to receive one of the low-stakes secrets. In the case of J’s secret, it’s possible that someone like Arturo would be able to figure out that it was J’s secret without any confirmation from Rose as long as he had the information that someone in the cast was Mariabella’s daughter. No harm, no foul if Rose throws out the secret only for it to be instantly solvable anyway.

By giving J’s secret to Rose, J gets the blessing of privacy for as long as the secrets don’t become public knowledge, but Rose also doesn’t garner any backlash if they do, for one reason or another.

“Xander” receives Arei’s secret

Just to clarify, there isn’t any meaning behind which secret Xander vs Min got; they both just mean that the secret is un-confirmable.

Arei’s secret is a good one to bury because of how easily it can be misinterpreted. From the phrasing of the secret, nobody would know that Arei’s sisters abused her unless Arei told them herself, and without that context, Arei appears quite villainous. Hell, some people believe that learning of this secret was a reason why Levi would have chosen to kill Arei! If this information about Arei just isn’t out there to be known, then nobody could make that fatal oversight.

Also, Arei already knew what the vague contents of her secret would be, presumably without having seen the actual text. In Ace’s flashback, she quotes David’s secret from memory (because she read it), but when she unveils her own secret, she throws in the detail about reform school which isn’t at all present in the secret’s text. I think it was really important for Arei’s development that she had the agency to reveal her secret at her own pace. By making her secret inaccessible, it removes the possibility that someone else would reveal it before she’s emotionally ready.

Arturo receives Min’s secret

Look at me, pairing Arturo and Min together yet again. What is it about these two that causes me to keep coupling them…? Well, at least this time, they’re paired up because they, like, never talk in canon.

Arturo has proven himself to be a problem when it comes to revealing secrets. Even if he hadn’t been handed Miss Rosales’ dirty laundry, I would believe that he would air out the secrets of whichever nobody he learned about simply due to disrespect. Therefore, I think that giving Arturo a secret that really doesn’t matter is the best course of action. Whether he reveals it on the day the motives were distributed or the day of the Class Trial, most people probably wouldn’t make much of a fuss about an already-dead student’s secret, least of all Arturo. If he doesn’t care about what Min was up to, he wouldn’t stir up any drama by revealing or concealing information.

David receives Xander’s secret

Not gonna lie, I mostly gave this one to David as a form of damage control. I don’t know what he’s going to do with the secret he did canonically receive in the future– whether it belongs to Teruko or someone else, or whether he’s dying immediately or in it for the long haul– but giving David the silver bullet of “the killing game is all your fault” seems like way too much power to hand over. With a dead student’s secret, he doesn’t gain much by telling the truth or have much of a basis to execute a good lie.

The elephant in the room, of course, is that David received Xander’s secret, which is all about the tragically heroic backstory that probably led him to find comfort in David’s speeches in the first place. (And it does paint Xander in a decently positive light– “it wasn’t your fault” erases the possibility that Xander killed his family or whatever.) I imagine that, had David received this secret on the first day, basically a little buffering symbol would appear over his head and he would have to go lie down and stare at the piece of paper for a few hours. Or days.

By distracting David, we can hopefully avoid any of the decidedly negative side effects that him attempting to deduce and reveal everyone else’s secrets caused. While everyone else is growing as a person and whatnot, David can just be… looping the Literature Girl Insane MV in his head, or something. Is that really good for him? Probably not, but these are the heights you can reach when you set out to cause problems.

Arei receives Whit’s secret

Arei already didn’t reveal whose secret she had to anyone, as far as we know. So, if she had the secret belonging to Whit, arguably her closest friend at the start of Chapter 2, I really don’t think she would say anything. That’s good for Whit, because, similar to what I said about Arei herself, I think it’s better for him to have the ability to come forth with his secret when the time is right. Anything else and it might shake up his persona too suddenly and send him fight or flight mode.

I think the biggest potential flaw here is that we don’t know how Arei felt about her mom. Arei is willing to go confront other people about their secrets, so if Arei either really loved or really hated her mom, maybe that would lead her to go confront Whit about what his secret meant. And then, that could lead into him deflecting and looking shady.

That’s not really a huge liability to me, though, so I think this one will be fine.

Veronika receives Charles’ secret

Veronika is a weird case, because whether or not she reveals a secret seems to be based solely on entertainment value. In canon, we’ve seen that she hasn’t yet revealed the “hopeless child” secret because, for whatever reasons, she thinks that’ll make the killing game more interesting. But presumably, if she thought that revealing someone’s secret would make the game more interesting instead, she would have done that.

Because Charles doesn’t remember his brother’s death himself, I don’t think Veronika would see much value in holding it over his head, saving it for a dramatic reaction down the road, or whatever the hell she was trying to accomplish by not revealing Hu’s secret. Therefore, I think Veronika would find it most entertaining to see Charles’ reaction to learning about his amnesia, and tell him pretty quickly.

On the surface, that seems bad. However, I actually think that Charles learning about his secret is… for the best? If you assume that Charles is going to have to learn about this factoid someday, it’s probably better for him if he does it before a Class Trial is called, so that he can be in a more stable mental state. It’s also better for him to do it while he has Whit there to support him, and who knows what could happen between those two in future chapters? Much like Arturo’s assignment, we defuse Veronika’s chaotic power with this one, with the added benefit of potentially helping Charles on his journey to self-understanding.

Levi receives Arturo’s secret

Arturo’s secret was a hard one, because I think most people would react to it pretty negatively, especially with the confirmation that it belongs to Arturo of all people from the start. You could leave it with Eden as someone who seemingly didn’t judge, but given how poorly that situation played out in canon, it felt wrong to leave it in her hands.

Therefore, I gave it to someone who could potentially relate: Levi. He, too, came from a tense family background which he had to leave, and as such, he might better be able to put himself in Arturo’s shoes. While it is possible that Levi could resent Arturo for “ruining” a “good(?)” relationship with his sister (given how Levi struggled to coexist with his siblings), I don’t think it would irk Levi so much that he’d take drastic action against Arturo.

At the very least, we saw that Levi didn’t spill the beans about Arei’s similarly anti-sister secret. By that logic, he probably wouldn’t tell anyone about it, possibly including Arturo. In that case, we avoid Arturo blowing up on whoever was unlucky enough to have to break the news. And, even if Levi did tell Arturo, and Arturo decided to attack, I trust that even an injured Levi could defend himself far better than Eden could.

Ace receives Veronika’s secret

I just don’t think anything particularly bad would happen here. When I imagine Ace receiving this secret, I kinda just think of him going, “what the fuck?!”, and then putting the paper away. As someone who cares immensely about his own safety and image, I can definitely see this secret confusing Ace, but I don’t think to a point where it would really mess him up. It might make him think that Veronika is dangerous and weird, but… well, he already thought that.

Speaking of, especially with this information, Ace is too afraid of Veronika to try to bully her in the same way that he did with Nico. I don’t see any reason why Ace would benefit from revealing this secret, so it would likely remain hidden, which is probably for the best. Honestly, I don’t know if Veronika would care if this secret of hers got out, given that the main reason why people think this is hers is because of the similar sentiments that she already shared with Teruko in a public location. But, regardless, it takes away any ammo Ace might have by making his only target someone who he’s too afraid to take shots at.

Teruko receives Hu’s secret

Completing our little triad of sadness, this is the third instance of me giving a secret involving self harm to someone else who engages in self destructive practices– first Hu with Ace, then Ace with Veronika, and now Teruko with Hu. It obviously sucks that there are so many people in this cast who are struggling with this same issue, but I think it works out well to have them overlap. They’re probably the ones who best grasp the severity of each other’s problems, so they understand the gravity of sharing the information and would take steps to avoid doing that unnecessarily.

But, yeah, there wasn’t much of a reason beyond that for me to assign Teruko here. As a further extrapolation of the above point, though, if Teruko decided to ask Hu about her secret in the same way that she did with Rose, maybe Teruko could provide Hu some comfort about the situation and they could become friends.

Although, thinking about it more, that would actually have a decent chance of backfiring, as Hu might not appreciate having to take on the role of the helped as opposed to the helper, and Teruko might freak out if she felt herself letting her walls down around Hu. But that’s only if Teruko chose to talk to her about it, which is dubious in the first place. I don’t think Teruko would intentionally use this as any sort of weapon against Hu, which is the main criteria I was looking for.

