#i still think its a crime this kaito is a 3☆

[kerizaret]

@citruscitrushope

These three came to mind first after a while of thinking :3

(The third one is wedding Honami in case that's hard to tell hshfhd)

[ultimateplaylistmaker]

*gently holds out mic*

Want to share any DICE headcanons?

/nf

Im sick so lets talk dice

The main dice members all have multiple nicknames with a few running themes like chess pieces, clown titles, card suits, and also just random things like puns or things that stuck, also every member is queer in some way and only 3 are cis (though they think its 4 before kokichi realizes that they are egg) and they get teased over it all "oh look a bus is coming Emi you better hide"

The missing member from the picture was Kokichi's first real failure, back before dice was AS serious they had that extra member, but he got tracked down by a certain private detective and forced back to his abusive family and none of them has seen Toharu since. Kokichi refuses to not still speak of him as a member, and insists one day they'll find him.

Everyone they meet more then once tends to get at chess piece nickname, but because they've long since run out of standard chess pieces it's all fairy chess names at this point like Kaito being "anti-pawn"

No one has the queen nickname though, this is to confuse and boggle people and let kokichi go "all women are queens actually"

The group you see in game is the "main" group, but dice actually has a lot of members because basically any kid or teen they help or hang out with becomes an honorary member and then stays an honorary member unless they do something to have them removed. Komaeda and the warriors of hope actually used to be some, but then they started doing ~crimes against humanity~

I always see Dice and kokichi as like, people who live in like a port town or a city with a lot of fishing culture, kokichi just kinda has boardwalk ocean eating ice cream vibes.

A good chunk of honorary members are random feral pets they've caught, got them proper shots and treatment and spayed, slapped a checked collar or other accessory on, and then given to random people and random other honorary members

They're all very much skilled at scams and cons. Jam auction? badger game? three-card monte? they know it all

The reason they wear bandanas is not just a logo, but so they can wrap it around their hands in case they need to handle something hot or use it to slide down something

They all know JSL and have a lot of loaded phrases that make no fucking sense to anyone else all

"man this is a pretty cold cage huh?" "i dunno, gazing at all these rails are getting pretty boring" "you're really going to pip like a pigeon?" "i dunno, its so fishy its getting me tilted." "if you keep this up Loki's gonna have you cleaning tanks"

^ a completely sensical conversation if you know what any of those words mean, but utter nonsense if you don't

[relatableblorbopoll]

Round 1 of preliminaries, group 10

The first two places get a place on the bracket

Little reminder: there will be 2 more rounds of preliminaries, the losing blorbos of this poll still have 2 chances of getting in the official bracket

Propaganda under the cut

Nagisa Ran (Ensemble Stars)

"- autistic - grew up very isolated - nonbinary. to me. - they had a speech impediment veeeery similar to the one i used to have and their current speaking patterns are very similar to the way i speak - we both have a special interest in geology - i'd list more but the rest are just autism symptoms so. uhhh"

Waver Velvet (Fate series /The Case Files of Lord El-Melloi II)

No propaganda

Shuichi Saihara (Danganronpa V3)

"sorry for submitting a danganronpa character but hear me out!! there's many reasons shuichi is a relatable character, such as: 1. he's def lgbtq+ actually. in the free time events with kaito momota (another male character), shuichi's inner monologue says "only someone like him could tell me what i need to hear." before he internally scolds himself saying he "shouldn't talk about another boy like that" 2. self doubt. throughout the game, he doubts his detective skills a lot. well, in earlier chapters. he grows out of it but yk. he feels like he isn't a "real detective" n all 3. a. autism. throughout the entire prologue and chapter 1, he wears a hat to avoid eye contact. while there is an actual reason that isn't autism, i still think that's autism behavior. also he seemingly knows a lot about true crime and at one point, when another character brings up the victorian era, he responds by mentioning jack the ripper. 4. he's very sad. chapter 1? cries. chapter 3? cries. chapter 5? cries. chapter 6? cries. he might've cried other times i don't remember though. although it is fair bc people are dying. but even outside of the death, he is sad. refer to number 2. also he feels like he shouldn't have solved the case that made him the ultimate detective. (there are reasons for that. also linked to the hat.) and more"

Opossums (real life)

"Nocturnal creatures that just like wanna chill and eat, plus they have to lay down when really stressed, they are like me for real."

Midori Takamine (Ensemble Stars!! Music)

"- literally just some guy that gets dragged into things (accidentally became an idol somehow) - his only real interests are mascot characters and vegetables + he finds talking to people bothersome - all of his friends are extroverted or very friendly while midori is just… there. - cringefail loser who can’t talk to people without being nervous despite being a 5’10 giant and an idol (179cm), only really talks a lot when discussing mascots - depressed, just straight up clinical depression but its ok cause he’s working on it and doesn’t let it get him too down"

Seven of nine (Star Trek)

"seven of nine is a big ball of identity questioning in one person. she literally has a whole section on her wiki page titled "identity crises". mood. as a child she's snatched up and made part of a hivemind, all these cyborg augments put into her, the usual scifi stuff. but her story begins when she's freed. against her will, even if it's ultimately for the best. she has no idea how to relate to these people, how to speak or act or dress or sound. big autism mood. big trans mood. big gay mood, because she has no idea what anyone is supposed to do when dating and it turns out she's into women and ends up with a girlfriend so it's no wonder she couldn't connect to all the lessons about boyfriends and the attempt to date a man! multiple times she's forced to assimilate and act more "human" and change her name but she won't! and the people who make an effort to understand end up important found family and friends. and she ends up in control of her own life and a captain!! legend."

[akai-anna]

HEY THERE MY LOVELY MUTUAL <3 <3 (I love when you reblog and queue my posts ur actually amazing ily so much I love reading your tags hugs hugs hugs <3 <3 <3 im in love, giggling kicking my feet everyday)

SAW THE CHARACTERS OPINION BINGO U REBLOGGED 👍 I GOTCHU

TAKAGI. BABY BOI OF DCMK (I remember seeing a poll rolling around somewhere about the most dcmk baby girl and Takagi won)

I will also have to have to ask you about Kaito HAHAH (my fav blorbo i will admit)

ok the thing is im from australia. choose an australian animal of your choice bc i am Intrigued. im not too sure how the bingo would translate though hahahah I don't think it would work very well

(feel free to also ask me anything or talk to me and about this bingo too >v0 b)

wait you know what i forgot LOL WE GOTTA HAVE THE PROTAGONIST DUO SHIN/CONE AS WELL. PLS

*LIGHTS UP LIKE A CHRISTMAS TREE* MY DEAR MUTUAL, HI CYN, HELLO!!!!

Firstly: WE'VE NEVER TALKED BEFORE BUT LET ME TELL YOU, I WAS (still am) SMILING LIKE AN IDIOT WHEN I SAW YOU SEND IN AN ASK! Yes, I keep track and i'm always happy to see you in my activity and my dash! (I'm also really happy to see we mutually share that feeling; I relate to the giggling kicking feet sentiment a lot.) I'm happy to have this chance to interact with you, in a sense, face to face! Bless you, darling, and I'm sending hugs right back at you.

Secondly: YOU HAVE EXCELLENT TASTE AND YOU HAVE MY ETERNAL ADORATION ESPECIALLY FOR ONE TAKAGI WATARU, he always needs more love, I FREAKING ADORE THAT MAN.

Thirdly: warning notes apply, as stated in previous asks:

I tend to interpret things liberally: only my own rules apply, which means ->

I check everything that makes sense to me, even if they might seem contradictory

The Character Opinion Bingo in question

Prepare for endless ranting. And as a certain someone says: さあショーの始まりだ わ!

I. Takagi Wataru

The Babygirl and Malewife of My Heart Personal Special Tag: #takagi is a good man

Points that I feel need a little elaboration:

I am so normal about them: I use the word "normal" as a synonym for "utterly obsessed with" and "absolutely love and adore". (I don't like the word in itself, hence, the only context I use it in, is this. But that is another story.)

*puts them in a salad spinner*: as in, the salad spinner is my brain, and he keeps rotating in it at high centrifugal force.

Canon isn't real if I don't look at it and That's a solid design right there: Detco Canon is... As much as I love it, I think we can agree it has its shortcomings/issues, and one of them is coming up. These two points go hand in hand at this moment because LOOK AT HIM!!! LOOK AT HIM!!! THIS MAN IS A BABY!!! LOOK AT HIM, HE'S PERFECT!!! THE SPIKY HAIR!!! THE SHAPES!!! THE COLOUR PALETTE!!! HE'S SO CUTE!!

I resonate with this particular video: his new design in the anime (partly thanks to the general Square-and-Pointy-fication) is just... THEY HAD THE PERFECT MAN. IT'S A CRIME. Bless that he is at least still cute in the manga, even if not the same way as in the early anime. The sharp cheekbones and soft looking hair have their charm.

My point is: THIS!!!! MAN!!! IS!!! A BABY!!!!

Literally I would kiss them and I want to BITE them: he makes me go FERAL with LOVE, and makes me feel like I want to gnaw on something or eat a whole fridge or scream endlessly into a pillow. I wouldn't do it to HIM (I'll leave that to Satou Miwako), but generally, the feeling is there. (Okay, I'll be honest, I would totally give him forehead, cheek, or hair kisses.)

To close his section, have one of my favourite bits about this Baby Of A Man. That poll was absolutely right about him, THE ULTIMATE BABYGIRL (and Malewife TM).

⊱✿⊰

II. Kuroba Kaito/Kaitou KID

The Local Mischief and Chaos Bringer Personal Special Tag: #the magical agent of chaos

LOL I DIDN'T EXPECT TO GET A BINGO, EVEN WITH THE FREE SPACE HAHA

Some points are the same as for Takagi, but here is elaboration on the ones that don't match:

Bastard, A Beast Unleashed and They didn't get bullied enough: let's be real. He's an Absolute Menace. And I sort of love that about him. Highly competent (competency makes me go weak), and if that is not scary (and hot) I don't know what. And sometimes he also goes too far (lifting skirts is not okay at all, Kaito) and needs someone to put a leash on him (or kick a soccer ball at him/chase him in a classroom). I feel that sometimes he needs a bit of bullying a challenge, to think about things. And again, honesty: I love seeing him suffer a bit, I love his Panic Moments LOL. Not in a mean way. But I also love how kind he is; the baseball chapter in the MK manga has my heart, and the Clock Tower Heist, and the Red Tear chapter... Not to mention the Nightmare arc. He cares about people and making others happy. I feel I went on a tangent here. Onto the bastard bit: he CAN BE SUCH A BASTARD AND I LOVE THAT ABOUT HIM TOO. Two of my favourite bits of Bastardry from him include 1) HOW HE DISGUISED AS RAN AND HOW HE BAITED SHINICHI AT THE VERY END OF THAT ENCOUNTER and 2) THE WAY HE SENDS SHINICHI CAREENING IN THE SIDECAR LIKE IT'S NOTHING (but also Shinichi getting right back at him and setting fire to the fckin fuel.) Pure Bastard Energy.

I want their gender: I love the way he is just so free-spirited about how he dresses/disguises. And I love the thought of him and Aoko doing outfit swaps (I blame that competition in MK for these. Also look at these delightful posts on the topic).

Canon isn't real if I don't look at it: I have... issues, with canon, you could say. Like the way he has no support system, especially bothers me. I would like to see his character treated with more care (be it MK or DetCo). I live for good character development, and I crave that for him.

