#but not to the point where genuinely cool people are being excluded

[spxnglr]

Idk my beloveds but, it's on the mind so imma ramble about it. Possible hot take about the RPC under the cut.

If you've made it this far, hi ilu - but yes, sometimes it bugs me about how serious the community can be sometimes??? Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about content, triggers, anything that might affect a person's comfort in any way - that's all valid af, absolutely. But, like, the way folk feel like they have to present themselves, the fact that folk can be unfollowed after a short period of time if they haven't reached out or have become inactive (I'm not even talking about months either, but I've read on some blogs that I can be as little as a week), any rules punishing OCs (y'all know that really gets me irked), the sheer emphasis placed on graphics and formatting, and a few other things that have escaped my mind but chances are I'll remember later. Maybe I'm just showcasing the amount of time I've spent writing on and off on this site, but I don't remember things always being this way, and every now and then I wonder if this community is as inclusive and relaxed as it used to be. After all, many of us do what we do here as a form of escapism from real life, or as a way to channel our passion for a fandom and/or character, or for any number of reasons, and while I do agree that a certain etiquette has to be in place, I sometimes have to contemplate if it's been taken too far in one or two ways.

[beneathsilverstars]

You've established that Odile has rather unhinged taste in people. Do you have further headcanons on that topic?

Hm... Most of the adjacent headcanons that I could talk about here would require a lot of psychological and cultural context. So let's just talk about that context!

As a child, Odile was disconnected from her peers due to heritage, temperament, and latent transgenderism. As lonely children sometimes do, she decided that she didn't need or want friends anyway, and even if she did, it wouldn't be any of these losers! They were always wasting their time on fun and social useless things that she was too weird smart and special to be invited want to do. She studied very hard and excelled in school, did a couple extracurriculars that didn't require much teamwork, and at some point during adolescence realized that unfortunately the Vaugardians were correct about the changing genders thing.

Ka Buan philosophy encourages people to understand themselves, refine themselves, explore different facets of themselves — but not change themselves, because fundamental characteristics simply cannot be changed. Accordingly, gender-noncomforming fashion and binding/padding and nicknames are fine, hormones and surgery/bodycraft and declaring yourself a different gender are not. But Odile wasn't one to let social mores stop her, so once she reached adulthood, she left her hometown and showed up at the city as Odile. And not just any city, but one with a reputation for cutting-edge craft research and certain countercultures.

You can't just show up and ask around for where the illegal bodycrafting is, though. You have to meet people, win their trust, let them introduce you to other people, repeat. Odile... honestly wasn't that great at it. She hadn't had much cause to practice social skills, so she wasn't very friendly or persuasive! But she was determined, thorough, confident, passionate, genuine in her intentions, and newly hot — and you can get away with a certain amount of blunt arrogance when you're hot. You just have to let people assume you're too cool and busy for humble niceties, which Odile did quite easily, because she's always thought of herself as such. So she found her way through the right queer punk circles eventually and completed her physical transition!

And she liked those circles. The people she met and the topics they discussed and the things they did were all so much more interesting than she had assumed any peers of hers could be! But she still considered herself more competent and correct than anyone else around her, because why would that change just because she moved? Her success in transitioning just further proved that she could do anything if she tried hard enough, that she was right all along in assuming her social failures were due not to lack of skill but last of interest. So she ended up in this dynamic where she was impressed by the people around her and wanted to have fun with them and learn more about them, but also thought herself better than them and above such things as kindness or friendship.

And she was in that "holy shit I'm surrounded by dykes and I'm a dyke now too" stage that some queer people experience after they come out.

So, she wasn't interested in boring. She wasn't interested in nice. She wasn't interested in regular people with regular concerns, like the peers who excluded her in her youth. She wasn't interested in romance or committed relationships or being emotionally vulnerable.

And, she wasn't put off by annoyance, because people annoyed her as a whole anyway. She wasn't put off by danger, because she was sure she could handle anything. She wasn't put off by clashing personalities, because it wasn't like she was planning to go on long walks on the beach with any of her partners anyway.

Thus, she found herself drawn to the most exciting people in the room. Interpersonal drama, emotional outbursts, poorly-thought-out-choices, intense obsession, risky hobbies... it was all oh-so thrilling! Of course, she did realize that the people she was attracted to had major, glaring flaws. But Odile was determined, thorough, confident, passionate, genuine in her intentions, and newly hot. If she couldn't fix them, who could?

We know from Odile's optional sidequest that when she sees something suspicious, she dedicates herself to solving the mystery. We know from her presence at Mirabelle's side that when she sees a problem, she steps in to help, because if you want something done right you do it yourself. The one major exception? The topic that has her backing down, giving up, confessing incompetence?

Emotions.

She has long since learned that she is not actually very good at fixing those.

[k9emote]

Hello everyone , this is Jake/Caede ! You know me as K9emotes :)

I need to address something that has been detrimental to my mental health as of these past few months; the rumors surrounding my community and me.

I often hear from outside sources that people are telling other creators or members that I am a bad, toxic, or a drama causing person. I genuinely do not understand where this came from.

I started posting my art online and making a community to recover from a recent abusive relationship that crushed my state of self. I needed a healthy distraction and socialization so that I wouldn’t recluse and bedrot, as that was my usual response to things going wrong. I posted my art for others to cope and gently recover my mind, and it has been so wonderful meeting people and getting to show others my adoration for art.

but as my community has grown, I have made mistakes. With how unstable I have been lately, I have hurt people. I have assumed things and acted out because of it. I have done things I shouldn’t have, and I take responsibility for that.

The only issues in my community from the top of my mind, I will explain in full for all to see.

1. There was an issue where a user in my server was trying to claim that the term “FP” was BPD exclusive. I do not believe in this for lots of reasons I won’t go too far into, but to make it short; excluding other clusterB disorders from incredibly few medically and socially recognized symptoms hurts the entirety of clusterB and isn’t right. It’s internally ableist and I don’t stand for that. If you disagree, cool!!!! but leave my blog alone please

I grew frustrated as I felt ignored and demonized by this person, and spoke passive aggressively. I was triggered heavily and made bad choices with how I spoke. I was passive aggressive. That is it. I did not threaten, curse, wish harm on, or purposefully upset this person.

I struggled with tone through the conversation, and then banned the member and tried to move on. That is all that happened. I apologized to said person publicly about my behavior, and they were unbanned once educated on the subject. However, a person that this user knew acted out and said extremely hateful things about me and my staff team even after the situation had calmed down and was made up. They commented on me sexually, saying my ADULT STAFF MEMBER was “Jacking me off” by being my friend. I am sixteen years old. I am a child. The person who made that comment is 19, and never apologized. They then went to a friends server and tried to defend themselves and further attack me and my staff. They have done nothing but harass and throw fits, even after the entire situation was resolved and agreed upon.

2. There was a huge outburst of people using number names in my server without being RAMCOA survivors. Number names are closed for people who have gone through number programming. I explain it like a closed culture because for my own safety I’d rather not go into the torture aspects of it !!!! I sent out lots of educational announcements for my server, posted resources, helped correct people politely ect. I tried my very best to remain calm and helpful even while being triggered on the daily around my past childhood torture for almost a week straight. Some members were banned from my community for refusing to be educated or making up excuses on why they should be allowed to use number names while not being a RAMCOA survivor. I am not sorry for banning those people. I am not sorry for being passionate about the voices of survivors. I will not entertain people who refuse to change, and I have left this discussion behind with the strict rule that I will warn and then ban anyone who refuses to be educated.

3. At one point, I posted publicly claiming that the creator @lemondrops-emotes as heavily referencing my art. I fully believed that they were copying me on purpose, as the emojis looked extremely similar in my eyes. I have had my art stolen and posted in horrible corners of the internet. I was terrified and I acted out and accused them of copying me. This was wrong, I apologized, Lemon explained to me that it wasn’t intentional and me and Lemon are now on good terms. That entire situation has been dropped and I know not to call out things publicly when I’m scared now. I have grown in that area and promise to be better.

An entire hate blog was created about me and posted on that incident AFTER Lemon specifically stated that we had made up and it wasn’t anything to throw a fuss over.

I have received threats in my inbox.

I have had random members on discord dm me fake IP addresses to scare me. I have paranoid personality disorder and I am schizo. Both these incidents have made me spiral in terror. My mental health has been torn down from the amount of hate, threats, and rumors I have received for the crime of making mistakes as a teenager.

I am by no means excusing my actions, but my actions have been forgiven by the people I hurt. I owe no apology to anyone else.

Harassing me for mistakes that have been resolved does nothing but harm me. It does not help me grow. It does not help the emoji art community. Please, for the love of god, leave me alone. Stop attacking my close ones. Stop throwing dirt on my name. I am trying my best, and I will continue to grow and become a better person as much as I fucking can.

I want to keep making art, I wanna be a part of this community.

For those of you who have supported me from the beginning and actually taken the time to educate yourself on who I really am instead of taking a random person's word for it; thank you. I love you. I love my community, I love my supporters, and you have no idea how much you have all helped me out of the hell I was in. Thank you so so so so much. I create for you, and you help me get up in the morning. Please spread positivity through the art community and be nice to each other !!!!!! hate doesn’t get anyone anywhere and I do not and never have condoned drama spreading or harassment. I love you all, be safe <3

[accirax]

Attempting to Debunk the Arei Dress Up Theory

(CW: death, a mention of blackface, and discussion of the BMI system. Spoilers through Chapter 2 of Trigger Happy Havoc and through Chapter 2 Part 1 of Danganronpa: Despair Time.)