Charles receives Rose’s secret

More unproblematic people being unproblematic. I don’t know if anything weird would happen as Charles’ upper-class upbringing came into contact with Rose’s cash-strapped past, but if it did, it would probably be a positive development for Charles. Y’know, like “realizing that it’s not only wealthy academics who can have talent” or “further learning to recognize his privilege and have sympathy for other people.” Much like what Charles canonically did with Eden’s secret, this one would probably go under the public radar until a Class Trial occurred, at which point Charles would reveal it. And, hey, that’s kind of like Rose’s secret’s canonical fate as well.

I also don’t think that we’d run into any trouble with Teruko possibly learning this one from the note that Charles passed her either, because… again, this was Teruko’s canonical secret, and nothing bad happened. Sometimes no reaction is the sweetest reaction of all.

Whit receives Nico’s secret

Yup, like you implied, Whit receiving Nico’s secret would probably be one of the best options for them. It’s not too much of a surprise. Whit seems to be a pretty securely out bi guy, so he would obviously support of Nico’s identity, and possibly even be someone Nico could look up to for being confident in who they are. On top of that, Whit greatly values privacy, and thus wouldn’t go around immediately shouting, “wow, Nico, it’s so awesome that you’re nonbinary!” He’d only do that if Nico wanted him to, after asking them first. I’m not even sure if Whit would contact Nico about it directly, but even if he didn’t, I feel like Whit would try to find ways to subtly encourage Nico so that they would feel safe coming out themselves. At least, that’s what my bias is telling me.

As a side note, I’m still playing with the rule that Arei sees whatever Whit’s secret is over his shoulder, which is actually what gave Nico’s secret the nod here over Eden’s. We saw that Ace, along with some others, were confused about what exactly the text of Nico’s secret meant. Meanwhile, if attached to Eden, her secret is pretty explicitly about her being sexually attracted to women, and therefore homosexual. I’m not at all calling Arei homophobic (in fact, the concept of doing so makes me very uncomfortable, so please don’t joke about it), but given that the two had been fighting beforehand, it’s possible that Arei would have tried to use the content of Eden’s secret against her somehow (but again, not in a homophobic way).

At the very least, Arei would know something about Eden that Eden might not want her to know, which is bad. I’m not sure if Arei would inherently understand Nico’s secret enough to gain anything of use from it, while Whit and his intuition would definitely understand what’s going on.

“Min” receives Teruko’s secret

Here we go; our other throwaway secret! Part of the appeal of leaving this one in the dark is because… well, we don’t know if it’s true. While the secret doesn’t explicitly state that its owner is the mastermind of the killing game, it’s definitely designed to make you think that’s the case. And, uh, I don’t know if Teruko is the mastermind or not. I recently wrote 1000 words about it, which is equal to one picture.

So, let’s explore both avenues. If Teruko isn’t the mastermind, then sharing this secret around is obviously bad. It would cause people to unwarrantedly distrust Teruko, and possibly even cause Teruko to distrust herself. That could impede the progress of Class Trials, if people don’t trust Teruko’s reasoning anymore, and the progress of deducing the actual mastermind. Therefore, by taking this secret out of circulation, we stop the misinformation from spreading.

Alternatively, if Teruko is the (evil) mastermind, then… aren’t I doing a disservice by not allowing the students to encounter this information? Well, yes, and no. I am preventing them from accessing the deus ex machina of David just outright saying, “oh, and by the way, Teruko is the mastermind!”; that much is true. But, by leaving that information out… aren’t I just leaving them in the same position that most killing game casts are in? They know that one of them is the mastermind, they just don’t know who. And, actually, they have a leg up on the other casts because the mastermind’s identity would still be a logically deducible fact that they could basically confirm if they all worked together. I don’t think it’s too much of a blow to the innocent students if we leave this one out, is what I’m saying.

So, that’s the good ending! A quick graphic to show how everything shook out:

(I swear, I didn’t mean to make it look like Whit was laughing at Nico’s identity. I just reused the sprites from my archetype analysis because I was too lazy to go get new ones…)

Now, on to the bad ending. This one was a lot harder to assign. Given that these secrets were meant to sow discord, there are only so many ways that things can play out well. There are lots of ways that things can play out poorly.

But, hopefully I’ve found the aggregate worst answer! Given that this is, you know… the one where things go horribly wrong, things may get pretty dark in this section, so proceed with caution. Nobody’s going to die or anything like that, but know that your faves may not be depicted in the most positive light in this section. Grab something comforting and put on some happy music, or lean hard into the angst, ‘cause we’re about to get started.

The Bad Timeline

Ace receives Levi’s secret

Look. I 100% agree that the whole Ace/Nico situation is a Major Yikes Situation /pos. However, I’m hopeful (in the sense of trying to craft the worst possible outcome) that we could still get a More or Less Yikes Situation even without the pair obtaining each others’ secrets.

Although Ace revealing that he was in possession of Nico’s secret closely preceded Nico’s death threat, that wasn’t actually what specifically led Nico to intimidate Ace. It was Ace’s comment that Nico was such a weakling that they could only solve their problems by getting people like David to help them, as well as the culmination of several days of Ace’s torment beginning in Chapter 1, which led them to do it. What I’m saying is, Ace and Nico were already rivals before the secrets even came out, so even without the direct connection to one another via the motive, it’s possible the high tensions would still cause similar events to unfold.

All that preamble hopefully helps to justify my choice to put Ace on Levi’s secret, because, my god, you can open a whole other can of worms with this one. Ace gaining the knowledge that Levi is a killer without remorse the day after Levi threatened to kill him would freak Ace out like nothing else. Being as loud as he is, I would think that Ace wouldn’t be able to stop himself from sharing this one with the class, starting a conflict right from the start.

While do I think the other students would believe Ace in the end– especially if he showed them the paper on which Levi’s name was printed– I also think that some people might doubt Ace’s words at first, thinking he’s overexaggerating as usual. However, that moment of being Boy Who Cried Wolf-ed by everyone else would also really fuck with Ace. He’s literally right, and has the paperwork to prove it, and yet people are still disinclined to believe him because they see him as a fool. It would draw an even deeper wedge between Ace and his classmates than we saw in canon.

Tying back around to the beginning, I think that this extra layer of powerlessness would just make Ace even more inclined to seek out a feeling of power elsewhere. So, I’m thinking that would still result in Ace bullying Nico, and, assuming he still keeps it up for long enough and calls Nico a weakling, we might be able to loop back around to Nico’s death threat anyway. Major Yikes Situation not averted!

Veronika receives David’s secret

Here’s a chaotic choice. Given how open-ended and accusatory David’s secret is, I definitely think it’s one that Veronika would have chosen not to reveal. However, just because she doesn’t want to reveal it doesn’t mean that the information won’t get out… in a way.

We’ve seen time and time again that Veronika is fascinated with morally questionable people, first with Arturo and later David himself once she knew about his secret. Therefore, if she knew about David’s secret from the start, I don’t think she would be able to stop herself from following him around and making some clever comments here and there. Can you imagine how concerning it would be to watch David try to give hope speeches and guide people while Veronika is peering over his shoulder and grinning at him, refusing to elaborate?

It would definitely be worrying, but I don’t think it would fully stop everyone from listening to him– but in this case, that’s a good thing! David’s tactics wound up causing more harm than good, so it was important for me to give his secret to someone who wouldn’t call him out immediately and stop him from enacting these bad policies. Veronika is a great choice for allowing that to happen, but also causing a lot of stress and doubt speculating as to what exactly Veronika could know about David that would make her act this way. Honestly, it might be the worst for David himself…

Levi receives Ace’s secret

This one isn’t that terrible on its own, but in the context of Ace also having Levi’s secret, I think it gets pretty hairy. I can’t really see any scenario where Levi knowing Ace’s greatest secret goes over well for them. If Ace blows up at Levi right out the gate, there’s a definite possibility that Levi can’t keep his cool and winds up firing off Ace’s secret in front of everyone else as retaliation. Betraying Ace’s trust like that (even if Ace was the one to mouth off first) would make their relationship even more unsalvageable.

Even if Levi did manage to keep his mouth shut, knowing Ace’s secret would just generally make it harder for Levi to talk to Ace when explaining himself or trying to make amends. Like I discussed with Hu in the good timeline, there’s a lot you can learn about Ace in the contents of his secret and the way it’s phrased. I feel like Levi would be able to pick up on some of that knowledge, but he would then find it even harder to interact with Ace without accidentally spilling the beans on some of that newfound understanding. This secret shuffle would make their relationship basically irreparable in my opinion, and the increased frustrations from both boys might make one of their tempers flare and lead them to do something inadvisable.