To close this section, have one of my favourite conversations between these two menaces of nature.

⊱✿⊰

III. Australian Animal of Choice: Koala

Fun fact: I've been in love with koalas ever since I got a keyholder plushie from relatives in Australia when I was like... in kindergarten? Or early elementary? Also don't worry, *puts on sunglasses* I wouldn't have mentioned animals, if I thought I couldn't work with them.

Elaboration is needed here I feel.

I am so normal about them: I'm not as obsessed as I used to be but I'm eternally fond of koalas. Did you know their fingerprints are so similar to us they could be mistaken for human fingerprints? Or how they spend most of their time sleeping because the eucalyptus they consume is toxic? Or how they can actually swim well? Or how they are literally surviving by being Dumb As Shit because Being Dumb Saves Energy? Yeah, I'm totally normal about them.

*projects onto them like a mf* and I want their gender: Oh to be a koala, just existing, sleeping, sometimes waking up to eat some eucalyptus, then going right back to sleep. I want that.

That's a solid design right there: HAVE YOU SEEN THEM? SO FLUFFY LOOKING!!! WITH BIG CLAWS!!! THE BIG NOSE!!! SO SHAPED!!! NOT TO MENTION THE EARS!!!

They are so silly and They Sure Do Exist: how did this animal even come into existence? Weird lil creatures. THEY ARE JUST SO SILLY. THE NOISES THE MAKE. Like oh my god.

Literally I would kiss them: THEY JUST LOOK SO SOFT, HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME NOT TO BURY MY FACE IN THE FUR?

⊱✿⊰

IV. Kudou Shinichi/Edogawa Conan

*Prof Agasa voice* He has many nicknames, like Gremlin Child, Absolute Menace, Ultimate Baby, Lil Nerd, Walking Encyclopedia Son, or Disaster Child. I think I call him as many names as I do my dear Rosie, so that is quite telling LMAO Personal Special Tag: #the detective gremlin

HDSBSKDB DOUBLE BINGO (AND ALMOST 4 BC HE'S ALSO DET'S FAV, SO ALMOST CROSSED OUT PROXY TOO KSJNVKSVNJS OK, my love for him is showing, I guess)

EDIT: FCKIN TRIPLE BINGO AS @vampirecatsw POINTED OUT oh my god, I'm blind

Again, some thoughts on relevant bits.

*projects onto them like a mf*: THIS CHILD IS SO FCKIN NEURODIVERGENT, AND I FCKIN RELATE, ALSO HE LOVES AND CARES SO DEEPLY IT HURTS AND I RELATE SO HARD.

A Beast Unleashed: another MENACE OF NATURE. You cannot let him roam free, he finds trouble like it's Breathing. Also love it when he goes ballistic. Or when he shows how competent he is. Like GOD. HE'S AMAZING, and he's a danger to criminals and himself, mostly.

Everyone else if wrong about them: not EVERYONE, just... some people. We agreed with a friend that some of our issues in portrayal lies with the fandom sort assigning him traits that Hakuba has, but not Shinichi (Hakubification). Of course, people can have their fun with it, but it's not for me and have my own opinions on the matter.

Canon isn't real if I don't look at it: again, DetCo has issues. Like the lack of continuity/ erased character development, or not bringing up issues ever again, and the like. Early DetCo was GOOD at these, and I miss those times.

That's a solid design right there and I fuck with this aesthetic so hard: HE IS!!!! SO SHAPED!!!!! SO ROUND!!! (or at least used to be) THE GENTLE CURVES OF HIS FACE!!! THE SILLY HAIR!!!! NOT TO MENTION HIS FCKIN WARDROBE!!!! I'M OBSESSED WITH HIM!!! Also, I have a huge thing for blue eyes and dark hair combination, not to mention the glasses... I'm fckin weak for glasses... god. He just hits all the right spots in my heart and brain. (Not to mention his personality, I WANT TO CRY I LOVE HIM SO MUCH-)

They didn't get bullied enough: I live for others teasing Gremlin Child. It's not quite bullying (never HURT HIM FOR REAL, I'LL CRY), but he needs to be TEASED MORE FOR SURE. I guess Bastardry also fits into this, that's good too.

SQUEAK: sometimes he is just so DUMB I want to SQUISH HIM HARD OR SHAKE HIM. I LOVE HIM, I SO DO, even if he is an idiot at times. God. I love him.

Literally I would kiss them and I want to BITE them: HIS CHEEKS ARE SO PERFECTLY ROUND I WANT TO CHOMP ON THEM. ALSO ALL THE KISSES TO HIM!!!!! BABY BOY!!!! GIVE HIM ALL THE KISSES!!!! AND HUGS TOO!!!

Bastard: the way he FCKS WITH SOME CRIMINALS. OH MY GOD. THE WAY HE IS SOMETIMES A MENACE ON PURPOSE. THE WAY HE SOMETIMES GETS SO ANNOYED HE JUST GOES FOR HIS WATCH. Also the way he is an absolute bastard to KID. His attitude is just so. *chef kiss* Love a menace of a child, HE'S AMAZING. HIS RAZOR SHARP SMIRK, THE MISCHIEVOUS CHILD FACE.

I have way too many favourite bits related to this boi. So. Have these random screencaps from my DCMK folder.

I hope you have fun reading this madness, Cyn! I HAD AN ABSOLUTE BLAST, YOU HAVE MY ETERNAL LOVE, may you have an absolutely blessed day, dear.

[amalgamateofficial]

Hi!

I’ve been following the story for a while but more as a lurker (sorry) and just started checking out your tumblr and other projects (very cool art btw!!)

But I was just kind of curious—if you don’t mind me asking, how do you figure out how long a chapter should be? Do you sort of feel it out or is it about getting a certain part of the story in one section? I dabble in writing but can never figure out chapter lengths, and thought you might have a method when I saw you mention how long 20 was specifically.

Take your time with the chapter, I’ll be waiting patiently! Happy new year and hope life starts going more smoothly haha

Hiya! So nice to hear from you -- and thank you for checking out my art! I'm so glad you like it! :D

So, when it comes to deciding the length of a chapter, I like each one to have its own mini-narrative because that ensures that each chapter is satisfying on its own. I'm gonna use a few examples from Amalgamate, so I'll put them under the cut to avoid spoiling anything for anyone who isn't caught up :)

So, chapter 6 is probably a good example of what I'm talking about. The crux of chapter 6 is: "oh no, there's no antidote, what do we do?" That means the chapter can't reach a satisfying conclusion until we do find the antidote and Maki commits multiple crimes against the Geneva Conventions to make Kokichi drink it. After she does that, however, there's still a major story beat that's not resolved, which is "Kokichi drank the antidote, but is he actually gonna wake up?" The unresolved conclusion to the chapter 6 narrative is what'll make readers want to read chapter 7.

And then chapter 7 follows a similar pattern. The goal is: Kaito needs to tell everyone the entire hangar/Exisal story before Kokichi wakes up. So, Kaito tells the entire story, but the chapter still ends with the question of whether or not Kokichi's actually waking up. The main goal was accomplished in chapter 7, but it still opened up a new path for the narrative of chapter 8.

The mini narratives don't have to be blatantly obvious either, since that runs the risk of making all the chapters seem formulaic. I think chapter 13's a good example. My goal for the chapter was the same as Kokichi's: make a Searchlight speedrun happen. But new readers (and poor Kaito, bless his heart) don't know Kokichi's goal until he finally forces it to happen in the final third of the chapter. Regardless, the chapter's battle plan for me was: set up that Kokichi has a plan (which is secretly the speedrun), trigger the plan (which is to do the speedrun), and set up the next narrative (which is, "what in the world did the speedrun actually do to Kokichi and why is he suddenly acting like a wannabe discount Mikan post-DR2 trial 3?").

But when it comes to the length of chapter 20, I'll admit I didn't actually reach my goal XD Thankfully, that ended up not being a bad thing, though. I went into the chapter with a certain stopping point in mind, but every scene in the chapter ended up requiring so much more time than I expected, and about halfway through, I realized reaching my original goal would make chapter 20 the length of "War and Peace." But there was still a mini goal I could reach on the way, and when I got there, it ended up feeling just as satisfying as the original ending because it still sets up an "okay, and" for the next chapter. Or, at least, I hope it'll feel that way! I guess we'll find out soon ;;;;;

Sorry, I'm rambling way too much here! I get a bit too excited when it comes to writing, so I hope that accidental essay was actually helpful XD Feel free to ask me questions anytime, though! I really do love talking about writing :)

[kokitschi]

u know, i do find kokichi saying "how could a game you're forced to play be fun?" rather than "[...] forced to kill be fun?" more interesting.

i don't have the specific quotes at hand, but i do remember a theme of kokichi valueing freedom. in ch 1, after the death road of despair fiasco, he says something about being denied the right to give up. in ch 2 he mocks the (silently) agreed upon ban on the k-word (and the reality of the situation) and then also defends ryoma saying his opinion. in ch 3 he's very much not a fan of angies cult and in the trials 3 and 4, when kaito tries to challenge his world view, kokichi says that they should agree to disagree since they come from different backgrounds and then (admittedly a lot more venomously) that "[kaitos] ideals should stay the same."

one of his quotes goes smth like "there's only one truth, but endless possibilities for lies!"

then there's ofc d.i.c.e, which is said to do petty crimes and generally just look like a motley crew of outlaw kids. oh, i guess his lockpicking also fits into this theme.

all of this is kinda juxtaposed by kokichis ..rather forceful methods. especially around his world view. (he's not forcing anyone to agree ig but he is shoving it down everyones throat constantly) though i guess one could say that he's not trying to make this fun for the others?

i interpret kokichi as someone who lies to himself a lot, then calls his own bullshit but still forces himself to "believe" the lie because that's how he copes, i guess.

so during the killing game, he copes by pretending it's all just a game. he's aware it's not. but by disconnecting himself he's able to make a lot more ruthless decisions. this reaches its boiling point in ch 4 ofc, he yells at his classmates and ask them if they're alright in the head bc why would they not play the game?

and then later... well, u know how the story goes.

anyway, my interpretation of the quote goes something like this;

1. i don't think he'd condones murder, even if they were in a consensual situation. he's generally not a violent person and i do think he is a pacifist at heart. however, he's in a high stress situation and he is a ends justify the means kind of person.

2. kokichi is someone who loves games, a lot. and he values freedom. the killing game does kind of desecrate the things he values.

3. he is a strategist and a person who's able to look at the bigger picture. so, put into this peculiar situation, he thinks about how to stop this. he comes to the conclusion that treating this like a game and emotionally disconnecting from the reality is gonna give him better results. (not necessarily in a conscious way)

4. put it all together and u get someone who's core values are abstracted by the language he's using. (in this case; still talking about the KG like it's just a game but this is a very common thing with kokichi. he says things in a way that are highly and at times difficult to interpret and depending on your personal opinion on him, ur gonna have a different opinion on what he really means.)

sooo uhhh hope this made sense? probably gonna revisit this at some point, just wanted to write down some thoughts.

[tabbi-mysteries]

Detective Conan Rewatch 471-486

Oops I forgot to write my thoughts down for a few days again

The uncontrollable rental car was actually top tier tho. I'm used to the single ep anime originals being fairly straightforward but this was unique and the characterization was great. We see Kogoro's best side and action hero dad Tagaki and a really smart trick pulled by Conan to save them all. I really liked this one.