As most of you are likely aware, it’s a popular theory that, for one reason or another, the killer of Danganronpa Despair Time Chapter 2 dressed up as the victim, Arei, and that you can see them doing so in this conversation.

Because Veronika brings up Teruko’s prosopagnosia (face blindness) later in the episode, because Arei unusually says nothing throughout this conversation, and because the Dress-Up Room was oh-so-conveniently introduced this chapter, at first glance, it seems very plausible that this could be the twist the Class Trial is heading towards. I, too, liked this theory at first, but then I got to thinking. And the more I thought about all the risk factors, the more I became convinced it was nearly impossible that anybody would have chosen to dress up as Arei.

So, that’s what I’m trying to prove today: no possible killer amongst this cast could have been dressing up as Arei at this exact moment. And, my method is the most fair thing I could think of: bringing up a bunch of points of contention that could trip up anybody, and giving each character either an X or a pass based on their own traits and skills.

Given that there are 14 points that I came up with, I think it’s fair to say that if the character in question receives seven Xs or more (AKA 50%), it would be basically impossible for their disguise to have fooled anyone for this long. I will be giving out double Xs (XX) on some occasions where I think that someone would have a particularly bad problem.

That is based on my discretion, but, uh… so is this entire theory. The good news is that, with this one, it’s particularly easy to play along at home! If you disagree with any of my points, you could run this experiment and change the boundaries or participants to your liking. I’d love to see it if you do!

For this theory, I will be tackling any important character that I think could be dressing up as Arei at this moment. However, that isn’t everybody. Here’s who I eliminated and why:

Because we’re looking at this particular conversation, no one who is present in the Cafeteria could be pretending to be Arei at this point. I mean, I guess if Arei was in on it, then the eventual killer could be dressing up as Arei, and Arei could be dressing up as them. But, if Arei is willing to cooperate… why wouldn’t Arei and the killer just act as themselves? So, Teruko, Hu, Ace, Nico, Veronika, and Levi cannot be dressing up as Arei.

Xander and Min are dead, so I’m excluding them from this conversation.

If Arei is dressing up as Arei, she’s just being Arei. That’s nothing unusual, so we’re not talking about it.

If you genuinely think MonoTV dressed up as Arei and is the Chapter 2 killer, I have many concerns for you.

…Please don’t make me speculate even further about Mai, my heart can’t take it. More seriously, I think that the odds of this huge Mai twist resulting in her being the Chapter 2 killer (and thusly getting executed) are low enough that I can excuse her. I guess it could be that Arei was already dead at this time due to someone else’s hand, and then Mai stepped in from who knows where to impersonate Arei for reasons unknown, but… that’s so speculative that, again, I’m not going to bother. It'd really freak out the killer, too; can you imagine?

Cool! So that leaves us with Arturo, Charles, David, Eden, J, Rose, and Whit as people who could theoretically be dressing up as Arei, likely as her killer.

Before we really get started, I just want to clearly state that, for the most part, I’m not relating this to the actual theories of the timing or method of Arei’s murder. I think it makes the most sense if the person dressing up as Arei then became the blackened, but I’m not actually going to tie anyone’s culprit feasibility into how well they could dress up. There’s no category based on “do they have an alibi for Arei’s time of death” or “could they overpower Arei in a fight.” It’s just an objective look at how good everyone would be at impersonating Arei. I'm going to address the hypothetical person dressing up as Arei as the killer for the remainder of the analysis, though, so keep that in mind.

Let’s get started with issue #1!

Issue #1: Arei’s Hair Color

One factor that even Teruko could notice is if the killer didn’t have the same hair color as Arei. The girl is super blue (Arei even claims so herself in the Chapter 2 Part 1 Q&A), so the killer missing her distinctive hue would be a definite misstep. Out of the characters we have left, I think that David or Arturo would be the best at matching her hair color naturally.

Thankfully, though, they don’t have to.

A point frequently brought up is that we’ve seen these wigs in the Dress-Up Room already. If the killer simply put this on as part of their Arei disguise, it doesn’t matter what their original hair color is. Now, this wig is a lighter color than Arei’s hair, and it’s a little curly, and you’d have to style it, and the white wig being so similar to Sora from SDRA2’s hair makes me think that this wig is meant to parody an existing fangan character… but I’m willing to ignore all that for the sake of theorizing. Plus on that last point, just because the wig may be referencing somebody else doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been used by the killer.

So, no Xs given out this time! A round of applause for all our contestants.

Issue #2: Arei’s Eyes

Similarly, if you showed up dressed as Arei without her beautiful cerulean orbs, a lot of people would probably notice that something was up. J, Whit, and debatably Arturo pass this one for having blue eyes themselves.

The frequent counterpoint to this is similar to the wigs– the Dress-Up Room could easily contain colored contacts which could allow anybody to make their eyes blue. So, let’s talk about the Dress-Up Room.

This is what it looks like in full. As you can see, it’s mostly clothes. Teruko calls it “a boutique,” and Whit and Hu only mention getting “new clothes,” implying that there’s mostly only clothes in this room. However, it’s not only clothes, because Teruko has this to say:

Teruko mentions things besides clothes in this room, but has nothing to say about contacts or makeup. If they do exist, I think it would have to be in this dresser area, either in the drawers or in the pink box.

Now, I don’t think it’s impossible that there could be contacts in either of these places, which is why I’m giving people who don’t have blue eyes a pass here. I’m also ignoring the specific iris/pupil designs that people have here (such as David’s stars or Whit’s heart-shaped pupils) for the sake of the benefit of the doubt. Nobody has patterns on their irises or heart shaped pupils in real life (even after eye surgery), so that could just be a fun design quirk the creator ignored.

However, I will be giving our first X of the game to Eden, because of her glasses. If Eden was dressing up as Arei, she couldn’t wear her usual glasses, which she presumably needs to see. She could remedy her vision impairment with contacts, except that she would have to be wearing colored contacts to have blue eyes.

I did look it up, and it is possible to make colored contacts with a prescription. However, they would have to be customly made for Eden, which would mean that either A) she had to already have them on her at the start of the game (highly unlikely) or B) whoever created this killing game’s set specifically made colored contacts with Eden’s prescription on the off chance that Eden both decided to kill someone AND decided to dress up as someone to do it. They’d have to do it in several colors, too, because they would have no idea who Eden was planning to kill/dress up as. That seems implausible enough to me to discredit her on this one count.

You could also argue that Eden decided to chance just not wearing her glasses here. However, that would raise the obvious problem that she wouldn’t be able to see either what’s in front of her or who’s far away from her, which are both bad for someone trying to go undercover. It would be really hard for her to get through the day without accidentally scrunching her eyes trying to see something, which would start giving her away. Additionally, if Eden’s vision requires a double prescription (such as needing bifocals), you cannot make contacts for that kind of vision impairment.

So, yeah. TL;DR, it’s still an X for Eden only here.

Issue #3: Arei’s Skin Color

Arei has light skin, which you can see on her face and other various body parts in her typical clothing. Thus, anybody with dark skin would struggle impersonating Arei, because they would need to put paint/makeup on their face, neck, arms, hands, and thighs to avoid suspicion.

My point about the Dress-Up Room also comes back here. We haven’t seen any evidence that there is makeup in the Dress-Up Room, and other than potentially in Storage, I don’t think there’s a great alternate place to get it. I would believe that both Whit and Hu might wear makeup, so it would have been easy for one of them to comment about the cosmetics present in this room if they existed, and particularly if they would later be murder relevant.

However again, for the sake of theorizing, I’ll say that there is light skin paint/makeup in one of the drawers that a darker skinned person could use to cover themselves up. It would still be a time consuming plan with a high chance of failure, though, so I’m giving Charles, Eden, and Rose an X for impracticality here.

Issue #4: Arei’s Ethnicity

(This section has been edited since its original posting. Thank you to @another-danganronpa-fan and @xmicrophonyx for drawing my attention to the August 6th Q&A and more importantly the March 6th Q&A!)

Although Google says that the last name “Nageishi” is most common in Brazil (???), given that it’s Japanese in origin (as are Arei, Fuyuko, and Natusko’s names), I’m pretty sure that Arei is Japanese. And many of the other students… are not.

Look, I don’t want to bring real world politics into silly anime murder theory, but I really, really doubt that the creator would want to have a person of one race dress up as someone of another race, especially for characters who would have to change their skin tone. It’s not as obviously bad as a character straight up doing blackface, but it’s close enough that I think the creator would know to avoid putting that beat into their story. I’m tempted to give characters that fail here a double X, but since it’s technically only my opinion, I’ll leave it at one.

Now, I am assuming characters’ ethnicities here based on last names, which isn’t a foolproof plan. It doesn’t account for characters who are adopted, or who have a mixed race lineage. Still, I think that, combined with their designs, it’s the best we have to go off of.