“Xander” receives Eden’s secret

First of all, giving “Xander” this one means there’s one less problematic person who could draw a relatively harmless secret, which is a pro in this scenario. Leaving this secret unconfirmed could also cause problems in a Class Trial. Given that this secret doesn’t include murder, blackmail, manipulation, etc, it’s a pretty nice secret to claim for yourself, even if it can basically only be claimed by one of the girls. This means that, even if Eden tried to be truthful about her secret, people might believe that she’s lying.

Furthermore, the DRDT cast seems to be a pretty queer group of people overall. 6/15 of the non-Edens are confirmed LGBTQ+ themselves (even if not all of them are out), and everyone has treated Nico and Whit’s identities with respect since learning about them. Canonically, I would say that Eden has nothing to worry about with regards to the other girls treating her differently for being a lesbian.

So, by making Eden’s secret far less accessible, it becomes less likely that she’ll ever get that moment of recognition and affirmation. Instead, as Eden’s secret remains hidden and irrelevant, it becomes easier for her to stick to what she knows is safe. An accepting environment was right there in front of her, but with the convenience of periphery, she might not ever see it.

Arturo receives J’s secret

Yeah, I agree with you on this one– J truly did roll a crit fail. I did consider giving J’s secret to someone else, as long as they would definitely publicly spill the beans, if it meant that Arturo could learn the content of J’s secret while receiving an additional bad secret as well. However, I couldn’t think of anyone who would be so guaranteed to tell everyone about J’s secret that I could be confident Arturo would hear of it, nor could I think of any particularly catastrophic secrets I’d rather give to Arturo. So, this one stays. J really is living in the worst timeline already– like if you cry every time.

Hu receives Arei’s secret

Hu was a tough nut to crack, because I think the ideal bad situation for her is that she gets a secret that’s problematic enough that it would cause major issues if news broke, but not so problematic that she wouldn’t be willing to share it as a part of David’s “let’s tell each other about our secrets” plan. Operating under the logic that the mention of self harm was the reason why she wasn’t willing to share the secret she got in canon, 3/15 options immediately disappear. More options vanish when you start eliminating not-super-problematic secrets like Xander's family, Charles’ brother, or Rose’s debt.

After some consideration, I landed on Arei’s being the best balance of thorny and not. It’s a secret that discusses a serious crime without incorporating murder, and there’s lots of room for public interpretation that could cause things to go really poorly for Arei if folks jump to conclusions. Given that Hu already didn’t super like Arei (I’m basing this off of her chastising Arei for bullying Eden), I could totally see her being willing to share this secret publicly in order to help everyone see that Arei is someone not to be trusted.

Making Arei’s secret publicly aired also removes the very important aspect of Arei’s agency that I wrote on in the good section. If Hu is sharing this secret, it’s probably pretty early in the chapter, which means that Arei might not be prepared whenever the news drops. The context of the secret sharing doesn’t involve Eden at all, so Arei might have a harder time putting two and two together about why she acts the way she does and how she wants to change. Not to mention, if Hu shares the secret in a way that directly agrees with David’s scheme, it automatically pits David against Arei, which means that he can’t offer her any help (to the extent that what he said helped her canonically). It’s just bad all around. But that’s why I’ve come to feel pretty confident in this choice.

Rose receives Min’s secret

Following up on Rose’s last entry, this is not one of the secrets that the rest of the students could either easily deduce or ignore. It would be very easy to assume that the owner of the poison secret was a murderer– possibly a mass murderer, and even one who didn't regret what they did. Even if poison wasn’t used in the Chapter 2 murder, people might suspect this person of being the killer, and/or it could throw suspicion on Charles as the only one (who we know of) who has a poisonous custom weapon.

Now, obviously, this secret did not cause much of a scene in the canonical Chapter 2 trial, but I think at least part of that is because it was Xander’s. Everyone knows that the person who has that secret can only be determined by process of elimination no matter who they ask. The same would be true if it were the secret Rose got, but people might grow upset that Rose threw away such a valuable piece of evidence. And, with Min incapable of claiming her secret, it might appear even more that someone was trying to hide something when nobody spoke up to claim it. It’s not much, but Rose made it difficult to come up with something bad.

Teruko receives Xander’s secret

Funnily enough, the logic behind me giving Xander’s secret to Teruko is quite similar to the logic behind me giving it to David. Much like how David would be taken out of commission by reading this secret, I think that Teruko would act the same– it would just be worse for her and the group as a whole.

Like I said for David, Xander’s secret paints him out as a tragic hero. He loved his family to pieces, and regrets their passing so much that he wishes he could have died with them. Even though it was textually not his fault, Xander still beats himself up every day for not being around to do the right thing and save people when it counted. …What does it mean that the guy with this secret was the one who felt he had to kill Teruko for the greater good?!

Reading Xander’s secret would only pull Teruko deeper into anger, self-hatred, and confusion. She was already pretty off kilter in this Chapter from trying to ignore her mixed emotions regarding Xander, and I think that having to relive her trauma and his betrayal any time someone brought up the mere concept of secrets would basically take her out of commission. I mean, check out how many times I was able to say the word secret in these three paragraphs alone. I don’t imagine Teruko would be able to fare much better in the hellish environment of this terrible swap, which might lead her to hole up in her room all day and grow increasingly bored and bitter.

Now, I’m not saying that Teruko needed to be up and at ‘em in the daily life because her running around and pressing knives to people’s throats was just so helpful. But at least, unlike David, she wasn’t actively making the situation worse. Her presence may have even made potential friends like Eden, Charles, or Rose feel better. At the very least, Teruko learned some key social context in the Chapter 2 daily life prior to the Trial, so removing Teruko from those interactions would make it much harder for her to fully grasp what was going on should she be forced to solve a murder once again.

Charles receives Whit’s secret

I agree with you here as well– Charles acquiring Whit’s secret is probably the worst case scenario for Whit. As one of two people who actually heard Whit talk about his mom in Chapter 1, Charles is one of the only people who would know that Whit doesn’t just “omit that truth” by not talking about his mom, he actively talks about her like she is alive. This would raise a very big question for Charles at a crucial point in their friendship. Charles has just come to start trusting this guy, so what do you mean he was lying about something so odd…?

There’s a chance that the reveal of this concealment of the truth would cause Charles to determine that he couldn’t trust Whit anymore, and it would drive them apart. But, I think that’s pretty unlikely. More likely is the option where Charles (who’s in a fragile state from his meltdown yesterday and only JUST started learning how to be a good friend) tries to question Whit about it, only for Whit to panic. I don’t really think that Whit would try to keep the ruse going, seeing as Charles literally has the answer right in front of him, but he still might be full of deflections, or try to avoid the subject with jokes. (“Huh? No, I totally said that my mom passed away a few years ago! You must’ve just not heard me– did you fling some detergent into your ears with that laundry machine?”)

I’m not sure if this distribution of secrets would fully split them up, but it would definitely cause a rift in their conversation and bonding that might stop Charles and Whit from growing as close as they did. And, all this isn’t even taking into account that–

Whit receives Charles’ secret

Did you ever notice that Whit and Charles’ secrets are both about a hidden dead relative? I didn’t put two and two together until now, but boy does it work out poorly for purposes of this AU.

Much like Levi with Ace’s secret, I don’t think this is an inherently bad draw for Whit, but it kinda sucks in this context. Whit gets placed into a really weird trolley problem: do you tell and comfort Charles about his dead brother when it’ll definitely segue into discussions of your own dead mom, or do you keep it hidden, not helping Charles and leaving yourself open to the possibility of him feeling betrayed later that you kept this secret from him? It’s these kinds of questions that Whit would be forced to ask himself in the moment that Charles first confronts him, and the time needed to process would only throw him off his game and make him appear more suspicious to Charles.

To be fair, a lot of this does depend on how deep in the lie Whit is. Is he usually pretty quick to admit that his mom is dead to anyone who digs deeper into the issue, or has he been lying about his mom’s status to everyone, his father included? If it’s more like the former, then maybe the two of them could actually come to bond over the tragedy of losing someone you care about. But, if it’s more like the latter, then this distribution of secrets could get in the way of one of the (seemingly) most stable and healthy relationships in the killing game.

Arei receives Arturo’s secret

At first, I actually considered giving Arturo’s secret to Arei in the good universe, because I thought that Arei could understand having complicated relationships with your sisters. But then I remembered something critically important. Arei herself is the younger sister. She wouldn’t relate to Arturo; she would relate to Felicity. And then, all hell would break loose.