Shinichi Kudo's childhood adventures is super cute! It's really nice to see babby Ran and of course Shiinichi. I almost wish we had more of their past and how they fell in love and the development part of all that but I get why we don't and the snippets we do get are cute. We get to see dad KID too which is fun (and babby Kaito too!) However as my friend pointed out this ep does feel like it confuses the nebulous timeline somewhat? Yukiko's been retired from acting for some time now so her still actively studying from Toichi is odd? Maybe? Maybe it's just her hobby now I dunno.

The love of lawyer Eri Kisaki is funny. It's super simple, especially for anyone who owns a cat but it manages to be great regardless. Ran really nearly assaulted a man 😅 well I'm sure Eri could have gotten her off the charges but still

Bad luck grand Prix is well it's an average episode, i certainly didn't think it was bad but it felt like a regular old episode with nothing super standout. I do like the occasional cases that are Kogoro and Conan hanging out all family like though it's sweet.

Genta's certain kill shot was fun! Mostly because my friend saw the title in advance and we've been choking about Genta's upcoming murder plan for a while XD the actual case is still pretty neat tho, although as usual the English is a little rough. I wouldn't say its common but you probably want imp or pixie to describe a mischievous kid not elf. I also kinda agree with Kogoro that it was mean to point at Genta and call him a murderer poor kid.

Real 30 minutes is an odd case. The time... didn't feel super relevant? The character designs were neat though and Conan and Haibara teaming up is always good.

Three days with Heiji Hattori! My boy was back for some more cases and they're fun ones. The first is neat because it feels like they reiterated Conan's trauma regarding cornering a culprit, almost feel like they could have focused on the impact of that ending and what that means to Conan and Heiji more but eh, it was neat to have it still. As for the detective Koushin I really enjoyed it! I've been looking forward to it a lot since reading that manga chapter and having a gathering of detectives is fun, the culprit is great too, I can see why she's so well liked. It's also great to have Hakuba here too although I gotta admit that yeah he seems pretty Sus of Conan, or perhaps just nice about it who knows. I liked the whole sequence at the beginning regarding the backstory too. And finally Heiji did really great! I like how they show how he differs from most other detectives we see who stand back and observe with methodical coldness by being emotionally invested, always having hope for possible best outcomes and willing to come across as wrong and act to gather the evidence he needs. I love him and this episode did a great job of showing why <3

Yellow Alibi is a sad case with a dumbass for a culprit. Who on earth murders someone on a beach and then tries to hide the fact the murder happened on a beach? Has this man never been to a beach before? You never get all the sand off my god.

Mountain Witch's cutlery is a simple little case but well presented, the weapon was neat and the kids were cute.

The vanished policeman was also a cute little simple case. Not much to say about it other than that tho.

Whereabouts of the dark photograph is fun because the crime differs which is neat every so often. Also those two guys will probably never commit a crime in their lives after that experience XD

Beckoning cat from left to right is simple but hey it has cats and Conan and Haibara teaming up which is nice.

[catgirl-catboy]

I think Robin wouldve been pretty confused and annoyed by Bob when he gets called out and when discovered he knows nothing is probably annoyingly funny to him.

Robin is such a interesting character when I first saw kids my monkee brain goes Ueharacore but when you talk about him more I realised he was Kaito done right which is a interesting. Can i get more facts about him too?

You're right, I wrote him as basically a Kaito clone, but minus the annoying sexism. (Sorry Kaito fans, your man is annoying.)

I've already mentioned this I think, but his backstory is that he saved a bunch of kids at his camp from a mass murderer, and was hailed as a hero.

(surface pressure plays in the background. If I made character playlists, Mika and Robin would have to both have it.)

While Celene has like, a 10+ Charisma modifier due to her talent, he's the one with the best overall people and leadership skills. Its a shame that Val, who isn't good with that, took the other leadership position instead. Almost nobody dislikes him.

After he manages to burn his hands in the prologue, he's told that he's basically lost almost complete feeling in them, and limited range of motion. Due to this, he's basically unable to continue his job post killing game.

Context: He knows that he won't die in this, but he thinks non-fatal injuries will still happen. I don't know if I want to keep this plot point, but Mika helped with creating the Neo World Program due to her tech obsession and medical knowledge. On the off chance Junko would betray her, he took precautions to ensure the safety of her classmates. (because she did grow sentimental in the timeskip, sue her.)

At this point, he develops a concept about being useless to the group, and starts taking on the worst jobs he can still do.

When the food goes missing, he begins looking for it, despite not being one of the classmates that saved food ahead of time. (I imagine that at first, if nobody killed in Ch1 he'd go after Bob because he "knows too much", but as it goes on, he thinks he'd rather just give up his food and die first. But he's not certain on that, because he wants Junko to spare the THH class and do that killing game virtually.)

He's somewhat of a straightman in class trials, encouraging everyone to keep a level head, and trying to get Val and Mika to stop treating this like a competition.

But he's too indecisive to contribute much, since he can't help out much during the investigation due to his ruined hands.

He's sympathetic to Prim, and blames himself for not noticing the Competitive Eater plotting shit.

In ch2, he tries and fails to talk Mika into joining the group, saying it'd be good for group unity. But he and Val were the only ones that tried.

Like most of the group, it slips his mind to accommodate Aiden, and accidentally speaks over him on occasion.

When Mika brings up the theory that Competitive Eater isn't the traitor, and that they are still out there, he hesitantly agrees, and thinks its worth keeping in mind.

Due to Monokuma wanting him to commit murder, his murder fantasy counter is higher than average. He's a bit pissed that that was recorded accurately, but is more worried about those at the bottom of the list.

Takes double Mika-watch shift, but is quickly dismissed as Mika's accomplice since he doesn't have the range of motion required to help with the crime.

Once the BDA rings out, Monokuma actually tells him the blackened in case 3, since he's worried the class will come to a wrong verdict. Since Val was one of the ones he thought was low-risk, he's shocked. As a result, he becomes your Kyoko during case 3, since Val is emotionally wrecked and Mika hasn't taken up the mantle yet.

During trial 3, Mika starts suspecting shit since he seems certain about shit he has no business being certain on.

He takes a leading role in the fear challenges, and encourages everyone into facing them. His fear is about being useless, but he manages to overcome it with clever thinking.

He's the last to attempt murder in chapter four, since Mika's stopped everyone else from doing so. Mika manages to speech 100 his way out of it, saying that something (his plan) would be bound to happen soon.

While he doesn't suspect Mika for the amnesiac dropping dead (you can't fake a mental breakdown that well.), Mika absolutely suspects him, but doesn't want to tell the class why, since the traitor is a useful tool to keep the others in line.

After its discovered that the death was of natural causes, the trial shifts to "vote out who you think is the traitor" since he didn't kill the person who was actively stopping murder attempts and that will not stand.

Eventually, he's deduced as the traitor, and is prepared for death.

His execution is that instead of being the savior of those kids like he was in the past, he is the kid. His legs are tied, and there is no trick he can think of to prevent his fate. This is the one execution Monokuma didn't think of a win-condition for, since he was never meant to try and escape.

But Mika manages to cause an electrical outage with the voting machines, causing a blackout to occur. As a result, the Skaters can sneak in and rescue him.

Mika then argues that since Monokuma says every execution has a win-condition this is legal. He didn't specify that it had to be the win-condition Monokuma wants.

Then Chapter five begins, and Mika goes back to being the group crazy person by saying she will torture Robin for information if he doesn't spill everything. Of course, he was intending to spill. Thats when the information that they are in a simulation, and are literally a test to see if the canon!Danganronpa games would work. That those who died are alive but comatose, but due to Robin's failure, Monokuma will make the next killing game be real.

Robin manages to hit the right emotional beats to recruit Mika, and chapter 5 begins by the two of them searching for ways out.

[kokichixreaderthings]

(Can I request again???? Your writing is really good! ;))

Can I get Kokichi x Reader where the reader is on a trip overseas and Kokichi missed her?

I also have a really, REALLY, funny dialogue prompt that follows with this concept. Consider this like a little 'treat' from me:

Y/N: *carrying suitcases with her*

Shuichi: *talking with Kaito* Hm? *sees her* Oh, hey Y/N

Kaito: Sup, Y/N-chan? What are the suitcases for?

Y/N: Good afternoon, boys. Oh, I'm going overseas to visit some family. I--

Shuichi and Kaito: *both grab her legs, crying*

Y/N: *eyes widen* B-Boys?!

Shuichi: *cries* Please don't leave!!!

Kaito: *sobs* YOU CAN'T GO!!!

Y/N: *blushes* Boys, you're gonna miss me that much?

Shuichi: That, and umm....without you, Kokichi is going to be even MORE annoying!

Kaito: Last time you were away, he pranked us everyday, a new prank set up EVERY HOUR!

Shuichi: *wails* Do you....do you hate us that much, Y/N?!

Y/N:..............................

Maki: *walks passed them*...........what's going on?

Y/N: I'm going to see some family overseas, and--

Maki: And you're leaving us with a heartbroken Kokichi? Wow, and you say all this talk about us 'being friends'

And this :)

Y/N: *at the airport* Bye guys! I'll be back in a week

Kokichi: *hugs her tightly, kissing her cheek* Have a safe flight, darling! Text me when you land

Y/N: I'll be sure to! And if you behave I may or may not be getting you a little something when I come back~?

Kokichi: *gasps, his eyes lighting up* A present for me?! I promise I'll be good! No lies!

Y/N: *chuckles* Alright, alright *kisses his head* Bye sweetie. Bye guys! *waves bye to her friends, going to her plane*

Kokichi: *smirks, turning back to everyone else*

Kaito: You heard your girlfriend, Kokichi! Behave!

Himiko: Yeah! Or else Y/N isn't gonna get you a present like she promised!

Shuichi: Besides, you even said 'no lies' to her before she left

Kokichi: *chuckles* Nee-hee-hee! Well, I am a liar. I could've easily been lying about "No lies". Besides~ *takes out a roll of tape, stretching it out* *malice is in his eyes, as he grins evilly* What my precious Y/N doesn't know won't hurt her....righttttt~

Everyone: *runs away*

kokichi x reader where his s/o is on a trip away from him ! <3

thank you so much! and i appreciate the “treat” you gave! i love the interactions :) and i loved writing this!! kokichi would definitely be a clingy type of boyfriend..i hope you like this!

kokichi is going to miss you so much!

you’re his partner in crime, his second in command, you’re everything to him!

it’s like he’s missing his other half!

literally, because he got you two those cliche matching necklaces before you left

“it’ll remind you of me! isn’t it cute?”

please wear it he really wants you to !

and if you go overseas often he’ll buy you two those bond bracelets

like the one where you touch it and the other person feels it!

and he’ll be touching it a lot, he just wants to feel like he’s with you!

with that, his texts are extremely frequent!

because you’re his favorite person to talk with!

he talks how much he misses you, how much he wishes you were here

‘i want cuddles y/n what am i supposed to dooooo :(((‘

‘beloved! call me! i want to talkkk’

‘i want a kiss >:( come back here right now!’

he’ll send you pictures of himself smiling or making overly sad faces when he really misses you

he’s just really bored without you

but he does annoy people a lot when you’re gone

because what else is he supposed to do?!

he complains about how far away you are to them all the time!