Therefore, I’m giving an X to Arturo (likely caucasian), Charles (confirmed Hispanic), J (confirmed Hispanic), and Rose (French last name, but given that she is obviously black I would say likely Afro-French/potentially Creole?). Because David (likely Vietnamese) is still East Asian, I’m letting him slide; same with Whit (confirmed caucasian/asian). Although Eden's skin tone still troubles me, I try not to penalize or benefit characters multiple times for the same trait. Thus, because Eden is canonically half black and half Japanese, she will also not get an X.

I truly hope that I did not offend anybody with this section. If I said something incorrect, please let me know so that I can apologize and either correct it or remove this section as quickly as possible.

Issue #5: Arei’s Height

Arei is 5’7” (170 cm), so for the killer to impersonate her, they’d have to be somewhere around her height. I know that the Arei we saw was probably sitting down, but like… the killer would still have to walk to and away from the table to get there, which means people could have seen them standing. Not to mention, your height still shows when you’re sitting down if it’s off enough.

I think that being one inch (2.5 cm) off in either direction would be enough to bypass most people (we’ll get to that), so anyone in the 5’6”-5’8” (167-173 cm) range could pull it off. Therefore, J passes at a perfect 5’7” (170 cm), and so does Whit (5’6”/167 cm). Arturo (6’3”/190 cm) gets our first XX here for being literally over half a foot (15 cm) off. Eden just barely avoids being half a foot off at 5’2” (157 cm), so she gets an X. So do Charles (5’9”/175 cm), David (5’9”/175 cm), and Rose (5’4”/162 cm).

Issue #6: Arei’s Weight

I bring in this point mostly to communicate how likely it is that the killer could properly fit into Arei’s clothes. If the killer weighed too much more than Arei, then the clothes would be too tight, and if they weighed too much less than Arei, the clothes would be super baggy.

The best way I figured I could analyze this is to use a Body Mass Index (BMI) chart, which, if you didn’t know, is a ratio doctors use to compare people’s heights to their weights to determine whether or not they may be over- or underweight. Now, there have been several critiques of the BMI system, particularly regarding athletes– muscle is more dense than fat, so some of the fittest people in the world classify as morbidly obese under the system. It also wasn’t designed for anime characters with unrealistic weight expectations (seriously how tf was Mukuro 5’7”/169 cm and 97 lbs/44 kg she should've been DEAD long before the Spears of Gungir).

Because of how unreliable this method is, I won’t be giving any characters XX on this one no matter how far off they are. However, I will be giving one X to anybody who is more than two points off of Arei’s BMI. Because Arei clocks in at 19.5, that means anyone in the range of 17.5-21.5 would be safe.

Weirdly enough, with that range, the only two people who get an X in the weight category are the same people who passed the height category, J (22) and Whit (22). Arturo (21.5), Charles (21), David (21), Eden (20), and Rose (20) all have fairly similar proportions to Arei.

Issue #7: Arei’s Build

Speaking of muscles, Arei’s the Ultimate Bowler, dammit! She’s a professional athlete, and Rose even points out her strength during the arm wrestling contest.

Although I don’t think that the killer would need to expect to demonstrate Arei’s strength (or especially her bowling skills) when in disguise, you can still gauge how muscular someone is just from looking at them. For example, were Levi an option, he would be way too muscular to pass off as Arei.

This point becomes a lot easier to score with the official strength chart that the creator released in the Chapter 2 Part 1 Q&A!

I know that the creator warned us to not take this diagram too seriously, but for the sake of fun speculation, I think that this semi-canon material is the best we have to go off of. Not to mention, each section is only one point out of fourteen overall. If we're a little off here, it'll be okay.

Besides, I suspect that they put in that warning more so for people who do intense math about crime theories (like people who calculate that anyone who lifted Arei’s body using a single pulley system would have to be able to lift approximately 64 lbs/29 kg what who said that). It's understandable if they didn’t complete a physics thesis paper on exactly how a drop of blood would fall on a cashmere sweater when it’s a humid July day and the victim ate sauerkraut ice cream earlier.

Jokes aside, I’ll say that anyone in the fit to average range would be able to pass as Arei at a glance. That means that David and J are a-okay. Arturo, Charles, Rose, and Whit all get one X for being out of shape. Eden gets XX for being even more out of shape than the out of shape people.

Issue #8: Arei’s Voice

Out of all the voices in the cast, I think that Arei has one of the highest pitches. Thus, if the killer was suddenly called upon to speak as Arei, they would need to possess the ability to speak in a high pitched voice to even have a chance of mimicking Arei.

You could argue that the killer would go in with the intention of not ever speaking as Arei, but you have to remember that this killer was intentionally going out and being around people so that their disguise could be seen. A simple “how are you this morning?” or “did you get enough to eat?” could ruin your plans. You could choose to not respond, but part of the reason why people suspect that the Arei in this conversation isn’t Arei is because she doesn’t speak. AKA, Arei being quiet is out of character for her, and not speaking would immediately raise suspicion!

I’m giving David a XX because his voice is deep enough that I think he would seriously struggle to reach Arei’s pitch. Arturo, Charles, and Whit have deep enough voices that I think that they could easily be caught, but it wouldn't be so unreasonable that they couldn't give it a try. So, they get a regular X. Eden and Rose pass this test with flying colors. J has a lower voice among the girls, but I think she could speak in a higher pitch if she wasn’t so concerned with sounding girly, and her experience with actors might give her an edge.

Issue #9: Arei’s Wit

If “Arei” is forced to talk, then “she” also needs to sound like Arei when she does. Therefore, the killer needs to be someone who could mimic Arei’s personality to a certain degree– AKA, they need to bring the savage energy that Arei brings to her bullying roasts. After all, responding rudely is probably the best way to make sure that your interrogator shuts up and leaves you alone.

I’m just gonna run through this one in alphabetical order. Arturo insults people on the reg, so other than the fact that “Arei’s” insults might be a little more appearance-based than normal, he’d be fine. Charles has been seen trading verbal blows with Teruko, so I believe he could pull it off. David radiates so much theater kid energy that I’m sure he could pull Arei off as if it were the role of his life. Eden… is the first character here that I think might get an X. Her general personality is super nice, and even when she does oppose someone, it’s either out of sad desperation (like when she defends Arei in the second Class Trial) or in a silly way (like when she blackmails Teruko). Even if she decided to be mean for the sake of her murder scheme, I just don’t know if she has the killer instinct to come up with ruthless burns as quickly Arei does. While not as much as Arei, J is pretty blunt and rude, plus she’s had plenty of target practice with Arturo. Although Rose is very good at replicating paintings, I don’t think she’d have the energy or present-mindedness to replicate Arei’s personality, so she gets an X too. Whit has made jokes that come off as rude to others in the past (like Xander in the prologue, or Charles in the laundry scene), and he’s hung out with Arei a couple of times, so I think he could do it.

Issue #10: Arei’s Relationships

We’ve discussed somebody talking to Arei in the abstract, but now I want to get more specific. Right before the Class Trial occurred, Arei made some very notable relationships with people that were not made public knowledge– namely, her emotional reliance on David, her unwavering loyalty to Eden, and her defensive feud with Arturo.

The Arturo one isn’t really a problem, as just being normally mean to Arturo would probably suffice. But what if David came up to her at lunch, put a hand on her shoulder, and asked her how she was doing? If “Arei” started insulting him or manipulating him, he would immediately suspect something was up.

Considering that, as the evidence stands, I’m pretty sure no one character (other than Arei) definitely knew about all three of these relationships prior to the Class Trial, I could give everyone an X. However, there is a way you can bypass this– if the killer was confident that they knew about the way Arei felt about everyone, even if they were actually wrong.

I was already going to give Eden, David, and Arturo a pass for knowing about at least some of the relationships, but under this lens, it’s even more believable. Eden is in the best position, given that she knows about herself and Arturo, and at least saw David there when she ran away. Given that Arei thought of her as a friend, it’s also possible that Arei would have mentioned to Eden that David was the one who motivated her to defend Eden. David knew about Arei’s relationship with himself, and knew that she planned to patch things up with Eden. He didn’t have any reason to suspect anything weird with Arturo, but again, the relationship didn’t change all that much. Arturo would have struggled with David, but he at least knew about himself and Eden. I believe he could have been overly confident in assuming that Arei hated everyone other than Eden, so I’ll let him slide.

However, I think Charles, Whit, Rose, and J would all get an X. Charles is a smart guy who I can’t remember ever talking to Arei one on one, so I find it hard to believe that he believed he knew everything there was to know about Arei’s relationships. Whit spent more time with Arei, but he’s also more emotionally aware– he knows how complex people are, and therefore probably wouldn’t bank on nailing how Arei feels when he’s spent so much time off with Charles. Rose is often asleep and therefore misses out on a lot of the daily life. She sometimes can’t even remember who people are period, so I doubt she’d have the confidence to believe she understood Arei’s relationships. J is definitely the closest on this point, given that she’s interacted with Arei a decent amount and is pretty confident in herself. However, she’s pretty practical (just like her effects), so it’s still enough of a stretch that I’d give her the X.

Issue #11: The Killer’s Skill

This category asks, “how much does this plan rely on the talents included in the killer’s own Ultimate ability?” Don’t get me wrong– not every case, canon or fanon, needs to utilize part of the killer’s Ultimate talent. For instance, Mondo didn’t use any skills involved in being the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader when he killed Chihiro, unless you count his overall strength and attitude.