Arei knows what it’s like to be a younger sister who, even if she never considered it herself, had other people try to pressure her into committing suicide. So, to have a younger sister lucky enough to actually have a big brother she cared about, only for him to leave her alone and cause her death? Arei would be furious. She would absolutely call him out for it immediately, and use all of the bullying tactics she learned to make his life a living hell.

Despite all that I wrote about what Hu would do with Arei’s secret, I don’t actually know if Hu would be more or less likely to share Arei’s secret if Arei was acting this way. Would Hu take it upon herself to join in shaming Arturo for his actions, or feel that Arei was being a hypocrite and want to share Arei’s own truth? Either way, with both of these secrets, I think that the option of Arei’s character growing at all (or becoming friends with Eden) any time soon is pretty much dead.

And then there’s Arturo himself. While we’ve seen that Arturo does genuinely seem remorseful and haunted by Felicity’s death, I doubt Arei would know or care. I also totally think that J would join Arei in absolutely demolishing the man. Having Arei’s offense be backed by the Julia Rosales might just break him. Whether it would be in a victim way or a killer way I’m not sure, but it would definitely be bad for funni beauty standards man. The good news is that it might stop Arei from dying…? Unless Arturo just decided to kill her. There really isn’t a lot of good news.

David receives Veronika’s secret

Alright, back to David and Veronika. This is the third time I’ve had two people just swap their secrets, I guess? And, it’s kinda for the same reasons again. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Since we’ve been through a lot since we last discussed this pair, let’s get a quick recap: Veronika knows that David is a manipulative bastard, but won’t tell anyone that yet because she thinks it’ll be more interesting if she keeps her mouth shut. Thus, everyone is kind of wary of David, and David is definitely wary of Veronika, but not so much that it stops David from doing his information-seeking “let’s all share our secrets” plan.

I think that learning this about Veronika would make David pretty confused, very concerned, and extra conscious of Veronika in a way that would be hard to conceal. He could probably guess from the way Veronika was acting that she had some kind of dirt on him, and therefore conclude that, if he ever tried to share her secret, she might just fire back at him. David does not want that. So, the two of them remain at an uneasy stalemate that would make everyone else increasingly troubled.

Furthermore, I think that Veronika’s secret is a good balance of an unexpected yet potentially relevant piece of information about a living student that David would want to seek more of, while also not being so grim that it would appeal to whatever morals David may have. (Don’t get me wrong, Veronika’s secret is very worrying and tragic, but at least the inclusion of “for fun” makes it less grim than Arturo’s or Hu’s, to me.) David would be inclined to continue on his quest of acquiring the most knowledge-as-power as possible, and Veronika would be thrilled to watch! Both of them would just be giving off… really weird vibes about it.

Nico receives Hu’s secret

(extra suicide TW just in case)

If I say anything offensive or incorrect in this section, I deeply apologize. I don’t mean to portray either of these characters, their issues, or people who relate to them or their issues in a bad light, and I definitely don’t mean to demonize mentally ill people. The reasoning behind why I think it would be bad for Nico to get Hu’s secret is complicated, and may be based on uninformed thoughts or unfounded projections. However, based on what I do “know,” I think it makes sense, so I’ll try to explain myself as best I can.

Basically, I think that receiving Hu’s secret would be bad for Nico because it might make Nico less likely to speak up for themselves when Hu talks over them. If I were Nico, I might be worried about reacting too strongly to what Hu is doing, and accidentally sending her back into the hopeless state of her childhood. Just interacting with Hu in general might lead someone (like David) to start questioning Nico about the secret they received, and cause the information to accidentally leak out. It would make Nico saying anything on how Hu was acting difficult.

Again, I am not trying to villainize Hu, or mandate that you have to walk on eggshells around suicidal people because they’re loose cannons or whatever. I just think that, especially for someone as uncomfortable with socialization with Nico, navigating the sensitive subject of past suicide attempts in this incredibly hostile bad AU environment might prevent them from speaking up for themselves when they’re feeling belittled. And, that would be bad for their personal development.

I wish we could move on to something happier to combat these bad vibes, but unfortunately, we still have a couple more to go.

“Min” receives Rose’s secret

Well, at least we can cool down a little bit with this one. Not a ton going on here; basically just that Rose’s secret is pretty lowkey and I could cause more damage with other secrets elsewhere. I don’t think it would cause a particular stir with either other students becoming paranoid or Rose’s characterization and growth. I suppose that, without the excuse of being able to explain her past, Rose probably wouldn’t have had that chance to vent to Teruko, which was probably a good experience for her? The conflict-avoidant Rose will be suffering enough with all the turmoil going on around her, methinks.

Eden receives Nico’s secret

Make no mistake, this is not a decision made to hurt Nico. It’s meant to hurt Eden. With her compassionate heart and non-judgmental attitude, Eden is a great draw for any secret-holder to have in order to not cause trouble. That’s why I thought that the best move here was to use the secret as an offensive weapon to lessen her impact, as well as preventing a more problematic secret from being absorbed into her positive vibes.

Eden’s greatest secret is that she’s a lesbian, and she fears that people will come to hate her or discriminate against her if they find out about her identity. Therefore, the worst thing to do to her is to affirm those fears by shoving the homophobia someone else suffered in her face. Learning that Nico was mocked for their identity would make Eden less confident in hers, and might dampen her spirit enough that some of the good effects of her optimism are negated. She might become more hesitant to discuss secrets and more fearful of her peers, knowing that one of them probably knows about her identity and could use it against her at any time. Little does she know, it’s actually in the morgue alongside the Ultimate Rebel.

But, the fact that is just further feeds into my idea from Xander’s section. If Eden has just been reminded of how cruel the world can be to LGBTQ+ people, she wouldn’t be jumping at the opportunity to reveal which secret was hers. This would 1) allow another troublemaker to perhaps successfully claim it as their own, 2) make Eden look suspicious as she tries to come up with a solid lie of her own, and 3) postpone or deny (if Eden dies on a short timeframe) Eden’s ability to feel comfortable in herself.

Also (not to say that David forcing Nico to share their secret was a good thing), if Nico’s secret never becomes available to the public, they might have to go through the rest of their time in the killing game getting misgendered. Diversity loss!

J receives Teruko’s secret

J could stay quiet for a lot of things, but I feel like if she knew who the mastermind was (assuming she doesn’t know that she herself is the mastermind), that’s something she wouldn’t stay quiet about. I think that J at least wanted to see Teruko as her friend, given that she approached Teruko on the day she tested out her universal remote and roped Teruko in as part of her plan to get away from Arturo. Teruko double-crossing J by “being the mastermind” would, I think, be enough of a betrayal that J would set out seeking answers. Publicly.

Teruko, having just seen Xander’s secret, is also in a terrible mood, meaning that her ability to defend herself against J’s accusations and keep a cool head would be lessened, and possibly devolve into a screaming match. This would send the students down the incorrect(?) path as to the mastermind’s identity, further encourage Teruko to distance herself from everyone else, and cause J to lose faith in one of the few people she liked just before Arturo starts to get on her ass. Needless to say, the group would be in shambles.

That was rough, but we’re finally done. Let’s take a look at how things shook out.

(Once again, I really didn’t mean to make it look like Whit was laughing at Charles’ dead brother? A little treat for everyone who believes Whit is evil, I suppose.)

Blech. Even though torturing characters can be fun sometimes, speculating about the worst case scenario isn’t usually the kind of energy that I like to bring to this blog. Hopefully I was able to deliver something satisfactorily devastating, though!

As a final note, assigning all these secrets to everyone did get me thinking a little about what would have happened in this chapter if the motive had gone as planned, and everyone had gotten their own secrets. While it obviously wouldn’t have been as good as the good universe, I do think that people learning of their own secrets is a lot better than many of the bad scenarios that could have been created with a shuffle. Charles and Teruko definitely would have been a bit thrown, but at least in Charles’ case, I don’t know if it would have resulted in murder.

In my opinion, I think it’s probably most likely that David or Nico would have killed? David obviously cares a lot about his career and the prospect of his secret being shared with the world, so he could have tried to ride his good social graces and fake “family history of depression” secret to a Class Trial clear. Nico also has a lot to worry about with their secret getting out, and, already facing pressure from Ace’s bullying, it’s possible they would have made the same decision to kill Ace if Ace’s harassment continued. I suppose this is a question I can ask back at ya, Gremlyn, if you feel inclined to answer! :D And, thank you for the ask. Even if it got a little bleak, I had fun with it.