“ughhh this would all be so much better if y/n was here.”

and his pranks...

no one is safe from his pranks..

his person of choice is usually shuichi

he just doesn’t get as annoyed as the others!

but its only a matter of time before he figures out why Kokichi’s doing this..

he has his detective instincts after all

“Nishishi, you better watch out Shuichi!” Kokichi taunted, a full water gun in his hand. It was one of those cheap ones you could get at a dollar store, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t effective! Besides, if it was unsatisfactory, he still had tons more to fill...

Shuichi turned around, surprised, “K-Kokichi?!”

His face of surprise slowly changed into a face of understanding.

“Kokichi...I know you miss y/n.” he realized.

Really? Shuichi’s just going to call him out on these things?

“Huh? I don’t care at all!” Kokichi lied, not lowering his water gun for a second.

“You’ve messaged me every day about how much you miss them...” Shuichi reminded him.

It’s true. Kokichi had to express his feelings somehow! He couldn’t just annoy you all the time...

“Ugh, fine!” Kokichi admitted, the evidence stacked up against him. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to show you mercy!

Shuichi sighed, “I know...”

when it comes to the day for you to finally come back he is ecstatic!

he gets to the airport extra early, pacing around and eating vending machine snacks

and he texts you the whole time

‘are you landing?”

‘are you here yet?’

‘hurry up, i miss youuuu’

it’s kind of sweet how much he cares..

And as he waits for you to arrive and sends another one of his many text messages, he finally sees you walking towards him.

His eyes light up. You’re here! You’re actually here!

Nothing can stop him as he runs to you, enveloping you in a hug when he reaches you.

He missed hugging you, so much! It felt warm and soft and just nice.

“Beloved! i missed you sooooo much!” he exclaims, still not letting go of you.

“I missed you too” you responded, and his heart sped up at hearing your voice.

He clinged onto you tighter, ignoring everyone else around you two. Sure, he was clingy, but he couldn’t help it! Hugging you was all he could think about lately.

“Don’t leave me ever again! I almost died not being in your presence!” he dramatized.

You laughed slightly, unknowingly making Kokichi’s smile even wider.

and he’s super clingy for days after this!

he gives you all the kisses and cuddles!

“im just making up for all the time i missed, duh!”

if you don’t give him the affection he’s starved from, he will be very upset

so try to hold him as much as possible!

if you brought back a gift for him, he’ll appreciate it, whatever it is

he’s just glad you’re back, you didn’t need to get him a gift...

but he is really happy! he likes gifts, especially if they’re from you

“awww you’re just the sweetest s/o ever!”

you two aren’t going to let go of each other for a very long while...

and he’s definitely going to insist going with you on your trips next time!

thank you for reading! kokichi loves you!!

[onebizarrekai]

v3′s art is comically terrible for a professionally distributed game in a series: a compilation

in this not-essay I will list all of the mistakes and problems I have spotted in v3′s art. don’t worry, it’s entirely for fun and I’m doing this on a whim, so please feel free to not take this seriously but also it’s hilarious and embarrassing how ridiculous this is like what happened did they speedrun the whole production or what

see, there are some things you can take as meta like “they made it bad on purpose to allude to the downfall of tv shows that have been on air for much too long” but I have a very strong feeling this is not the case due to the nature of some of these errors

disclaimer, the more I study this art, the more I fear that the artists were underpaid and underslept, so if this is in fact the case, I am so sorry to all of them but also I’m going to make fun of the art anyway

anyway let’s get started!

if you study this image for longer than 5 seconds, you will see that kaede is the only one fully shaded and keebo is literally just his normal sprite pasted into the image. every other character is just an ordinary ref, hence most of them facing the exact same direction with neutral expressions on their faces. it looks like a bad edit, and is probably one of the worst pieces of art in the game. it kind of gets better from here on, but my roasting will not.

with that out of the way, here’s the problem that officially bothers me the most and clarifies my viewpoint of “this is not meta and an actual lack of company communication”

this freaking cg, which seems normal at a glance, but some wiseass was like “oh, kaede is a girl, so obviously she’s going to be shorter than the Male Protagonist™” ah, that’s funny. because if you look at the character bios, kaede is, in fact, one inch taller than shuichi and not like 6 inches shorter as she is shown here.

also shuichi’s shoulder is disproportionate and horrendous and he looks vaguely like a jojo character, but I wasn’t even thinking about that until right now.

thanks guys, 50% of the fandom who has never bothered to check these bios thinks that kaede is like 5′3 (did the developers really put so little thought into her to the point where drawing her correctly in the game didn’t even matter??)

also I would like to point out that, even though this isn’t related to the art itself, yes, a character kaede’s size being only 117 lbs is unfeasible, but this applies to literally every character in danganronpa ever and it’s not new news that it’s unrealistic

update: someone in the tags informed me that in versions of the game that use centimeters, like the japanese version, kaede is actually shorter than shuichi, which just adds another thing to the list of weird decisions the localization team made for no reason. that said, after confirming this, kaede is 167 cm in the original, while shuichi is 171 cm, which are approximately 5′6 and 5′7 respectively, but one inch is still nowhere near as drastic as it is depicted above. (in spite of this, I would rather depict kaede as slightly taller, so I’m probably going to keep doing that.)

the journey continues!

bro if you want kaede to have shoulder length hair then stick to it to begin with

you can pretend this is at an angle all you want but they definitely committed the shorter kaede sin a second time

wait a goddamn second.

DO YOU SEE THIS

no………… it wasn’t kaede who shrank. it was shuichi who got taller

speaking of which, can we talk about how shady the perspective is in this elevator pic? look at shuichi and kokichi in comparison to kaede. kokichi, who is canonically 7 inches (edit: or 5, if you’re loyal to the original) shorter than kaede, looks taller than kaede. he’s growing too. what steroids are these gays taking

running into the room, electric boogaloo: I don’t think tsumugi is supposed to be the same height as kokichi

gonta… gonta you’re lookin a bit like a jojo character there

I love how kaito’s head looks kind of like it was pasted onto his body. why is he the same size as shuichi? shouldn’t he be high school bully size or something? his torso is teensy

ah yes, white angie.

I love this cg but why is shuichi’s right hand so much bigger than his left hand

I also love how this cg looks like they literally took pictures of trees and pasted them into the background, especially on the left. the shadows are so weird, especially closer to the ceiling, it’s difficult for me to believe they didn’t do exactly that.

return of Enlarged shuichi

puberty update: kokichi is now taller than shuichi in spite of shuichi never missing leg day. what crimes will he commit

I have to mention it, guys. this has to be one of the worst danganronpa cgs. kokichi’s facial proportions look atrocious. look at the way his face sticks out like his jaw is in the wrong place. his scarf is a pasted texture. that’s it. this moment was so iconic but the cg just looks so… so… off. like something is terribly wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it.

you know what? let’s get into that ‘pasted texture’ thing.

let’s imagine you’re an artist working on a professional game. you’re assigned to draw cgs of kokichi ouma, who has a checkered scarf from hell. sure, it will be terrible to draw, but you only have to draw it once at a time! plus, perspective is pretty important, right? can you be bothered? nah, actually. let’s just copy paste a checkered pattern into the cg, because I’m sure nobody will notice. it’ll blend right in with the other cgs that someone actually put effort into drawing his scarf in, right?

no. the answer is no and I very much noticed. this genuinely looks terrible and I would understand taking a shortcut like that in fanart or even an indie game but this is a full price pc and console distributed game

(an addition: look at kokichi’s TINY HANDS in that last one)

meanwhile, they straight up forgot to color in kokichi’s scarf in this cg.

dude. I forgot about whatever the hell this cg was. anyway look at keebo please just look at him

lovin kaito’s baby arms

real talk, maybe you could argue that he’s missing muscle because he’s deathly sick, but most of his cgs don’t line up with this, and his arms just look disproportionate to his torso size (granted this is a consistent problem across all danganronpa games and a lot of characters have this weird problem, like hajime, but also kaito is bigger than hajime so I kind of have higher expectations of him) maybe it’s his stupid goatee and the way he reminds me of yasuhiro?? it creates this illusion that he’s older than he is and so I keep expecting him to look more like an adult

oh, also rantaro is missing some of his accessories in that video he made–you know the one–but I don’t wanna go back and screenshot it

also you may have noticed that I’m skipping all of the monokub cgs because I literally do not care about them and I’m not even bothering to check and see if they have artistic mistakes in them

JIMMY NEUTRON???

hey um uh kaito you seem to be missing your neck

hey guys do you like my pregame fanart

so, that done, the sprites are also pretty terrible at times. they’re not as interesting to go through, however, and downloading the full sprite sets for every character and studying every single one of them will drive me insane, so I’ll just sum some of the ones I noticed up. I made things for kaede and shuichi before deciding I wasn’t going to get into it, so here are these.

that said, other mistakes include kokichi missing his purple highlights in all of the sprites encompassing a specific pose, stray pixels all over the place on everyone, and everyone also has heavily inconsistent shading, but literally all I think about is how pregame shuichi is unshaded and two of kaede’s pregame sprites have glaring outfit change mistakes in them

anyway, thank you for taking the time to read my ridiculous ramble. in all seriousness, there’s this looming presence of some lack of communication in the development team, like with all the art and design inconsistencies, pieces and sprites that look rushed, stray pixels, and missing basic proportional stuff. these are the kinds of things that you supposedly have to pretty much have in the bag in order to get jobs in professional businesses, so it’s really weird to me that this game suffers from so many of these problems. it’s like they tried to make the art so much more crisp than the other games, but it fell on its face as they realized it was going to take longer to draw everything and they started to rush. it’s weird, because the coloring itself looks normal–it’s just sloppily drawn, and the proportions are a mess once put into the context of perspective. many of the cgs look like they were drawn by different people, and I’m still not over the fact that half of kokichi’s cgs have his scarf pasted in as a texture.

the moral of the story is that if you’re selling a game at full price that also happens to be in a series that has had 3 very good games in it already the stakes should probably be higher than this. v3 has been out for more than 3 years and it’s still $40 (did it cost more than that before? I sure hope not), and the overarching quality of the game is just not as high as the other games. I’m not saying that the other games don’t have any problems with their art at all, they’re just not as glaringly obvious and every artistic choice in those games feels intentional.

regardless, I had a blast roasting the art at 2am, so maybe you got a kick out of all this chaos.

[saimotass]

i really dislike ouma, but the thing that really pisses me off is when people compare him to one of the following three characters: byakuya togami, nagito komaeda, and fuyuhiko kuzuryuu.

1. togami has very well explained reasons why he behaves the way he does. he was taught from birth that the world is a cutthroat business transaction and that if he doesn't rise to the top, he will die in the gutter. he acts the way he does in the killing game because that's literally all he knows. his life has always been a killing game, just with less directly lethal consequences. seeing sakura sacrifice her life for her friends directly contradicts the world that togami has been living in, and when he realizes that the world is not as dog eat dog as he was conditioned to believe, he changes. ouma seems to already know that the world is more compassionate than he'd believe, he just doesn't care. he actively seeks to try and make others feel threatened and upset, because he wants to. he doesn't give a shit if the people around him are good or not; he just wants to cause as much chaos and hatred in his wake as he can. and i feel like the reveal at the end of the game where ouma was actually a "good guy" is another way to excuse his actions in the game. togami meanwhile has believable and sympathetic reasons to be the way he is.