I’m actually asking this because I think that the disguise plan makes a lot of sense with J’s talent, the Ultimate Effects Artist. As I’ve explained before, J specializes in practical theater effects, which would make her far and away the best at pulling off the visual magic needed to make herself look like Arei. So, what of everyone else?

Think about it this way: imagine if you were playing the first case of Trigger Happy Havoc, and you learn that the blackened threw Hiro’s crystal ball at the buttons to make the Trash Room open. Then, you deduce, aha! Taka must be the culprit! In this universe, you’re right, and Taka is executed. But, wouldn’t it be weird if Taka committed the crime doing something that lined up exactly with Leon’s skill, and there was no focus given to it at all?

If someone was killing Arei and using J’s talent to do it, I would expect that they would be doing it with the intention of framing J. And I don’t think that anything else in this case purposefully makes it look like J did it, even if J actually did do it. Thus, I feel justified in giving Arturo, Charles, David, Eden, Rose, and Whit Xs for this category.

Issue #12: The Killer’s Absence

In my mind, the theoretical point of dressing up as Arei is so that, if you killed or otherwise incapacitated Arei earlier in the murder process, nobody would find it suspicious that she was gone. That, of course, raises another question– what if people find it suspicious that you are gone? Because of that, I think that the killer is someone who would have to be able to slip away from the group relatively unnoticed.

Charles and Whit are giving each other Xs here. Since the beginning of Chapter 2, it seems like these two hang out with each other pretty much 24/7. If one of them was gone, the other would certainly notice. (I’m excluding the possibility of one of them being an accomplice for the other because I find it incredibly implausible for actual murder- and character-related reasons.) Not to mention the incredibly gay funny sequence of events in the second Class Trial where David questions if anybody could really have a solid alibi for the entire day, then Charles says that he was with Whit for the entire day, and David doesn’t even bat an eye. In theory, this also means that Charles and Whit were actually together for the entire day, which means that it probably should be impossible for either of them to have been Arei during the scene at lunch. ...Oops?. Speaking of spending the day together, though…

J and Arturo are also exchanging Xs. If J was busy dressing up as Arei all day, Arturo would have been roaming the halls calling her name. And even if J would enjoy Arturo being gone for a day, she would certainly remember it. She even says as much in the Class Trial:

Given that the “that time period” J is talking about is around 7:30 PM, it’s not fully impossible that either of them could have been Arei at lunch. However, they would still both generally notice the absence of the other, so they get an X.

I think Eden, David, and Rose all get passes, though. Eden is a generally sociable person who likes to talk to others, but she doesn’t have one particular person she’s attached to as much as Charles and Whit/J and Arturo are. The person who would probably be most likely to notice would either be Arei, but she would be dead/incapacitated, or Hu, who was dealing with Nico and Ace at the time. Plus, if she was absent from one conversation, people would probably just assume she was talking to someone else somewhere else. David also generally seemed to get along with people, but also seemed to spend a lot of time alone. Rose… really doesn’t have a lot of close friends, and also isn’t much of a talker. If she was gone, people would probably just assume she was off sleeping somewhere.

Issue #13: The Arturo Pass

Arturo is a plastic surgeon, a profession which looks at the smallest details of a person’s face and tweaks them, even in slight ways, to make them look their conventional best. Or, essentially, if something is even the slightest bit off about Arei’s face, Arturo could probably pick it up from a mile away.

Now, I know that Arturo did not appear in the specific conversation in which Teruko saw “Arei” being quiet. However, there’s no reason that the killer would have to believe that they couldn’t run into Arturo unless they were Arturo, right? Anybody could come into the Cafeteria, so unless the killer did something to stop him, Arturo could have come, too. Since we can’t prove that Arturo and the killer meeting did or didn’t happen, I think we have to assume it was a possibility.

Therefore, I think that all candidates except Arturo fail here because it’s unlikely that they could stand up to Arturo’s scrutiny. Additionally, I would say that J doubly fails because Arturo has spent so much time staring at her face specifically. It’s possible that he could have forgotten what the rest of the casts’ ugly mugs look like, throwing them all into the pile of disgusting rejection. But there’s no way that he wouldn’t be able to recognize Julia’s glowing beauty under the makeup and clothing that makes her look horrifying.

To summarize, Arturo passes his own check because he would have no reason to call himself out, J gets a XX because of how tuned in Arturo is to how she looks, and everybody else (Charles, David, Eden, Rose, Whit) gets a regular X for being ugly in their own unique ways.

Issue #14: The Rose Pass

Same as before, except even worse. Remember when I said we were coming back to the “one inch in either direction could fool most people” thing? We know that Rose can canonically notice 1/16th in (0.16 cm) growths in people, so having literally anything off here could spell death.

I am aware that Rose is sleepy, forgets what people look like sometimes, and is somewhat absent minded. So, let me address those concerns as best I can.

For the first, recall that this is the day where Teruko wakes up four hours late. Therefore, when she enters the Cafeteria, it’s actually closer to noon than it is to morning. Even if the killer was only dressed up as Arei around the time of that meal, we already know that she was awake at that time– Teruko leaves the Cafeteria and runs into Rose around the Gym directly afterward.

For the second and third, we only know that she only forgot about who J was before the first Class Trial. I would expect that after a murder actually occurred, she would be much more aware of her surroundings, and more likely to remember what people look like. She has nightmares about the trial and execution, which every student (except Xander) attended. With her photographic memory, I would expect that she would remember exactly what they looked like at that time. Not to mention that, under my system, everybody has at least one unrelated X. Those are all things that would stick out, which Rose is much more likely to notice than something that’s normal.

That’s my longwinded way to explain that pretty much everyone (Arturo, Charles, David, Eden, J, Whit) is getting an X here. Rose doesn’t because she, again, would not have to worry about running into herself.

The Grand Summary!

So, in the end, we see that (drumroll please…)

DAVID COULD FUCKING PASS AS AREI ARE YOU KIDDING ME–

Ahem. Well, with my analysis today, we have proven that nobody in the cast could have been dressing up as Arei at the time of that lunch conversation… other than David fucking Chiem, apparently. Now, keep in mind that he is just barely hitting under fifty percent here, and that he double failed on the voice.

But, uh, there you go, swap theorists. If anybody was going to swap with Arei, it would have been David. I look forward to seeing everybody’s theories about how David is the true killer of Chapter 2 via crossdressing.

Tip: I am so fucking mad. See ya, everybody– thanks for reading!

[the--artist]

I’ve decided to just start a series where I rant about my favorite characters and why I like them (emphasis on “I” as this is just my opinion) and why I like them.

Sooo, I thought I’d start with my favorite character - Donna Beneviento from RE8.

I want to preface this saying that Donna is maybe the only character I can actually relate with personality-wise. No, I don’t kin her(high school me probably did 😓), but she’s one of the only characters who i actually feel like I understand her at a deeper level. Donna is elegant, respectful, and quiet on the outside, but timid and scared on the inside. She’s always been afraid. Either being afraid of kids seeing her scar, to people seeing her through Angie. When faced with adversity, Donna turns to herself inward: for example, turning towards playing with dolls instead of friends. On a general level, I resonate with this a lot and I’m so happy to have seen a character like this.

On another note, I really love her quiet, but intentional presence in the back when we meet the four lords. Angie, Angie, ANGIE is always in your face - arguably the first lord we meet in that scene (excluding Karl Heisenberg before). Angie is definitely loud - and with her scary white color palette - sticks out. Donna is pretty much in the back all by herself and some people haven’t even caught onto her presence at that point. After racketing Ethan, Angie heads back to Donna and that’s when we finally notice her. The cloaked, hidden Victorian goddess, Donna Beneviento is sitting in the back.

Speaking on her design, I LOVE her design. I’m a sucker for pale skin + dark outfit/dark skin + light outfit combo. This light/dark motif in character design really highlight the character’s haunting, but mysterious look. This design choice is a really good idea for her and adds a “haunting, tragic” feel. The pale skin contrasting to her dark hair and outfit makes her feel like a ghost! This is evident more in Donna’s portrait. I LOVE masks or face coverings, and with Donna her veil gives her such a mysterious look. Why is she hiding her face? When we bump into her portrait we see such a beautiful lady, so why is she hiding her face?? Only when we finally see her face when Ethan kills her can we see her scars. A once beautiful and normal women is now scared and hurt - what a tragedy - which cause her to hide her face. Once we lean about Miranda’s experiments, we feel even more bad for her as she was mentally underdeveloped. In some ways, implanting the Cadou gave her cool hallucination powers, but absolutely destroyed the timid, traumatize Donna. A once sweet girl has now been turned evil.

Basically, I’m a sucker for a conservatively dressed/modest goth who covers their face.

On to Donna’s doll motifs. As a doll collector and horror enthusiast, her being a doll maker really spoke to me. Seeing her display dolls everywhere around her home make me feel like at home. I genuinely enjoy seeing the dolls make her so happy!

I won’t go on about my theories and understanding of her backstory, but she’s genuinely one of the most interesting and intriguing characters I’ve ever seen. She’s shrouded in so much mystery and so much is left to the player to theorize about. The notes we find around the game as well as her actions are incredibly vague but purposeful. I have spent hours thinking about it and how this connects to her. There is sooo much duality in her. From her crest, to her outfit, split personality (idk much about this), colors, actions, and behavior. There is so much to unpack to understand how Benvienoto’s mind works.