Stay safe and happy out there, everyone, and make sure your deepest, darkest secret doesn’t get handed to your worst enemy. Or really, just try to avoid entering a killing game at all. Until next time~

[andreal831]

Elijah and the Red Door

Elijah Mikaelson's red door is metaphorical and people take it too literal sometimes.

Initially, it was a physical door from his human days where he first kissed Tatia and then inevitably laid her body after her death. Shortly after, the door became a representation of the hidden space in his mind that Esther created so he didn't have to live with the fact that he accidentally killed Tatia. It inadvertently became a place where Elijah hid away memories he couldn't handle remembering.

In Season 2, Esther forces these memories out of Elijah, making him remember Tatia's death and the rest of the memories he had hidden there. We only see two memories on the show come forward -- what he did to Tatia and to Aurora. The show doesn't tell us if any other secrets were kept there. But we do know that even before this Elijah remembers a lot of things he has done in the past that he regrets, such as leaving Aya behind, not preventing Klaus' curse, and Celeste's death. So it doesn't appear that he had a lot of hidden memories there. I think killing random people ranks under these events.

When Hayley goes behind the red door, I've seen a lot of people say this is a memory of his, however, I believe it merely represents the monster he is afraid of becoming but believes he is deep inside.

First, the timeline doesn't make sense from what we know of their life. The Mikaelsons are turned sometime in late 1001, we don't know how much time goes by between when they are turned and when they have to flee North America, however, the red door is not created until Tatia's death. Quickly after her death, Esther chains Klaus' wolf side, Klaus kills Esther, and then they have to flee North America. We next see them about 6 months later in Europe, having traded their Viking clothes for more peasant-like clothing. While it's possible they held on to their Viking fighting gear, we don't see it again.

Additionally, we see Elijah scold his brothers for not being careful with their killings. If Elijah had massacred a whole village and then forgotten, Kol and Klaus would have been quick to remind him. They wouldn't let Elijah get away with scolding them if he had been just as bad, if not worse. Potentially Elijah could have snuck off without them realizing, but it is clear from Kol and Finn that they have all stuck closely together. Also, "Red Door Elijah" is seen as being irrational. I don't think he would have cared to keep it a secret.

Finally, at the time Hayley goes in there, the memories have already been released. It is no longer the place where he keeps memories he fears.

So instead of what Hayley sees in his mind as a memory, I see it as the place where he kept his remaining fears locked away. He feared becoming a monster who had no remorse. He kept his fear of being a monster in the same place he had kept the memories of his most monstrous deeds. He was in Viking gear because he feared becoming his father by hurting the people he cared for in the name of power/strength.

I know people want it to be a true memory so they can say Elijah is worse than Klaus, but those actions don't make sense with his character. All vampires have the potential to become a "red door" version of themselves, but it is their desire to be better that separates them. Klaus allows himself to live as a remorseless vampire for a thousand years, while we see Elijah constantly struggling with his decisions and regrets. Yes, he does become apathetic to human life, but we still see him having some standards -- like stating he doesn't feed from children.

If Elijah truly was the monster behind the red door, we would have seen it when Hayley died in season 1 or 5, when Dhalia was nearly killing his whole family, when Celeste died, when he thought Klaus drowned his whole family, when Marcel or Lucein was upgraded and attacked him. There were so many opportunities for him to be angry/scared enough to lose control and even turn off his humanity (if that's possible) but he never did. Klaus teases him about it one of the few times we even see his vampire face because it is that rare for him to even lose that much control in a fight.

So no, I don't believe Elijah ever murdered an entire village just because. Do I think he is capable, yes. If he felt it would save his family, he would do it. And he likely left villages behind knowing Mikael would do just that. But with the timeline and the character of Elijah, I don't see him even losing control and doing that himself.

[abla-soso]

One of my biggest criticisms of how Hori wrote the LOV villains was how remorseless and utterly self-absorbed they were.

They were given too much empathy and compassion by the narrative, so much focus was put on them being tragic victims of society that never got help, so much emphasis was put on the heroes needing to reach to them and save them from themselves.

All the typical sings of characters who will get a redemption or at least a salvation arc, right?

But it was utterly baffling to me how much these villains didn't give a flying fuck about the victims they ruined or killed. How much they even enjoyed lashing out at innocent people and destroying lives. This might trigger their fans, but when it comes to evil apathy? They were exactly like Overhaul and AFO. They absolutely were!

And it got me thinking, how the hell are these villains gonna get a redemption or a salvation arc when they've never shown the most crucial qualities thar all redeemed villains and bad people had in this manga: remorse and a sincere desire to atone?

But the answer was right there, wasn't it? They were NOT supposed to get a redemption or a salvation arc precisely because they did NOT have these qualities.

Hori was very consistent about this throughout the story.

Now the question is: why did Hori choose to make the LOV undeserving of redemption or salvation despite feeling so much empathy and compassion for them? You couldn't possibly accuse him of not caring deeply about these characters. He put his whole heart in writing their tragic lives and all but forced his readers to feel for them and care about saving them.

I've thought about it for a while, and I guess the answer might be in Hori's love for sad endings and horror stories. He has expressed his fascination for them a couple of times. Deeply sympathetic yet doomed characters who fail themselves are a pretty standard trope in these genres. So it's not surprising that he channelled this into his writing. And I think he wanted his readers - the ones who the LOV villains - to experience the tragedy of these types of characters. I think he wanted to use their tragedy to express his concerns about real societal issues in Japan.

This is part of the reason why I'm glad Hori has no interaction or even any knowledge about the discourse in BNHA's western fandoms. I'm glad they're not his target audience.

Cuz imagine you're Hori. You've spent years enjoying writing about specific genes and tropes that you've always loved and you managed to incorporate them in your Shonen manga, only to find out that a large segment of your fandom are throwing the biggest hissy fits because they belived you were writing about radical hope syiry and redemption arcs for monstrous villains when you actually writing about your (horror/tragedy-influnced) sympathetic yet doomed characters 🫠

[oriharaizaiza]

Izaya does not have ASPD.

He is certainly neuro divergent.

He's definitely traumatized. And I don't mean the Shizuo trauma, I mean childhood trauma.

It's incredibly easy to make a case for him having C-PTSD but it's practically impossible to determine if that's all that's going on. There could easily be a personality disorder or autism in the mix.

Yet, I'm sure it's not ASPD.

If you're reading this I assume you've already read somebody make a case for why he does have ASPD, so I'm not going to extend on the diagnostic criteria, but essentially important is that it is definitely possible to make a convincing and well argumented case for him having it. He does display various signs and fulfills enough criteria to get the diagnosis from an inexperienced therapist for sure.

However, he's missing one that's very critical to the disorder, pretty much at the core of what makes it different from the other cluster B disorders, since a lot of the other symptoms are shared.

- Lack of remorse

Izaya shows remorse. Izaya regrets his actions, Izaya does not enjoy the way people end up hurt because of him. It's shown more clearly in the Novels, especially the ever famous 9th novel, but it's shown in the anime too, it's just incredibly subtle. Yet you can see it clearly if you watch for the timing of his expression changes, and analyze when he uses which tone of voice. Izaya also clearly hides it, since after all, in his position it pays to be immune to such things. You don't deal with experienced and dangerous Yakuza with your belly up, that much should be obvious.

He however shows a strong sense of justice... It's just a hopeless mismatch compared to what people typically see as 'just'.

Additonally the whole suicide girls thing is often used as an example of why he's remorseless. It's true he didn't feel remorse for doing that, but why would he? These actions didn't actually hurt anyone, they didn't actually have negative consequences for those girls at all. They're all alive and well. (Remember, the whole Rio thing is NOT canon)

"But it's a mean thing to do!"

Maybe, but he does it out of compassion for those who in his eyes deserve the pity that these, in his eyes undeserving, girls are asking for. Izaya does not regret that compassion. Not regretting compassion sounds healthy to me!

- there's also several points about not caring for or bothering with social norms.

This is a standard for anyone who has an IQ outside the normal range. People with an extremely low IQ are not capable of understanding the social norms, and people with an extremely high IQ can see past the superficial reasoning and end up creating their own value system, which is generally very well argumented and reasonable, which they measure their actions against instead of the common norms. And of course those values are shaped by life (childhood) experiences as well. Therefore it's impossible to use these points as proper diagnostic criteria, without first figuring out what the new norms are. A good institute can do that, but a single therapist typically cannot either, nevermind some backyard psychology nerd like most of us here!