2. komaeda also has well explained reasons why he acts the way he does. while unfortunately a lot of his motives do stem from mental and physical illnesses, the effects are actually somewhat realistic. komaeda's been so used to living in extremes that it makes sense for him to see the world that way. his talent has also conditioned him to expect extreme good to come out of extremely bad situations, and vice versa. his ideal of hope is related to this, and he craves it so desperately that he will act in unpredictable and backwards ways to see it. ouma doesn't seem to be looking for the best in people; he already sees the good in a lot of his classmates. komaeda finds out that his classmates are terrible people, and thinks he's doing a good thing by ridding the world of them. ouma, meanwhile, gets rid of gonta, miu, and kaito directly, three people that are doing very big, net good things: gonta is by far the kindest and most trusting of the cast, miu is an inventor looking to improve humanity and its output, and kaito is the most confident and courageous person in the cast who was willing to take a literal poison arrow for ouma. and yet, ouma still actively decides to kill them for seemingly no reason other than to save his own ass.

3. fuyuhiko grew up in a (quite literally) cutthroat world, and despite his innermost self being a loyal, genuine, and devoted person, he had to hide those parts of himself in order to survive every day. that constant pushing down of his emotions gave him a hard, disinterested exterior. it could be argued that this was actually fuyuhiko's way of being kind to others, by trying to keep them away from his life of crime and violence. fuyuhiko is aware of the selfless nature of people, with peko laying down her life constantly to protect him, his sister being devoted to him to the point of near idolization, and even ibuki celebrating his recovery with a concert. when his outer layers start to deteriorate, he's scared. he knows that he's been a bad person, and his entire character arc is his atonement for the destruction that happened around him. ouma sacrifices people around him willingly, does not atone for any of that destruction, and is eventually vindicated for seemingly no goddamn good reason. ouma is treated as a "good guy deep down" despite him showing absolutely no signs to validate this idea. fuyuhiko and ouma may share a voice actor, but they do not share anything else in terms of characterization.

[nxrthmizu]

disappearing trick — SaguKai

━━━━━━━

fandom | magic kaito 

pairing | kuroba kaito x hakuba saguru 

genre | angst to fluff :3 

w.c | 2.1k 

━━━━━━━

It was a heist went wrong. 

So, so wrong. 

There were explosions and gunshots, all of which Hakuba was about 99.99% sure wasn’t in KID’s itinerary of the night. He remembered catching a glimpse of a torn white cape, the grimace of pain clear as day despite the lack of helicopters overhead, and men dressed in black. 

“KID—!” Hakuba had yelled, which, looking back, was not the smartest thing he could’ve done. The barrels of two guns instantaneously locked on him, much to the phantom thief’s horror. 

It seemed like it was the end for Hakuba Saguru. 

But of course, KID always loved to meddle in things that didn’t involve him. And so he did what he always did best. 

KID was a performer, after all. He specialised in attracting his audience’s attention to him. Flashing a cocky smirk towards Hakuba’s direction, even though there was a stream of blood trickling down his cheek, the phantom thief disappeared into the night with a loud bang, taking the two men with him. 

Kuroba Kaito was ‘kidnapped’ the same night. 

According to Aoko, who had been in the Nakamouri house when the teen was attacked, there had been a loud crash, gunshots, and yelling. The girl had hid under the kitchen counter in fright, hoping and praying with all her heart that Kaito hadn’t been home at the time of the break-in. 

As it turned out, he was. 

The crime scene investigators turned Kuroba’s house upside down, finding multiple signs that the teen boy had been shot, if the splatters of blood (That all had Kaito’s DNA) was any indication. It was also concluded by the investigators that Kaito put up a hell of a fight, as there were signs of his magic tricks all through the house. 

Hakuba was still being treated for shock at the heist location when Detective Nakamouri received a call from his devastated, hysterical daughter, who sobbed so loudly through the phone that the blonde detective overheard.

It was only one disaster after another. 

For once, Hakuba chose to stay out of the crime scene, instead stroking Aoko’s back as comfortingly as he could, trying not to think about Kaito’s body, abandoned in some dark alley dumpster. His coat was soaked through with splotches of her tears, but he didn’t care much, because he himself felt like crying, too. 

━━━━━━━

School the next day was eerily quiet. Practically everyone had heard of Kaito’s kidnapping, and if they didn’t, Aoko’s swollen eyes were a dead giveaway that something had happened to the playful teen. The teacher kept glancing up, as if she was waiting for an interruption, only to flick her eyes onto the empty seat at the corner of the classroom. The topic lingered like a dark cloud above the classroom, and no one dared to even mention the name ‘Kaito’ when Aoko was within hearing distance. 

“He’s alive.” 

Hakuba glanced up after a few moments of silence, realising that Akako was talking to him. “What?” 

“Kuroba.” Akako continued impatiently. “He’s alive.” 

The blonde detective couldn’t help but snort. “And how did you come to that conclusion? Did your crystal ball tell you that?” 

Judging by the glare the female shot in his direction, she didn’t appreciate his snark, but Hakuba just couldn’t be bothered at the moment. “He won’t go down this easily.” Akako stated, as if she’d seen Kaito alive with her own two eyes. Granted, the image hadn’t exactly been clear when she used her seer powers on him, but she could go as far as saying that the magician was still breathing. 

“Look. He was shot.” Hakuba interrupted emotionlessly. “Even if the gunshot wasn’t fatal, he’s lost a lot of blood.”

“He won’t go out that easily. You’ll see.” 

━━━━━━━

Kuroba Kaito was pronounced dead after three months. KID went back into retirement— At least, that’s what the KID division announced after no sight of any heist in the horizon. 

After a long consideration, Hakuba decided to leave Japan behind— Along with the memories of KID and Kaito— And return to Britain. Some would call him cowardly, and he would admit, yes, it was cowardly of him to run away like that, but as far as he was concerned, he didn’t care what others thought of him. 

Sure, Aoko was a little upset, but Akako had reassured her that she wasn’t going anywhere. He did feel a little bad for leaving Nakamouri behind— All her friends were disappearing, one by one, after all— 

Disappearing. 

That was KID’s— Kaito’s last trick, Hakuba thought tearily, hastily ushering the tears away as he packed the last of his clothes into the luggage bag. A disappearing trick gone wrong— And the phantom thief KID, Kuroba Kaito— Two sides of the same coin— Dropped off the surface of the planet, never to be heard from again. 

But there was no point in crying over spilled milk anymore. 

“Saguru-kun, there’s a man looking for you outside.” His housekeeper knocked on the door, informing him monotonously. “He said he has a few things to tell you before you leave Japan.” 

A quick peer out of the window gave him a glimpse of dark brown hair— A familiar stature and height, a relaxed pose— 

Hakuba had never dashed out of his room that fast in his entire life. All composure and calamity was forgotten as he practically barrelled down the stairs, narrowly missing a few boxes of belongings he had wrapped up the days prior. The door burst open with a tremendous bang! as Hakuba hurried down the front steps of his house, hoping, praying, pleading that the face that he would meet belonged to— 

“Kudou-kun?” The tone of disappointment couldn’t be avoided as Hakuba remembered just how alike the detective and the magician looked. If he was asked, the two were definitely genetically related at some degree or another. “How may I help you today?” His tone was terribly strained; he had had expectations, and he had been let down. 

Kudou Shinichi, as the great detective that rivalled many others, took quick note of Hakuba’s inner turmoil. “Hakuba-kun. I have news that you might want to... Think about before you leave Japan.” 

“Go on.” Hakuba said bitterly. Nothing could stop him from leaving Japan, he thought. Not when every corner reminded him of the man that kept him on his feet. 

“Kuroba Kaito is very much alive.” Kudou said casually, with no prior preparation or whatsoever. Hakuba looked as if he was just hit by a freight train, stunned and dazed by the words that destroyed everything he knew about life. “He’s been staying undercover to help the FBI take down the Black Organisation, who, as if seems, was after Pandora as well. Because he’s been missing for three months, its’ going to be very hard for him to explain his absence— So he has requested for me to pass you this letter in his stead.” 

The thoughts running through Saguru’s head as the slim letter was received into his head were wild. Kaito was alive? He was involved with the FBI? What was the Black Organisation— And forget the Black Organisation, what the hell was Pandora? And why couldn’t Kaito have passed him the letter himself? 

“Well, I’m going to get going.” Kudou smiled gently. “See you around, Hakuba-kun.” 

━━━━━━━

It seems like your detective skills have mellowed since my absence, Hakubastard. Your observational ability is... Mediocre, to say the least. Anyway, I suppose I should provide you with an explanation (Although I would love to go world-hopping and leave you in pursuit of the truth for the rest of your life), but I guess I owe you this much after just upping and leaving like that. Those gun wounds hurt like hell, but they weren’t going to nuff this magician up that easily. I still had a couple tricks up my sleeve— It was nice seeing you all worried about me, though! So you do care~ 

Anyway, its still not too safe for me to appear publicly in Japan. I’ve sent a letter to Aoko, so don’t worry about filling her in. I left the meeting location in your bedroom. Exactly a month from now. Better set a reminder on that pocket watch of yours, tantei. 

With love malice, 

Kuroba Kaito

“My bedroom...?” Hakuba murmured to himself, realisation striking like a flash of lightning. A quick inspection of his room turned out with a slip of yellow paper: Rivals shall meet once more, in the romantic city people adore; When the clock strikes a quarter and by the Seine shop corner. 

Saguru rushed over to his bedroom window, eyes flicking up and down the nearby streets to find Kudou Shinichi’s silhouette, but he came up empty handed— For that wasn’t Kudou Shinichi at all... Because who else would break into his bedroom just to leave a riddle? 

It didn’t take long for Hakuba to figure out the time, date, and location— Kudou— No, Kaito had said so himself. Exactly a month from then— In the ‘romantic city people adore’��� Which would be Paris— ‘clock strikes a quarter’— At a quarter of a day, which would be 6am— And by the ‘Seine shop corner’— So at a coffee shop next to River Seine. 

“Baa-san!” Saguru called out into the manor, a smile on his face. “Cancel my flight ticket and book one to Paris instead.” 

━━━━━━━

Paris at 6am was quite the pretty sight. The sun was barely rising over the horizon, little splays of light shimmying over the river surface, bathing Paris in a fine, gold threads of sunshine. Not that many cafes were open at the crack of dawn, which made it even easier for Saguru to track down his cafe. 

The little coffee shop by the Seine provided an amazing view as Saguru enjoyed his morning coffee. He had taken a seat outside the cafe, the streets silent in a peaceful, docile manner, early birds already leaving their nests for the worms that were promised. 

The latte in his hands felt warm, inducing heat into his frozen fingers. Hakuba had never felt that on edge in his entire life— Would Kaito show up? 

“Lovely morning, no?” An old man commented, plopping into the seat opposite Saguru. “I love watching the sunrise from here.” 

Hakuba raised an eyebrow, looking for details of a disguise. The fat seemed genuine— The voice was deep and velvety, a little rough and raspy around the edges— The wrinkles around the eyes looked authentic— But he had seen the quality of KID’s work, and he wasn’t taking his chances.

“Indeed,” Saguru agreed with a pleasant hum, French rolling off his tongue smoothly. “Say, mister, what do you think about magic tricks?” 

“Ah, I think they’re quite quaint.” The old man replied in his deep voice, eyes forming crescent lines as he smiled. “What do you think of them, young man?” 