Anyways, I’m leaning towards writing an analysis on Donna. Tell me if you’d be interested..

[lorynna]

Please understand I am writing this from a position of genuine curiosity and not one of malice.

I saw your response to the anon talking about their aroace friend and you both agreed that asexuality is being “muddied” by people who identify as asexual since there’s so much variation between them.

I am honestly quite confused as to why you are dictating the definitions of lived experiences you don’t share. Why do you have to decide how people feel and perceive their feelings if those are completely separate people than you?

Is it truly your business to decide how labels should be applied if you aren’t the one using them? As an asexual, the way you discuss my identity dismisses me and other asexuals as people, because you make assumptions about what and how we should be feeling. It feels dehumanizing.

Again…I write this with no malice, I just don’t understand your position on this matter.

Hello anon.

My response to the other anonymous person submitting an ask involved both of us agreeing about the fact that those labels are hard to get taken seriously due to a lot of people either trying to weaken the definition of asexuality/aromanticism by widening it until cinderella's unique custom-designed shoe is a one-size-fits-all, (in other words:) it completely looses it's meaning and can be applied to the average person or a person who simply has a low sex drive and/or are following a trend, where it "seems cool and quirky" to pick out a label and make it your entire personality until you get tired of it and need to get something new.

Touching on your comment implying that I am calling this term (who in my opinion has become useless due to the above mentioned reasons) as me not rejecting the label therefore but because "there is so much variation between asexual/aromantic people". Which is just...sigh.

I don't think I have to point out that the reasons (again, listed above), that I have also stated in multiple of my takes about this subject, don't indicate any sort of valid variation but the broadening of a simple term until it is applicable to the average person who "sometimes does not feel like having sex" or "feels like not having a relationship for some time in their lives".

Now a counter question. Am I really dictating the definitions of lived experiences I don't share (like you claim) or am I simply talking about my opinion? What power do I have to truly dictate how someone can/has to label themselves? Suprise: I don't! People can continue to pick labels how they please and I can give my opinion accordingly, how I please.

I am challenging you to try and analyze if I am truly trying to be malicious towards actual asexuals/aromantics or if I am just fed up by everything getting used as a trendy label or people pretending to "be cool". I am challenging you to form an opinion on wether or not I am truly coming from a place of hate or rather constructive criticism. And I am challenging you to not see everything that defies your worldview as hate. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has them and sometimes they stink!

My favorite saying : You cannot define something, without actually excluding anyone from said definition. To defines means to limit and that's okay, that is essential. Otherwise words, labels, definitions, it all means nothing. To open the doors to everyone means to protect no one.

I would encourage you (if you are really interested in my take on the topic) to take a look into my pinned post, where I am talking about this more intrinsically. I'll link it here down below.

Also linking here now below the question of another anon that THIS anon is referring to.

[onethousandwords]

Self-Sacrifice, Forgiveness, and Other Christian Elements in Gravity Falls

I'm a Christian who enjoys various books, cartoons, anime, and video games. Although, I believe the Bible is the best source for really understanding and appreciating God, I think God also speaks through nature, people, and various sources of media that people create. Maybe not in whole but in part. I'd like to disclaimer this by saying that I'm aware Alex Hirsch is Jewish (and seems to have a secular worldview which doesn't exclude him from being charitable). I pray that he opens his heart to Jesus, but I'm aware that there is a trend in modern Christianity that involves Christians or people claiming to be Christians to behave in ways that are distinctly not Christ-like. I have been guilty of not behaving in a very Christ-like manner myself (in different ways - I have my struggles), but it pains me to see people in the LGBTQ+ community turned away and unwelcomed in the faith, to see people with means being uncharitable, to hear hateful rhetoric.

But I'm hopeful that he could be open to the idea as he did create at least one character (a side character) that he seems to enjoy (and fans also enjoy) that is strongly hinted as having a Christian (possibly Catholic) background. This is a side character, though. The Pines family (the main characters of the show) are Jewish. Also, the show at times can be irreverent (Stanley Pines is a criminal and at one point prays to Paul Bunyan for help) and leans a little too heavily on the occult (though, it does showcase an element of danger to that, so I don't feel like it actually encourages it that much - regardless of how Alex jokes about it). But it is a well-written and enjoyable show.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let's get into finding God in Gravity Falls! In Gravity Falls, self-sacrifice seems to be a common theme in the show. It is also an extolled virtue in Christianity and in general. But Christians are often called to "take up our cross" (Matthew 16:24-26) - basically putting to death the self (self-sacrifice) for the sake of others. If the characters aren't self-sacrificing something for each other, they're learning to be more self-sacrificial. This is first seen in the episode Legend of the Gobblewonker where Dipper and Mabel initially brush off their great uncle (grunkle) Stan's attempt to bond with them via fishing in favor of going monster hunting with Soos (another prominent character in the show that is practically Stan's honorary son). However, later in the episode, they feel bad about leaving their Grunkle Stan all alone (because despite his criminal behaviors (he's seen in a flashback teaching the children how to counterfeit money), he genuinely wanted to spend time with them in a legitimately good and caring way. They return to their grunkle, and despite having felt rejected and abandoned, Stan welcomes them back. They all have a good time.

As a side note, this episode is good on a first watch but even BETTER on subsequent rewatches after watching the whole show. Stan's moments seem all the more sad and painful, and the ending of the episode seems all the more joyful and triumphant. Anyway, the children learn a little more about self-sacrifice, and Stan is shown to be forgiving.

The self-sacrifice theme is continued in many other episodes, too. In The Inconveniencing, Dipper risks his "cool" reputation with his new teenaged friends by performing the Lamby-Lamby Dance (which involves being dressed as a lamb - which could be Alex in a way referencing his Jewish roots here - a literal sacrificial lamb - but also Jesus himself is referred to as the lamb of God) to get their ghost tormenters to spare everyone. In the Time Traveler's Pig, Dipper eventually learns he needs to let go of his crush, Wendy (sacrificing his own wants) in order for his twin sister Mabel to be happy with her pet pig, Waddles. In Little Dipper, Dipper eventually decides to let Mabel remain taller especially on learning that she feels like he's better than her at everything. In The Deep End, Dipper sacrifices his job (and therefore his chance to spend more time with his impossible crush, Wendy) in order to help Mabel save Mermando (a Merman).

In Land Before Swine, Stan eventually comes to the conclusion that he needs to self-sacrifice after causing a rift between himself and his great niece, Mabel, with his selfish and lying behaviors. And he does by risking getting eaten by a dinosaur in order to save Waddles. Mabel, then, forgives him. Interestingly, this episode also includes an abandoned and dilapidated church and the aforementioned Christian character, Fiddleford McGucket (more on him later), who interrupts the other characters who started arguing when their lantern broke (he fixed the lantern - and I find that to be interesting symbolism - Christians are called to be a light before others- Matthew 5:14-16). He also tries to help later but ends up failing in that endeavor (which is okay because Stan needed to have his big moment). In Sock Opera, despite having worked very hard on her sock puppet show (which also involved a musical number and was very cool), Mabel risks the destruction (and it does get very destroyed) of her show in order to save Journal 3 which is very important to Dipper. The main villain of the show even asks, "Who would sacrifice everything they have worked for for their dumb sibling?" And Mabel, acknowledging how much her brother has done for her, responds, "Dipper would" before following his example.

In Society of the Blind Eye, Fiddleford readily takes a shot from a memory-erasing gun to save the kids from being shot with it (though, he also readily acknowledges that this won't hurt him due to how "broken" his mind already is). In Northwest Mansion Mystery, Pacifica (another side character - known for being rich, snobby, and selfish) risks the wrath of her parents and possible danger and apologizes to a ghost her family wronged in life. She also repents allowing townsfolk (considered rabble by her parents) to attend a fancy party that the ghost and his folk were promised many years ago. The ghost is accepting and forgiving - it's even later stated in additional media after the show that the ghost and others like him still watch over her.

And now, we get to Not What He Seems. One of the most iconic moments in the show is when the portal is revved up, the shut-down button is within reach, and Mabel is forced to make a choice. Her and her twin brother have discovered that their great uncle has been lying to them all summer and not just the relatively harmless, goofy con-man lies he's known for - no. He has multiple forged IDs in his possession, there is an old newspaper he owns that says Stan Pines is Dead, he's been engaging in very suspicious behavior, two government agents have told the children that they suspect Stan is building a doomsday device.

Grunkle Stan pleads with her not to shut the portal (this suspected doomsday device) down. Dipper, full of worry and fear, tells Mabel to use her head. And Mabel, full of tears, replies to Stan that she's not even sure if he is her grunkle which causes all parties present to pause their fighting at seeing the usually happy-go-lucky girl in tears. Stan tells her that everything he's done and worked for has been for his family and to look into his eyes and "Is he really a bad guy?" Mabel takes a moment before surrendering completely, letting go of the bar that hosts the big red shut-down button and ascending into the air due to a gravitational anomaly.

"Grunkle Stan," she says, "I trust you." Trust is another theme in Gravity Falls, but I think Mabel is saying a lot more than just "I trust you" here when she says that. She is also saying, "I love you, and even though you've lied to us all summer, I forgive you."