I feel like I didn't quite explain this well enough but sadly i don't have time to write a proper essay, so feel free to ask questions and I'll get to it when I can!

[hidden-highlands]

xenoblade 1 spoilers under the cut // just some musings & ramblings

i just reached satorl marsh in my current replay of xenoblade and the more i replay the game the more i appreciate this section in terms of its narrative implications

and i'm mostly talking about dickson here (because let's be real when am i not) but like ??? everything he says during the brief segment that he accompanies the party is absolutely loaded with double-meaning. damn near every sentence out of his mouth is cast in a new light upon completing the game and learning of his true identity & motivations

which is why i find it so intriguing that during that one scene between him and shulk ('so it is written') he brings shulk's parents up out of the blue for seemingly no reason ??? specifically he says "forgive me, shulk. sorry i couldn't save your folks."

at this point shulk's already moved on to talking about exploring the world; it's dickson who circles back and drops this comment about shulk's parents, rather awkwardly at that, into the conversation. and it just kind of struck me how weird that is? most of what dickson says in that scene alludes very subtly to his identity and motivations. he initially starts the conversation by reminiscing about finding shulk on valak mountain -- which, ymmv here, but to me reads very much as, like, "shit that time's flown by and you're already stepping into this destiny that's been set out for you pretty much from birth". all his talk of 'shulk being part of a higher plan' seems, on first watch, to be extremely heavy-handed writing for the sake of the audience; only on subsequent viewings does it become clear it's dickson trying to nudge shulk in the direction he wants him to go.

but the parent comment. in a scene so full of double-meaning and hidden intentions, it sticks out even on subsequent replays for not seemingly having a double meaning ?? and yet. i can't quite settle on a satisfying reason for dickson saying that. he would have known there was no way to save shulk's parents, given how they died. shulk himself hadn't mentioned them before that point in the convo. and, if we accept the game's characterisation of dickson as this duplicitous, power-hungry guy who's remorselessly willing to kill those he's been closest to for the last fourteen years, then why would he care at all about the deaths of shulk's parents, these two people he didn't even know?

the only way i can make it make sense in my head is by rejecting that characterisation. by rejecting the idea that dickson was nothing more than power-hungry and remorseless. sure he was duplicitous as all hell, and he probably didn't start out caring about shulk (and the others) but i think he did, by the end. (i have so many reasons for thinking this but i'm not gonna elaborate bc this is already turning into an essay lol) and i think his comment about shulk's parents is his way of... admitting guilt? or remorse? at the fact that it's shulk who got wrapped up in this. at the fate that shulk has in store for him. and that if they hadn't died in the tower that day, shulk probably would have lived a normal life, raised by genuine people who cared for him, instead of by someone who was deceiving and manipulating him to satisfy the whims of a cruel god.

because dickson wound up caring, too late, and that comment is perhaps the only means he has of admitting his regrets (even to himself)

(besides, it would also explain that "can't say i feel so good about deceiving these kids" line at the end of satorl marsh)

[momentomori24]

Okie, I just finished the show. Maybe a hot take, but I thought it was solid. The ending being good is debatable (I definitely wanted more than what we got) but the characterization of everyone was absolutely solid. Nine was a fantastic antagonist. He's intelligent, troubled, selfish, clingy, lonely and self destructive, just as much of a danger to others as he is to himself, but very much sympathetic and understandable of a character. He feels like such a younger version of Shadow who is still so angry at the world, willing to tear them all to pieces to achieve his goals because they've never ones shown him kindness at any point in his life, leaving him with no kindness to give to others as a consequence. But he has a love for technology, self esteem issues, remorseless sass and a genuine attachment to Sonic, however dysfunctional it was. He's fundamentally Tails, but so warped and jaded that he feels like a refreshingly new character. Same goes for everyone else. No version of each character felt the same. Their personalities all felt unique to them and their character growth felt rewarding. And I have very unexpected attachment to Black Rose. I love every Rose here, but she out of them all felt so much like the old Amy with her unfiltered insanity, chaotic energy, readiness for violence and disrespect, overwhelming passion and leadership and compassion for those who look to her for strength that I utterly adore her. And she's a PIRATE for God's sake! Let her be free! Let her go wild! Let her go absolutely batshit and unhinged the way only Amy can!

Prime Shadow is absolutely one of the best versions (and my personal favourite) of Shadow we have-- his voice acting, his personality perfectly hitting the middle between being too cold and being too caring, not too edgy but not too soft, still a snobbish and harsh motherfucker who preferably acts alone and sucks at getting his point across without sounding callous but ultimately well-intentioned and trying his best to protect the people and world he cares for while not being prideful enough to reject the help of others to achieve that (and actually willing to run when he knows he can't win for now.) Something I missed about Shadow was his empathy and care for others while acting like he doesn't mean anything, and it really shined during his time with Sonic. He was pissed to hell about what Sonic did, and rightfully so, but he knows when his anger contributes nothing of worth to their situation and is able to stay rational and logical for both their sakes. And even in his anger, Sonic's remorse about everything was enough for him to calm down, taking a softer approach with him than he normally would've. He's--UGH. HE'S SO GOOD. I LOVE SO HIM MUCH. Like, I really like IDW Shadow, but Prime Shadow is just built different.

I really appreciate what the show did with all of them and even tho I would've liked a bit more for the finale I do like how Sonic's arc came full circle with him learning to listen and be more appreciative of his friends. While there were definitely some glaring issues with s3, and there are some things where I'm like ''WHY??'' (more on that later), but the story was great, the characterisation was incredible, the animation felt very bouncy and energetic, and overall it was a very fun show and exciting journey I loved every step of the way. Not just the show, but all the incredible fan works that was made along the way are absolutely priceless. I'm really glad this show was made.

[snellyfish]

(duck) THOUGHTS!! THOUGHTS ON EPISODE 10-11!! NOW!! I AM SHAKING YOU VIOLENTLY PLEASE TELL ME

OHOGHGOH MY GOSH OK OK OK you know how funny it was for like 2 days straight after we FINALLY caught up i just kept saying "i have to go write out my thoughts on drdt and feed my anons (mostly with you in mind)" every few hours with nothing but "i thought you already did that??" in response, cue me being like "no but like for real this time"

I also give my best wishes to the creator of DRDT, you've given us such a fun story with fun characters and I hope you the best on recovering, resting, and focusing on yourself. If we never get another episode that is a-ok, I'll be very sad but only because I truly appreciate the art and writing for a wonderful story that you've given to us all for FREE. Thank you for that<3 For clarity and reference, this whole ramble is written with the intention/presumption that we will get more chapters, though I'm not getting my hopes up

!!!!! DRDT EPISODE 10 AND 11 SPOILERS BELOW !!!!!

Also just an insane wall of text in general, jfc, you have been warned

Ok so first of all, I'll say what everyone's really here for:

Sorry, I personally fucking LOVED the twist, no significant complaints with it; it's a character trope I ADORE and more than I ever could've asked for to come from such a blorbo as David

Sorry, yes, I am also unfortunately down bad for him, HOWEVER-

Extremely happy that David wasn't the killer because we get to see more of this little freak in action in the next chapter, I can't even tell you how excited I am for his character omgomgomgomg I love horrible fucked up manipulative freaks so much. I also don't blame anyone for not enjoying his character anymore (especially if you liked the trope of his preconceived notion of a character) but like, me personally I can appreciate any character no matter the morals (the less the better imo) as long as they're written in an interesting and compelling way.