Saguru placed his latte back onto the cup. “I think magic tricks are nice,” He started softly, making firm eye contact with the old man, French rolling off his tongue smoothly. “But I hate disappearing tricks the most.” 

“Oh?” The old man was confused, clearly missing the memo. “Why so—?” 

“Good morning, sir, can I take your order?” A voice pricked into Hakuba’s memory, triggering some sort of mechanism. It was the same tone, frequency, wavelength— The only thing different was the dialect and accent. 

Saguru looked up right into Kaito’s violet eyes, the latter dressed in a waiter’s uniform. A soft smile spread over the magician’s lips as he winked, Hakuba’s jaw dropping as his gaze returned to the man in front of him. 

“Ah, a cappuccino please. And one slice of carrot cake.” 

“Of course.” Kaito nodded pleasantly. “Right away, sir. And you?” 

Hakuba took longer to find his voice than he would’ve liked. “Just a cup of black coffee, please.” 

“Is that all?” Kaito hummed, scribbling down the orders on a piece of paper. 

“Yes, thank you.” 

Hakuba laid back against the chair, a sigh slipping from his lips as he smiled continuing his conversation with the old man, who was still very much confused. 

“Ah, but I find disappearing tricks interesting,” The old man commented, chuckling slightly. “It’s always so magical when the reappearance happens, no?” 

The blonde detective hummed, watching the dark-haired magician busy himself inside the shop. “I suppose I’ll have to agree with that.” 

━━━━━━━

this thing has been sitting in my drafts for four months and its time for it to see the light of day~ 

[alterofnaught]

Regarding Miu’s actions in Ch4- I’ve seen her criticized for coming up with a murder plan despite having the inventions Kokichi was working on with her and that it made no sense for her to turn like that but I personally think Ch3 actually was a really important shift that pushed her into that state of desperation. And while we are limited to Shuichi’s perspective and can’t really know for sure, here’s some reasons I think Miu’s actions in CH4 make sense to her character (and don’t make her bad or stupid- just flawed and scared). 

1. the student council’s impact- Angie’s council shifted the dynamic of the students significantly. Not only did it divide the group in half it also highlighted a very important issue that would plague any plan to work together. Everyone did not want the same thing. Angie’s group was completely content to just stay in the school, accept their life being trapped forever. Miu did NOT want that at all. And regardless of how great her inventions are, they have limits and would require a concentrated group effort (there are still 2 exisal’s in operation at the time and Miu more than likely recognized how impressive the technology being used against them was and that it would not be an easy feat to just knock them out). And seeing just how easily a schism formed in the group would definitely shake any confidence in a plan that more than likely RELIED on them all working together and trusting one another. Something that was put into doubt when the student council started imposing rules on the others like not being out at nighttime. Gonta even closed up the “exit”. Miu was a distrustful person and did not really have that great of bonds with the other students to begin with so this would absolutely make her lose faith in any plan working. You could argue that Miu believed in the ability of the group to cooperate far less than Kokichi did and the events of these few days only solidified her belief that it was a lost cause. 

2. tenko+angie’s murder- While Miu is not always the most astute person in trials and tends to jump to conclusions (even if they are hilariously right on), she is still intelligent enough to most likely realize just how CLOSE things got in chapter 3. While Kirumi’s murder was very complicated and Kaede’s relied on Shuichi calling her out, Korekiyo got extremely close to getting away with it. Tenko’s murder relied on Kiibo’s photo function and Kokichi falling through the floorboard to even ensure they would be able to pin it on him (even if that one seemed more obvious). And Angie’s murder... hinged on a tiny clue that they only found based on the 1/3 chance they even picked that room. Seeing a person dead, having another one murdered brazenly in front of 3 other people, and finding out one of the people who was on “your side” of the whole student council debacle... is pretty heavy and it’s no surprise that it would freak Miu out. The first two murders could be rationalized or understood to some extent. These however are much more shocking and cruel and a major escalation of the killing game that of course shook everyone up. Shuichi’s narration says everyone cried with Himiko after so while we can’t know what Miu was feeling because we only see through Shuichi’s eyes- it makes sense that Miu was also very shaken up. Not because she had any real connection to Angie, Tenko, or Kiyo (she didn’t- Miu is actually quite callous about the others deaths) but more because it probably scared her into thinking the only way to beat the game was to play by its rules and get out herself before she was the next victim. 

Chapter 3 is a huge shakeup in the dynamic of the cast and the game that pushes it into the second half. Lots of people write off its significance because of the whole Kiyo reveal and the wasted potential of the second murder rule but CH3 shook up the entire dynamic. Maki started participating in investigating, Himiko begins to take things seriously. Gonta grows more frustrated at his inability to protect people. Kaito is getting sick and unable to even pretend he’s helping likely is starting to feel inferior and not like the hero. And while you can’t know with Kokichi- the fact he is constantly around and not doing his own thing suggests the motive and current environment also had him a bit lost. And same with Miu who relies on her inventions- the whole supernatural vibes of CH3 put her very out of her element. 

3. killing game simulator- Miu is not a strong-willed person. She bends easily when pushed, that’s her whole thing. So when the game pushed back against her resolve, guess what was conveniently there. While you can’t really know for sure how much was carefully orchestrated by Tsumugi and how much came down to chance- there is no denying the motives for murder were planted for specific people. The ritual was set in place for Kiyo and the computer was set there for Miu- the only person who would be able to understand it. So having it right there when the game started to get crazy- of course the idea would come to mind that she could use it for her own benefit. That she could achieve the perfect murder that almost happened in Ch3 and she could escape before things got worse. And just like Kokichi told Kaede, the moment she entertained the idea of murder- she was playing Monokuma’s game. She had already lost. And Kokichi is an obvious target. She had the relationship with him from the inventions that could get them alone together and she was aware how intelligent he was so he would be a real threat in her using the virtual world to cover up her crimes. 

4. the outside world- Kokichi taking the key card at the beginning of CH4 and telling no one whats on it likely pushed her even more. She wants to know whats out there and to make her impact on the world. And him likely being extremely squirrelly about it would only fuel her paranoia and ruin any partnership they had (since Kaito noticed Kokichi was acting weird it only makes sense that Miu would also recognize the shift in the way he acts after seeing the outside world- plus he likely used her inventions to get there so that would only add to her suspicion of him). So the partnership that was likely already full of suspicion only got worse at the opening of the chapter.  And while we can’t know for sure I imagine the idea of the program was planted in CH3 but the plan and determination solidified quickly after the trial and exploration amped up her paranoia (she acts very erratically at the beginning of chapter 4 and seems very panicked). 

And while this isn’t related to why I think her mindset makes sense in CH4 and how CH3 fueled her desperation to get out but I also don’t think she could have just been stopped. While how Kokichi reacted and sacrificed her and Gonta as a countermeasure- I don’t think there was some magical easier solution that would have stopped her. If Kokichi had told, no one would have believed him and it could have ruined any chance of cohesion and cause more murders. If he had refused to go in, she could have likely shifted her target and changed someone else’s avatar settings. And if he had just died or murdered her... the two people with the knowledge of her inventions would have been gone and the game would have likely carried on. And when the outside world reveal eventually did happen... Gonta could have very likely still tried to end it all for everyone to protect them from that awful reality. It’s an extremely messed up situation regardless and really interesting to think about but I do think the impact of CH3 gets overlooked in the motivations of Miu, Gonta, and Kokichi in CH4. And I also think it’s super important to not overlook Miu’s and Gonta’s roles and motivations either 

[startselectscreen]

My Top Ten Games of the Year 2021!

Here are my top ten games that I think are the most enjoyable games I’ve played this year!

1. Hitman 3

The final trilogy comes to a close with Hitman 3 and it feels satisfying finishing Agent 47’s story arc. Granted, there weren't that many changes and improvements like the previous game but the feeling of assassinating your targets through mission stories or environment kills is just enjoyable. The fact that the story is engaging also warrants my attention and it does not disappoint.

2. Lost Judgment

Yagami is at it again, solving crime mysteries and finding the truth behind a conspiracy that goes to the top, in Lost Judgement. Alongside his trusted pal, Kaito, they now go back to school and solve bullying case that led to a suicide. The story overall, wasn’t as good as the previous game but being a Yakuza game, the gameplay is just awesome in its own right.  It’s always satisfying to build up combos and just beat the living shit out of your opponents in the streets of Kamurocho and other notable locations in the Yakuza universe. While the main story isn’t that good, the side missions however are just the same exciting part of the game much like the previous game from the return of a known pervert to trailing suspects in the streets, the investigation portion of the game still is alright!

3. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl

The remake of Diamond and Pearl is here and as a fan of Pokemon games, it did not disappoint. It comes with all the things in the original plus features like the Grand Underground with excavating gems and valuable Pokemon statues and such and wraps a neat bow-tie to this already enjoyable game. 

4. The Forgotten City

At first it looks like Oblivion without the action, from the zoom in conversations to how the game looks. However, it plays like an adventure game that isn’t shy of not being a game that you can brute-force your way into completing the game. The game is dialogue heavy and its writing makes you think and those actions you had picked affect the game. As a matter of fact this game kinda plays like Twelve Minutes and Deathloop with time being a factor as you try to not break the golden rule and find the culprit who is trying to do so. 

5. Powerwash Simulator

As someone who used to do some powerwashing in real life, having a simulator where the object of the game is just powerwashing vehicles to buildings feels just relaxing. It’s a great game to watch or listen to podcasts and tv shows to, there’s no stress in thinking there’s a danger within the game like a time limit, you basically clean out your objective and get paid so you can improve your powerwashing gear to be more potent. 

6. Age of Empires IV

This video shows how awesome this game is. It’s been years since the previous Age of Empires installment was released and despite being somewhat a disappointment, this game however proves to be great. Going back to its Age of Empires 2’s roots, AoE 4 not only succeeds at its base building and massing an army to conquer others but the little audio features, making sounds when an army is moving and all that jazz seems authentic and realistic. Just the audio department alone is memorable.

7. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy

At first, I was skeptical about this game, seeing how the Marvel’s Avengers game flopped last year as well as other Marvel games varying from decent to outright garbage. I was wrong when I started playing it and I love it. Everything from the Guardians’ banter in the ship just reminds me of Bioware’s Mass Effect and Dragon Age with how comical the dialogue and moments in the game were to be.

8. Halo Infinite

As Halo as it gets, this game is incredible. I haven’t played the previous two Halo games but judging from the first few hours I played it, it’s just another Halo game and there’s nothing wrong with that statement. I’m not sure if it was open world before but the list of places to capture or acquire new skills seems to be fun, just shooting down the Banished while using your grapple hook to maneuver across the field is fun.

9. The Ascent

Now this is what Cyberpunk 2077 should be. This kinda top down shooter RPG, with strong vibes of cyberpunk is not only exciting to play but graphically and the gameplay is nothing but a blast. It’s just fun shooting innocent bystanders to challenging foes with an arsenal of weapons at your disposal. Plus, the music is just straight out bussin. 

10. Deathloop

As a fan of both Dishonored games, Arkane Studios did not disappoint with Deathloop. Alright, the game was kinda repetitive at times with the time-rewinding and the familiarity of games such as Twelve Minutes, The Forgotten City and Returnal. However, the music and overall gameplay just plain rocks, it plays somewhat like Dishonored games though with limited powers and there’s not really a non-lethal option.