Although, Stan has certainly proven that he cares (he fought a pterodactyl for Mabel's pig, he protected Dipper and Mabel from zombies, etc), it can't really be said in that moment that Stan had earned any trust or forgiveness after everything they'd seen. And yet, Mabel gives it freely, anyway. In that moment, Mabel is displaying Christ-like behavior. It's also appropriate symbolism that she is shown to surrender and ascend in this moment.

I'm going to skip a Tale of Two Stans for a moment, but come back to it because I also think it's important.

More self-sacrificing happens when in the Stanchurian Candidate, Stan gives up the possibility of his getting elected in order to save his family (this actually helps him get elected but hilariously, he's later disqualified due to his many crimes).

At the end of Weirdmageddon, Stan ultimately sacrifices himself (he has his entire identity erased) in order to save his family (and the whole town). Although, he does not technically "die" - he has, in a sense, given up his entire life. John 15:13 - Greater love has no one than this: that he would lay down his life for the sake of his friends. Fortunately, this show has a happy ending, Stan gets his memories back. Although, there is no mention of Christ, it does feel like a metaphor for what happens when someone hears and accepts the Gospel - the Good News - that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, was raised again after three days, and if we ask him for forgiveness and trust in Him to save us, we will be saved.

Basically, what happens is you die (to sin), you lose your "sin" identity. Then, you are "born again" - in a sense, you gain a new identity in Christ - one of righteousness. Stan does this by gaining a new identity - one of a hero instead of a crook. This is what Jesus does for us - He saves us and gives us a new identity. Even if we aren't engaging in criminal behavior, we all have something we need to be forgiven for. None of us are perfect. We've all lied, we've hurt people's feelings, by inaction - we have contributed to bad things in the world... Some of us may have even smuggled Pugs.

Since this is getting very long, I'll save the rest for a part two.

[raviposting]

Okay okay okay I was talking with @fallowtail about Jay and I just gotta scream about how Jay’s unconditional love not only is for Sam but extends to all the ghosts. 

It’s one thing to say “Okay. Fine, you see ghosts, that’s weird and cool!” and then just end it there, which Jay could easily do since he can’t directly interact with the ghosts. But he absolutely loves them and it’s just so clear in how he makes every effort possible to interact with them. When Sam says “Pete wishes he could play” Jay doesn’t go “Oh, that’s too bad,” he says that actually yeah they can totally play together. When he sees the maximum capacity has been changed to 69 he rolls his eyes because he immediately knows it’s Trevor’s fault because he knows Trevor’s personality. He remembers that Flower forgot Sam’s name yesterday, when Sam leaves the room he tries to do the handshake with Pete, he runs around the house desperate to see one of them, he does Sas’s flirting for Shiki, he knows exactly when the ghosts would take offense (”I’m guessing they didn’t like the ghosting comment”). Even with the Halloween episode - it could have been a two-parter where they spend the whole episode trying to get Jay to listen, but it’s not. It’s because he knows the ghosts so well that he got their message as quickly as he did when Sam got stuck. 

And we can see why he’s so down with this, beyond his love - Jay’s also so, so lonely and wants friends. He’s already been treated like a ghost with his own friends in DnD, with them not being able to see or hear him for a long period, and had to deal with hearing them talk about replacing him with someone else right in front of him. Jay’s also spoken so much about missing friends and wanting to make new ones - he told Sam there’s an entire group of people in their home that she can see and hear and he’s left out of it, he almost joins a cult because of how starved for friends he is, he’s so desperate to be friends with their new neighbors to the point that even though he’ll sit in the tree for Sas & Sam, he still asks the neighbors to not hold this against them!! Like the dude is so lonely and there’s an entire group of people that he genuinely loves in his own home and I adore that he makes sure that he interacts with them as people and never tries to make them feel left out. Like to an extent he gets how they feel and doesn’t want to exclude them (and also wants to feel included, because in this scenario he’s still kind of the outsider in a friend group since Sam can see them). 

It’s just really cool to me because it provides us an environment where instead of ignoring each other, Jay is as much of their friendship as Sam is, just in a different way. He’s best friends with Pete, he and Trevor have a snarkier relationship, Sas appreciates him, etc. - instead of just ignoring each other and cohabiting, we get varied interactions and dynamics and they actually feel genuine because of how much effort Jay puts in to knowing all the ghosts, and it’s just so incredibly nifty. 

[justsalpals]

https://www.tumblr.com/justsalpals/751271185799675904/hes-an-afterthought-one-by-one-they-are-brought?source=share

ooh, rubbing my little hands together. I didn't think anyone was actually gonna go for this. hell yeah. guessing you just mean the whole post?

So! If I'm recalling correctly, this was written immediately after the finale. Post-episode is when I've always had the most luck getting eyes on a post, so I was in a bit of a hurry to get something out while there were still eyes in the tag. I knew going into the episode that Jace was nearly certainly gonna die and was looking forward to getting a good short angst piece out about it. Because that's how I roll.

The main inspiration was, pretty obviously, how we have no fucking clue what happened to Jace. He was being arrested, but then pushed into the lava? But the death was quick and jokey enough it could be argued to be a non-canon aside. But then again, shortly after all the shatter starred people were brought back to life! Does that include Jace? Why wouldn't it? The Bad Kids straight up do not know enough about this man to judge whether he was irredeemable and genuinely into it or just a brainwashed pawn. (The real answer, of course, is somewhere between.)

One thing is for sure: they don't talk about him ever again. Which I choose to interpret as them just fucking forgetting about him. (To be clear, I find this very funny. And in character for a bunch of teens who just saved the world again. They don't have bandwidth to think through every little person who's gonna be resurrected, okay?!) So, gods left to their own devices were told to bring back everyone who'd been shatter starred. I certainly don't see why Jace would be excluded.

But he is forgotten. His death was tacked onto the end, a joke to wrap up loose ends. And his resurrection is just as careless.

He is an afterthought.

Ooh nice one, Arson. Punchy! Depressing! This is our starting point, the tone setter. We're taking this and running with it.

Jace is brought back to life, and just. Left to his own devices. Not worth the effort. Yeah you helped try to kill a god and force the entire town to become an unwilling divine domain, but we legitimately do not care about you enough to even follow up. He's not a threat. He's not even enough of an annoyance to swing by and heckle with some jeering one liners. He's not worth it.

He's alone. Unmoored. Directionless. For the first time since Porter raised him from the dead, he can't feel that otherworldly anger that drove him.

His chest aches.

Was he not angry anymore? He should probably be angry, right? That's how villains feel after their plans are foiled, yeah? And I do believe that even before being brought back Wrong, Jace had a lot of anger he buried far down as he could. The shatter star didn't invent the anger, just stoked what was there already.

But that anger was the only thing keeping him upright for months. He wants to be angry now, wants to still have that drive and purpose, but he's so damn burnt out.

So where does he go from here? He's probably lost his job, and gets the feeling if he goes to check he'll just remind people of his existence and get thrown in jail after all. What's left? Jace being directionless is something I love to play with, and he's had all that direction and devotion ripped from his chest. What's there to do but grasp at ghosts?

So he goes to the gym. Probably doesn't even know why, just knows it was the last place he saw Porter.

Hey Arson, why the hell does he make a bunch of clones of himself?? That makes no sense. BECAUSE ITS A COOL VISUAL OKAY. The emptiness of the gym is Too Much. Summoning a crowd of yourself, but their eyes judge harsher than any outsider ever would.

He's lost in himself, and after so long he can't even figure out what it is he's feeling. He can't comprehend that he just misses Porter. And what way is there to speak with the man who would be god than to pray?

But Porter's not here anymore. Jace, alone forgotten directionless, has to figure it out on his own.

[buckmpreg]

accusing people (many of whose are queer in this fanbase) of being homophobic for not liking a character who has been racist + misogynistic (without even an implied off screen apology) is so disingenuous? i’m sure there are people who hate him in bad faith but it’s so reductive to imply that disliking him is based in prejudice and not just a genuine dislike of his character’s behavior toward other characters in the show??

i'm not talking about that, though, am I? if you're talking about tommy, then i'm literally talking about one specific post where people made some wild ass takes in the tags that reeked of homophobia. and i don't think people who are queer are excluded from being homophobic towards others in the community bc it can and does happen more than you'd think. i'm all about solidarity myself, but i am also a trans queer guy and i've seen some wild transphobic shit hurled casually in fandom spaces before.

also tommy said those things years before he showed up again as the hot pilot. he's made amends, clearly. if you need the narrative of him being apologetic for his past actions spoonfed to you on screen then i dunno what to tell you lol, his actions and dynamic with both hen and chimney have spoken a lot louder than a random ass apology years after the fact would do. hen and chimney have both forgiven and accepted him now. chimney called tommy cool. he was at chimney's wedding and chimney and hen both didn't mind, in fact, hen said "its about damn time" about bucktommy, so that point is already kinda moot.

and if you're referencing josh, i have no memory of him acting racist or misogynistic lol. are we just throwing those words around, now? there have been moments where josh has made me roll my eyes, but the same can be said for other characters on the show, even buck, who is my favorite character lol

also bad faith lmao be for real, you can see in the posts i reblogged that it's mentioning very specific people. and for your information, didn't block every single person who reblogged that post, i blocked the people with shitty tags that reeked of homophobia. that's it.

that's my longwinded answer anyway

[cephaloprincess]

Thinking abt Lightning... I'm not good at like actual character analysis or anything, I just think he's neat. I never noticed how much of a people-pleaser he actually was and I think thats kinda interesting! And how most of the time he only zaps people to make other people happy... Like when he was taking orders from the alliance, he looks back at them for validation!!