The way David is so horrendously straight-forward about everyone else just being a funny little pawn to him with absolutely no remorse (genuinely hope he never gains any empathy or I'll be a little upset ngl (well…depends on how it's done I GUESS!!)) makes his seemingly multi-layered character into….. something one-dimensional (/pos /GEN!!! one-dimensional is NOT a bad thing if it's a cool dimension that causes fun character conflicts) but the WAY they introduce this static ruthlessness to him is just;;;; CHEFS KISS. He's still a layered character, sure, two-faced freak running the long con, but his true self is just so reprehensibly remorseless it's hard to see ANYTHING under it

We were also both dying of laughter in the first episode how David had a really long horribly winded speech about fucking,,,,,,God knows what,,,, And no one acknowledged it and me n my bestie were just fucking whale eyeing each other like "SO IS NO ONE GONNA TALK ABOUT THAT? WE'RE JUST GONNA STEAMROLL RIGHT OVER HIS MINI PSYCHOTIC BREAK? OK" Not to be salty but GUYS.. Anyone who genuinely believed David was a good person and were shocked with the twist I…I'm sorry …… I'm sorry that we did not watch the same character introduction …. I've been on team two-faced David from the start that's my manipulate mansplain manwhore right there, babe! If you don't love him at his X you don't deserve him at his Y

Erm erm erm also thought it was hilarious when David was droning on after his big real reveal because, even though I was having a great time with it, I was also just repeatedly muttering "the fish…..?" looking around like the john travolta gif "the fish? the fish? guys, the fish? can we talk about the fish? im dying to talk about the fish" AHGHGAGAHA AND JUST GETTING SO FRUSTRATED WHEN EVERYONE FINALLY BROUGHT UP THE FISH AND WERE LIKE "OH EM GEE THE LIAR IS LYING ABOUT KILLING AREI??? DAS SO CRWAZY" Old school Danganronpa feeling of screaming at the characters denseness, so nostalgic, I DID ENJOY IT, IT WAS FUNNY, I HAD A GOOD TIME HAHA I loooove characters who lie for no good reason only to benefit themselves and have a good time while others suffer (Kokichi doesn't count + I don't like him (also stop comparing David to Kokichi you guys are insane and don't understand character nuance SOWWY))

My apologies I'm still like keeling off [MULTIPLE SUBSTANCES OF VARYING LEGALITY] so DON'T tell me if this is incomprehensible or not because I'm speaking straight from the heart and the heart says I won't him. This reminds me that for the entire time he was having his MAIN psychotic break (especially in the animation) my best friend wouldn't stop fucking muttering in distress "I WANT HIM I WANT HIM I WANT HIM" I had to tell him to shut the fuck up even though I was also internally very much not normal. We should both be shot.

Still think David and Hu should kiss. I think now more than ever they should kiss. Maybe make out.

Actually do you know how many times I said "Shut up, Hu." during these two episodes?? It was at least 5 I was getting SO mad at her for like no good reason, I don't even remember WHY exactly but I think her mom friend energy was getting TOO motherly and I'm no longer appreciating the particular WAY she mothers people, i.e. picking favorites + taking accountability for said favorites + defending them blindly and naively but in weirdly elitist way etc etc etc.. Very typical of Snellyfish to ship toxic men with female characters they don't like. Maybe I should look into my soul for this one, doesn't seem like,,,healthy, or something. I'll write my own callout post for me on that one dw.

Also I'm not necessarily saying Hu has bad writing or a wholly unlikeable personality at all btw, I am interested to know Why she's like that, I just gotta get over the hill of disliking her rn. Uber sweetie characters like that can just get on my nerves is all. She's also definitely got the secret motive for having multiple Attempts, huh? Give us your backstory queen,,,, I promise to like you a little more if you can bring a lil tear or two to my eye,,,,,,, I think my main thing with her is that she's like the most NORMAL of the group LMFAO

Either way, Huvid real. Sorry, but it shouldn't be surprising, I'm a Verturo shipper after all, it's in my natur-

SPEAKING OF VERTUROOOOOHHHH MY GGOOODDDDD I ATE SOOO DAMN GOOD. NO CRUMBS LEFT, I WAS GOING CRAZY. GOOD GOD CHRIST ALMIGHTY. The way that Veronika was the ONLY mf defending Arturo and he was like "girl you're making me look BAD" was so fucking funny, I am so horribly obsessed with their dynamic it's unreal

Not to "omg as a veronika kinnie-" for the millionth time but GIRL-- the way that I've said in the past Multiple Times that I hope both Arturo and David get worse and worse in an irredeemable way (mostly David, I kiiiinda want some nice Arturo content maybe one day 😳), and to have Veronika in like the same episode (I think) pivot back and forth towards both Arturo AND David in a "ohhh you're horribly fucked up I hope you never get better because I want in your brain NOW!!! let me IN!!!!!! THE TOXIC FUMES ARE CALLING TO ME LIKE A SWEET SWEET SIREN!!!!!!!" I think all three of them should also hold hands and kiss and--

OH. OH OHH. ARTURORRROOOO God as a general fuckin stan of all three Arturo + Veronika + David I ATE SO DAMN GOOD IT'S BEEN CRAZY TO CONTAIN MY THOUGHTS LMAO, had to stew on this one before writing it all out y'see. I definitely want to rewatch this chapter sometime because I know I've consumed it pretty mindlessly and a lot goes over my head. EITHER WAY.

Arturo backstory real??? Arturo's breakdown about his sister and how it's not his fault?? Not your fault in what way? Blushes and bats my eyelashes and holds your latex glove hand. plink plink. <-- sound of me batting my eyelashe.s. I was also incredibly normal when he straight up pulled a scalpel on Eden Kai Satou style, really really sane I didn't make monkey sounds or ANything like that, you guys. trust me.

In general I try not to give too hard of a time on DRDT's writing because it's like,, a passion project, obviously not professionally done, just a happy little writer writing their happy little characters AND I APPRECIATE AND RELATE TO YALL SO MUCH FOR THAT;; But I do have to finally properly mention how I frequently face the problem of a very consistent flow of characters being very straightforward, telling instead of showing, and making things just very awkward seeming? I bring this up mostly because of the Eden/Arei scene. Don't get me wrong I LOVE that dynamic and I LOVE what could've been between them in their friendship (🌈?) but I also wish that they didn't write Arei to so boldly claim like "I've been a manipulative bitch" or something like that, I guess I just don't feel that it's the kind of thing someone (especially like her, even with her breakdown-breakthru with David) would be able to articulate so clearly, and accept so honestly in such a short timeframe; I dunno. I've felt this way with a lot of dialogue even just in the prologue/introductions sections, wherein characters speak like they're Just Characters and know exactly how to word things like robots and just don't speak like Real people half the time. Whateva. That's my nitpick. I definitely think the dialogue has gotten better but the Arei thing ticked me off, but, I think her self-awareness might just be a crucial part of her character I'm not picking up on enough so,,,,augh, might just be me, honestly! I'm not the greatest writer myself so 🙏 feh!

Can't wait to figure out if I ship Arturo and J or not. Feel insane about it. Every time they talk I'm like DO I??? DO I SHIP IT??????? LOOKS AROUND AT THE AUDIENCE

GUYS I'LL BE REAL I'M STILL SO LOST ON WHO THE FUCKING KILLER IS LMAO!!!!!!! Entirely forgetting everyone's alibis right now so I can't really say who I'm leaning towards because they could be completely safe and I'm just dense and didn't pay enough attention. My b.

Even though Ace is one of my top fav characters I can feel myself getting steadily less and less interested in him just because all of his energy is going into the stupid Nico/Levi situation and I'm like SO sick of it Actual. I know it's mostly because I don't personally like Nico or Levi AND because this shit keeps getting brought up with no resolution nor any progress and it's like BRO.. I'M SICK OF IT. The amount of times they would bicker and I'd say "I'm sick of this drama." and then strategically zone out in self-defense was kind of funny. ACE DEFINITELY HAD SOME REALLY GOOD PARTS IN THESE EPISODES OUTSIDE OF THAT THOUGH GHGHHG HE KEEPS ME HOOKED, THAT DAMNED SMILE, as a chihuahua lover myself I can never stray too far from Ace's light, he's so fucking funny and I love his dynamic with David-- oh no, I love his dynamic with David........... Looks at my palms.

As always: Charles<3 I have such a funny relationship with him because it's like, he's not one of my top favs by any means, doesn't stand out the most for my particular taste, but I also have literally no reason to dislike him and he's just written GOOD, so whenever he shows up and has a nice scene or a nice line I just go "ah,,,,,,, charles<3" Not a single negative thought about him. He's like a sister to me. This isn't true I have many negative thoughts about my sister but you know!

I THINK THAT'S IT. THERE YOU GO. FEAST, MY ANONS, ASSUMING ANYONE HAS THE WILL TO READ THIS IN IT'S ENTIRETY HAHAHAHA. Time to go watch Demon Slayer Season 3!!!!!!

[despairing-disaster]

HOOOOO lord, that episode.

Honestly, I’m kinda kicking myself for procrastinating and then deleting my drafts for my final guesses on the secrets because I actually did suspect Arturo for the motive that wound up being correct. I noticed at the beginning of the chapter that Levi didn’t bring up any sisters and I had other suspicions for David (and I’ll get to that) which only left him. But honestly, as much as it seems everyone else thinks differently, I think this episode actually made me go from ambivalent to actively liking Arturo. I feel like we got to see a side of him that was more human and vulnerable. He’s so cold and harsh and dehumanizes everyone else around him, but he still had enough of a heart to feel guilty about what happened to his sister, as if he totally lacked remorse, he probably wouldn’t have reacted as strongly as he did. Veronika and I are very much on the same page when it comes to him at this point tbh.