[takonei]

Beta AU - Main story, Chapter 3, deadly life (Part 7)

Note of the author: ... Damn this Deadly life is long. I know there were two deaths but still.

Chapter 3: What is beyond humans’ control - Deadly life

...

“Huh?” the girl blinked.

“I said...” Rantaro gripped his podium. “How do you know what a curare is?”

Shuichi was confused. What’s a ‘curare’ anyway?

“Um... I think I heard it once but don’t remember who said it...” she replied, tapping her cheek.

“... That’s a lie and you know it.” Rantaro became more and more nervous. “I never mentioned anything about curares. I never even said the word, and I don’t think anyone here knows what it even means.”

He turned to the rest of them to see if he was right.

And he was, since everyone glanced at each other to see if anyone knew.

“I mean, I do know but...” Tsumugi pondered. “I don’t remember mentioning it, but I could be wrong, since the past few days have been erased from my memory.”

“Still...” Rantaro turned back to the craftswoman. “Curare is the scientific name for what I described as ‘paralyzing product’ so that everyone would understand.”

“But you couldn’t have known that unless you read the label on the bottle.”

“I... Think I do remember now! I did see it when I checked the shelves in your lab once because I was looking for painkillers! But that was even before the disease!” she joyfully replied.

This looked incredibly suspicious anyway. And Rantaro seemed very skeptic.

“... Supposing this is true...” he turned to the rest of them. “This is the first and last time I want someone rummaging through painkillers. I want to be here if any of you want some painkillers, since I know it’s easy to take the wrong doses.”

... First time? Didn’t Kaito...

No, now wasn’t the time.

He nodded. The rest of the group agreed as well.

“I still have trouble believing you, Angie.” Tsumugi narrowed her eyes.

Ryoma sighed. “We said we would solve the murder, then accuse people. However...”

He turned to the girl. “We still have a suspect list with some of you more suspicious than others, and that includes you, Angie.”

She joyfully nodded. “I’m not the killer~ But we can continue the trial if you wish to!”

Shuichi didn’t know her that much, but that still looked strange.

Kokichi seemed to have an eye on her, but he didn’t look mad at her... For some reason.

What is he even thinking?

“There’s something that has been bothering me ever since I- no. Since we discovered it.” Kirumi glanced at the violinist.

Something they both discovered? Ah, is it...

“... You mean the missing plants in the shrine?” he perked up.

“The what now?” Miu was confused.

“Some bushes were missing in the shrine.” Kirumi explained. “We left it for a few minutes with Rantaro because Monokuma asked us to at the end of the investigation, and when we came back I’m positive they were replaced.”

Kiyo and Ryoma nodded to each other. “That’s what we noticed as well.”

“But what’s that supposed to mean?” Kaito frowned.

“Did any of you find the missing plants anyway?” Tsumugi asked the autopsy trio.

They glanced at each other to confirm that no, they didn’t.

“Does any of you have an idea on what they could have been used for?” Kiyo questioned.

Something they could have used the plants for...

The bushes, and not the flowers.

Perhaps for something that was worth taking off the bushes, yet not the flowers...

And for some reason the bushes disappeared without a trace.

It hit him.

“Did the killer... Burn them? That’s the only explanation I can find...” he suggested.

“Wouldn’t they have taken the flowers with it?” Kaito asked.

Tsumugi shook her head. “No. Flowers are not as flammable as bushes, so I can see where Shuichi comes from, and that’s the most plausible theory.”

“But to burn bushes? What’s the point?” Miu argued.

“My guess would be that they had something else to burn.” Kirumi said.

Something else to burn...

“What about the labels on the bottles? We didn’t find a single one of them in the shrine, but...” he trailed off. “Why would they burn the labels? We know which bottles are missing...”

“I think this has to do with which bottles we would find liquid around.” Rantaro answered. “So we couldn’t identify which ones were used then thrown, and which ones were thrown without being used.”

So this had to do with an already solved mystery.

“Perhaps there is something else we can add to the things they burned.” Kiyo declared. He turned to the medic. “Rantaro, you did the autopsy in its entirety, right?”

He hummed. “Yes, and I’ve given every information I found.”

“Was there a trace of a letter Himiko may have received inviting her to the shrine?”

Rantaro’s eyes widened in realization. “Now that I think about it, no. I didn’t find anything on her.”

“Then we can say that the letter burned with the labels and the bushes.” the therapist concluded.

“So the killer just used the bushes as a way to make fire?” Miu scratched her neck.

“Not just to make fire.” Tsumugi corrected. “To make a fire strong enough to burn both the letter and every single piece of label on the bottles.”

“Let’s not forget the fabric used as a bag.” Kirumi added.

“However there’s a huge contradiction with this entire theory.” Ryoma countered. “You see, I think I know enough by now considering how much time I spent in the warehouse and...”

“There isn’t a single lighter in this academy.”

Shuichi blinked. If there wasn’t any lighter, then there couldn’t have been any fire.

But that theory felt so right...

“You mean like, no way to burn stuff?” Kaito turned to him.

“Nope. Even the monomono machine doesn’t give anything like that, from what I’ve tested.”

Angie pondered. “That’s weird, I swear I have seen fire somewhere...”

She thought for a moment. “There were candles in the rooms of the fourth floor, right?”

That was... Right, actually. When they visited the rooms after they opened, and when they installed furniture for the ill ones.

“Yes, but we blew on them each night so the others could sleep.” Rantaro defended himself, knowing the accusations would be against him.

“Each night? What is that supposed to mean?” Tsumugi raised an eyebrow.

Shuichi forgot for a moment she didn’t remember the last few days.

“Monokuma relighted them each time, for some reason.” the medic replied.

“I remember waking up in a dark room this morning. They were extinguished.” Ryoma testified.

Tsumugi nodded. “I can confirm this.”

Shuichi barely heard Kokichi humming as he nodded, too.

"I went one last time in the rooms before actually eating my meal. You three asked me to turn off the lights, and so I did.” the medic explained.

He frowned. “I didn’t think much of it since you asked me the same the day before, but I should have guessed something was wrong.”

Shuichi could see Tsumugi glancing at Kokichi- the only one in the ill students group who remembered the last few days, to see if he reacted to a potential lie.

From his expression that wasn’t the case.

“But then how are you supposed to burn things without any sort of lighter?” Kaito questioned.

Either the theory was wrong, or they were missing something.

Think.

"Perhaps there wasn’t any fire in the first place?” Kiyo pondered.

Wait, what if...

“Rantaro, didn’t you show us a burned wooden stake?”

Kirumi nodded. “I remember now. There was a partially burned wooden stake on the crime scene.”

“Which means there was a fire after all.” Rantaro confirmed.

“But where does that get us? The thing was partially burned, right? There were no trace of burning anywhere else!” Miu exclaimed.

“But there has to be a way this burn mark was made.” Tsumugi declared.

A way to make fire with a wooden stake...

It hit him.

There was only one person who could have been able to do so.

“Angie...” Shuichi hesitantly turned to her. “You know how to make fire with wood, right?”

The girl innocently tilted her head to the side. “Hm?”

“Yes. You told me about your experiences on your island and told me that was one of the basic things to learn as an artisan.” Kiyo agreed.

“Oh... Did I say that?” she put a finger on her cheek.

Kiyo looked nervous, yet confident in his voice. “Yes Angie. You did.”

All eyes were on her now. her podium emitted a red light and went forward.

“Angie... You’re the culprit aren’t you?” Shuichi narrowed his eyes at her.

Upon a quick glance, Kokichi was still unreadable. It was like he wasn’t even caring about the situation and paying close attention at the same time.

"...”

The girl was silent.

Everyone was waiting an answer.

“... I was in my lab yesterday until 8:00 PM. I never moved from there, actually~”

“Angie.” Rantaro stared at her. “We need an answer. You’re the only one who could have done this.”

“Answer my question then!~” she span around to turn to the medic. “Did any of you see me leaving my lab and temper with the meals?”

The others glanced at each other, hoping to find an answer.

But nobody said anything.

“See? If I did so, one of you would have noticed me. However, since we’re talking about ‘fire’...”

She turned back to Kirumi.

“You’re a mercenary, right? You should have plenty of firearms to help you in your lab~”

“I never use firearms." she countered. “I only use knives and poisons. Nothing in my lab could have done anything of the sort.”

“Can we be sure?” Kaito hesitantly asked.

“I’ve looked at your profiles, several times actually.” Tsumugi argued. “And I remember seeing on Kirumi’s profile that she dislikes firearms. I doubt Monokuma would come up with a lie to defend one of us.”

“Besides...” Ryoma added. “Firearms is only the name. Unless you had gasoline you couldn’t have created fire. And it would have been way too loud to be an effective method.”

Shuichi stared at the craftswoman, hands strongly gripping the podium. “You’re the only one, Angie.”

“I still don’t have the answer to my previous question~” she wasn’t phased at all.

“None of you saw me put soporifics in the meals. And everyone can make fire if they try, it just takes some time~”

“No one saw you, it’s true.” Tsumugi glared at her, one hand placed on her podium. “But you are the only one who could have committed the murder, and that’s all that matters.”

Shuichi thought about the day Angie’s lab opened. Angie had specifically said that she could use all the tools with great skill.

That included the axe.

He felt a chill down his spine. Even though some of them were strong physically, it was an expert who used such a powerful tool on Himiko.

“It’s not like it matters anymore.” the prodigy continued. “Let’s just get to voting time already. The blackened is decided.”

“No they’re not!!!”

Kokichi slammed his hands on the table, startling Shuichi.

“I told you all! There is one blackened here and it’s me!” he put a hand on his chest, as if it would strengthen his argument.

“Kokichi-”

“Even if- Even if any of you really killed Himiko there is one person here who deserves to die, it’s me!” he yelled.

Convincing Kokichi was going to be a hard task.

“Besides, there’s not enough proof to tell it’s Angie! She never left her lab yesterday, you guys must have seen it on your monopads!”

Shuichi blinked. This was how he knew she was in her lab.

But what if...

“I’m the only blackened here! Just vote for me already!”

The violinist took a deep breath.

He has to convince him.

That he isn’t the blackened and Angie is.

It’s almost over. He has to.

Argument armament start!

“She isn’t the blackened, I am!”

                               “There’s one person

                                                              who deserves punishment,

                                                                                   it’s me!”

                                        “I am the blackened!”

                                                       “You don’t have enough proof

                 she is the blackened!”

                                                 “She doesn’t deserve to be punished!”

                                    “Just vote for me already!”

“It’s still my karma

                                      that is responsible

                                                                         for Himiko’s death!”

                 “The killer is just a small part!”

                                         “I am the culprit here!”

                                                        “I’m responsible for her death!”

             “I am the one you

                                                     have to execute!”

                                “You made so many theories incriminating her...”

“But Angie never left her lab, you should have seen it on your monopads!”

                       Mono     pads     tracking     function

“The monopads...” Shuichi muttered.

“The monopads don’t track people, they track the other monopads!” he exclaimed. 

Tsumugi bit her nail. “ Angie just left it in her lab so she could form an alibi...”

Kiyo looked at his monopad. “It’s never stated in the rules that you have to keep the monopad on you at all times, so she must have done this.”

“Satisfied now?” Rantaro stared at Angie.

“...”

There was a long silence.

"I think we should go through this one more time...” Shuichi glanced at everyone.

-Closing argument-

The plan started the night the motive was introduced. The ill students were placed in the rooms on the fourth floor, with Rantaro keeping an eye on them.