Sure he does it of his own volition too in the early episodes, like when he zaps Flower, but she was still widely disliked back then... He always seems more eager to help than to actually like, hurt anybody. And he regrets it too! Like when he admitted to killing "sadly, dozens" of people, and he was really happy for the chance to join Death PACT and change his ways...

His search for validation doesn't really end there either, he had this bit early on where he had to clarify the rules of every challenge, but ever since Flower told him to stop, he hasn't said it since. He was genuinely just trying to get help I think, but gave up once he was told it was annoying.. Kinda relatable!

I noticed he always seems sad to be left out too... Like when he was excluded from the zigzag group and when Marker and Stapy were hanging out, and he was sad when he lost the credit for his own idea, and he was upset when his team didn't notice he was replaced... So it seems like naturally he doesn't take well to being forgotten or left behind. Not to mention when he was kicked out of the jungle last episode!

Even when his team kicked him out like that, he respected their wishes despite being bitter over it... Like he said to Puffball, "I wouldn't want to attend a party I wasn't invited to." I kind of like that about him, he doesn't force himself on others when he isn't welcome (ignoring the zapping, which he hasn't done in a while anyway). It's still sort of sad though, it's clear he still really wanted to help his team. I wonder if he'll say anything about losing the bracelet to Puffball next episode? I can only imagine that he feels pretty guilty about letting her get to the jungle in the first place...

I think a B-plot about him trying to get better at preventing death would be cool, assuming he doesn't get eliminated. Him trying to make it up to his team, even though his forgetfulness regarding his own abilities gets in the way sometimes.. That'd be really sweet I think!

That's all, there wasn't really a point to this post, I just wanted to talk about Lightning because he's been growing on me a lot... Thanks for reading!

[clementine-thedestroyer]

(Just more of me yapping about Simon in a Legend of Zelda AU, first post can be found here)

When talking about Simon being Link in a BOTW AU, I imagine him as looking pretty rough- at least compared to Link.

I mean, he’s tall and pretty well built, that alone would make him pretty intimidating. I know the longer hair would be pretty on him, but I’m inclined to say he comes out of the Shrine of Resurrection with kind of like a buzz cut, but then as he goes around Hyrule doing his thing (smacking bokoblins, eating things he shouldn’t) it starts to grow out more and more. I think it would be a cool little way of showing him changing as he adjusts to Hyrule and becomes more confident in minding the hand he’s been dealt.

I also see him as having a few scars, I’m not sure how the Shrine of Resurrection is supposed to work, but we’re going to say it let him keep his battle scars.

He’s got one across his upper lip, starting under one of the high point’s of his Cupid’s bow and going diagonally up and out. He’s got another stretching from his brow to his hairline, along with a particularly ugly one where he’d nearly had his ear torn off.

Naturally, he keeps the earrings. They’re essential, and Simon would look hot in Link’s iconic little blue hoops. And of course, the champions tunic is still a thing, but I think he has some sort of brown scarf or handkerchief with a traditional design (similar to what’s on the Hylian or champion’s tunic) that he pulls up over his mouth and nose whenever he’s in crowded places or doesn’t want people to talk to him.

He’s also a frequent user of the Hylian hood, likely in conjunction with his little mask. That combined with his stature and frame is enough to make most people duck their heads. He doesn’t like being recognized as who he is, partially because he hates the attention, and partially because he feels so disconnected from who he was. How could he not? The old Simon was gone, what was left of him rattled around in Simon’s brain like a caged animal. Simon was not Simon.

Maybe that’s where the moniker of Ghost came from- he didn’t want to be called by the same name of the man that he was trying so hard to distance himself from.

Or maybe he never began going by Ghost, maybe it was just an off handed comment shared under the stars with the pretty girl he met at the stable in the Tabantha Snowfields who didn’t seem to mind his aversion to speak or show his face.

Maybe it was just a whispered admittance that he felt more like the ghost of Simon haunted him than anything else.

I know people are divided over whether they read Link as completely mute, selectively mute, or not mute at all, but at least for this AU, I’m going with the selectively mute route. As in, Simon will avoid speaking if at all possible. Mostly nodding his head, pointing, or using other means of communicating whenever possible. It gets worse the more people who’re there, especially if they’re strangers, and the only exceptions are Mipha’s spirit, Zelda, maybe the other champion’s spirits (excluding Revali), and maybe the girl from the stable if we’re still including the x reader aspect of this.

For Mipha, it’s frankly because it’s Mipha. She’s genuinely one of the sweetest people(?) ever, and operating off the idea that Simon feels really disconnected from himself before loosing his memories, and that they’re almost haunting him, I think that the past closeness of his relationship with Mipha would make her one of the only people he might be able to speak around. I also think that talking with her about who he used to be might help him get some closure and better understanding of who he was before. It’s similar with Daruk and Urbosa- although probably to far lesser extents. With Daruk, maybe it’s more of the kind of comfort that comes with having a stupid friend that you can always rely on to fuck around with- or in Simon’s case, knowing that he used to.

Btw the part where Link/Simon ate rocks is cannon in this AU.

[hard--headed--woman]

There has been this post going around and I'm not sure if you've seen it yet, but its basically getting mad at lesbians who post horny confessions or just talk about lesbian sex and saying 'men dni' at the bottom, saying that these women where exclusionists somehow. I'm pretty sure these women do this just due to the atrocious number of men on this sight who post about how hot lesbians are and lesbian porn, and just not wanting men who fetishize them on their posts where they discuss their love, so I find it quite cruel and rude how these people are bashing these women and calling them "exclusionists" simply due to them not wanting some people on their posts, like not everything has to include you people, god. Words have to mean something at some point, why in the world can't lesbian just mean women with exclusive attraction to other women?

(sorry if this sounds like a vent or is odd to say in an ask box, many of my friends know my Tumblr and quite a few of them believe in gender ideology so I didn't wish for them to drop me if they see this since I do genuinely love them)

Wow these people really know only three words : queer, terf and exclusionist lol. Yesterday, I think it was on a post by menalez, someone called people who thought "lesbian" meant woman attracted to women only "exclusionists" too. Apparently now even your sexuality has to include everyone or you are a bigot, and the definition of lesbian is exclusionist ! It's crazy to me that people are so mad at lesbians for not liking men and won't even leave us talk about our sexuality without being like "but what about men ? why do you exclude men ? can't you just let men interract ?". They don't want to understand that lesbians don't like men or that we do not want them in our posts about our same sex attraction, they think everything has to be open to men. Everything has to be about men. Exhausting. Since when a LESBIAN asking men not to interract is "exclusionist" or a bad thing ??? Their community is so lesbophobic.

I think they try to change the definition of lesbian so they can call themselves lesbians and pretend it makes them so cool and oppressed - or because they have a fetish on us.

Don't worry, it's okay! Feel free to vent and to say anything you want to say in my inbox haha. And I understand what it's like, I have a lot of trans and TRAS mates, they don't know I am gender critical.

[pb-dot]

Film Friday: The First Omen

As anyone who's been hanging around philosophers for a long enough amount of time, it's hard to say anything categorical and true. Try to find a way to define chair that contains all chairs and exclude all non-chairs, to quote the most famous example. So, when I say that I don't really like horror sequels or prequels, it seems like I put out a call for the universe to humble me. If all my humble pie gets served in the form of movies like The First Omen, though, I will certainly not complain. Also beware that some spoiler talk is inevitable in describing why this movie kicks so much ass, so if you want the short version: Absolutely SPECTACULAR visuals and genuine creeping dread makes this movie so damn good it's almost stupid. Watch it first chance you get!

The First Omen follows the story of Margaret, a young American women well on the way to become a nun when she moves to Italy and finds herself smack-dab in an evil conspiracy to bring about the Antichrist by ways of profane human husbandry. The conspiracy is centered around, or at least Margaret believes it to be centered around, a troubled teen girl in the care of her convent, but as the sheer scope of the conspiracy becomes clear to her, Margaret realizes the real locus of the conspiracy is much closer to home.

The twist that this is less of a The Omen as it is a Rosemary's Baby take is perhaps not the single most shocking one to people who's seen their share of twist-laden media, but honestly, I respect it. The twist isn't a shocking swerve as much as it is a confirmation of an idea that has been incepted in your brain and has been brewing for about two acts at this point. It's all in the visuals, how Margaret finds herself in these immaculate artful shots, that in addition to being cool as hell, also tells us she's living under tightly managed control. Then there's the more obvious symbolism, like her waking up after a rare night of libations in a composition that evokes a spider's web where she is caught in the middle, or her kneeling in prayer surrounded by candles that appear to float in the air. It looks gorgeous, and really helps with the oppressive atmosphere.