But going back to the subject of guessing secrets, I’m gonna just loosely and messily rattle off my remaining thoughts without much organization, because I do wanna at least get my remaining theories out there.

First, I’m still convinced David is lying about who’s secret he has and less convinced Teruko is actively lying about not knowing hers as opposed to just not caring or wanting to acknowledge/consider it.

It could be possible that David is a remorseless murderer, but there is contradicting information on that front. Honestly, he’s just a mass of contradictions all around. He says he hates murderers, but expresses joy at the thought of Arei’s killer being punished. He shared his motive with the intent of alleviating tension, but gave a cop-out answer and refused to be honest when pressed. But that latter one gets to me in the sense that so far, in terms of who could have the manipulation secret, David is kinda the only person who’s outward behavior has seemed actively manipulative thus far. I already brought up some of his inconsistencies, not to mention the look he had on his face when talking about how naiive and trusting Arei is, two traits that someone with a habit of using others would immediately take note of. Plus, Ace is both a major league chickenshit who is very acutely aware of his own mortality and physically unable to keep his mouth shut half the time, so if he is being sincere in saying he knows David’s secret, he probably wouldn’t have kept his mouth shut this long if he was a murderer.

“But Laz,” I hear you say, “what about the suicide and self harm secrets?”

Good question, to which I say, let’s talk about Hu and Veronika.

I am pretty dead set on the sh secret being Veronika’s and it has to do with the specific phrasing of it: “You took on your talent to distract from your incessant need to harm yourself for fun.” At this point, we know Veronika has a peculiar relationship to pain and boredom. We know that she enjoys both witnessing and seemingly experiencing suffering and fear but not boredom. Anything is better than boredom. And self harm can include a lot of things, including reckless behavior that could potentially put one’s health or life on the line. It could be possible, then, that she had a history of reckless behavior, or even more directly self-destructive things, because she was incredibly desperate to feel something. 

That then leads me to Hu, who is in possession of the secret in question. With some things she’s said so far-- that her secret makes her “uncomfortable” without any indication it’s more severe than that, that you can’t tell if someone is struggling just because of how they look on the outside, and that she doesn’t think her secret will be relevant to the class trial-- it could be assumed she has the history of suicide. Granted, she could also be the manipulator, but as I said earlier, even if she actively interferes in a lot of conflict in the chapter, she doesn’t interfere the way David does. When things happen, Hu is typically quick to shut things down. She doesn’t try and sway people one way or the other, she doesn’t seem to pry beyond what’s necessary, and most of what she does is reactive while David, in some cases, has been a lot more instigatory, like with his pressuring people to fess up despite being closed-off himself. I know that there could be more stuff going on behind the scenes, but shit, there’s a lot going on in the scenes themselves in someone else’s department. And while the two aren’t always connected, there is considerable overlap between people who struggle with SI and people who struggle with SH, so if Hu’s secret is a history of suicide, then maybe she could be keeping the secret she got, which I assume to be Veronika’s, to herself out of a sense of personal understanding.

As for the family and poisoning secrets, I’m still convinced the dead people got each other’s. It’d probably be a royal pain in the ass to factor them in to what already seems like it’s gonna be a wild trial with a lot of information to keep track of and they both seem to fit each other nicely. We know about Xander’s family from the hidden quotes and bonus episode as well as Min’s bonus episode revealing how she got the title of ultimate student: a competition. So I didn’t include them in my thoughts.

That just leaves Levi as the remorseless murderer, but even with everything I’ve said thus far, I’m not sure what to say on that front. I have nothing to defend the idea beyond the fact that he’s been consistently secretive in regards to his past since the prologue and while he’s very clearly calm on the surface, there’s a lot brewing beneath it. We saw as much when he snapped at Ace in the first trial. But again, like I said with David, it seems like there’s contradictory information, namely in the sense that this is about a remorseless murderer and Levi seems extremely fixated on the idea of being a good person and, in my opinion, seems like there’s things in his past he wants to make up for. But there’s also not a lot to indicate he could have any of the other unconfirmed secrets as well.

And I’m not certain about any of my thoughts (except the one’s on Xander, Min, and Veronika. I’m dead set on those for better or worse) but I’m excited to see what’s in store, because at least one of these is about to be confirmed right/wrong real soon. I could probably type out more, but my hyperfocus broke, and when that shit happens, whatever’s in my drafts usually dies in there, so I’ll just leave this as is for now.

[tiedsh0es]

I’m not here to debate whether the 98 version or stampede is better but what I will claim FULL HEARTEDLY!!! Is that Stampede Knives is written so SO MUCH BETTER than 98. I WILL DEFEND HIM WITH MY LIFFEEE

Spoilers for Stampede and 98 Trigun below obviously For starters the way he acts as a child is completely different in both iterations. 98 Knives is brought up around a group of people, not just Rem. While Stampede Knives only ever knew Rem for his childhood. In Stampede He’s taught that he needs to be human, that if he ever meets one he’ll need to pretend to be one. Has to do things he doesn’t have to do as a plant like eat, because he NEEDS to fit in. Which makes Tesla’s reveal SO MUCH MORE IMPACTFUL. Because up until now he never really knows why he needs to hide his plant side, just that this is what Rem has taught him his entire life. Tesla on her own is terrifying, but it is only made worse that now he gets an idea of why Rem might want them both to hide. But in 98 there is no Tesla, which already kind of messes with his backstory. But instead of fearing humans because of what they do to plants… he’s rather just resentful because he’s bullied? Not that he has an easy life, but it’s not nearly as impactful as stampede. 98 Knives is just shown time and time again to be angry and remorseless, he never feels any guilt in his actions. Because 98 Knives is rather just angry, angry for himself and shown to show no remorse when he finally does something. Stampede actually shows more emotion. And yea Stampede Knives is so much more brutal in his fighting style, we actually get to see him kill people for a change but think about episode 9, when he’s a teen and he finds the dying plants. Before he kills those plant engineers he tells them (or Conrad to in the sub) to heal it, but of course they can't. They overused it, fully aware that they were killing it, fully aware that they wouldn’t be able to heal it. They had no choice, they would have died without it sure, but if no one else is going to do anything Knives will.

And kid stampede Knives was just scared. Scared of humanity. When 98 Knives lands the pod he is is just shown to be mean, he even hits Vash- which messes with something I also want to talk about a little later. But Stampede Knives, yes he also laughs at the burning wreckage but it feels so much more… emotional? Stampede Knives knows that no one is ever going to choose saving Plants over humanity, that’s just not possible. He was shown that when Rem decides to stay back and help humanity then go in the escape pod with the two of them. Goin on a bit of a tangent, but I think he wanted Rem to come, maybe even expected her to come with them. She was meant to be their guardian, their mother- but when given the choice she chose to stay with the ship instead of them. And I can only imagine how much that hurt him. So when he looks at the wreckage he’s finally done something. No one else was ever going to help them, the plants, so he’ll do it himself. SUCH A DIFFERENT MOOD THAN 98 JUST LAUGHING LIKE haha that’ll show my bullies! And not even to mention that it was just one guy.

Anyways going back to Knives hitting Vash in 98 ugh because. At least in my eyes the bond Vash and Knives have is SO important to the narrative. But in 98 Knives is kind of absent? He’s reserved till the very end, we only ever see him in flashbacks till we get the big final battle. But in Stampede Knives is there since the beginning. He even appears as an adult by the third episode. It’s gonna make however stampede ends so much better, because we see how desperately the two of them just want to get along again. But they just can’t. They have completely different ideals, and both of them are too stubborn to ever give up on it. Oh yea my final point, the real kicker. Stampede Knives actually uses Knives. 

[1jemmagirl22]

I’m 140 pages into Chain of Thorns, and somehow, somehow! Me, the person who loathe Alistair Carstairs, who has no sympathy for him whatsoever, actually currently likes him more than Cordelia, his sister, and one of my favorite Shadowhunters characters of all times, really proves how much I fucking hate the love triangle situation.

I have no remorse for being pissed at her, I have no remorse for being pissed at Mathew. I haven’t been this remorseless in hating a love triangle and its components, ever! 

I was kinder to the fucking Hunger Games and fucking Vampire Diaries love triangles then I am to this one. 

This, I fear, is a warning sign of what’s to come in the Wicked Powers. If Dru ends up with Jaime and not Ash I will riot.