The culprit already had their plan prepared. So the first night, when Rantaro was sleeping on the fourth floor...

They went to his lab to look for soporifics. That was a major part of their plan.

Rantaro didn’t notice them missing since he never had the time to check because of his role as the medic for the ill ones.

The next day, the culprit waited until Kirumi started preparing dinner for the hospital team. And when she was out to ask the others their preference...

They went in and drugged the meals.

-A part of him knew the reverse karma was probably the reason why Angie managed to get to do this without being caught, but refrained from mentioning it.-

Of course, neither Miu, Kirumi nor I noticed anything, so we gave the plates without questioning anything.

Rantaro had asked us not to go visit too often because there was a risk we would get the disease, so no one noticed he fell unconscious in the stairs because of the soporifics in his meal.

After nighttime started, the culprit slipped a letter to Himiko inviting her to the shrine of judgement at a certain time, probably between 12 AM and 1 AM.

They began preparing the weapons for their crime.

The culprit cut off some fabric from Maki’s lab to make a bag and transport the weapons.

That included tools from their lab, darts from Kokichi’s lab, scissors from Maki’s lab, and finally, knives and poison from Kirumi’s lab.

Actually, the poisons were not necessary, since their plan was not to poison Himiko. They only made us think it was used to confuse us about their method.

And so, they completely destroyed Kirumi’s lab to make us think they desperately wanted poison.

There was one last thing they needed to retrieve from a lab.

Paralyzing products to use on Himiko so she wouldn’t fight back. They stole syringes as well so they could use it.

Before taking the weapons to the shrine, there was one last thing to do.

The culprit dragged Rantaro’s unconscious body to his lab, and retrieved a chair from Kirumi’s lab to make us think Rantaro was never drugged in the first place.

And so, they could finally make their way to the shrine.

Once Himiko arrived, the killer took her by surprise and drugged her with the paralyzing product so she wouldn’t fight back.

She was already not very strong, but that was important to our culprit.

I do not know how exactly things went from there... The killer... Used all the weapons they had taken on Himiko. They also drew angel wings behind the victim’s back, as shock value, I suppose.

The culprit now needed to dispose of the evidence. That included the labels on the bottles, the letter they sent to the victim, and the fabric they used as a bag.

Since there was no way to create fire in the academy, the killer had to use their own skills.

They snatched the bushes from the shrine, and used them as a base for the fire.

Since our culprit is the ultimate craftswoman, creating a fire was no big deal. They simply used wooden stakes.

Once the culprit was done with burning the evidence, they planted one of the stakes in Himiko’s chest, which was ironically the final evidence to guess the identity of our culprit.

After that they left the horrifying scene for us to see the next day.

And the culprit...

... Is you, Angie Yonaga, the ultimate craftswoman!

“...”

The girl stayed silent for a minute... Then smiled.

“Yep! You are correct!”

Her eyes looked devoid of regret.

“I am Himiko’s killer!”

The joy in her voice... It was terrifying. How could she be so happy about this?

Did she have the disease like Rantaro suspected?

Kokichi was speechless, staring at Angie, with pure horror in his eyes.

Himiko was finally getting her justice but...

This whole situation was atrocious.

“Let’s just end this already.” Rantaro spat, disgust written all over his face.

“Allllllrgihty then! It’s... Voting time!” Monokuma cheered.

Shuichi’s heart skipped a beat when he glanced at Kokichi. Was he going to-

Fortunately, he saw the boy looking down, but still pressing an icon on his tablet.

The violinist turned back to his podium, and pressed Angie’s icon.

“Now then, it seems the voting has finished. Let’s see the result.” Monokuma declared.

The giant screen turned on and everyone’s icons appeared.

9 votes for Angie Yonaga, and 1 vote for Kokichi Ouma.

Shuichi could barely hear Angie mutter “Hm? Weird, I voted for myself...”

Upon a quick glance, it was easy to guess who voted for Kokichi.

“Who’ll be chosen as the blackened? Will you make the right choice or the dreadfully wrong one!?” Monokuma continued his usual speech.

VERDICT

The wheel turned for a few seconds before slowing down… And landing on Angie.

The coin machine on the screen made its distinct jingle, and coins rolled out of it.

Angie was unreadable.

“Wow! Seriously!? You’re correct again! A-Amazing! This is the third correct verdict in a row!”

“The blackened who killed Himiko Yumeno is Angie Yonaga, the Ultimate craftswoman!”

[squidpro-quo]

AN: A big thank you, anon! I’ve been turning this next scene’s idea around in my head for a month or so but I don’t tend to get around to things unless people nudge or ask me, so here’s Part 3 of the Blind!Kaito au, I really hope you enjoy!

Part 1   Part 2

Hakuba stared across the lobby at Kuro— Kaito, he was still a little euphoric from the privilege of getting to call him that, but that didn’t change the fact that his number one suspect as KID was standing in the scene of the soon-to-be crime. Striding towards him, he admired the way Kaito’s jacket hugged his waist before cordoning his thoughts back to work. He couldn’t afford to get distracted by Kaito while he was still technically preparing for the heist, no matter how much he wanted to focus on the new pair of pants Kaito was sporting instead of his work. 

“What are you doing here?” he called over, hoping his tone of voice signalled first and foremost that he was happy to see him despite his abrupt question. 

“Aoko’s sick with the flu, probably from her girls’ night out a few days ago. She came back drenched because apparently they’d decided to be risky and not take any umbrellas. And now I’m here.” Kaito waved his stick around, presumably to indicate his surroundings and the lavish exhibition hall entrance they were standing in. Avoiding the tip of it, Hakuba waited for Kaito to continue now that he knew the other’s penchant for avoiding giving a straightforward answer to his questions by any means possible. “Do you not want me here?” 

“No, it’s just…” 

“You don’t want me to snoop around because I’m secretly moonlighting as a daredevil thief who can leap off tall buildings and fly?” Kaito smiled and Hakuba just knew that it meant trouble. “Saguru, you’ll have to give up your hare-brained ideas at some point.”

Just then, Inspector Nakamori rounded the corner to make a beeline for Kaito. The man’s ebulliant grin was practically audible and judging by Kaito’s returning smile, he was used to the sounds of his approach, more specifically the loud inhalation that signalled the start of his side of conversations. 

“Kaito! Just the one I wanted to see, come give this place a feel and tell me what you think,” Nakamori said, tapping the top of Kaito’s shoulder with a finger before resting his arm across his back and drawing him across the room to where the jewel was resting in its cradle of velvet. Kaito let himself be led, waving jauntily back in Hakuba’s direction as Nakamori began to explain the setup. Following behind, Hakuba stayed to Kaito’s right as they came to a stop a few meters from the pedestal, clicking his watch open to check how much time they had. Nine hours until the heist, surely that was surely a short enough time that whatever information Kaito gleaned from this visit couldn’t be put to full use. But then again, Kaito always managed to surprise him. 

“This is the Ballerina’s Ballad, a pink beryl passed down by the head director of the ballet company from overseas. He’s agreed to let us house it here, and made us install this parquet platform for security reasons.” Nakamori rapped his shoe against the slightly raised section of the hall’s floor, the sound echoing in the large space. “It’s only about six meters square, but very important for foiling that pernicious thief.”

“It’s a dance floor,” Kaito said, tracing the edge of it with his cane before raising his foot as if to step on it. Nakamori held him back, although Hakuba had seen the way most of Kaito’s weight had remained on his back foot. 

“Wait just a minute! You can’t step on it, or it’ll trigger the trap mechanisms.”

“What about if KID comes down from above? He’s done that before, what’s to stop him?”

Nakamori laughed and clapped Kaito on the back before replying, “See, you’re a sharp one! If anything touches the case without stepping onto certain squares first, it springs the trap then too. Only a few squares are safe to step on, the director’s ordered us to pattern it after a ballet sequence he favors from something about about birds and death, I don’t really recall.”

“How about that, Saguru? A dance-off to foil KID,” Kaito called over to him, face still turned in the jewel’s direction. “Inspector, are you sure you can do this sequence though? If this ballet guy decided on it, then it might be too complicated and the police squad can’t check on the jewel.”

“Nonsense, it’s nothing we couldn’t do too.” Nakamori waved off the concern and started off along the side of the raised square. “Here, I’ll do it now.”

“I advise against that, sir. You don’t know how KID could find out about the sequence,” Hakuba spoke up, his suspicions not letting Kaito’s innocently curious face beguile them. He might look like a perfectly ordinary high schooler, but Hakuba knew the mischievous streak that colored him on the inside. It had been what made him fall for him, in multiple ways, but it was also what clashed with his ideals too. 

“Saguru, what am I going to do? Tell KID how it sounds?” Kaito made his way over, slipping his hand around Hakuba’s arm and pressing against his side. It was a sneaky tactic, keeping him rooted to the spot not only because of the strength of Kaito’s hold on him but also because he could feel his resolve weakening against the feeling of warmth against his side and Kaito’s fingers buried in his sweater, kneading it in slow circles. It was so distracting, Kaito’s hair brushing his shoulder while he hummed a melody under his breath that Hakuba strained to hear the notes of, that by the time he came back to his senses Nakamori was halfway through the sequence. He really needed to work on his self-control around Kaito, it was an unfair advantage the amount of pull Kaito had on his awareness, but that could wait until later. 

“And there! Gem perfectly secure,” Nakamori announced when he’d reached the pedestal, leaning against the top of it in a pose of nonchalance even as his face grew red from exertion and sweat beaded on his brow. 

“He’s out of breath, isn’t he? I can hear it,” Kaito whispered in Hakuba’s ear, sending a thrill down his spine from the brush of his exhale. The smile playing across his lips was almost too much for Hakuba to bear, succumbing to enjoying the sight of it even as he knew he should be paying more attention.

“Y-yeah, he’s all flushed. And he kept stopping at the pirouette parts,” he said, only realizing a moment later that it was now his turn to be leaking information to Kaito. 

“Are you dancing connoisseur yourself, Saguru?” 

“I enjoy watching it, I cannot do ballet however.” He watched as Nakamori came back to them, laboriously slow on the return but doggedly landing his steps. 

“How about any others?”

“I can do the waltz,” Hakuba admitted.

“The waltz. Well, that seems simple enough.”

“What about you? Do you like to dance?” Hakuba pushed away the unbidden image of them circling slowly, pressed as close as they were now and the music sweeping them across the ballroom conjured in his mind. 

“With the right partner,” Kaito said, letting go as Nakamori came back over.

“So, Kaito, what do you think?” 

“That KID’s going to have his work cut out for him. I’m sure that was truly a sight to see, Inspector.” 

“We’ll see for tomorrow, who comes out the winner!” Nakamori pumped his fist, excitement shining in his eyes as he came over to tap Kaito’s hand before shaking it. “Thank you for taking care of Aoko while she’s sick, I couldn’t catch this thief without your help.” 

“Anytime, Inspector. I’ll be off then, Aoko needs her hot water bottle refilled.” Kaito nudged his shoulder against Hakuba’s, voice lowering. “The dance will have to wait, my dear detective.” 

Hakuba watched him leave with a spring in his step, back to humming the melody that was only just now registering as the theme from Swan Lake. The distraction had gone on long enough, if Kaito could play outside the rules then so could he. Tonight would certainly be a surprise, for a special thief. 

Part 4

If you want to know more, prompt me here