Another twist I really enjoyed was the movie's take on what a satanic conspiracy would look like. In most of these Satanic Panic-type stories, these cults are made up whole cloth of a category of person I don't really believe to exist. It's just a big ask to presuppose there exists large, organized groups of people who believe in Christianity, or at least the largely apocryphal mythology around modern Western Christianity, but deciding to throw their lot behind God's Comparable But Fundamentally Lesser opponent, Satan, often for ill explained reasons. That seems nonsenical to me, not only because almost all the aesthetics of this quote-unquote satanism is just Catholicism But Spooky (i.e Catholicism,) but because it seems like such a hard sell. Why, after all, accept that mainstream ideas about God and Satan when there's so many spicy heresies and strains of theological thought that one could easily adopt into it instead. Gnosticism alone could fuel a generation of fun new religious horror, but I guess that's too spicy for Hollywood.

The First Omen solves this quite elegantly by making the very spicy but ultimately true observation that a satanic conspiracy would be most likely to arise from the already religious, and perhaps even from the Catholic Church itself. As such, this conspiracy is chock-full of creepy nuns and shady priests, but in the way these things often are creepy or shady in real life, instead of the "profaning of the holy" business that's usually the draw. It's not so much that they worship Satan as they are scared as shit of the rising secularism in society and wants to bring about the ultimate wrestling heel to scare people back into the arms of the church. Would it work like that? Perhaps, or perhaps these are theological accelerationists seeking to push the matter of Judgement Day a skootch, who am I to say. Either way, their goals of bringing about the son of the devil has not been going too well, as getting a woman born of demonic cuckoldry pregnant with the devil's spawn to give birth on the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year is already difficult enough, and these robe-wearing fuckos, being good, proper, God-Fearing satanist conspirators, needs the child to be male. Can't have a Girl antichrist running around after all. It's not proper.

Putting aside the dark hilarity of this incredibly elaborate conspiracy being stymied by gender roles for god knows how long, it's also quietly brilliant to me how this take on the Satanic Conspiracy also ties in so well with the topic of pregnancy and agency that the movie has set its mind to. Margaret isn't important to the conspiracy outside of her capability of giving birth, to the degree that the reason she makes it out with the antichrist's fraternal twin sister after the birth is because the conspirators don't care enough to confirm the kill when leaving her for dead in a burning building, allowing a last-minute rescue by Margaret's support network. It sets up a quite compelling case for a sequel in my mind, if nothing else because I deeply desire to know what implications there being two living beings technically qualifying for the position of Antichrist.

Ultimately, I believe The First Omen to be the best kind of prequel. It is much more concerned with telling a good story than with justifying every little story beat with the metatext of the original, and as such expands the setting universe in interesting ways. Granted, there is the nod to the gruesome opening scene of the original in an early scare, and name-dropping Margaret's son with the original's soundtrack does happen as is mandated by tradition, but those were the only nods to the original I caught personally. I do feel a slight tremble of trepidation when hoping for a sequel though, as The First Omen feels very lightning in a bottle, and it might be tricky following up on it without devolving into fanservice and/or nonsense. I suppose we will just have to see.

[gren-arlio]

So. Fia and the Mysterious School.

So uh...Yeah, I know I'm seriously late to the party when it comes to this stuff, but I realized that this was mostly done and it was in drafts, so I might as well post it. This might just be filler for the big post, but enjoy nevertheless. ----

Madou 4 is... looking pretty cool, I'm not gonna lie. Really enjoying the art direction they're going for. And the designs of the characters? Amazing.

Like genuinely, even if it doesn't get an official English release, I'm down to watch and learn about it.

(They're so...silly...)

Even the screenshot of the overworld is very charming to boot.

I heard a pal say "It looks like Gen 6 of Pokémon" and I could see it, but we'll have to wait and see for the true experience of this game.

I'll make what I think of the characters a Read More thing. Imo, looking amazing.

You can read about the stuff right here.

---

Fia:

The newest silly girl on the block. Besides me thinking that Witch finally got her name chosen, I genuinely love the design they went for, since small hats are peak character designs.

Apparently she's a bit of an airhead and I'm all for it. Let her get involved into dumb stuff because she's dense and clueless and stupid. We love that in this world.

---

Will:

Tbh, besides the whole crop top thing he has, I absolutely dig the design and color choices they went for. And also excluding the fact that his name is Will in a fantasy game, I do find it curious that he has a twin brother, Roy, who's apparently a teacher.

Oh, and since this is making headlines: Apparently he's got a mix of Lagnus and Rulue in him. So he HAS to be peak.

---

Leena:

I really dig the design, I won't deny it, somehow they made almost all blue look really, really nice. The site says that she's calm and collected, but struggles with speaking to people, which I will most likely hope is just her being shy to talk to people, rather than the whole "She just sounds like a pervert," like Schezo does.

She also apparently reads a lot, if the glasses and the shy personality didn't point at her being quite the reader. So with that, she might be peak.

---

Totto:

Green mage with white hair that covers the eye? Where have I seen that before... Jokes aside, he does open his eyes compared to someone we do know, and he's pretty different. According to the site, he's someone with a lotta info...you just gotta pay the dude for it. So like Anna from Fire Emblem.

Also apparently, there's some promise he made to someone? Who knows about it for now?

---

Eska:

Now this design is pretty unique, yellow and white with pink eyes is an interesting choice of coloring they went for. I genuinely like what they went for with her, AND she's half dragon? I wonder what they're gonna go with her.

She gains interest to Fia (It google translates to Fear, so uh...yeah.) after the start of the game, and she doesn't really have common sense, which is gonna be interesting.

---

Roy:

Besides the fact that he is NOT our boy this time around, Roy is Will's twin brother who went the teacher route in life rather than the hero route. He's basically the antithesis of Will; Cool-headed and prefers to be realistic to Will's optimism.

Also, I think he visually looks better than Will, but eh, that could change in due time.

---

And finally, Jurk:

Besides his kinda bad name IMO, I like his design a lot. A guy who simply travels the world is always a fun concept in any game, and his design is honestly one of the best I've seen from the game. He's also friends with the headmaster of the school, which could be interesting.

My main concern is the person he tags along with, Mew. She's probably going to be an alright character, but I don't have super high hopes of that. Plus, her design isn't selling me at all, it just doesn't look right.

---

But yeah, those are (at least for now), my honest thoughts for the game RN. Maybe when more is covered and shown off sometime. But that'll be all for today.

[brickmail]

Let’s talk about it

This is what you said

“omega men & alpha women r the closest fandoms can get to a trans person before they start getting scared…” to which I said a lot of omegaverse is written by trans people and they’re including trans and intersex omegas. Clearly you don’t read much.

You then said “thats where youre wrong because ive given omegaverse written by other queer ppl a chance multiple times and its still weird, convulated, borderline transphobic/misogynistic everytime. i dont know how to tell you this but trans people can have bad taste”… alright trans people can have bad taste but how is it “borderline transphobic/misogynistic” omegaverse falls into three categories omegas are oppressed, this is justified through biology and either is or isn’t being fought against OR everyone is equal.

So if you’re saying misogyny because they justify sexism through that argument doesn’t work for ALL Omegaverse stories. You can say some stories outright get rid of woman that could count if it were true of ALL stories but it isn’t. ANY genre can be weird and convoluted of the author is shit so that’s not a really argument either. And don’t say mpreg is misogynistic that’s actually transphobic.

If you want to quote transphobia it again DEPENDS on the author. Vampires and werewolves aren’t inherently transphobic even though most author don’t write about trans ww/v. Omegaverse doesn’t exclude anyone it’s a bag of tropes. The genders in omegaverse are add ons. If exclusion isn’t the problem then what is? Is it cis men getting pregnant and you feels that ignores trans men it’s not true of every omegaverse as already stated. And why do you hate the notion of cis men getting pregnant go on tell me what’s wrong with it outside of its gross or pregnancy is my squick. Go on I’m waiting actually explain myself. I don’t genuinely believe you know anything about this trope or how it’s evolved.

im going to give you the benefit of the doubt and elaborate on my beliefs even though this ask is insane and youre assuming i have a problem with men that can get pregnant when i am a man that can get pregnant 🫶

omegaverse is often times misogynistic because the works use misogyny trauma porn as a plot point while simultaneously replacing the women who face these issues in the real world with cis omega men. point blank period. this trivializes a serious world issue.

omegaverse is all-the-times transphobic because it blatantly fetishizes trans people, while disguising it by making up entirely new sex designations so nobody has to worry about getting called a chaser. meanwhile, because of this, we are also robbed of actual trans representation and trans stories in fandom. fundamentally, almost any omegaverse plot can be replaced by just making the characters trans. but that would require actually being thoughtful about the interpretations of the characters to not fall into transphobic stereotypes, which cis people do not care to do.

i would even go as far as to say omegaverse is homophobic in many cases! theyre making whether a character is a top or a bottom so ingrained in their personalities it shapes their entire sex. which is weird!! its such a big issue in fandom for people to change a characters entire personality just because they think theyre a bottom which is unrealistic to real life gay peoples experiences. omegaverse only contributes to this.

so, do i think people writing omegaverse are inherently morally bankrupt? no. in the case of trans people, theyre absolutely allowed to choose for themselves what bothers them and what doesnt. if theyre cool with it, good for them! but im trans, and im not, and ultimately that is up to me as the affected party.